Introductions | Patrick Martinez

Martinez regards his large-scale, sculptural mixed media paintings as landscapes that reflect the vibrant social geography of his current neighbourhood and that of his youth. In the painting Serpents (Welcome to the Jungle) (2022), Martinez combines the symbolic imagery of battling serpents (from the Murals of Cacaxtla in Central Mexico) with elements of vernacular architecture: stucco surfaces, decorative tiles from Mexican and Salvadorian restaurants and commercial neon signage found in small establishments all around LA. Layering varied gestures and composite materials in this monumental panel to mirror the rich accretions of the city, he highlights the current of entropy and collapse that characterises these large metropolises.

In response to the notion of the city as a site of memory - wherein surfaces are a collaborative, social canvas layered with graffiti and murals - Martinez demonstrates how symbols from early pre-Columbian art are stand-ins for identity and affiliation, given they are often used to denote a Mexican-owned establishment. The painting’s title borrows from two songs significant to the artist during his teenage years - ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ by Guns n’ Roses and ‘The Message’ by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. The artist’s reference to these tracks at once points to the lifestyle adjustment necessitated by big cities, as well as the precarious economic status of this community in LA.

In Weeping Warrior (2022), a representation of a warrior, also taken from the Cacaxtla murals, is combined with neon, ceramic cake roses and tiles to recreate the wall of a typical stuccoed restaurant or bar. This composite surface, in parts fragile or appearing distressed, suggests a surface in between states, in the process of decay or perhaps regeneration. Set against a harsh, acid green background peppered with stucco roses, the warrior figure is an archetype for a form of toxic masculinity, which Martinez sees as being destructively prevalent in these communities.

By collapsing past with present, firmly locating the works within his neighbourhood and adopting imagery from the art of Latin America - from pre-Columbian jade masks to the murals of Socialist Realism - Martinez celebrates this urban community and in so doing, invites a potential change in perception.