This series investigates our culture’s perception of ‘the other and otherness’ and how prescribed labels determine society’s behavior toward a social group because of race, gender, sex, class, and religion. When someone is perceived to challenge the dominant group’s values and beliefs, he or she are marginalized and excluded. This exclusion leads to social groups without a political voice, with fewer rights, like not being able to marry someone who is the same sex, or people of different race and class not having the right to vote.”

To explicitly challenge this notion, Madrid works his painted portraits to engage the viewer about their perceptions as to whether or not the sitter is of his own or an outside group; whether the prescribed identity is embraced or falls victim to categorization.

Echoing the socially constructed identity of the sitter, the portrait, at first, may seem disjointed; some areas are only partially complete, allowing for the viewer to ll in the blanks and derive a secondary meaning as to what the work may signify.