Freedom Cannot Wait

Patrick Martinez is a visual artist based in Los Angeles. Famous for maintaining a diverse practice, his neon works memorialising victims of abuse have garnered worldwide recognition and helped establish him as a leading artistic voice on the subjects of immigration, justice, diversity and inequality. 

His upbringing as someone of mixed-race heritage and his interactions with police helped define the tone of his work, with themes of harassment and profiling being a recurring element within his practice. His artwork is often defined as falling into the category of the social history of art, with many of his pieces being inexplicably linked to social and political events that occurred at the time of their creation.