Martínez is a painter with 47 exhibitions in Mexico, Cuba and the U.S. Her work explores the forces that have shaped her life — womanhood, family, migration, displacement, the search for home and belonging — and transforms them into emotionally charged artworks. Martínez moved to Austin over a decade ago after drug violence erupted in her longtime home of Ciudad Juárez, which she captured in a series titled City of Sand and Blood. She exhibited Visions of Mexico — a meditation on her home country as seen through the lens of memory and distance — at the Consulate General of Mexico in Austin.