Guerrero, México, 1984 

Yael Martínez is a visual artist born in Guerrero, Mexico whose work addresses fractured communities in his native country. He often works symbolically to evoke a sense of emptiness, absence, and pain suffered by those affected by organized crime in the region. The artist defines his work as an essay through the image, on the resilience of those who have been touched by violence at some point in their lives; of those people and communities that inhabit and resist a territory - space - body that is and has been traversed by the violence that plagues their country. He is interested in discussing Mexico and Latin America as a symbolic space, a land where violence penetrates everyone and how this violence transcends the physical and spiritual space of those who inhabit it. A land that is an analogy of a body, a house, a person, a family, or a country.

His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. It has also been published by National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Lens NY Times, Time, Vogue Italy, Vrij Nederland, Aperture.

Awards · He is a Magnum Nominee member since 2020 and a member of the National System of Creators in Art of Mexico. He won the World Press Photo Regional Award of the North and Central America Region in the Open Format category in 2022. He is a recipient of the Eugene Smith Award in 2019 and is a Fellow of The Magnum Foundation Photography and Social Justice Program. In 2019, he won the second World Press Photo Prize in the Long Term Projects category.