Jet Martinez’s Murals Brighten Up the Landscape

Jet Martinez’s art is bigger than life. It’s so big, in fact, that he needs whole buildings to cover it with. The Mexican born, California-based painter works full time as a muralist, upgrading uninspiring buildings and grey interiors into full-blown works of art.

But Martinez didn’t always paint for a living. According to him, he originally went to University to study Spanish Literature. “In my third year of school I took a painting class and enjoyed it so much I decided to drop everything else,” he explained. “I dropped out of school and spent the next couple years building up a portfolio to go into art school. I moved to San Francisco in 1996 to go to the San Francisco Art Institute.”

“The streets of San Francisco were a perfect place for me to get started on my career because I could tap right into my own artistic cultural heritage, while tapping into the newer forms of street painting that were and are still going on,” he added.

Check out some of his larger than life creations.