Exhibition · ALLGORITHIM · Los Angeles
Spontaneity is at the center of Martins's practice. She mixes watercolor with hydrogen peroxide and bleach, letting images swim to the surface, and the final result reveals itself only once the work has dried. She steers where she can with brushes, pipettes, spray bottles, magic erasers, and sandpaper, and releases control where she can't. Her monochromatic figures glow with unexpected color, often with an undertone of quiet danger: children at play on the edge of something lethal, a boy floating in a pool with his head just above the water, balloons on the verge of deflating. Women appear in delicate, layered washes, limbs flowing into one another. Throughout, Martins asks whether childhood was ever really simple, or only appears so in retrospect. ALLGORITHIM Presents Dreams of Falling, an Online Exhibition of New Work by Breanna Cee Martins on Artsy On view October 30, 2026 - January 30, 2027 Known for large-scale watercolors mounted on canvas, Martins paints ghostly figures that surface like faded photographs or half-remembered dreams. Dreams of Falling brings together works that live in the instant before the drop: the held breath, the step too close to the edge, the moment a memory begins to slip away. Having lost her family albums when she immigrated to the United States, Martins works from found black-and-white portraits, reimagining the lives of strangers whose images were left behind. She catches her subjects on the precipice of a moment: children playing at the edge of something lethal, a boy floating with his head just above the water, balloons on the verge of deflating. Her process mirrors her subject. Mixing watercolor with hydrogen peroxide and bleach, Martins lets images swim to the surface, each revealed only once it has dried. Like falling in a dream, the outcome is never fully in her hands. "I'm Portuguese, and we have a term, saudade, which is nostalgia for a place you've never been or something you've never experienced," says Martins.…