“DUET: Compositions of Rhythm, Harmony, and Form” is set to open at Cielo Galleries/Studios on September 20th, 2025, from 6-10p, featuring a collection of works by Los Angeles-based contemporary artists Skira Martinez and Sam Pace.
“Duet,” a two-person exhibition featuring Los Angeles-based artists Skira Martinez and Sam Pace, draws on the rich textures and histories of musical instruments and electronic detritus. “Duet” invites visitors to explore how sound and materiality intertwine to shape contemporary culture.
The exhibition takes its title from the collaborative spirit of music-making: two distinct voices in dialogue, resonance and counterpoint. Through sculptural assemblages, painted surfaces and found-object reliefs, Martinez and Pace repurpose brass and string components from radios, pianos and other instruments-alongside plastics, wood and e-waste-to compose visual symphonies that riff on memory, improvisation and cultural legacy. Visitors will encounter works that both reference the physicality of jazz, blues and Black American music, and reimagine the afterlives of discarded, “silent” objects.
Skira Martinez draws on a time of hands-on making, from her childhood on an off-grid farm in Ontario to her current studio practice in Historical South Central Los Angeles. Inspired by trips to the country dump and raised in a household where “something out of nothing” win the daily ethos, Martinez transforms salvaged electronics, thrifted treasures and yard-sale finds into jewel- like assemblaged.assemblages. in “Duet,” she unveils new mixed-media sculptures that echo the improvisational spirit of brass and string ensembles, while commenting an consumption, waste and the regenerative power of art.
Sam Pace’s practice began in the late 1980s in Europe, where he first translated the moods of jazz and blues into painterly narratives. From acrylic and collage on wood panels to reliefs built from discarded recyclables, Pace’s works channel the syncopated rhythms and emotional cadences of his sonic inspirations. In this exhibition, he presents a series of collaged reliefs incorporating piano hammers, radio dials and bent sheet-metal forms-each piece a visual “note” in his ongoing composition celebrating African American musical heritage.
Together, Martinez and Pace perform a creative “duet” that spans material histories, cultural memory and the improvisatory core of contemporary art. Visitors to DUET: Composition of Rhythm, Harmony, and Form at Cielo Galleries and Studios, can expect an immersive environment where sculptures gleam like brass instruments, painted surfaces pulse with rhythmic energy, and discarded fragments find new voice-turning waste into witness, silence into song.
The exhibit will be on view to the public from September 20th through 27th. Visits after Opening Night are by APPOINTMENT ONLY.
“DUET: Composition of Rhythm, Harmony, and Form” is located at Cielo Galleries and Studios, 3201 Maple Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90011.