Gil Batle was born and raised in San Francisco, California to Filipino parents. For over 20 years, Batle was in and out of five different California prisons for fraud and forgery. Behind bars, Batle honed in on his self-taught drawing skills through the practice of tattooing. Outside of prison, Batle now tells the stories of the murderers, drug dealers, and armed robbers he lived with and got to know through his drawings on paper, ceramic plates, and ostrich eggs.