Review

"Ego Sofa," Acrylic and Airbrush on Canvas.

Adolfo Gustavo Martinez

1-6 p.m.
(Closing Reception)

The Late Show
1600 Cherry Street
Kansas City, Missouri
816.474.1300; 816.359.7174

Show closes today.

Artist's site: http://www.adolfogustavomartinez.com

The first time Adolfo Gustavo Martinez was featured here, it was for a heartfelt show of paintings at Cara and Cabezas Contemporary — paintings that dealt with Martinez's extended family.

Martinez's current exhibition, which closes today with a reception from 1-6 p.m. at the Late Show Gallery, is pure couch-sized fun.

That's because Martinez's sofa paintings make up the overwhelming majority of his half of the shared show. (The other half is another collection of paintings, Ryan Drake's Saints of Capitalism.)

Martinez's acrylic-and-airbrush creations are tinged with everything from surrealist humor to gently wry self-deprecation. The latter quality marks Ego Sofa, today's featured work.

At first glance, the sofa seems nondescript save for the sunglasses on the backrest and the tequila bottle leaning against one of the armrests. But the more you look, the more Martinez's title becomes clear. And the clearer it gets, the more you just have to smile.

Other pieces riff on everything from Cubism to the Shroud of Turin — a wide range, granted, but Martinez pulls it off in every case. And if there's a streak of fun-poking in this line of paintings (and there is), Martinez comes by it honestly. After all, the entire series was born in response to what Martinez saw as an absurd situation.

I guess you're wondering why I have all these sofa paintings, he writes. [I]t has to do with the starving artist sale! Sofa size paintings for $19.99! I saw that ... and that's where the idea came from. A starving artist in Texas, I couldn't compete with that. $19.99 wouldn't even cover the cost of the canvas. So I came up with the idea of painting sofa size paintings of sofas.

The idea has paid off; Martinez was a Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Arts Award winner in 2008, and a large-scale sofa painting was installed last year in the window of City Center Square at 12th and Main in downtown Kansas City.

That work will be on display until this fall ... but as long as you're getting out of the house on a snowy day, and seeing that the Late Show isn't all that far from downtown, why not go ahead and do the double?

Better yet, take la familia along. After all, how often do you run across a couch with enough space for everyone?

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