Same Boat

Patrick Martinez is a Los Angeles-based artist of Filipino, Native American, and Mexican descent. His multidisciplinary works pay homage to the visual language of the city, especially the immigrant- and minority-dense neighborhoods where he lives and works. Borrowing the materials and aesthetic of neon signage regularly seen in commercial contexts, Martinez began making neon signs as artworks in the mid-2010s and has continued this as a central aspect of his practice to respond to social, political, and cultural developments. These signs vary in their presentation—sometimes shown individually, sometimes as a collaged grouping, and, increasingly, incorporated into the artist’s mixed-media paintings.

The familiar neon sign, seen throughout American cities to advertise the sale of goods and services, catches our eyes here in a mural-scale artwork. People are accustomed to seeing and reading neon signs that bear objective facts and deliver important information. Martinez instead displays poetic, inspiring, and often witty messages that communicate subjective social or political expressions, relying on the knowledge that the public will see and read them as they do commercial signs.

Martinez made a smaller scale version of Same Boat in 2017 in response to the tension, anger, and confusion he sensed in the wake of the US presidential inauguration. This Civil Rights Era quote, which is often attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr., is in fact a poetic restatement of a belief declared often by Whitney M. Young, executive director of the National Urban League. Its unifying spirit conveys a sense of shared humanity Martinez felt necessary in this divisive moment. By reminding viewers that, despite individual differences, people are stronger when they join together, Martinez invokes the collaborative activism from the 1960s that has seen renewed energy in recent years.

—Andrea Alvarez, PhD, Associate Curator, Buffalo AKG Art Museum

The landscape and people of Los Angeles are among the principal subjects in the work of Patrick Martinez (b. 1980, Pasadena), as his wide-ranging practice explores themes of diversity, immigration, and racism. He is known for a variety of painting styles: his brightly colored mixed-media landscape paintings represent the city through abstract collages of surface materials, including stucco, spray paint, ceramic tiles, and vinyl signage; his neon works mimic the look of storefront street signs but present assertive messages of defiance, resilience, or inspiration. Throughout his work—including his early Pee Chee paintings in which he addresses the experience of police harassment and brutality—is a deeply personal concern for social justice.