Death, Fear & The Grotesque: The Art of Lorena Torres Martell
Lorena Torres Martell, who lives in Mexico, has participated in various exhibitions of painting, engraving and photography. She collaborated with photo work in the storybook "SINIESTRO" by Violeta García at the Fabica festival in Guadalajara and at the Centro Cultural del México Contemporáneo in Mexico City.
In 2018 she held his first individual photography exhibition "EXCISION" at Casa de las Bóvedas Cultural Center.
She recently won first place in the festival's horror photography contest: Terrorificamente Cortos, in Palencia, Spain with his photography "Tres Brujas". She was also awarded the Instagram prize of the same contest.
Lorena Torres Martell was featured in the exhibition "TRANSMUTATIONS: WITCHES HEALERS ORACLES" 2021 at the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick, Cleveland Ohio, curated by Stephen Romano, as well as "WITCH'S EYE: THE CAMERA LENS AS OCCULT DEVICE", 2022, WyrdWar Gallery Portland, Oregon. Her art has been highlighted Rue Morgue Magazine, WhiteHot Contemporary, Bored Panda, Zero=Two, Sabat Magazine, among others.
Dennis Dread of Wyrdwar Gallery in Portland wrote on the occasion of Lorena Torres Martell's participation in the exhibition "The Witch's Eye':
"Martell, who resides in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, weaves the repulsion of forbidden horrors with the irresistible sensuality of flesh to ensorcell the viewer in a taut web of dark fantasy. What is most fascinating about this particular body of work is that she employs the same model for each photo, to startlingly unique effect. In her own words: "My main inspiration is horror movies, gothic culture and the aesthetics of the grotesque, I am passionate about creating these types of images, I can spend hours in post-production, I enjoy creating characters with deformed features that reflect despair and suffering, witches, monsters and supernatural beings. The terrifying, the strange, the fear and death."
Alfred Rosenbluth wrote of Martell's art in WhiteHot Magazine:
" Martell’s subjects withdraw from the shadows into full light to perform an aesthetically ruthless amplitude of horror. We are left convinced of how even the demonized wield a form of power in their marginalization, for little else could be more derisive of the status quo than the image of a sky-clad coven twisting their mutilated visages in its face."
Rocco T. Thompson of Rue Morgue Magazine wrote:
"Visiting Lorena Torres Martell’s Instagram page is like tripping headlong into a grotesque, fantastical underworld. Filled with ghoulish creatures clawing at bandaged faces, inky-haired monstresses, and arachnoid women, Martell’s photography is gruesome, sensual, and unforgettable."
Where to find her work
