Artwork Detail

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Feliz Cumpleanos Boyle Heights

Artist: Martinez, Patrick

Date: 2021

Medium: Porcelain tile

Artwork Dimensions: 240 x 504 x 2 in.

County Department: Mental Health

Artwork Site: Los Angeles General Medical Center Restorative Care Village

Supervisorial District: 1

Current Status: On view

About the Artwork: Los Angeles General Medical Center is home to one of the country’s first four Restorative Care Villages (RCVs), which will provide a new model of holistic care for people experiencing homelessness. These LA County Restorative Care Villages will provide a new kind of environment for this vulnerable population, one with a comprehensive, holistic approach to the interrelated and complex needs of homelessness, substance abuse, mental illness, job training/housing, and medical co-morbidity. Accompanying the completion of the Los Angeles General Medical Center's RCV, The Civic Art team is pleased to present four new ceramic tiled murals on the facades of the new facilities by local artists, Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia, Jaime Scholnick, Patrick Martinez, and Star Montana. 


Artist Patrick Martinez was commissioned to create a ceramic tile mural for the Residential Treatment Program C. Martinez’s mural is a visual celebration of the Boyle Heights community, honoring the tradition and the everyday beauty that fills the neighborhood. On the left-hand side of the artwork, the artist’s representation of young women in their quinceañera dresses is the embodiment of hope and the transition to adulthood. On the right is a bouquet containing flowers found throughout Boyle Heights. Whereas his previous cake paintings, memorialize and celebrate leaders, activists, and thinkers, the inspiration for the artist’s LAC+USC Restorative Care Village piece comes from the birthday celebrations of his youth, growing up in San Gabriel Valley. As a boy, beautiful birthday cakes would imbue him with happiness and delight. Here Martinez has created a tile mural from heavily textured paintings that include ceramic, plastic and acrylic paint on wood panel.

About the Artist: Patrick Martinez maintains a diverse practice that includes mixed-media landscape paintings, neon sign pieces, cake paintings, and his Pee Chee series of appropriative works. The landscape paintings are abstractions composed of Los Angeles surface content, e.g. distressed stucco, spray paint, window security bars, vinyl signage, ceramic tile, neon sign elements, and other recognizable materials. These works serve to evoke place and socioeconomic position, and further unearth sites of personal, civic, and cultural loss. His work has been exhibited domestically and internationally. Martinez works and lives in Los Angeles.