Fatty, 2006

Patrick Martinez: It feels like the way Fatty is posted in the painting is kind of almost like a Renaissance painting, and the way he’s sitting feels like a traditional portrait. 

Narrator: Patrick Martinez.

Patrick Martinez: He's placed right in the middle but separating these two—kind of home and business. And the flower on the top left is a beautiful touch. It brings the whole composition and painting together, in my opinion.

The colors are just so great working together and exposing the person that's not living in Los Angeles to the aesthetics that are in some of the neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Security gates, market signs, the way they're painted and just almost like they butt up with homes. But again, I think it's like a tower on the upper left that comes from prisons. Iit's nearby, right? It's a reality for many Black men, brown men. If you know what it is, it's just kind of this uneasy feeling to this kind of beautiful day that you might be experiencing in L.A. having a cold beer, I guess.