Fernando, Ismael, Gabriel and Israel

The subjects of John Sonsini’s Fernando, Ismael, Gabriel and Israel are Latino day laborers in Los Angeles whom Sonsini meets at work sites and pays their regular hourly wage to sit for him. The painting is titled after Sonsini’s subjects, who have been depicted in a bizarre perspective, with unnaturally large feet and small heads, as if they are stretched backwards. This technique has the effect of solidly rooting the men into the physical space of the viewer, but distancing them from the viewer’s psychological space. The background is composed of expressionistic smears of color that give no hint of narrative. Sonsini has taken Fernando, Ismael, Gabriel and Israel from a setting in which they are invisible and anonymous, and grants them visibility – confronting the viewer with their presence.