Painter John Sonsini finds his subjects on the streets of Los Angeles. They are migrant day workers who come back to his studio to pose for $20 an hour. Some accept the work for a day, others for weeks, though he is never sure if or when a subject will return. Since he began the project, he has painted more than 350 men.

Some of the paintings are now on view at Cheim & Read in an exhibit that runs through February 10.

Sharing the plight of these workers is not the artist’s objective. “I’m not interested in telling their stories,” Mr. Sonsini said Wednesday night at the opening reception for the exhibit. “I’m after the sensation — I often refer to it as the lipstick on the glass,” he said.

This is how he views painting in general. “The longer I paint, the more I have begun to recognize what painting is really good at and what painting is not very good at,” he said. “Even though paintings have been held up as a storytelling medium for centuries, it is something it isn’t good at.”

He would not have achieved such success with the series if he had not initiated it at a moment when the story of migrant day laborers has become a national conversation. It is easy to imagine the figures in Mr. Sonsini’s paintings standing outside waiting for work, or sending money back to loved ones, or — as their expressions in the works seem to capture best — longing for the families and places they have left behind. All of this is possible because Mr. Sonsini has rendered such realistic and empathetic portraits.

One way he does it is to insist on painting from life. The challenge is to keep his eye fresh while looking at subjects over periods of weeks and years. “One of my tricks is to have people drop by the studio. This creates an interference,” he said. “It gets me out of my zone of intentions.” He honed his skills during a six-year period when he exclusively painted his lover, Gabriel Barajas, who is now an important collaborator, locating subjects and setting up photographing sessions.

“Gabriel has a phenomenal eye and an ability to keep me focused and keep me on track,” Mr. Sonsini said. He is also a Latino, unlike Mr. Sonsini, which may make him closer to the subjects. However, Mr. Sonsini says he relates to their experiences.

“I do feel I understand a lot of the work these guys do because I did it,” he said. In his 20s, Mr. Sonsini worked as a handyman to support his career as an artist. He recently found drawings he made of Latino men who worked with him on a project doing the same tasks. “So when I ask a sitter what he’s doing, and he says I just finished a drywall job, I can ask about all that taping, spackling, and sanding,” Mr. Sonsini said.

When portraits are finished, Mr. Sonsini asks his subjects to sign the back of the canvas. “I always say, I’d love for you to sign the painting with me, and if you don’t want to, that’s great also,” Mr. Sonsini said. He calls this “sealing the moment,” a way of ensuring his methods are not misinterpreted in the future. “In 50 years, if someone were to think I painted from photographs, these signatures can report that I painted from life,” he said.

Subjects sometimes feel uneasy signing. Some men do not use their own names. But many have begun to take pride in their participation. “Recently, the men have been asking Gabriel for photographs of themselves in front of the paintings, to send to their families,” Mr. Sonsini said.