Gabriel Martinez is a photo-based multidisciplinary artist and educator born and raised in Miami, Florida. His artistic endeavors often explore issues facing LGBTQ+ people, intermingled with Cuban undertones of influence, reflection and symbolism. Martinez was a Pew Fellowship in the Arts recipient in 2001, received a Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship in 2003, and in 2019 was awarded an Independent Creative Production Grant from the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation and an Independence Foundation Fellowship. He has participated in several national artist residency programs including: the Rosenbach Museum, Ox-Bow, the Fabric Workshop, the Fountainhead Residency, Arcadia Summer Arts Program, MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Studios at MASS MoCA and the Joan Mitchell Center. Martinez’s work is included in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Fabric Workshop & Museum and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay Art. His work is included in the Phaidon Press publication “Art & Queer Culture” (Themes and Movements Series) and is featured in En Foco’s Nueva Luz issue, Vol 22.2: The Queer Issue. Martinez has been teaching in the Photo Program for the Department of Fine Arts & Design, Weitzman School of Design/Penn for the last 20 years. He serves on the Advisory Board for the Center for the Emerging Visual Artist and Philadelphia Photo Arts Center. Gabriel joined the Board of Directors at Galaei in 2019 and is passionate about the concerns effecting Philadelphia’s QTBIPOC communities. Martinez will be presenting his work for a solo exhibition at Taller Puertorriqueño in late 2021.