LA artist Patrick Martinez depicts urban life with unflinching stories that happen in the real world where he lives. We like to say, “Mine the diamonds in your own back yard”, and that is exactly what Patrick does by incorporating into his art without apologies what he sees where he goes. Using symbols of authority, militarism, commercialism and their brutal or humorous intersection, men play roles of protagonist and antagonist on a stage where murky gray municipal Greek architecture surrounds strip malls, plantations, and supermarket parking lots.
Patrick Martinez (photo © Todd Mazer)
With flexibility of medium, he constructs the world with symbols and materials and snatches of conversations on the street. Chaotic pileups of people at cross purposes are mingled with free floating graffiti tags in the air. Cool bright neon glows and recalls liquor stores, pawn shops, and bullet proof glass – words are pulled out of context and combined with slogans. Insistently shiny helium filled happiness, near bursting with optimism, becomes a metaphor for aspiration – heart shaped balloons pulling at their strings to fly upward; and of dreams brutally dashed as they are stomped underfoot or caught in the crossfire. Brutality and storewide sales, when paired, can evoke a certain sunny sarcastic fascism in a showman’s hands, but Martinez prefers commentating on the life in the streets without that romanticism or coy finish.
Here are some in studio images from a visit to Patrick by photographer and BSA contributor Todd Mazer.
Patrick Martinez (photo © Todd Mazer)
Patrick Martinez (photo © Todd Mazer)
Patrick Martinez (photo © Todd Mazer)
Patrick Martinez (photo © Todd Mazer)
Patrick Martinez (photo © Todd Mazer)
Patrick Martinez (photo © Todd Mazer)
Patrick Martinez (photo © Todd Mazer)
Patrick Martinez (photo © Todd Mazer)
For more on Patrick Martinez art click below:
http://www.patrickmartinez.com/
For more on Todd Mazer Photography click below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/legenddairy/
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
It really is primarily about your State of Mind, says LA-based painter Augustine Kofie about his battle with art and quarantine during this last year. Augustine Kofie. "Disbelief System". Hashimot...
Post-Graffiti? Surreal-Primitive? Flat-Channel Brute? This stuff is hard to categorize sometimes as the roots are in graffiti and advertising and illustration and communications and all art history- ...
Positions and opinions about war and conflict can be “mainstream” or they may be “fringe”, and historically they can switch positions after the wars are over. One thing is nearly always assured: Gene...
To introduce readers to some of the Street Artists in the upcoming show "Street Art Saved My Life: 39 New York Stories", BSA asked a number of the artists to take part in "Back Tal...
Berliners called it the “großes Ohr”. The Big Ear. Run by the American NSA and the British in their sector, this “listening station” stands atop a man made mountain of rubble, at the bottom o...