Jamie Martinez

My Mother’s Labor: The Machines

Curated by Emireth Herrera Valdés

GHOSTMACHINE

23 Monroe ST. NY, NY 10002

May 8th – June 13th, 2026

Opening night May 8, 6-9 pm

GHOSTMACHINE is pleased to present “My Mother’s Labor: The Machines,” Jamie Martinez’s second exhibition with the gallery. The space is transformed into a kinetic tableau bridging the intimate domestic sphere and the relentless hum of industrial production. This exhibition reconsiders the boundaries of the animate, finding emotional resonance in the mechanical. The undisputed star of this show is not a human actor, but a stalwart, white Singer sewing machine—a utilitarian object imbued with such heavy familial history that it operates here with an undeniable, pulsing soul. Thrust into the role of lead performer, this machine stitches together a narrative of survival and resilience, echoing the bustling, machine-filled factory the artist’s mother once commanded in Colombia before uprooting her life. The installation effectively turns the gallery into a hybrid space: half childhood home, half spectral memory of a textile floor.

For the artist and his brothers, this sewing machine is never merely a tool of garment construction; it is the rhythmic, reliable heartbeat of their American upbringing and part of the family. As immigrants navigating a new world, the whir of its motor and the rapid-fire puncturing of the needle were the very sounds of their mother’s labor—labor that quite literally clothed them, sheltered them, and secured their future. The exhibition elevates this domestic apparatus from a symbol of exhausting toil to an entity of vital, sustaining life force. As the machine physically performs throughout the run of the show, its mechanical repetitions become a mesmerizing, almost sacred choreography. It acts as a living monument to the unseen, relentless sacrifices of his immigrant mother and the same machine that helped raise a family. 

To complete this vision, the gallery is transformed into an immersive environment that blurs the boundaries between mechanical industry and domestic warmth. Synthesizing painting, sculpture, and drawing, Jaime Martinez orchestrates a totalizing sensory experience. 

This sense of animated history is expanded by the presence of a second, parallel performer: a monumental, inflatable replica of the Singer, breathing and undulating against the gallery wall. Where the original machine grounds the room in heavy, tactile reality, the inflatable iteration introduces a dreamlike, almost surreal quality to the space, inflating and deflating like a pair of exhausted lungs. Together, these dual performers establish a fascinating dialogue between the weight of physical memory and the ephemeral nature of the past.

Ultimately, “My Mother’s Labor” stands as a visceral achievement—a hauntingly beautiful tribute that successfully transmutes mechanical function into pure emotion, proving that even steel, plastic, fabric, and air can bear the immense weight of a family’s soul.

About the Artist

Jamie Martinez (b. Ibagué, Colombia) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores the intersections of history, research, indigenous spirituality, and ancient beliefs. Encompassing painting, sculpture, and installation, his work serves as a profound commentary on colonialism, mysticism, labor, and ceremonial gatherings.

Martinez’s work has been featured extensively across major media outlets, including Hyperallergic, New York Magazine, The Observer, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, and Whitewall Magazine, with broadcast appearances on CNN, Fox News, Good Day New York, NTN24, and Yale University Radio (WYBCX). He has exhibited globally at prominent institutions and galleries, including the Queens Museum (NY), The Glucksman Museum (Ireland), The Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art in France, where he was awarded Best Sculpture, Petzel Gallery, Penn State University, 601Artspace, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery at Parsons, Ghostmachine Gallery, Galerie Richard, and Flowers Gallery, to name a few. Martinez’s artwork is held in numerous permanent and private collections worldwide, including The Marina Tsvetaeva Museum (Moscow), the Gabarrón Foundation (New York and Spain), the Acuity Brands corporate collection, and Foursquare’s New York headquarters.

About the Curator

Emireth Herrera Valdés (born in Saltillo, Mexico) is an independent curator and writer based in New York. Herrera has curated exhibitions such as Reproductive Labor and Inherited Labor at the Border Gallery, Liminal Architecture at the Lower East Side Printshop, Invisible Hands at 601Artspace, S.T.E.P. at the Queens Museum, Whispers at Spring/Break 2023, Tongue Tide, and 3459‘ at Flux Factory in New York. She curated Jamie Martinez’s solo exhibition: The Shadow of Colonialism, Zac Hacmon’s No Longer Me, at GHOSTMACHINE. In collaboration with the Border Gallery, she co-curated the exhibition Invisible Bodies at Pennsylvania State University. She also co-curated Grilo/Fernández-Muro at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, in collaboration with the Institute of Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA). She has participated in educational programs between the MARCO Museum in Monterrey, Mexico, and the Autonomous University of Coahuila. Her project, From Vulnerable Territory to Utopia, was presented at the AROS Museum in Aarhus, Denmark, and at the Museum for All People: Art, Accessibility, and Social Inclusion, a part of the MUSACCES Consortium at Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. Additionally, her articles have been published by The Brooklyn Rail, Arte Fuse, and ISLAA’s VISTAS and Cultbytes in New York. Herrera has worked in the education department of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hispanic Society of America Museum and Library, and New York University. She was a curator-in-residence at Residency Unlimited in 2015 and was a guest curator in 2022 for the Request for Qualifications: Lead Artists for NYC Health + Hospitals Arts in Medicine Community Mural Project. Herrera is currently the Associate Curator and Community Outreach Coordinator in the Arts in Medicine department at NYC Health + Hospitals. She holds an M.A. in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, and a B.A. in Architecture from the Autonomous University of Coahuila.