Behind the Canvas
Ainara Martinez-Franco is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice centers on painting while extending across multiple media. Her work is informed by a tension between place, memory, and emotional resonance. Born and raised in the Basque Country of Spain, she grew up within a landscape shaped by dramatic coastlines, mountainous terrain, and a deeply rooted cultural history. These early surroundings established a visual and psychological vocabulary that continues to surface in her work through rhythm, gesture, and atmosphere.
Art was foundational to Ainara’s upbringing. Her father, an accomplished artist working across canvas, sculpture, and murals, provided an early model of sustained artistic practice. Raised in a household of nine children—many of whom developed their own creative paths—she experienced art as a shared language, embedded in daily life rather than isolated from it. This sense of continuity and exchange remains central to her approach.
Ainara’s formal training began in Madrid, where she pursued acting. This background deeply informs her visual work, shaping an acute sensitivity to narrative, embodiment, and emotional presence. Alongside her studies, she immersed herself in Madrid’s major museums, absorbing art historical references while responding intuitively to the city’s tempo and visual density.
She later relocated to New York City, studying at The Art Students League and producing work at her studio at Mana Contemporary. Her decade in New York marked a period of sustained exploration and consolidation, during which her work expanded across paper, canvas, and sculptural form. The scale, intensity, and layered complexity of the city played a decisive role in sharpening her visual language and conceptual focus.
Today, Ainara works primarily from her studio in Ibiza, Spain, while maintaining a home in New York City. This oscillation between environments—Mediterranean stillness and metropolitan energy—creates a productive dialogue within her practice, allowing space for introspection.
Ainara´s work is bold and largely abstract, employing color, form, and gesture as carriers of emotional and psychological states. Themes of cyclical rhythms of life and the volatility emerge through layered compositions that resist fixed narratives. Working across varying formats and scales—from intimate works to monumental pieces—Ainara uses scale as an active agent, shaping meaning and inviting viewers into an immersive, embodied encounter.
Ainara Martinez-Franco’s work has been exhibited at:
The Art Students League, New York City
Mayson Gallery, New York City
Mana Contemporary, Jersey City
