/Galleries
Ghost Land Patrick Martinez
Sep 23, 2023 - Jan 07, 2024
Wed: 12 - 5pm Thurs & Fri: 12 - 7pm Sat + Sun: 10am - 5pm
Event WebsiteAbout
Patrick Martinez exhibits a diverse practice, ranging from painting to mixed media and neon. His exhibition will highlight his “landscape” paintings: works that evoke the topography of personal, civic, and cultural loss. These large-scale works excavate urban histories as abstractions of the Los Angeles landscape, incorporating recognizable materials like distressed stucco, spray paint, window security bars, vinyl signage, ceramic tile, and neon. Martinez layers imagery inspired by graffiti, activism, and Mayan and Aztec symbolism to recount the overlooked stories of California residents—particularly concerning their resilience in the face of gentrification.
SF/Arts Curator Insight
Famous for a series of compositions rendered as sketches on the covers of high school Pee Chee portfolios, Los Angeles artist Patrick Martinez ranges across media to produce political work, often commemorating lost lives and cultures. This exhibition features a number of activist slogans rendered in neon alongside large-scale amalgamations of stucco, spray paint, ceramic tile, and various other materials that resemble the palimpsest of daily life piling up on city walls. Martinez debuts a new large-scale piece inspired by an East Los Streetscapers mural that was lost in 1980, the year he was born.
Mark Taylor
SF/Arts Curator
The Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF), is a brand new, always free, non-collecting contemporary art museum opening at 901 Minnesota street in the Dogpatch. We are dedicated to experimenting in public, operating transparently, and embracing constant reinvention in the realm of contemporary art.
The Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF), is a brand new, always free, non-collecting contemporary art museum opening at 901 Minnesota street in the Dogpatch. We are dedicated to experimenting in public, operating transparently, and embracing constant reinvention in the realm of contemporary art.