The Mexican artist Areko Martiánez writes in his Facebook profile ‘I am a man, gay, affectionate, happy. I like young people, having friends and walking, reading, writing, watching TV and movies, and drawing mainly male and erotic figures even though many say it’s porn.’ For two highly productive years in 2009–10 he blogged regularly, his sensitive pencil drawings of young gay men quickly gathering a large following, but like so many gay blog sites, his were regularly banned and shut down, and after the third attempt to challenge online censorship he gave up blogging. He still draws, but his main legacy is the three hundred or so drawings from those enormously productive years.

Martiánez lives and works in the central Mexican city of San Luis Potosí, where he studied at The Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí (AUSLP), finally graduating in 2005.

His drawings can be found in several places on the internet, the most complete collection being the three-part Russian blog, the first of which can be found here.

We would like to thank our Russian friend and contributor Yuri for introducing us to the work of this artist and supplying many of the images.