Eat Happy
Narsiso Martinez
Eat Happy
969 Chung King Road
september 25 - november 7, 2026
OPENING RECEPTION: september 25, 5-8pm
Charlie James Gallery is proud to present new works by Narsiso Martinez in Eat Happy, the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. Martinez is best known for his powerful portraits of farmworkers rendered on discarded produce boxes collected from grocery stores, which he transforms into evocative, layered compositions. His work draws from the visual language of 1930s Social Realism, updated through a contemporary lens and materials that speak to both economic precarity and cultural resilience. Before earning his BFA and MFA with honors from Cal State Long Beach, Martinez worked in the agricultural fields of Washington state for nine seasons — a formative experience that directly informs his practice.
This new exhibition foregrounds American grocery brands like Whole Foods, Lazy Acres, Trader Joe’s and Ralph’s to illuminate the contrast between the marketing and consumption of grocery produce and the onerous conditions of its production. In a first for his practice, Martinez has mounted branded grocery bags to wood panels and to canvases for use in his paintings. A series of ten such works depict farmworkers at work and at rest, their compositions nestled within, behind, and sometimes over the corporate logos and design elements printed on the bags. In select pieces, farmworker figures are positioned in direct relation to printed elements on the bags. One farmworker about to disgorge his sack of fruits into a bin seems to laugh at the Lazy Acres exhortation to “Live Healthy, Eat Well.” Another farmworker seems to glance down at a pair of kids printed on a Trader Joe’s bag who plaintively ask about recycling. In other pieces farmworkers are depicted at rest, having lunch, or gazing out directly at the viewer. Most of the grocery brands Martinez appropriates for the show are premium in nature such as Whole Foods, Javier’s Finest Foods of Mexico, and Lazy Acres, which serves to heighten the tension between the suggestions of comfort and delectation in the brand designs and the toil of the workers painted on the paper.
By incorporating found objects and working at the intersection of figuration, installation, and sculpture, Martinez calls attention to the dissonance between agricultural abundance and the exploitation of those who make it possible. His art challenges viewers to consider the systems behind the food they consume, and the people whose labor sustains them — many of whom remain undocumented and unprotected.
The show will be supported by Food and Beyond, Beyond Food, a group exhibition that connects four female artists from different cultural backgrounds through the idea of food and nourishment. Curated by Narsiso Martinez, the show features works by Andrea Bersaglieri, Ashley Jose-Isip, Jessy Slim, and Karen Tepaz. The show will run concurrently with Narsiso Martinez’s solo exhibition “Eat Happy”.
Narsiso Martinez (b. 1977, Oaxaca, Mexico) came to the United States when he was 20 years old. He attended Evans Community Adult School and completed high school in 2006 at the age of 29. He earned an Associate of Arts degree in 2009 from Los Angeles City College. In the fall of 2012 Narsiso earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from California State University Long Beach. In the spring of 2018, he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in drawing and painting from California State University Long Beach and was awarded the prestigious Dedalus Foundation MFA Fellowship in Painting and Sculpture. His work has been exhibited both locally and internationally. Martinez has a solo show on view now at the Catalina Museum for Art and History and his work is also on view at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles.
Martinez’s work is in the collections of the MFA Houston, LACMA, the Buffalo AKG Museum, the Hammer Museum, the Phoenix Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, MOLAA, University of Arizona Museum of Art, the UCI Langson Orange County Museum of Art, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Crocker Art Museum, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon, the North Dakota Museum of Art, the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, the Tucson Museum of Art, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the Laguna Art Museum and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art among others. Martinez was awarded the Frieze Impact Award in 2023. Martinez lives and works in Los Angeles, CA and is represented by Charlie James Gallery.
