Eddie Martinez: Seaport Bouquet

Seaport Bouquet is a large public painting by Eddie Martinez installed in The Paseo in Boston’s Seaport. It merges two of the artist’s longest-running series at an unprecedented scale. The central image comes from his Flower Pot paintings, which grew out of a small flowerpot he kept on his desk and drew out of habit, evolving into loose, cartoon-like still lifes of flowers, leaves and vessels that give him room to improvise with color and gesture.

Martinez layered that imagery with the approach of his Whiteout series, in which white paint covers a colorful composition so forms are alternately hidden and revealed. Conceived specifically for the Seaport, the bouquet becomes a kind of visual crossroads, with shapes colliding, vanishing and reappearing in a way meant to echo people, boats and activity moving through the harbor. As a public art installation, it can be seen by anyone passing through The Paseo.

What to Know

• The installation marks a homecoming: Martinez started out in Boston as an art handler at the ICA and the Rose Art Museum.
• The Flower Pot motif dates to the early 2000s.
• The Whiteout series began in 2015.
• Martinez is described as internationally acclaimed and one of today’s most celebrated painters.