Oree Originol

Oree Originol is a multimedia visual artist who creates artwork to communicate ideas about personal and social / political issues. He was born on September 11, 1984 in Glendale, California where his parents met after migrating from Mexico in the 1970s. He grew up in the same house in North East Los Angeles until his early 20s. His neighborhood was marked by gang activity and drug addiction which made him acquire a sense of empathy and awareness of social issues that impacted his community. He discovered a passion for art at a young age and developed his creative skills through self study. As a teenager, he got involved in graffiti adopting the alias "Oree", which derived from the Spanish word, "orejas", meaning "ears", a childhood joke about his big ears as a kid. His last name, "Originol" was inspired by a streetwear clothing brand, ‘Joker’, that promoted west coast urban culture and sometimes included the text, "Original", in its designs. His full alias is in reference to his background growing up in the streets of Los Angeles.

In 2009, he moved to the Bay Area to expand his creative and personal development in a new environment. He broadened his skillset to include digital art, which played a significant role in 2014 when he launched his groundbreaking open source art project, 'Justice For Our Lives', a digital portrait series of 100 black and white portraits honoring individuals who were killed by US law enforcement since the beginning of the 21st century. The project has been widely reproduced and displayed in museums, classrooms, and public demonstrations against police brutality providing the visual backdrop for "Black Lives Matter" protests in The Bay Area. In 2020, the project was showcased at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC for "¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now", a traveling exhibition that included The Amon Carter Museum, The Hood Museum, and The First Museum. It also showcased at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Colombia, Vancouver, CAN for "XICANX Dreamers + Changemakers / Soñadores + creadores del cambio", also a traveling art show that included The Contemporary at Blue Star.

His primary body of artwork illustrates a unique vibrant world of figurative compositions. The central figures are usually human characters to effectively relate the human stories that are expressed in the work. His art style incorporates flat shapes as the building blocks of his visual content which is designed to translate similarly between multiple mediums like painting, digital art, stencils, and screen printing. The execution of his work strikes a balance between a measured and organic process that delivers a playful and cartoonish representation of his illustrations. Inspired by the legacy of social justice activism in The Bay Area, his work continues to engage community and bring awareness to a range of social issues through a racial lens that is informed by his experience as a "Chicano" artist from California.