HACKETT MILL - 5 CLAUDE - ARTHAUS - GALLERY 16

MUSEUM OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA - 1AM

SF ARTS COMMISSION - WIRE + NAIL - LOWER HATERS

07.15.11

(with assistance from Kathryn Arnold and RWM)



How to help people appreciate your art. Click Here.

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Hackett Mill Gallery: Brian Wall - Spatial Planes 1957-1966.

Comment by AB: Early welded painted steel sculptures by British sculptor Brian Wall, a member of the St. Ives artists' colony. Hard to believe some works are over fifty years old. They look like they could have been made yesterday. Well done; check it out.

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5 Claude Lane Gallery: InSight - Maya Kabat and Ross M. Fink. Curated by Scott S Jennings.

Comment by AB: Confident colorful palette knife paintings by Maya Kabat contrast nicely with intricate black and white mixed media works by Ross M. Fink. For those of you keeping score at home, Fink is 35 years older than Kabat.

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ArtHaus Gallery: Carolyn Meyer - New Paintings.

Review by Kathryn Arnold: Generous amounts of paint create almost impressionistic fields of subtle colors formed into cityscapes. Although scenes of New York City and San Francisco, they feel like Parisian past conventions with the hefty applications applied by palette knife. Colors, often pastels with neutrals, describe most artworks, with occasional variations such as a striking piece in blacks.

Review by RWM: Nice to see the art of Carolyn Meyer again. The pastel colors and thick paint soothe despite the emotional weight of the paintings. The city is not quite frenetic; instead one can bathe in the atmospherics. Though there is the occasional potential narrative, usually the paintings suggest all sorts of stories are underway within the denseness.

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Gallery 16: Jered Sprecher - Shadows of Friction; Wayne Smith - 1996.

Review by Kathryn Arnold: Jered Sprecher's grids are spectacular, inciting a desire to see what is absent from the centers... and also to see more of them (love grids!). Along with those, a table is set up with what might be considered a city-scape-although-not. Canvases and installation blend varying degrees of geometric abstraction with occasional expressionist gestures. Worth paying a visit.

Review by RWM: Unusual views of the Western landscape by Wayne Smith are filtered through fine artistic mesh. One can appreciate the light in the grand shiny canyons. Here is Monument Valley like you have never seen it before. The work reminds that these printed pieces are art first, grandeur later.

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Museum of the African Diaspora: Soulful Stitching - Patchwork Quilts by Africans (Siddis) in India.

Comment by AB: You don't normally associate Africans with India, and you for sure don't associate India with patchwork quilts, but here it all comes together-- riotously colorific quilts handmade by the Siddis, descendants of East African slaves, sailors and merchants who now live in the Karantaka and Goa highlands along India's western coast. Remarkable examples of how traditional art survives and evolves across cultures and over time, yet in many ways remains the same.

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1:AM Gallery: When We Were Kids.

Artists: James Garcia, Chris DeLeon, Minette Mangahas.

Comment by AB: They say you can't go back, but these three artists maintain that you can.

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San Francisco Arts Commission 155 Grove Street Gallery: Terry Berlier - Open Secret.

Comment by AB: According to the expository, Terry Berlier's hypnotic neon, wood and light installation references spent nuclear fuel and stored nuclear waste. While in the process of being entranced by action, I hear a viewer remark that it looks like a giant eyeball. And so it does. A nighttime visit is recommended

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Wire + Nail Gallery: Collapse - New Work by Luca Nino Antonucci.

Comment by AB: Luca Nino Antonucci tells me his graphics endeavor on exhibit here is inspired by the deep-space photography of our intergalactic eye in the sky, the Hubble telescope.

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Lower Haters Gallery: Dark Surroundings.

Artists: Andrei Bousikov, Angela Casserly, Jeremy Walterhouse, Scott Greenwalt, Spencer Gray.

Comment by AB: Eerie undertaking here. BOO!!!

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