Walter Martin & Paloma Munoz: Travelers
"The photographer duo of Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz works in a territory trod by David Levinthal, Paolo Ventura and others but with a twist: all their tiny figurines occupy wintry landscapes inside snow globes. The tiny figures are mysterious; their facial expressions are too miniscule or blank to read. The scenes Martin and Muñoz create here alternate between whimsy and menace." -- Holly Stuart Hughes --Photo District News"The artists have gutted the innocence of snow globes and childlike panoramas and reinvented them as portals to dark fantasies, like dream of fairytale settings gone dangerously awry." -- Milton Fletcher --NY Arts Magazine"Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz explore the human condition through an unsettling slippage of reality and fantasy. Paradoxes abound and so the works leave an ample space for interpretation in our minds to complete them. Travelers has a rich texture of ideas, references, memories and dreams, but ultimately it is the suspension of disbelief that is the key to their reception and meaning -- the odd experience of an everyday household object revealing itself as something more surreal totally stumps our expectations. This wonderful synthesis of the familiar and the strange is the linchpin of their work." -- Tim Clark --Next Level"Plenty of artists play with kitsch in subversive ways, but few do it as cleverly and irresistibly as Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz." -- Stephen Wallis --Departures"At first glance the work is playful. But a closer look reveals dark narratives of discomfort: within weird alternate worlds of glass globes, grey-suited Madison Avenue types pull off their heads and are pursued by giant spiders. Well-dressed bodies hang pendant as dewdrops from icy branches, while armies of children stare blankly at each other and a miniature soldier points threateningly. The book reflects a dark humor that touches on our anxieties about global warming and the financial crisis blowing through the country this winter."  --The Coastal Traveler