Atelier Madrid

An academic painter from Vitoria, Spain. She attended the Fine Arts University of the Basque Country and graduated in 2000. Unable to find any classical art training, she moved to New York. There she enrolled in the New York Academy of Figurative Art (NYAA) MFA program and graduated in 2002.

It was during this same year that she met her mentor, Jacob Collins, the founder of the Water Street Atelier, the Hudson River Fellowship and The Grand Central Academy. To develop her training still further she studied under him at the Water Street Atelier from 2002 to 2005, where she completed her training following the nineteenth century academic method.

The technical expertise, the considered compositions, the exceptional treatment of light and the human form are evident and much appreciated in Martinez’s work. The symbiotic relationship of these elements creates imagery that evokes Romanticism and Symbolism.
Her work has the ability to recreate a dream world where magic and fantasy are part of reality.

Mikel Olazabal is a figurative artist from Vitoria, Spain, who recreates human bodies and their deeds in a narrative manner from a contemporary vision applying traditional pictorical techniques.
After graduating from the Basque country Fine Arts University he decided to go to New York for the purpose of growing and deepening his classical painting skills. He studied at The New York
Academy of Art, at the National Academy School of Fine Arts of NY and at the Water Street Atelier under the instruction of the well known figurative artist Jacob Collins.
He has won renowned international prizes like the ones awarded by Art Renewal Center, MEAM museum and Wagner Club. He participated in the two first Hudson River School Landscape
painting Fellowships. His work is in the hands of prestigious private collectors such as the Forbes and Museums like MEAM, Barcelona, and the Basque country Armory Museum.
Back in Madrid he has founded the Atelier Madrid art academy dedicated to the classic learning process, a place where current and future international talents of painting meet and learn.
His art, that covers a wide variety of themes and interests, has been described as the narration of situations where carefully detailed figures are brought to life as a central element scene. He likes the representation of imagined moments that talk about specific aspects of the human endeavors, efforts and wishes that are eternally reenacted through life.
“I see painting as an adventurous challenge. A process of choices that allows us to harmonise with what is around us and with our dreams and expectations.”