"Anywhere in the world, farmworkers are always at the bottom of the social strata," Narsiso Martinez told PBS News Hour in 2004. "In my art, I just hope to shine a light to these people."

Martinez's new exhibit, Best Used By, is at the University of Michigan's Institute for the Humanities Gallery through December 19. He creates textured, detailed portraits and muralist-style pieces to honor these workers, incorporating real-world products from the food industry and mixing the materials with his drawings. (Above, you can see the illustrations are atop flattened cardboard boxes, a metaphor for the way the food industry treats its workers as disposable.)

On November 13, Martinez helped launch his exhibition with a talk at the Michigan Theater, which you can watch below, as well as read what curator Amanda Krugliak said about Best Used By.

Here's the U-M Stamps School of Art & Design preview for Martinez's talk, titled "Field Work, Art, and Labor in America":

Narsiso Martinez is a visual artist whose drawings, paintings, and mixed-media installations center the lives and labor of farmworkers in the United States. Martinez worked in the agricultural fields of Washington state — a formative experience that would later shape the core of his artistic practice. After completing his education in Los Angeles, culminating in an MFA in Drawing and Painting from California State University Long Beach, Martinez developed a body of work that reflects the dignity, hardship, and invisibility of the workers who harvest America’s food.

Martinez is best known for his powerful portraits rendered on discarded produce boxes collected from grocery stores, which he transforms into evocative, layered compositions. His work draws from the visual language of 1930s Social Realism, updated through a contemporary lens and materials that speak to both economic precarity and cultural resilience. By incorporating found objects and working at the intersection of figuration, installation, and sculpture, Martinez calls attention to the dissonance between agricultural abundance and the exploitation of those who make it possible. His art challenges viewers to consider the systems behind the food they consume, and the people whose labor sustains them — many of whom remain undocumented and unprotected.

In this talk, Martinez will share the personal history that informs his practice, from his journey as a farmworker to his development as an artist. He will discuss the evolution of his use of unconventional materials, the political and emotional layers embedded in his subject matter, and the importance of bearing witness through art. Whether painting directly onto cardboard or building immersive installations, Martinez’s work offers a poignant meditation on labor, identity, and the complicated narratives embedded in the American agricultural landscape.

Amanda Krugliak, arts curator at the Institute for the Humanities, wrote about Best Used By:

Born in Oaxaca, Mexico in 1977, artist Narsiso Martinez was only 20 years old when he first arrived in Los Angeles. He was enamored with American movies and rock and roll. His first portraits were of celebrities drawn from photos in popular magazines.

Martinez's art practice is informed by his own experiences as a farmworker, spending summers picking produce in Washington state to pay for college and then art school. He experienced firsthand the frequent mistreatment of migrant farmworkers and the poor living conditions provided them.

Martinez’s multilayered portraits honor the workers and their endless labor within the context of the food industry, from farm to table. He incorporates cardboard, grocery bags, menus, and produce boxes adorned with brightly colored graphics as raw material. In combination with his detailed drawings, they become a trace, reminding us of the countless human hands that are an invaluable part of the process. The humble, sturdy, but disposable cardboard serves as a metaphor for the expendability of people.

The myriad of faces in Martinez’s compositions appear luminous, soulful, bringing to mind religious portraits. Some are masked, and some revealed. The artist's more sculptural constructions made from stacking fruit boxes resemble makeshift shrines or altars.

Continuing the traditions of great Mexican muralists like Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros, Martinez’s drawings, paintings, and installations shine a light on the working class, bringing attention to the human cost of capitalism, the hard labor behind a $2 trillion U.S. food industry that sustains us and entertains us, from California to New York and all the towns like Ann Arbor in between.

"Narsiso Martinez: Best Used By" is at U-M's Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 South Thayer Avenue, Ann Arbor, through December 19. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday 9 am-5 pm, and admission is free. Visit lsa.umich.edu for more info.