art shows & news

With his most recent body of work, Adam Friedman combines traditional landforms with some truly interplanetary shit. His mixed media pieces initially come off a little like illustrations in a scientific textbook, but closer inspection reveals worlds where land is replaced by oceans and mountains by lava-like flows. It seems that physics as we know it doesn’t really apply to Friedman’s created worlds.

But let’s sum it all up with a quote Friedman himself uses on the front page of his website; the abstract concepts in this quote absolutely explain what is going on in these works.

“Grateful for our departure? One more expression of human vanity. The finest quality of this stone, these plants and animals, the (landscape) is the indifference manifest to our presence, our absence, our coming, our staying or our going. Whether we live or die is a matter of absolutely no concern whatsoever to the (land). Let men in their madness blast every city on earth into black rubble and envelop the entire planet in a cloud of lethal gas - the canyons and hills, the springs and rocks will still be here, sunlight will filter through, water will form and warmth shall be upon the land and after sufficient time… things (will) take a different and better course.”

Edward Abbey - Desert Solitaire, 1968

Friedman currently has a solo show up at the Eleanor Harwood Gallery in San Francisco. Check it out!

There’s only 10 days left to this epic show at White Walls Gallery in San Francisco, but if you haven’t scoped out Philly-based artist AJ Fosik’s new works yet, get over to White Walls right away!!! Fosik offers a brand new rendition of classic wall-mounted animal heads using thin sheets of cut wood, nails, and paint. The show, entitled Aliens In Our Midst, features mythical beasts crafted in a way that makes them reminiscent of ’80s neon color palettes meets Eastern architectural ornamentation. See more of his recent work on his Flickr or MySpace.

www.whitewallssf.com
www.myspace.com/aaaajaaaay
www.flickr.com/photos/36098170@N06/

With a style that embraces creatures as well as tribal influences and sophisticated patterns, Skinner is an artist who truly knows his style, yet never becomes boring. Skinner’s pieces, which feature everything from helmeted guards to reptilian creatures and evil castles with faces, might remind you of a nerd’s favorite fantasy book by description, but that is as far as the comparison goes. His illustrated works do indeed hint at a world of marvel and mystery beyond human eyes, but they do so in a way that is exploding with color, similar to a carefully-controlled psychedelic trip. Things as simple as houses, when turned out by Skinner, become intricate, geometrically-lined portals into starry universes.

On Thursday June 4th, starting at 6:00pm, the 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco will house a solo show of Skinner’s works. Entitled Worship Thee Kindly The Dark Hand That Guides Me, the exhibit will run until June 27th and will be Skinner’s first major solo show, believe it or not. It promises to be an EPIC show with lots and lots of titles that are suitable for metal songs. So epic, in fact, that they even use the word epic on the flyer, to describe the gorgeous installations that are bound to happen. Go view them for yourselves.

www.theartofskinner.com
www.111minnagallery.com

I can scarcely think of a better pairing of artists than the current show at the San Francisco branch of Gallery 1988, which features gig poster artist Daniel Danger and Daniel McCarthy. Both artist create pieces with heavy nature elements, stark color contrasts, and grandiose underlying messages that truly, truly appeal to the heartstrings of individuals who can understand slightly poetic sentiments. A truly amazing show, and I look forward to scoping it out 100% when I’m in the Bay Area the last day of the show, April 25th.

Daniel Danger’s we were waiting at the seams, bursting but through quiet means.

Dan McCarthy’s while you were sleeping.

www.nineteeneightyeight.com
1988watcher.blogspot.com

Every once in a while, I get really excited about a new artist, and Dennis Zimmermann is one who has definitely sparked my interest as of late. Despite the fact that he’s been holed up on the generally fine art, mom and pop-friendly art Whidbey Island for the past three years, it’s about time to get Zimmermann’s work to the larger cities. He doesn’t seem to have one style, but does have the unique ability to do it all, from graphic design and hand-drawn works to computer rendered, multi-layered beauties. Ultra Libre VII, shown above, features inkjet projections onto vellum paper, which can be a frustrating task for those of us who have ever worked with vellum. But what’s even more interesting is Zimmermann’s ability to crank computer-created works out into formats that can be accentuated by or even mistaken for a more hands-on approach.

Below is one of his newer pieces, on display now at the goforaloop Gallery in San Francisco.

zimmermannstudio.blogspot.com
www.goforaloop.com

I first stumbled across Jennifer Tong’s work at a recent 5-woman show at San Francisco’s 1988 Gallery. The show just ended yesterday, funny enough, but the works of two illustrators, Allison Torneros and Jennifer Tong, stood out above the rest. What those two ladies had that the other three did not have as firm a grasp of was solid technical ability coupled with inventive composition.

Jennifer Tong’s latest “Femme-Bot” series is like a child’s story book gone wrong through the infestation of half-clothed women. Mirror Mirror (above) features rich, contrasting colors, and Purple (below) is fascinating in its awkward fluidity. By using oil paints and watercolors in a way that makes them sometimes representative of crayons and colored pencil, Tong’s art provides a sense of familiar, juvenile comfort to even the most mature of adults.

www.nineteeneightyeight.com
www.jentong.com

With a Bachelors of Fine Arts and a Masters in Counseling Psychology, Laura Kimpton makes art that’s even more diverse than her education; she has a wide array of gallery installations, Burning Man sculptures, collage works, and encaustic pieces under her belt. Showcased above is one piece from her most recent creations that combines collages with textures and dripping waxes.

This Wednesday, March 18th, will be the opening reception for her latest show, His & Her: Line In The Middle, at the Project One Gallery in San Francisco. Her works will be showing alongside the sculptures of Jeff Schomberg.

www.jeffschomberg.com
www.laurakimpton.com
www.p1sf.com

Belltown’s beloved Suite 100 Gallery is becoming the Halogen Gallery starting this spring (and who knows when they’re going to change over their website URL). One of the “new” gallery’s first shows is “Technical Difficulties,” which features a good number of artists from California! This show revolves around artists’ takes of robots, technicalities, cyborgs, and more. Here are some notable individuals to check out for the show:

Dave Crosland is a former featured artist in Redefine (see interview here), and he is an illustrator that will be in Seattle later this month for the Emerald City ComicCon in early April. Be sure to visit him and say hello.

San Francisco’s Matt Linares, whose above image is coincidentally the image used on the promotional flyer for this show, is a painter whose works somehow fall between street art and sci-fi novel artwork.

NinjaGrl’s works seem a bit out of place in this show, but mastery of shading and color — in both marker and acrylics on wood — give her cutesy pieces clout.

www.suite100gallery.com
www.hiredmeat.com
www.myspace.com/kamikazecauser
www.ninjagrl.com
www.emeraldcitycomicon.com

Craft museums are always interesting places, even if you don’t care much for crafts yourself. Crafty folks just have an innate ability to create displays and installations that make good use of three-dimensional space without feeling cluttered. From now until almost the end of April 2009, the San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design will have an exhibit featuring works from over a dozen successful San Francisco-area graphic designers, and the exhibit’s designers craftily utilize objects and space to display the designs. Like an issue of Print magazine, the exhibit will showcase graphic design of all kinds, from websites to exhibit designs and print advertisements. The work represented will be just as diverse as the designers themselves.

Designers included are: Philippe Becker (Philippe Becker Design), Jennifer Bostic (Paper Plane Studio), Adam Brodsley and Eric Heiman (Volume Inc.), Josh Chen (Chen Design Associates), Tom Ingalls (Ingalls Design), Jennifer Jerde (Elixir Design), Mitchell Mauk (Mitchell Mauk Design), Sara Schneider (Chronicle Books), Michael Schwab (Michael Schwab Studio), Christopher Simmons (MINE), Barbara Vick (Barbara Vick Design), and Cinthia Wen (NOON). The show is curated by Michael Osborne (Michael Osborne Design).

www.sfmcd.com

Two months ago, I received a black journal. It was the project of a fifth grade class, and my task was to add my contributions and then pass it on in a week’s time. Although it was not a new idea to me, it was a lot of fun, despite the fact that this particular journal only made its rotation in the Seattle area.The film 1,000 Journals follows the project by Someguy, a San Francisco artist who one day decided to release 1,000 blank journals out into the world to see what happened to them. His journals, by contrast, ended up traversing the world.

Click here to read entire 1,000 Journals film review.