5 QUESTIONS WITH
CREATIVES PAT R I C K ( PAT T Y ) Q U I N TA N I L L A B Y D A K O TA P A R K S
Whether he’s tagging and painting over pieces at Graffiti Bridge or designing massive, commissioned murals, Patrick (Patty) Quintanilla, 29, can usually be spotted around Pensacola with a can of spray paint in his hand. As a selftaught graffiti artist and muralist, he started out tagging trains and abandoned warehouses in his teens. Once Quintanilla moved to Pensacola four years ago, he started using the Graffiti Bridge as his personal sketch pad, began working as a professional mural artist and joined DVK, a worldwide graffiti group, which encouraged him to improve his craft. His designs combine illustrative realism and abstract contemporary art, often featuring detailed animals and sea creatures. You can check out his work on Instagram @pattysauces or Facebook @pattysart. Graffiti art has a temporary quality to it as its always being covered up and tagged over. Do you find that temporary canvas inspiring, and if so, what draws you back to painting graffiti pieces? It depends. If you mention graffiti around here, 98 percent of people think of Graffiti Bridge. And stuff there gets tagged over and covered over, sometimes within hours. But there’s a certain etiquette in the culture of graffiti. There’s an unspoken rule that you don’t go over a piece unless you’re going to do an equally good piece. But legal spots have always been kind of an abnormality to that aspect of graffiti. I feel like whatever you call it—public art, street art, graffiti, mural— it’s one of the most influential forms of art because of its accessibility to individuals who normally wouldn’t be interested in going to galleries or art museums. It’s the community aspect that keeps me coming back.
The work I do at Graffiti Bridge differs apply spray paint to smaller canvases out drawing. Whenever I paint an from a commission because there isn’t so that splatter is right in your face. It animal or a person, I always start with any pressure since I know that what- gives the art a certain rawness. Also, the eyes, because I feel like the eyes ever I paint will be gone in a day or two. spray paint in the fine art world is such set the mood for the whole design. The bridge is essentially the sketch a recent thing. It’s always been counterpad I need to experiment and practice culture and viewed as less important Hidden between murals and graffiti work my craft, whereas commissions are than artwork done with oils or acrylics. on your IG are these beautiful abstract entirely different, because you’re going I think that’s changing now but, aerosol inkblot images that you posted in 2020 in knowing they’re expecting a certain paint doesn’t have that long traditional and captioned as a form of artistic therapy. quality of product. So, commissions history with greats like Michelangelo Can you tell me a little about those? are where I apply what I’ve learned or Picasso. There are no rules on how Those are really personal to me. I had playing around at the bridge. Commis- to practice it, so it’s freeing for me. Just a mural lined up in London and all kind sions are fun because you get to mesh make sure you’re in a well-ventilated of things scheduled, then COVID-19 your artistic imagination with the clien- area when spraying your canvas. derailed everything. I withdrew into tele vision, and the result is a collaboraa deep depression and needed to tive, unique piece of art. Your murals combine bright saturated manage that negative energy. I went colors and layers of shading and detail out and bought two sketchbooks, went When you’re not tackling a massive wall, work. What’s that process like for you? into my room and started punching you also create and sell acrylic and spray- I don’t use projectors to do my murals. and crying, throwing black ink all over paint canvases. What is it about spray As far as a graph goes, I’ll do a squig- these pages. Then the next day and paint that you find appealing even in small gle graph occasionally. But apart from every day after that for a year, I would applications? that, everything goes on free hand. I open that book, look at this messy ink Whenever I paint a mural, it’s so big prefer the freedom of not following a blob and I would use white-out and red that when you look at it as a whole, it map of sorts. For commissions, I will spray paint to bring out what I saw in looks sharp and detailed, but if you get provide them with a rough concept that blob. I created more than 300 of How do you approach the work you do right up to the wall, you’ll see variations sketch. As far as signatures that stand them but deleted most of them off my on Graffiti Bridge versus a commis- in the lines and you’ll notice the splat- out for me, it’s the detail I put into the Instagram. They’re completely differsioned mural? ters and the drips. That’s why I love to textures and the eyes. I usually paint ent from my usual material, but they animals, because that’s how I started really saved me from that despair. 6 | DOWNTOWNCROWD.COM