Martin Wong Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Martin Wong - Essay Example He focused his attention completely to painting. His move to New York came as a friendly challenge. He did drawings and made ceramics at art fairs. He was known as Human Instamatic before then. He made $7.5 per portrait he drew. By 1978, his record had been 27 fairs in a single day. His friends challenged him to move to New York since he was evidently superb at his job. Although the works of Martin Worth inspired the growth of hip hop culture, his creative arts leaves little to be desired in perpetuating societal values. Wong’s mature career began a few years before moving to New York. The works ranged from heartfelt renderings of the decaying Lower East Sides to playful and almost kitschy depictions of China Towns of San Francisco and New York. He drew and painted traffic signs for the hearing impaired too. Perhaps, the best known and remembered collaborative works of Wong is the alliance between him and Miguel Pinero, the Nuyorican poet. His paintings often combined the poetry of Pinero and the painstaking stylized finger spellings and cityscapes he drew and painted. The artist’s Loisaida pieces coupled with his collaboration with Pinero formed part of the Nuyorican movement (Wong 12). Nuyorican Movement that Wong became a significant part of refers to an intellectual and cultural movement that involves poets, artists, writers and musicians who are Puerto Rican descendents or have association with Puerto Rico and live near New York. He joined the group that had his origin in the 1960s and 1970s within the neighborhoods such as East Harlem, South Bronx and Loisaida as a means to validate the Puerto Rican experience in the United States of America. It was meant to better the standards of the poor and the working class populaces that suffered from ostracism, marginalization and discrimination. The term that they gave the group of artists was used as an insult until renowned artists such as Miguel Algarin