This week, a number of promising exhibitions meander, to varying degrees, away from the conceptual gravitas that often accompanies contemporary art. Barcelona-based Max Rippon and Oakland couple (and resident Facebook muralists) Jet Martinez and Kelly Ording reflect on the textures of urban environments and organic life. Re-appropriationist sculptor Charles Linder promises “electric pork,” whatever that may entail. And there’s more.

Microblast, at Project One Gallery

Jet Martinez’ large scale, impeccably detailed and wildly colorful public murals have brightened the streets of SF, from the Sunset to Dogpatch, for years. Recently, he has graduated from street art to more institutionally sanctioned places – Oakland International Airport or, to drop a more prominent example, Facebook HQ (Martinez was Facebook’s first resident artist).

In this show, Martinez is exhibiting with his domestic and artistic partner, Kelly Ording. Their respective practices are similar: both produce large murals that delight in meticulous detail and hypnotic attention to repetition. As both continue to gain prominence (Ording herself recently made Asterisk magazine’s list of SF’s top twenty artists), this show provides a glimpse at how these artists influence and play off of one another.

Microblast runs through September 29, 2012 at Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island Street. Opening Reception: Wednesday, August 8 from 7pm – 11:30pm

Signs, Fines, & Cheap Wines, at White Walls Gallery

New York City ex-pat Max Rippon (a.k.a. Ripo) has been living in Barcelona for the past seven years, absorbing the textures of the city and re-articulating them through his art.

In some works, this process is quite literal; his larger mixed-media works contain broken mirrors, old signs, scrap metal and other found objects that pepper his urban environment. On other canvases, Ripo works with words and typographic style – obviously another cornerstone of urban signage. The meaning, or evocative potential, of a word is crucial for Ripo; the actual stylistic look of it – even more so.

Signs, Fines, & Cheap Wines runs from August 9 through September 1 at White Walls Gallery, 839 Larkin Street. Opening Reception: Thursday, August 9 from 7pm – 11pm

Charles Linder: New Sculpture, at Gallery 16

Galleries typically tell us what to expect in advance of an exhibition. Rarely, however, do their preludes ring as whimsically as “electric pork and a Lilliputian Porsche.” That’s a hard invitation to turn down, even before the promise of live music and cocktails at Friday’s reception.

The man responsible for these objects (whatever they turn out to be, exactly) is Charles Linder. A sculptor, Linder repurposes found detritus into objects of humor, wit and beauty – makeshift chandeliers, for instance, or, as was the case at an exhibition some years back, a bullet-riddled 1965 Ford Mustang Body (“Ghostang.”) Rarely the result of conscious device, for Linder this sort of art seems to just happen.

Charles Linder: New Sculpture runs from August 10 through September 30, at Gallery 16, 501 Third Street. Opening Reception: Friday, August 10 from 6pm – 9pm

Cycles, at Roll Up Gallery

“Navigating this city and our planet requires cycles. These patterns result in movement and change.” Roll Up Gallery keeps its introductory remarks to this purposely ambiguous phrase, which at once conjures the obvious, a bicycle, and myriad phenomena more abstract and intangible in nature. Open-ended themes are often the most fruitful for group exhibitions. In this one, talented painters/illustrators Alice Koswara, Eric Broers, James Garcia, Grant Gilliland and Rich Pellegrino give their pictorial meditations.

Cycles runs from August 10 through August 26 at Roll Up Gallery, 161 Erie Street. Opening Reception: Friday, August 10 from 6pm – 9pm