SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Project One Gallery presents “Microblast,” an exhibition of paintings by Jet Martinez and Kelly Ording, through September 29. Martinez and Ording, who live in Oakland with their two young children and have shared a studio for seven years, have each garnered individual acclaim for their strikingly vivid, intricately patterned public murals and studio art exhibitions throughout the Bay Area and around the world.
“Microblast” is the couple’s first combined exhibit, reflecting a creative and personal bond between two artists whose work intersects and converges as they pursue similar themes, motifs, and interests. Kelly and Jet’s combined preoccupation with repetition of detail, vibrant use of color, and a juxtaposition of natural and geometric shapes results in a mesmerizing series of images that command viewers’ attention with a powerful blast of energy while simultaneously imparting a hypnotic sense of calm.
As Facebook’s first resident artist, a respected public muralist, and director for the Clarion Alley Mural Project in San Francisco’s Mission district, Jet Martinez nimbly transitions to the fine art world while retaining the heart and soul of street art. His murals, sharply graphic and enticingly colorful, brighten San Francisco streets from the Sunset to Dogpatch, Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, the Oakland International Airport, and numerous other public locations and private homes around the world. His paintings have been featured in galleries in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, all across the United States and as far as Mexico, Switzerland, and Japan. For this show, he has reinterpreted traditional Mexican folk art to create work that feels fresh and contemporary while celebrating the beauty of his native culture.
Kelly Ording’s more delicately ethereal but equally eye-catching paintings and murals blend organic shapes with deliberately exact lines expanding into abstracted landscapes that evoke a hazy sense of nostalgia and hint at fantastically exotic narratives. She, too, has shown her work in galleries around the United States and internationally, and has created several public murals in San Francisco and at Facebook’s headquarters. Asterisk Magazine recently including Ording in their list of top 20 San Francisco artists. Here, she plays with color and scale to present familiar shapes and patterns in new ways. Her pieces featured at Project One examine the effect of a single, isolated object and the powerful amplification of that effect through massive repetition.
By bringing together the work of these two exciting, well-regarded Bay Area artists, “Microblast” offers a unique opportunity to consider the dynamic, conversational interplay between their respective styles.
