Openings, SF, November 6, 2008 - BTN Reviews

BTN Reviews Contributed to

HACKETT-FREEDMAN GALLERY
MARK WOLFE CONTEMPORARY ART
MARX & ZAVATTERO
San Francisco, 11.6.08

Hackett-Freedman Gallery:
Roland Petersen - A Natural Order
Artists: Roland Petersen

Hackett-Freedman Gallery brought together a series of early works by Roland Petersen from the 1960s, many of which are being shown for the first time. The works are representative of a tenet of Bay Area figurative painting, with which Petersen and his contemporaries such as David Park are associated. His bright canvases demonstrate his masterly command of working with the figure in an abstracted landscape of color contrasts and varying textures. What perhaps distinguishes his style in these pieces is the way in which the figure vibrates in a dynamic relationship with the background, working to carve out its own space, as happens in "August Afternoon."

Some Highlights: Roland Petersen

Roland Petersen

August Afternoon, 1967

***

Mark Wolfe Contemporary Art:
New Works
Artist: Danielle Giudici Wallis and Diem Chau

The Mark Wolfe gallery brought together the works of Danielle Giudici Wallis and Diem Chau, who both have styles that call forth the crafted quality of their works and who both use materials that emphasize the tactile nature of their surfaces. Wallis' works play with the ideas of private and public through domestic objects such as umbrellas, dressers, and chairs that are covered or constructed with rugged materials such as roof shingles and brick, materials commonly reserved for external construction. (An example is "Portable Shelter"). The fabrication of these items with construction "ingredients" complements the delicate pieces presented by Diem Chau. Chau goes in the opposite direction by draping porcelain cups that frame silk transparent sheets and their detailed embroidery of "drawn" hands, feet, and figures. The fragility and endearing nature of the works is also reflected in Chau's crayons and No. 2 pencils, potentially domestic items of childhood innocence carefully carved into mini-figurine "netsuke."

Some Highlights: Danielle Giudici Wallis

Portable Shelter

Some Highlights: Diem Chau

Hand

***

Marx & Zavattero:
The Impact Curve
Artist: William Swanson

Swanson's works are explorations in post-apocalyptic landscapes and cityscapes, horizons that also defy gravity and spread amorphically like collages as in "Collapse Cycle." Despite the imaginings of a future of run-down machinery and garbage often suspended in weightless silhouettes, Swanson's pieces are bright, colorful, and even cheerful. They adhere to a strong sense of both architectural and graphic design and convey a beauty from the images of humanless wastelands. If he does not do so already, I hope that Swanson would not take offense at the suggestion that he create T-shirts in the same style. I can imagine a following.

Some Highlights: William Swanson

Collapse Cycle, 2008

***

Articles and content copyright BTN Art Reviews
(Visual Culture Visits, http://viscultvis.blogspot.com/)
2008. All rights reserved.

Openings, SF, October 10, 2008 - BTN Reviews

BTN Reviews Contributed to

VARNISH FINE ART
GALLERY 1988
STEVEN WOLF FINE ARTS
San Francisco, 10.10.08

Varnish Fine Art:
Fallen: Carlos Huante and Jose Ismael Fernandez
Artists: Carlos Huante and Jose Ismael Fernandez

Fallen pairs a collection of works by two artists who capture the human form in movement, dynamism, flight, and anguish. Carlos Huante's materials are described as digital media on archival paper and they combine the qualities of pencil, charcoal, and water color, and through digital enhancements create a palette of rich and subtle dark hues. His renderings of the human figure and monstrous derivations thereof appropriately incorporate characteristics from film, graphic novels, and tattoo art and when combined with his often religious subject matter, they make Huante a wonderful candidate for a new rendition of Dante's Inferno. Through primarily bronze sculpture, Jose Ismael Fernandez, like Huante, takes on the human form and often religious and sometimes possibly mythical subject matter. In some works such as "Fallen," Fernandez aligns himself with the figural forms and movement of sculptors such as Bernini. In others such as "Jane" or "Struggle," he freely enlarges, elongates, and alters the human form to convey a spiritual or emotional strain that the body manifests.

Some Highlights: Carlos Huante and Jose Ismael Fernandez

Carlos Huante

Vices, 2005

Jose Ismael Fernandez

Fallen, 2008

***

Gallery 1988:
Monster Art Rally: A Frightening Show of Plush and Custom Vinyl Creatures
Artists: 12PUNT3, 2CENTS, ADRIAN PINA, ANNA CHAMBERS, BEASTLIES, BRANDT PETERS, BUFF MONSTER, BYTEDUST, CAMERON TIEDE, CHET ZAR, CHOCOLATE LOG INDUSTRIES, CRUMP, CRYSTAL BEDFORD, DAN GOODSELL, DGPH, DOKTOR A, DR. BAO-NVC CREW, EL MAZ & LINA, BRITTON, EYEBONE, FORESTPRINTS, HEIDI KENNEY, JAKE HENZLER, JAMOUS, JAYSON THIESSEN, JEFF MCMILLAN, JELLIBAT, JEN RAREY, KANO, KATHIE OLIVAS, KOADZN, LANA CROOKS, LAURA GRANLUND, LEECIFER, LITTLE DEAR, LOST MONSTER, MAOMA, MONSTER FACTORY, MORNINGLORI, MOTOR BOT, MYCRYPTONAUTS, REBELWOOKIEE, SERENA KUHL, SEWING STARS, SPASMODICA, STEFF BOMB, SUICIDE KITTENS, TAPETENTIERE, TIM TSUI

For Monster Art Rally, Gallery 1988 owner, Katherine Cromwell, gathered together a long list of artists with whom she has worked in the past and asked each of them to create a set of monsters for this show. The result is a dense collection of one-of-a-kind plush and vinyl objects. Some parts of the collection move in their own creative direction while others work in a broad but shared gama-go/kogepan-style sensibility. The pieces are colorful, compact, and present a balance between a strong design sense and cuteness overload. The show is part elevation of the art and craft of inventive plush creations and part etsy-type showcase that has a clear awareness of its own irresistible charm.

Some Highlights: Leslie Levings

"Beastlie" in captivity
***

Steven Wolf Fine Arts:
Dustin Fosnot: Cyanide
Artist: Dustin Fosnot

In this show, Dustin Fosnot inventively experiments with materials that have a photographic quality: paintings created from a type of adhesive photo paper and mattresses treated to react to exposure. The glossy adhesive paper invites a tactile experience from its seemingly tacky surface on which Fosnot has “splattered” delicate dots of white along with other external elements such as dust, hair, and fox tails. Similarly inviting outside elements into the white gallery space are his “cyan” mattresses that were covered with a cyanide-based chemical solution, exposed and darkened in the sun, all except for the "photographed" portions of the mattress on which Fosnot himself lay his body during the exposure. The result is a collection of pieces that poignantly refer to the works' constructed nature and the equally ephemeral nature of bodily traces and memory.

Some Highlights: Dustin Fosnot

***

Articles and content copyright BTN Art Reviews
(Visual Culture Visits, http://viscultvis.blogspot.com/)
2008. All rights reserved.

Openings, SF, October 2, 2008 - BTN Reviews

BTN Reviews Contributed to

ROOM FOR PAINTING ROOM FOR PAPER
BAER RIDGWAY EXHIBITIONS
CAFE ROYALE
San Francisco, 10.02.08

Room for Painting Room for Paper:
Inaugural exhibition presenting
Judith Belzer's The Inner Life of Trees: Recent Paintings and
Tama Hochbaum's Composite Trees: Digital Photographs 07>08.
Artists: Judith Belzer and Tama Hochbaum

RFPRFP has put together a lovely show of works that complement each other nicely. In the Room for Painting, Judith Belzer's The Inner Life of Trees: Recent Paintings presents a series of canvases whose representational strategies include the lights and darks of grains of wood. The imagery evokes not only the material quality of wood, but also topographical lines of landscapes, ocean waves, and sound waves, conveying echoes, rumors, and a sense of narrative. Tama Hochbaum's Composite Trees: Digital Photographs 07>08 in the Room for Paper tells its own tale from composite pieces created from photos taken from a laptop camera while traveling. The imagery ranges from still "portraits" of trees with titles such as "Christmas Eve at Rite Aid" that suggest warm summer nights to pieces that abstract the landscape into a interlacing of forms. The show was well attended and RFPRFP self-publishes useful hard-cover books for each artist.

Some Highlights: Judith Belzer and Tama Hochbaum

Judith Belzer

The Inner Life of Trees, #2, 2008

Tama Hochbaum

Evening at Gimghoul, 2008

***

Baer Ridgway Exhibitions:
Tim Roda: Family Album
Artist: Tim Roda

Tim Roda offers a vision of his personal and familial world whose particulars he hopes will resonate with different viewers. His Family Album, consisting of photos created in collaboration with his wife and son, exudes a liberated sense of carnivalesque play. Each photo has a cinematic stage set with props/toys of masks, wigs, and costumes that Roda and his son use as a launching point for poses, looks, and an expression of love between father and son. The props for performance also include the hardware usually reserved for behind the film camera: lights, wires, cords, and ropes. Roda weaves these items into some of his narratives and improvisations, tinging the scenes with a haunting feeling of danger and vulnerability. Dare I say Pasolini meets Mr. Bungle? I got there on the late side, so perhaps the show was better attended earlier on. I highly recommend a visit.

Some Highlights: Tim Roda

13.10 Which Fulfills the Prophecy of Christ's Second Coming, 2008

***

Cafe Royale:
Jessalyn Aaland: Secret Garden
Artist: Jessalyn Aaland

Inspired by Hogson Burnett's novel of the same title, Aaland's collages build landscapes out of figures, architectural structures, and colorful foods such as cherries and donuts, landscapes in which innocence and a sense of resolution are possible. In line with her aim to create works that share her internal place of calm, Aaland confidently values the white areas within the frame as breathing room in her world. This is curator, Alicia's, last show at Cafe Royale, which was well-attended by a supportive crowd.

Some Highlights: Jessalyn Aaland

Articles and content copyright BTN Art Reviews
(Visual Culture Visits, http://viscultvis.blogspot.com/)
2008. All rights reserved.