The long promised part deux of our California road trip...
This piece is quite a bit longer, and can be found a few blocks from Fecal Face Dot Gallery.
Woodcut piece by Tom Huck and a close up shot (in the close up you can see John taking the photo)
We found a new gallery on this visit that we have added to our SF favorites list called
Baer Ridgway Exhibitions. It's located at 172 Minna St. and is next door to another one of our favorites,
Catherine Clark Gallery.
At the time that we visited there were two exhibitions in progress. The area when you first walk in had "
Tom Huck: The Transformation of Brandy Baghead". This was a jaw-dropper! Tom Huck creates incredibly detailed wood cuts that depict gory, twisted and devilish images. Huck is from St. Louis, MO and his work can be found at
Evil Prints.
Another exhibition in progress at Baer was "Dark Americana: a group exhibitions featuring works that point to sinister aspects of American culture - excess, violence, fear, racism, torture, nuclear proliferation, Reaganomics, AIDS, homophobia, homelessness, and the art world, but do so with a certain sense of humor, while employing a form, style or material with traditional American roots." Above are a couple of photos of Seattle artists representing in the SF scene. To the left is a piece by Chris Crites and to the right in the foreground is a piece by Scott Fife.
Our next highlight was the Catherine Clark Gallery which is next door to Baer Ridgway. While we were in town the exhibitions featured were
Jim Barsness: Dharma Bums and
Philip Knol: Paradise Found.
The above picture is "Adam & Eve" by Jim Barseness
(Varnish Gallery)
One of our favorite galleries and one that we were very much looking forward to seeing again was
Varnish. We were not disappointed - they of course had a beautiful exhibition called "
Treacherous Gardens by Jennybird Alcantara"
Above are two pieces by Jennybird Alcantara. I absolutely loved seeing her work, the colors she uses are vivid and the detailing of her paintings and use of frames is brilliant.
We were saddened to find out that Varnish will be vacating their space due to Eminent Domain. If you're not familiar with what that means. Basically a San Francisco agency, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA), is eliminating 33 small, local businesses, including Varnish Fine Art, and numerous residences in order to demolish all properties and later resell the land. The TJPA is forcing Varnish, among the first tenants and years before the end of the lease, to vacate this September for an October 2009 demolition of its nearly 100 year old building.
On top of having to vacate a space that they have lovingly built their business, they also do not get any compensation for this as they are not the owners of the building. As anyone who's in the gallery business knows that exhibitions are planned a couple years in advanced - it's a devastating blow to find out that your building has been scheduled for demo. Our thoughts are with Varnish and hope that they are able to find another space and continue on.
Our last highlight of this trip was
Fecal Face Dot Gallery. We were lucky enough to see the tail end of the Jeremy Fish exhibit. The last time we were in San Francisco, we didn't get a chance to go into the gallery because we missed their operating hours. This time we checked ahead to make sure we'd get a chance to step inside. Not that you really have to go inside to be able to see the work, as it is a pretty small space that can be seen clearly from the outside. But we were wanting a close up of Fish's work as John is a big fan of his.
Here's John standing in front of the Jeremy Fish mural installation.
And the award for Softest Furr goes to this little cutie that we
fell in love with at the Lincart Gallery.
Ah yes, she knows how cute she is!
