Artsource Blog

Check back here from time to time to get updates on what we like, exhibits to see, and art related ideas. If you’re interested in more information about what you see here, please email us.

May To Do List

Jim Campbell “Edition 28 (Surf)”, 2021 custom electronics, 384 LEDs, treated plexiglass.  Image courtesy of Hosfelt Gallery.

May 7 to June 11 – Jim Campbell: Wandering at Hosfelt Gallery:  Jim Campbell uses technology to filter images of daily life, mediating the audience’s encounter with his subjects and amplifying the flow of time and memory. Campbell primarily utilizes LEDs to translate time-based subjects—scenes of jostling crowds, found home movies, and the rhythmic movements of nature, such as waves and clouds—into blurred, sculptural or gridded forms that test the limits of perception.  Exploring the line between representation and abstraction, Campbell plumbs the human ability to interpret information and “fill in the gaps” necessary to create a complete idea. Opening reception is Saturday, May 7, 3–5 pm.

 

 

Edie Fake “Ferments”  2022, gouache on masonite panel.  Image courtesy Rebecca Camacho Presents.

May 7 to June 11 – Edie Fake: Night Life at Rebecca Camacho Presents:  Edie Fake’s work blurs the lines between geometric and organic forms with structures adorned by elements that serve as both decorative and protective, Fake’s precise, intimately scaled, gouache paintings on panel center exploration of identity in the transgender and queer experience.  In a series of paintings analogous to sewing patterns, Fake considers the nourishment of personal presentation. Highlighting the importance of being able to wholly create or piece together from varying elements one’s external appearance, to adorn oneself in clothing and decoration that exemplifies self-care and intimate preferences, Fake’s impulse to paint towards situations that are significant on a singular scale becomes a larger queer dialogue of expression, visibility, and acceptance.  Opening reception is Saturday, May 7, 4 – 7 pm.

 

Wendy Red Star “Dust” 2021. Three-color lithograph on Somerset Satin soft white, with archival pigment printed chine collé on mulberry paper.  Image courtesy of the Anderson Collection.

Ongoing to August 28 – Wendy Red Star:  American Progress at the Anderson Collection at Stanford University:  Wendy Red Star was raised on the Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation in Montana. Red Star’s work is informed by her cultural heritage and engagement with many forms of creative expression, including photography, sculpture, video, fiber arts, and performance. This exhibition explores the ideas of Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny through the lens of John Gast’s 1872 painting, American Progress. Gast’s painting exemplifies the justification of American settlers driving Indigenous communities off their land during the 19th century.

 

Headlands Center for the Arts

May 20 to 31 – Headlands Center for the Arts Benefit Art Auction held at Fort Mason Center: Showcasing works from more than 60 partnering artists and galleries, this benefit features silent and live auctions; creative experiences to bid on; site-specific installations from Headlands Alum Carole Kim, Annie Albagli, and Anja Ulfeldt and art activations inviting you to engage and play with practicing artists. The preview exhibition is free and open to the public.  Purchases tickets to the May 31 auction here.

 

 

Image of Robin Koda, courtesy of the Asian Art Museum.

Thursday, May 19, 6:30 pm – CAAMFest 40: Rice and Asian Americana presented by the Asian Art Museum on Zoom: Rice farmer Robin Koda and wheat farmer Mai Nguyen join chef and cookbook author Diep Tran for a conversation about the complex role of rice in the formation of Asian Americana. In popular culture, rice plays many roles, from a crop that symbolizes the ingenuity, thrift, and resilience of Asian American farmers to a food that represents Asian American cuisine as a whole. In this event co-presented by CAAM and the Asian Art Museum, they will explore the many narratives of rice and consider if these stories expand, or narrow, our understanding of Asian American culture.  Buy Tickets for this online event here:

 

 

Kikuo Saito “Ouray” 1979, acrylic on canvas.  Image courtesy of the estate of Kikuo Saito.

May 5 to June 25 – Kikuo Saito: Ouray at Altman Siegel Gallery:  Altman Siegel presents Ouray, the gallery’s first exhibition with the estate of Kikuo Saito (1939-2016). Long overlooked within traditional art historical discourses, Saito’s practice, and life, articulate a state of in-betweenness. Informed by his background in the theater, the artist created space for himself within established Color Field circles by devising a distinctive lexicon that integrated his multitude of experiences and artistic interests. Hence, Saito’s paintings are both historically significant and timely, reflecting a need to contemplate the hybridity and complexity of personal identity.

 

 

 

 

April To Do List

 

Alice Neel “Jackie Curtis and Ritta Redd” 1970, oil on canvas, Image courtesy of the de Young Museum.

Ongoing to July 10, 2022 –Alice Neel: People Come First at the de Young Museum:  Alice Neel (1900–1984) was one of the century’s most radical painters, a champion of social justice whose longstanding commitment to humanist principles inspired her life as well as her art.  Neel spent most of her life in New York City, and her work testifies to the diversity, resilience, and passion of the people she encountered there. The exhibition includes depictions of Neel’s neighbors in Spanish Harlem, political leaders, queer cultural figures, activists, and mothers, along with a diverse representation of nude figures, including visibly pregnant women. Neel’s “pictures of people” embody a rare candor and irreverence. Together they emphasize her belief in the dignity and worth of all individuals, a view that remains critical to the social and cultural politics of our time.

 

 

David Huffman “Sideshow” 2009, acrylic, oil, glitter, collage on paper.  Image courtesy of MOADSF.

Ongoing to September 18, 2022 – David Huffman: Terra Incognita at the Museum of African Diaspora (MoAD):   Emerging from Huffman’s lifelong interest in science fiction, formalist abstraction, and social justice movements, the “Traumanauts” are futuristic beings that travel the galaxy in constant search for home. This exhibition showcases the extensive narrative that Huffman has been designing since the early 1990s across a range of media including large-scale canvas, works on paper, ceramics, video, and printmaking. This work explores an Afrofuturistic landscape disrupting the canon of historical narrative painting with otherworldly horizons. Combining his notable abstract, gestural style with a decidedly figurative focus, these works present an imagined and safe interstitial space that plays between these aesthetics. With influences from cartoons, the Black Power movement, and poetics of basketball, Huffman brings us into his celestial world.

 

Libby Black “Untitled” 2022, paper, acrylic paint, glue.  Image courtesy of Gallery 16.

April 9 to May 21 – Libby Black: Returning To This Moment at Gallery 16:  Returning to This Moment encompasses work from different phases of Black’s over two decade career. Drawing, painting, and sculptures are made from paper, hot glue, and acrylic paint, playing with the line between two and three dimensions. The exhibition is a chance to look at and return to moments from the vantage of the present– to observe, reflect, and marinate. She decodes and combines to create work that represents the things she thinks about, to see herself in the world.

 

Soo Sunny Park “Silver Linings” 2015, stainless steel, tar paper, Mylar, artificial light, daylight.  Image courtesy of SJICA.

Ongoing to August 14 – Soo Sunny Park: Viewing Filter (Veil of Vision) at SJICA:  Soo Sunny Park explores light as a sculptural material. She reconfigures boundary materials – fencing, plastic, glass, sheetrock – to expand and explore the space between inside and outside, sculptural and drawing, vision and perception, objects and their shadows. In this exhibition Park  investigates visual perception through the use of reflective surfaces, grids, and variable light conditions. Her large-scale, immersive installation is built out of retro-reflective paint and nylon netting, stretched into curtain-like forms. Layers of accumulated drawings, on different layers of the netting,  create a sense of amplified depth in a 3-dimensional floating space. Visitors walk through the gallery and interact with the space using their camera flashes and phone flashlights.

 

Bay Area non-profit art spaces – Root Division, Berkeley Art Center, Southern Exposure and Kala Art Institute fundraising events.

Saturday, April 9, 7 to 9 pm – Root Division 20 Year Anniversary Celebration:  Join Root Division as they commemorate 20 years of cultivating community-minded artists and arts-minded community. To mark this historic milestone, the organization will present a variety of inclusive festivities and goods.  Purchase tickets here.

Thursday, April 14, 6 to 8 pm – Berkeley Art Center Community Dinner: Join Berkeley Art Center for an evening celebrating community and connection under the Live Oak trees.  The evening will include a three-course-meal, wine & cocktails, a preview of the next exhibition with the curator, and a special live drag performance!  Purchase tickets here.

Saturday, April 23,  6 to 9 pm – Southern Exposure’s Annual Art Auction:  Join SoEx on Saturday, April 23, in the gallery for an in-person and online event channeling the electrical strength and energy of the Bay Area art community.  The Main Event will feature both a silent and a live auction, showcasing over 120 pieces of electrifying art from some of the Bay Area’s most energizing new and established artists.  Purchase tickets here.

April 7 to May 23 – Kala Art Institute’s Annual Art Auction:  Help celebrate 48 years of Kala! Kala’s annual auction exhibition includes work by over 100 artists from the Bay Area and beyond. This year celebrate the 2022 honored artists Leah Rosenberg and Ramekon O’Arwisters.  The exhibition kicks off with an all day VIP in-person preview at the gallery on Thursday April 7, 12-8pm.  Purchase tickets here.

 

 

 

Headlands Center for the Arts

Sunday, April 24, 12 to 5 pm – Spring Open House at Headlands Center for the Arts:  Roam the Headlands’ campus, engage with artists, experience new work and works in progress, grab a house-made picnic lunch from the Mess Hall, and for the first time since 2019, enjoy open artist studios.  Open House connects visitors to artists and fosters casual conversations about the creative process. Curated happenings and events occur throughout the day, including readings, performances, screenings, and guided walks.  Reserve a free time-slot here.

 

Roland Mayer “Dialog” 2004, redwood, madrone, pine, barbed wire.   Image courtesy of  Djerassi Resident Artist Program.

Saturday April 2 to May  – Spring Walking Meditation and Sound Immersion at Djerassi Resident Artist Program:  At Djerassi each year, artists from around the world are awarded the gift of time + space—a one-month residency on their ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains. These hikes provide a thorough look at 40+ sculptures with a focus on the flora and fauna, while providing quiet, reflective time to experience the sounds of nature. For the Sound Immersion Experience guests will lay down and relax to the soothing sound vibrations of Gongs & Singing Bowls as they surround you and guide you into a deep meditation.  Register here.

 

 

March To Do List

Luis Estrada, Untitled, mixed media on canvas.  Image courtesy of NIAD Art Center.

Saturday, March 5 – WIN WIN 10 NIAD Art Center’s Annual Fundraiser and 40th Anniversary Celebration:  NIAD Art Center is a progressive art studio in Richmond, CA. Frequently remarkable, surprising, and engaging, work by NIAD artists garners attention from the contemporary art world on a global scale. WIN WIN 10 is their annual fundraiser that this year also commemorates their 40th anniversary.  The fundraiser includes a fun afternoon of games, music and a live auction of extraordinary artwork donated by NIAD artists and our art community friends, followed by an in-person celebration in the NIAD courtyard.  For tickets visit this link.

 

Dionne Lee “Casting” 2022, gelatin silver print.  Image courtesy of Et al Gallery.

Ongoing to April 2 – Dionne Lee: Castings at Et al Gallery: Dionne Lee works in photography, collage, and video to explore power, survival, and personal history in relation to the American landscape.  Castings continues her interest in place, ancestral memory, and survival. Moving away from found images sourced from wilderness manuals and how-to’s, she looks to the body, and the land itself, as primary sources. Through the camera, a tool that affirms the experience of witnessing, she engages with how the body holds and carves through its memories. Following the shadow of a fallen tree branch turned divining rod, rotating the sedimentary joints of the body, and gazing into the eye of a dandelion or the black hole of a rock overturned; are all modes of research to consider the relationship between the self, the past, and the landscape in which they meet.  Et al Gallery’s Chinatown location is at 620 Kearny Street in San Francisco.

 

 

Left: Andrea Bowers, Right: Chelsea Ryoko Wong.  Images courtesy of Jessica Silverman Gallery

March 11 to April 23 – Andrea Bowers and Chelsea Ryoko Wong at Jessica Silverman Gallery:  Over the last twenty-three years, Andrea Bowers has built an international reputation for her drawings, videos, and installations, which deal with social issues ranging from women’s’ and workers’ rights to climate change and immigration. Chelsea Ryoko Wong is a painter and muralist whose vibrant figure compositions reflect the diversity and style of her home in San Francisco. Through the use of watercolor, gouache and acrylic techniques, Wong creates busy scenes of co-mingling people drawing from real-life events and her imagination.  Jessica Silverman Gallery is located at 621 Grant Avenue in San Francisco.

 

 

Brett Amory, oil on canvas.  Image courtesy of Pt. 2 Gallery.

March 12 to April 1 – Brett Amory at Pt. 2 Gallery:   Brett Amory’s practice explores the mundane themes that structure daily life. He’s interested in the everyday experiences that define our engagement with the world, and how our habits often prevent us from paying attention to our surroundings. For the past twenty years, He has worked on a body of work titled Waiting. Drawing attention to everyday aesthetics, the series portrays isolated figures caught in routine, passive activities directed by existing circumstances—waiting in line for a bus, waiting to cross the street, riding the train—and conveys feelings of confinement and banality. By defamiliarizing the familiar, his work draws attention to the economic and social conditions of the changing urban landscape, touching on issues of gentrification, class, ethnicity, and community.  Pt. 2 Gallery is located at 1523b Webster Street in Oakland.

 

 

Artists as curators – Tammy Rae Carland, David Huffman, Lava Thomas, and John Zurier.  Image courtesy of BAMPFA.

March 19 to July 17 – The Artist’s Eye: Tammy Rae Carland, David Huffman, Lava Thomas, John Zurier at BAMPFA:  Curated by established Bay Area artists Tammy Rae Carland, David Huffman, Lava Thomas, and John Zurier, this exhibition centers the artistic vision of each artist and engages the space where the artist—as curator, collector, and maker—meets the museum. For The Artist’s Eye, each artist was invited to organize a section of the exhibition, using artworks and archival material from BAMPFA’s collection, as well as select works from their own collections, that range across diverse media, approaches to making, and historical time periods.  BAMPFA is located at 2155 Center Street in Berkeley.

 

Installation view at Pier 24 Photography.

Ongoing to March 31 – Looking Back: 10 Years of Pier 24 Photography:  Pier 24 Photography is open again and visitors can see the current exhibition before it closes at the end of the month.  Looking Back features photographers and themes collected before the space opened. Many of these photographers—including Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Dorothea Lange, and Hiroshi Sugimoto—have been instrumental to the medium’s development.  Reflecting the collection’s focus on the genre, the exhibition’s opening galleries highlight a wide range of portraiture, ranging from mugshots and works by unknown photographers to iconic images by celebrated figures in the history of photography. The main gallery—entitled “About Face”—spans more than 120 years of the medium, presenting the portrait through the lenses of nearly fifty different artists.  Located at Pier 24, The Embarcadero in San Francisco.

 

 

February To do List

Alec Soth “Philadelphia, Pennsylvania” 2021, pigment print.  Image courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery.

February 3 to March 26 – Alec Soth: A Pound of Pictures at Fraenkel Gallery:  Alec Soth’s iconic large-format color photographs of people and scenes from middle America were met with immediate critical acclaim. Rooted firmly in the narrative framework of traditional photographic expression, Soth has continued to push the boundaries of the medium through his long-term projects and his prolific book-publishing activities.  This exhibition presents new photographs made on road trips across the U.S. Recording people and locations with subtle connections, the series features images that reference photography itself, investigating the physicality of the medium and the photographer’s quest to preserve what is fleeting.  Fraenkel Gallery is located at 49 Geary Street in San Francisco.

 

 

Left: Maria A. Guzmán Capron “Caracol” 2020, fabric, thread, batting and acrylic paint. Right: Linda Geary “Flower Power 2” 2020, oil on canvas.  Images courtesy of Berkeley Art Center.

Ongoing to March 26 – Midas: How Art Becomes Life & Life Becomes Art at Berkeley Art Center:  Featuring works by an intergenerational group of Bay Area artists, the show includes objects of inspiration and remnants from the studio alongside finished works. These objects hint at the ways in which artists absorb ideas and material culture, and then transcribe them into gestures, patterns, forms or even a way of life.  Exploding with exuberant color, sly humor, and surprising personality, the artworks in the show include painting, works on paper, textiles, ceramics, and sculpture. The exhibition serves as a testament to joy as a kind of strategy in the face of the absurdity of our current social and political situations.  This exhibit is curated by Squeak Carnwath and includes Ricki Dwyer, Linda Geary, Maria A. Guzmán Capron, Sahar Khoury, Jerry Leisure, Kyle Lypka & Tyler Cross,  and John Moore.  Berkeley Art Center is located at 1275 Walnut Street in Live Oak Park, Berkeley.

February 25, 12 noon on Zoom – Artists in Conversation: Join Ricki Dwyer, Linda Geary & Maria A. Guzmán Capron alongside guest curator Squeak Carnwath for a conversation about the mysteries and certainties of the creative process.  Register here.

 

Daisy May Scheff “20 Minute Birthday Dress” 2021, oil on linen.  Image courtesy of Ratio 3.

Ongoing to March 18 – Daisy May Scheff: Hid it Well in a Walnut Shell at Ratio 3:  Sheff presents an array of paintings that showcases the breadth and rapid evolution of her imaginative approach to object- and image-making. Varying in scale, media, and painting style, the pictures comprising the exhibition achieve a distinctive balance of abstraction, figuration, and intuitive composition, each offering a glimpse into Sheff’s uniquely evocative depictions of dreamlike narratives.  Ratio 3 is located at 2831A Mission Street in San Francisco.

 

Sahar Khoury “Untitled (Lola sitting on walnut rug slab in window)” 2021, stoneware, aluminum, cement, polystyrene, powder coated steel, rug remnants

Ongoing to February 18 – Sahar Khoury: Orchard at Rebecca Camacho Presents:  Khoury debuts an ensemble of two- and three-dimensional landscape constructions in metal, ceramic, paper-mâché and wood pruned from the artists’ own walnut and apple trees.  Khoury’s introduction of wood to her practice is one of seasonal maintenance turned material inquiry. In 2021 while an artist in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts, Khoury brought pruned walnut branches from her yard and tension suspended them in the studio window. Those same branches find their way into the chandelier mobile that hovers over the main space in this exhibition.   Rebecca Camacho Presents is located at 794 Sutter Street in San Francisco.

 

Livien Yin “Coaching Notes I” 2021, acrylic on gessoboard.  Image Courtesy of  Friends Indeed.

Ongoing to February 25 – Livien Yin: Ka-la-fo-ne-a at Friends Indeed Gallery:  The paintings in Ka-la-fo-ne-a continue Yin’s ongoing Paper Suns series, named after the Chinese-born “paper sons and daughters” who entered the United States during the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882 – 1943) by adopting forged identities through paper documentation.  Yin employs visual references from photographic archives of early Chinese Americans and Chinatown communities to imagine, and reimagine, the lives and futurities of these ”paper” identities. Yin’s process of recontextualization weaves between moments of history, documentary, and narrative to depict vignettes of leisure—from directly modifying historical photographs found through archival research to imagining new figures when working from an absence of archival visual representation.  Friends Indeed Gallery is located at 716 Sacramento Street in San Francisco.

 

 

Tucker Nichols “Untitled” 2022, mixed media.  Image courtesy of Gallery 16.

February 4 to March 25 – Tucker Nichols, Never Better at Gallery 16:  Northern California based artist Tucker Nichols creates iconographic works that transform the simplest objects into visual curiosities. Often drawing inspiration from nature, including his upbringing as the son of a prominent flower arranger, the artist layers various talismanic depictions of stones, plants and flowers in his sculptures, installations and drawings.  This solo exhibition features new paintings and sculptures.  Gallery 16 is located at 501 3rd Street in San Francisco.

 

 

David Wilson “Untitled” 2022, work on paper.  Image courtesy of Small Works SF.

Ongoing to February 26 – David Wilson: Framings presented by Small Works at Minnesota Street Project:   Oakland based artist David Wilson creates observational drawings based in direct experiences with the landscape and orchestrates site-based gatherings that draw together a wide net of artists, performers, filmmakers, chefs, and artists into collaborative relationships. This exhibition centers on two new large-scale works on paper and in turn, two new large scale wood frames made in an active collaboration between artist and framer. One large work, made in sumi ink while sitting through the Summer and early Fall on the northwest side of Mt Tam faces a second large work, made in watercolor while sitting through the late Fall on the southeast side of Mt Tam. Additionally, Framings features a selection of smaller works, a new screen print edition, and a day bed for enjoying a moment of repose.  Presented by Small Works, this exhibit takes place at Minnesota Street Project, located at 1275 Minnesota Street in San Francisco.

Saturday, February 5, 3pm to 4pm – Special Event:  In Song Sing On, a songbook Sing-a-Long This event is an inclusive group sing-a-long using a songbook compiled by artists David Wilson and Colter Jacobsen for the purpose of singing together.

 

 

Works in progress by Dana Hemenway, Kija Lucas and Alise Anderson.  Image courtesy of Recology AIR.

February 11 to 15 – Dana Hemenway, Kija Lucas, and Alise Anderson at Recology AIR:  The Recology San Francisco Artist in Residence (AIR) Program is an art and education initiative that awards Bay Area artists access to discarded materials, an unrestricted stipend, and an individual studio space. This exhibition marks the culmination of the residency that began in October of 2021 with artists Dana Hemenway, Kija Lucas and Alise Anderson.  Exhibition viewing dates are below, reservations are required.  Make a reservation here.

Friday, February 11 from 4:30–7:30pm and Saturday, February 12 from 12–3pm

Tuesday, February 15 from 5–7pm:  Artist talk by Dana Hemenway at 6pm and Kija Lucas 6:30pm (both talks will be live streamed on Instagram.

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