July 9 - August 13, 2016
Exhibition Statement Between Worlds started with a desire to curate an exhibition that responded to the Syrian refugee crisis. The exhibition has evolved and broadened to encompass an examination of the process of uprooting and transplantation in a human context. All of the artists selected have been affected directly or indirectly by displacement. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area our community, and particularly our artist community, has been enriched by cultural diversity. But those who arrive seeking a home, come to an uncomfortable realization that they are, in fact, not home, but between worlds. They look back and long for their homeland, but it is a place that no longer exists or would not welcome them back. Their adopted home, a place to start anew, makes them feel like outsiders, their knowledge, skills and education devalued. They find themselves longing for a place that may not exist. Safe haven is not the same as home. And, in today’s world, a place of refuge is often neither safe nor welcoming. This exhibition shares the collective experience of artists with San Francisco Bay Area ties, who reside in this space, Between Worlds …. Michael Yochum, co-curator
Catalog designed by Michael Yochum Arc Gallery © 2016
Participating Artists Carlo Abruzzese Nanci Amaka Natalya Burd Carlos Cartagena Rodney Ewing Michal Gavish Taraneh Hemami Golbanou Moghaddas, Maja Ruznic Michal Wisniowski Wanxin Zhang co-curated by: Michael Yochum, Arc Gallery Jack Fischer, Jack Fischer Gallery poetry by: Jason Bayani Catalog essay by: Bean Gilsdorf OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, July 9th, 7-9pm ARTIST TALK & BRUNCH CLOSING RECEPTION: Saturday, August 13th, 11am-3pm
In-between essay by Bean Gilsdorf A migrant's life is often characterized by the losses inherent to dislocation. The initial dispossession of birthplace and subsequent adaptation to new circumstances makes it impossible to return home again; suddenly, one belongs nowhere at all. But there is also great potential to be found in this condition of in-between-ness. To survive the temporary-transitory, one must cultivate a state of mind that is infinitely adaptable, accustomed to working within contingencies and nuances—potentially, a generative state for any artist. In this exhibition, in-between-ness is expressed in any number of overlapping ways: the distance of relocations; the presence or absence of support; who or what was left behind. The works express a series of overlapping searches for place, identity, and inheritance, always revolving around the central notion of "home," a concept that is continually redefined. The exhibition opens with an encapsulation of the contemporary sense of global flux complicated by myriad social and economic factors. Carlo Abruzzese has mined fifty years of migration data from the United Nations and the Migration Policy Institute to produce Diaspora. The labor of this work—in which each one of its 2520 square inches represents 500,000 migrants—evokes the labor of relocation, and the very human costs of time, effort, and hardship. Spanning six multicolored panels, the work reminds us that migration is the net effect of mobilized societies, global networks, and the upheavals of war and terrorism. For some, migration and passage are not trajectories with particular end points—movement is continuous and takes the form of a constant excavation and re-examination of the past, both personal and political. Golbanou Moghaddas mines Iranian symbology for her folkloric threeprint series of etchings that depict the birth and journey of a hybrid human-dove-turtle who seems to have two homes, but really has none at all. The images in From Water to Water are rich with potent symbols, but the tale ends in tragedy when the hybrid creature drowns upon nearing her destination. Rodney Ewing's Portals are glass-paneled doors with silkscreened portraits and diagrams that audit the cross-continental passage of slaves and the subsequent re- formation of selfhood. A quote from James Baldwin reads, in part, "Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self: in which case, it is best that the garment
be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one's nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned." Importantly, the historical texts and images are screened onto the glass so that, in the act of reading, the viewers are also looking through—to a place that is just in front of them. The work is a view into the past, and a way forward. Though their works are formally very different, both Natalya Burd and Maja Ruznic's paintings can be characterized overall by the impression of historical recreation. Burd's Something Like a Sense of Detachment and Flightless Bird are created by building up graceful, faint marks on long, scroll-like papers to create a partially readable past, one that is flattened by the distance of time. The monochromatic, metallic paintings are delicate, almost ghostly. In contrast, the richly colored figures in Ruznic's Pile and Woman Washing Feet have a definitive, palpable weight. The large canvases of partially abstracted characters seem conjured simultaneously from memory and imagination, a way of wrestling with issues of history, trauma, and the body. For many migrants,family plays a critical role in defining—and maintaining—a sense of place in the world. Carlos Cartagena's Estatuas de Sal paints a traditional family grouping of mother, father, and two sons in silhouette on an uneven hillside. Energetic bright-orange strokes on their torsos appear as fire burning within each figure, though it remains ambiguous whether this is a blaze of love for each other, or for the homeland that recedes smokily behind them. The title, of course, refers to the parable of Lot's wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt as punishment for looking back at the home she was leaving behind. The members of the Family Portrait by Michal Gavish are depicted in watery strokes on overlapping translucent fabrics. With somber faces and hands neatly clasped in front, her Hungarian ancestors are ghosts revived from formal portraits, brought into the present to be remembered and cherished. An embroidered panel illustrates "diaspora DNA," establishing a connection to the artist's relatives at the genetic level. Taraneh Hemami's collected family photographs, with the people excised, are the basis for her Absence series of layered collages. If photography is still a form of proof, then the outlines of people who are no longer there shape a tribute to their presence, while the locations in the photos ground their nonappearance in a documentary reality. Bean Gilsdorf
The notion of forming an identity or remaking the self in a middle territory distinguishes many artworks in the exhibition. Wanxin Zhang's The Wanderer is an autobiographical work that grew out of the artist's experiences of coming to America and then returning to China. The sculpture stands forty-six inches high—roughly the size of a child—and wears a gas mask, a reference to both psychic and physical protection from the perceived pollutants of both countries. Michal Wisniowski (who grew up between Poland, refugee camps in Denmark, and post-unification Germany) hearkens back to his Communist childhood with a set of posters that juxtapose Soviet-era figuration with the messages of modern tech companies. By using his own face as the model, he defines himself as the nexus point for the flow of past and future, blending the old world with the new while retaining the aesthetics inherent to both kinds of propaganda. And finally, the soft sculptures by Nanci Amaka, Ejije and Onye-Obia (The Visitor), are crafted from wax-print cotton and wool stuffed with polyester fiber. Cocooned inside each is a goldplated human tooth—that forensic marker of identity when all else is lost. In this case, the tooth is physically and symbolically preserved within its swaddling of cloth and wadding, creating a potent metaphor: perhaps the only real home is the self, something we carry within us everywhere we go. Bean Gilsdorf Editor in Chief, Daily Serving
Bean Gilsdorf
Curator’s Statement Not in, not out. ”emigre”, “refugee”, “outsider”, “other”? In thinking of this exhibition where the artists are all transplants it comes to me that this is really a misnomer .I think we really are all resident aliens. All of us no matter if we were born in this country or not have the genetic material which as our geneticists are finding out carry the trauma of being an outsider . This trauma explains to me the racism that has exists everywhere. If there is an “other”, we can blame everything on them. But of course this fact escapes all racists. I have been asked to write a short piece that perhaps can go a small way towards an understanding of what might be considered the dilemma of the “foreign” artist. “I am an artist “ is already off putting enough, difficult enough, and alienating enough that to add a refugee, immigrant status just stacks the odds against you . A quote I saw recently is actually relevant: ”an artist understands they have a responsibility to enlighten empower and inform”. I wish I knew who said this. None of the artists in this exhibition are taking the easy road. Informing others of my otherness doubles the pain for everyone. As I said earlier we all seek to blame. Having an artist hold up a mirror to us, and to themselves as well, is not easy on anyone. Having moved to this country at the age of 11; speaking no English; looking very white; passing, yet not; I found that, in fact, no matter how white I may have looked, I still managed to draw the ire and insults of every racial group in my incredibly racially mixed neighborhood of Washington Heights in New York . Well that time came and went. Now I look whiter than ever and do not have to face that shit any more; though I see it every day. The work in this exhibition makes an attempt at parsing out that heartbreak of not belonging; the longing for place which is really inexplicable to a child. How do you explain absence; that hole that will never be whole again? Jack Fischer, owner Jack Fischer Gallery 311 Potrero Ave. San Francisco CA
Jack Fischer Gallery at Minnesota Street Projects 1275 Minnesota St. San Francisco CA
Carlo Abruzzese
Diaspora My art integrates the disparate worlds of fine art and quantitative information, creating images that encourage the viewer to re-interpret the world around us. The artwork for this show is a transformation of statistical data taken from historical patterns of disapora over the past 50 years and woven into a work of fine art. I use simple materials (colored and graphite pencils, rulers and drafting film) to create complex, informationrich art. My process is labor intensive. Instead of using a computer to generate layouts and designs, I sort through the numbers and graphs, collate information, sketch out designs, and then draft and color. This allows me to digest the information; the final product not only accurately describes the quantities, but the qualities of the new ‘map’ I have created. My background as an architect has greatly influenced how I approach art. An architect takes information and translates it into built form. The intent is to make a functional, beautiful object. My art uses this same process, creating images from information that evoke discourse and insight into our world.
540 Alabama Street, Studio 208 phone: 415-626-0366 San Francisco, CA 94110 email: carlo@abruzzese.net website: www.abruzzese.net
EDUCATION
Harvard University Master of Architecture University of California at Berkeley Bachelor of Arts in Architecture FSU Art/Architecture History Program, Florence, Italy
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2006 2005
Access Denied, Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico Creative Labor, SOMARTS Gallery, San Francisco, CA Beautiful Data, de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA Obsidere, Alterspace Gallery, San Francisco, CA Endangered Languages, Root Division, San Francisco, CA FourSquared, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA Weaving Cultures, Gaylon & Cullis Gallery, Greensboro College, Greensboro, North Carolina Catalyst, Gallery Route One Annual Juried Show, Point Reyes Station, CA Maker Faire, MONCA (Museum of Northern California Art), Chico, CA Left Brain Meets Right Brain, DG717 Gallery, San Francisco, CA Mapping Cultural Landscapes: Re-interpreting Bay Area Demographics, de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA Almost Together, David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA Introductions 2012, Root Division, San Francisco, CA DE@40, Developing Environments, San Francisco, CA traces. threads. surfaces, a.Muse Gallery, San Francisco, CA West Coast Biennal, Museum at Turtle Bay, Redding, CA The H Show, Root Division, San Francisco, CA Road Trip, 1870 Gallery, Belmont, CA Summer Exhibition, Wit Gallery, Lenox, MA Beyond Sea and Sky, a.Muse Gallery, San Francisco, CA The Last Show, Belcher Street Gallery, San Francisco, CA Reflections of the Bay, California Modern Art Gallery, San Francisco, CA Landscape/Waterscape, Global Art Venue Gallery, Seattle, WA Terrain, Studio Gallery, San Francisco, CA 20/20 - 20th Anniversary Show, Belcher Street Gallery, San Francisco, CA Winter Exhibition, Mad River Post, San Francisco, CA
GRANTS & RESIDENCIES 2016 2015 2013 2012
Santa Fe Art Institute Artist-in-Residence de Young Museum Artist-in-Residence Vermont Studio Center Residency and grant Center for Cultural Innovation Creative Capacity Fund Grant
TEACHING/PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Architect self-employed, 1991–present Visiting Intructor Department of Architecture, University of California at Berkeley 1986-8 Critic/Guest Juror Architecture Design Studios, (UC Berkeley, CCA, Boston Art Center, Roger Williams College)
Carlo Abruzzese
Carlo Abruzzese
Diaspora acrylic, colored pencil and graphite on mylar 84� x 30� (single piece in sections)
Diaspora shows the shifting destinations and growth of migrant populations in the world over the past 50 years. It is divided into 6 sections. Each section is a ‘map’ of the world from a different decade (on the left is 1960 and 1970, in the middle is 1980 and 1990, and on the right is 2000 and 2010). Each color represents a different continent or region (North America - red, South America - silver, Europe - blue, Africa - green, etc). Each shade of a color is a different country within the continent. The size of a continent/country is based on the migrant population size (1” square = 500,000 migrants). All information is from the United Nations and the Migration Policy Institute.
Carlo Abruzzese
Nanci Amaka Mimic The Mimic lives in the space between wings. The space between an echo and a voice. The call and the response. It is the surface of a mirror turned to the world. The migrant is a mimic with an unquenching nostalgia for the idea of home. To survive, it is constantly adapting. Yet, it is becoming a foreigner in its hometown and still a stranger in its neighborhood. The house I live in is as far away as you can get from where I was born. It is also the house that my husband’s mother grew up in. This piece is made with items from that house and those I’ve carried with me for decades.
Nanci Amaka Original Text (Hawaii, USA)
Ihé Di Ka
Ejije
Ihé Di Ka bi n’ímé ohèrè dí n’etiti nkù. N’ ímé ohèrè dí n’etítí mgbamejije n’ólú. íkpọ-okwú na nzaghachí. Ọ bụ ihé n’élú mírọ atụgharìrì n’uwà
Ejije bi na etiti nku abuo Na etiti uda olu na okwu Na oku na iza oku Obu ihu enyo atugharili ka o na ele uwa.
onye-ijè (pilgrim or traveler) / ọnye-ọbia (immigrant, visitor) bu Ihé Di Ka n’éché échìchè nk’anaghí éményọ, gbasírí ezi n’ulọ ya. Ọchọr’ídí ndù, o kwesìrì í na-agbanwe mgbe nilé. Mana ọ búwala onye-ọbia n’obodo ya.
Onye mbia abia bu ejije nwere nnukwu aguu maka ebe osi bia. Iji di ndu, ona acho ighomi omume ebe obi oge obula. Kama, ona adikwa ka obu onye obodo ozo na obodo nke osi bia ma burukwa onye obia na ebe obi.
Ulo m bi tèrè ézigbo anya sité n’ébé a muru m. o bukwa úlọ ebe nnedi m tolitèrè. Ejìrì m ihé ndi m huru n’ulo ahu na ihe m bùrù n’obi m ruó ọtútú afo irí wẹẹ mẹẹ Nkà nke a. Njide Translation (Lagos, Nigeria)
Ulo ebe m bi di anya nke ukwuu na ebe amuru m. Obukwa na ulo a mu bi ka nne di m toro oge obu umuaka. Ihe eji mee ihe a bu ufodi ihe ndi si na ulo ahu nakwa ndi nkem chikotara kemgba otutu afo. Josephine Translation (Texas, USA)
Nanci Amaka is an interdisciplinary conceptual artist exploring ideas surrounding trauma, identity, memory and the liminal
spaces between experience and language. Having spent her formative years in a rural rainforest village in Nigeria, her paintings and drawings explore global displacement due to widespread ecological destruction. Her sound sculptures and textile pieces address the effect of trauma on our sense of identity. Nanci received a BA in Visual Critical Studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an MFA from California College of the Arts. She now lives and works on a hill overlooking Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2016 2015 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008
Santa Cruz Scars, Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, Santa Cruz, CA (residency & performance) Nanci Amaka | Beast, Bermudez Projects, Los Angeles, CA (solo exhibition & performance) Touch Me - Black & White, Modern Makers, Niehoff Urban Studio, Cincinnati, OH (Installation & Sound) Tell Me - Black & White, Modern Makers, Harvest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH (Interactive Installation) Whispered Secrets - Dark Desires; The Erotic Lives of Black Women, Center for Sex & Culture, San Francisco, CA Fatima, International Center for Photography, New York, NY (Performance & Sound) Strangers' Scar, Levi’s© Pop Up Shop, San Francisco, CA (Performance) Sethe’s Back, California College of the Arts MFA Exhibit, San Francisco, CA (Performance) Anarcha, California College of the Arts MFA Exhibit, San Francisco, CA (Installation & Performance) Fatima, California College of the Arts, The Grotesque Body and Humor, San Francisco, CA (Lecture) Amaka | Anarcha, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Art of Crossing the Street, Chicago, IL (Lecture) The Debate, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA (Performance) Post Colonial Infants - Not Enough Time II, Playspace Gallery, San Francisco, CA (Performance) Three Women - Home Is Something I Carry With Me, Southern Exposure Gallery, San Francisco, CA (Sound Sculpture Installation) The Most Precious. Galleri BOB, Bergsjøn, Sweden (Installation & Sound) Rafflesia River - Rafflesia; Corpse Flower, Playspace Gallery, San Francisco, CA (Installation) Onyebuchi - Not Enough Time, Playspace Gallery, San Francisco, CA (Performance) Grace, Lollapalooza© Music Festival, Grant Park, Chicago, IL (Painting Installation) Refugee Nation - Black Harvest Film Festival, Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, IL Nile Niger Senegal Congo Orange Limpopo Zambezi, School of the Art Institute of Chicago BFA Exhibit, Chicago, IL
email: nanciamaka@gmail.com website: http://www.nanciamaka.com Nanci Amaka
Nanci Amaka
Mimic audio recording
Ejije gold-plated human tooth (inside), poly-fiber, wax-print cotton, wool approx. 43" circumference
Onye-Obia (The Visitor) gold-plated human tooth (inside), poly-fiber, wax-print cotton, wool approx. 43" circumference
Onye-Obia (The Visitor) ink, watercolor on paper 26” x 40”
Nanci Amaka
Onye-Ije (The Traveler) ink, watercolor on paper 26” x 40”
Jason Bayani I find it funny that many of the tools I have to deal with my anxiety revolve around pronouncing location, space, and identification: "Where are you right now?", "What's your name?". If I can grasp those things, it will help to settle any unease, and yet, those are the questions I am always grappling with, regardless of my current emotional state. To me, understanding location and space is understanding identity and the more I can find a greater sense of the spaces I've inhabited the clearer the picture becomes. The few stories I've been able to accumulate from my parents and older relatives about their lives in the Philippines seem to employ a sense of magic or the fantastic within them. There's a casual acceptance of things that aren't grounded in reality. I wanted this retelling of my parent's immigration story to use a bit of magical realism and counter it with harsh, sobering reflection. What interests me most about exploring our existence in this country as Filipino immigrants are the things that don't get talked about. Culturally we tend to gloss over or are discouraged from exploring what is hurtful and harmful. To adhere to that is a kind of erasure. I don't just want the agency to tell my story, but to also scrutinize and interrogate it.
email: jason@kearnystreet.org website: http://jasonbayani.com/
EDUCATION: 2010 1999
MFA, Creative Writing, Saint Mary’s College of California, Moraga, CA BA, English -Creative Writing; Minor -Theatre Arts, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
PUBLICATIONS 2016 2014 2013 2011 2012
Year 12 & God of the City , poetry, Arroyo Literary Review Wanting What You Can’t Have Anymore, poetry, East Bay Review Amulet, BOOK, Write Bloody Publishing Kein/Munich and Troubadour, POETRY, Tandem II Today the role of Bruce Willis will be played by my dad... , poetry, Fourteen Hill For Joseph, Who Drowned in the Creek, poem, Muzzle Magazine Wanting What You Can’t Have Anymore, poem, East Bay Review Ardenwood B-Boys and Sonnet for E-40, poem, Learn Then Burn, Write Bloody Publishing July.
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS: 2016 2015 2010
Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center SF’s United States of Asian America Festival Presented Artist) Kundiman Writing Workshop Fellowship, Fordham University, Nominee: Norma Farber First Book Award Kundiman Writing Workshop Fellowship, Fordham University,
SELECTED FEATURES: 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2010 2009
Talking Bodies Center for Art & Thought Los Angeles, CA (06/16) Whale and Jazz Festival, Point Arena, CA (05/16) Lunada Literary Series, San Francisco, CA (09/15) Boston Poetry Slam, Boston, MA (07/15) Integral Theory Conference at Sonoma State University, Sonoma, CA (07/15) The Anthem at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, CA (05/15) Quiet Lightning: Under the Influence, San Francisco, CA (10/14) Voices of Gold California Poet Teachers in the Schools Petaluma, CA (10/14) Poison Pen Reading Series, Houston, TX (5/13) Salzburg Poetry Slam, Salzburg, AU (2/13) Slam Train (Munich Department of Arts and Culture), Munich, DE (2/13) Zurich Poetry Slam, Zurich, CH (2/13) Studio One Reading Series, Oakland, CA (4/12) Literary Death Match’s 100th Episode, San Francisco, CA (10/10) Sulu Series, Washington, DC (6/19/10) and New York, NY June (6/10) Loft Literary Center, Minneapolis, MN (4/10) Bringing Back Kerouac Reading Series, Oahu, HI (6/09)
Jason Bayani
Prologue by Jason Bayani
My mother has been American for one year longer than my father. It was cold the first day he saw her. It was the first day he saw his own breath. I have an older brother, too young to remember the year she was missing. But he knows what it's like when one of them leaves. He’s always been what I am not. He’ll always be the most ready. They made me from clay found on a Virginia beach. and took me across the country. Five days on the road. There was nothing to discover. Every journey isn't meant to serve an awakening of ourselves. My parents wandered to save their children. They were not looking for anything to run towards. The only struggle was in letting go. We moved to San Francisco and lived next to the animals at the zoo, next to an ocean that was the only thing connecting us to home. One night my mother opened her stomach and asked my father to place me there for safekeeping. Every day they’d coax the fires in her belly. At night, we listened to the songs of lost creatures. We were at home with every living thing that wasn’t home.
I wonder what it is like, to give birth to a child that will belong to another country. Who becomes the foreigner, then? Which one of you is truly displaced? When our ancestors saw the first unfamiliar ship arrive on our shores, we were given two prices to pay, the one they would force upon us, and the one that comes with knowing there will be more and there is somewhere the ships come from that is far away from here. So what do I get to be in this country? The birth of a new world for my parents or the death of an old one? There is a price to knowing that you are both a thing that creates and destroys by being. And yet, still, you will be loved. And to be loved will never be painless.
Jason Bayani
Natalya Burd There is the impression of a train going on a long journey, but in this instance, it is a journey through the time of human memory. I work from old photographs, studying images of people from varying countries and time periods. Looking at their faces though the filter of retrospection, I see human beings swept by larger forces. Like leaves on a tree, they move together, driven by the passing wind. In the end, temptations and ambitions, conflicts and disagreements - all are wiped out by the wind and covered by fallen leaves. I use metallic and iridescent mediums to push the boundaries of a flat surface, creating a shimmering atmosphere that evokes the diffuse quality of memory and suggests passing time. Through juxtapositions of light with darkness, transparency with opacity, my colors and brush marks gradually accumulate into characters and images that tell the story of human struggle in a setting of nature at rest. Ultimately, I feel as if my work has no beginning and no end; I am simply capturing and recreating the continuum of human history with ink marks on white paper. Поезд идёт на полном ходу по маршруту человеческой памяти. Работая со старыми фотографиями, изучая фигуры и силуэты людей разных стран, времен и народов, я вглядываюсь в их лица словно сквозь фильтр времени. Это люди, которые были выброшены из своей привычной среды сложившимися обстоятельствами. Как листья с деревьев, они подхвачены и перемешаны потоками ветра. А в итоге, переживания, конфликты, ссоры и амбиции этих людей сметаются в этой ветряной буре и покрываются слоями опавших листьев. В своих работах я использую металлические краски с переливающимися частицами, которые позволяют мне создавать особую атмосферу эфемерности воспоминаний человеческой памяти. Противопоставляя светлое и темное, прозрачное и плотное, цвет и фактуру, я создаю контраст человеческих метаний на фоне постоянства природы. Это история без начала и конца. Я просто пытаюсь запечатлеть моменты жизни человека, с помощью чернил и бумаги. inquiries: Jack Fischer Gallery
phone:
415-522-1178
website: http://www.jackfischergallerycom
When I was 18, my father and I took a train ride from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to Moscow, Russia, retracing the ancient Silk Road. We traveled for 4 days, over nearly 2000 miles, passing the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, the fields of Uzbekistan, the steppes of Kazakhstan, and the numerous forests of Russia. I was mesmerized not only by the changing landscape in front of me, but also by the appearance of the people that I observed through the train’s windows. All the people that I spotted were so distant from me, but so intriguing for the stories and lives that each of them represented. My journey to Moscow, and my later emigration from Russia to the United States, have made me think about all the other people who have undertaken an odyssey, relocating from home to a new and unknown land. EDUCATION 1999 1997 1996
MFA, University of Washington, Seattle, WA BFA, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR MFA, Moscow University of Art and Industrial Design, formerly Stroganoff School of Applied Arts, Moscow, Russia
SELECT SOLO & TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2014
For Love and Glory, Jack Fischer Galley, San Francisco, CA True Blue, Sarah Spergeon Gallery, Central Washigton University, WA
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011
Between Worlds, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA Home is Where The Heart Is, Art Arc Gallery, San Jose Artik, Art and Architecture, Artik, San Jose, CSA Art On Paper, New York Art Fair, Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco, CA Connect and Collect, ICA, San Jose, CA Art Auction 2015, Root Devision, San Francisco, CA Contex Miami, Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco, CA SJICA exhibition and Auction, ICA, San Jose, CA Anne and Mark’s Art Party, San Jose, CA Structure, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA Risk, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA Peaceable Kingdom : Animals Real and Imagined, Bedford Gallery at the Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, CA New Colors, Gallery on Kuznezky Most, Moscow, Russia Open House, Artify It, San Francisco, CA Water, Art Ark Gallery, San Jose, CA Selected Work, Axis Art Galley, San Jose , CA New Work By Natalya Burd & Mila Libman, Umbrella Salon, San Jose, CA
AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS 2016 2015 2014 2013 2011
SVCreates, 2016 Visual Artist Laureate Award CCF Quick Grant, San Francisco, CA Honorarium from Central Washington University Department of Art CCF Quick Grant, San Francisco, CA Bedford Gallery at the Lesher Center for the Arts, Special Juror’s award, Fancher, Lou. Human-animal relationship art, Contra Costa Times, March 2013 Open Studio Press, A Juried Selection Of International Visual Artist, Studio Visit Magazine, Volume14
Natalya Burd
Natalya Burd
Flightless Bird ink, metallic paint, paper 24� x 58�
Something Like a Sense of Detachment ink, metallic paint, paper 23� x 58�
Natalya Burd
Carlos Cartagena Estatuas de Sal Esta nueva serie es parte del proyecto Siluetas, una exhibición itinerante de figuras humanas hechas de madera contrachapada, las cuales están cubiertas de historias verdaderas de migrantes, incluyendo fotos, documentos, poemas escritos y cartas originales. El díptico Estatuas de Sal es una pieza en acrílico con imágenes de niños migrantes refugiados, el cual tiene una película de solución de sal, que invita a tomar una perspectiva diferente sobre esa historia bíblica ancestral, donde unos emisarios llevan el anuncio sobre la eminente destrucción de un par de ciudades. No todos los habitantes tienen la oportunidad de salvarse así mismo de esa fatalidad. Aquellos que se salvarían del castigo colectivo tendrían que renunciar a su tierra, a sus amigos, a sus amaneceres. Habrá que dejarlo todo, habrá que arrancarse a uno mismo de cuajo, habrá que rescatar de las pertenecías, solo lo que quepa en las manos. La inhospitalidad y el barbarismo, el caos y la anarquía – estas fueron las razones y pretextos para la destrucción con fuego y azufre. Para evitar ser parte de este castigo, habrá que emigrar sin preguntarse qué futuro te depara. Habrá que mirar solamente hacia adelante y romperte el cordón umbilical. ¡Corre, escapa, sálvate! Pero que no se te ocurra mirar hacia atrás. Pillars of Salt This new series is part of the Silhouettes project, a traveling exhibition of human-shaped figures made of plywood and covered with true stories of migrant people, including photos, documents, poems and original letters. The diptych Estatuas de Sal is a piece in acrylic created using images of migrant refugee children and coated in a salt solution. It invites us to take a different perspective on that ancient biblical story in which emissaries announce the impending destruction of two cities. Not all the inhabitants have the opportunity to save themselves from this doom. Those who will escape the collective punishment must renounce their land, their friends, their sunrises. In order to rescue themselves, they have to leave everything behind, to uproot themselves and take with them only those belongings that can fit in their hands. Inhospitality and barbarism, chaos and anarchy – these were the reasons and pretexts for the destruction by fire and brimstone. To avoid this fate, you must emigrate without asking what future awaits you. You must look only forward and tear off your umbilical cord. Run, escape, save yourself! But don’t ever allow yourself to look back lest you turn into a pillar of salt. phone: 415-860-3097 email: carloscartagena@live.com website: www. carloscartagena.net
EDUCATION 1992 – 1996
Kala Institute, Berkeley, CA
GRANTS & RESIDENCES 2006 2005 2002 2006
Artist residence and workshop. De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA Artist residence and workshop. Escuela de Artes plásticas René Girón, El Salvador, C.A. Artist residence. Proyecto Batiscafo. Centro de Arte Contemporáneo W.Lam, Havana, Cuba Individul grant. Belle Foundation, CA
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2015 2012 2011 2010 2008 2006 2005 2001 1999 1998 1998
17th Annual Latino Art Festival, Black Box Theater, Holy Names University, Oakland, CA Arte en la Memoria (Music Boxes), Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen, El Salvador, C.A. Grabados, Galería Nacional de El Salvador, El Salvador, C.A. Instalación Memoria en los Huezos, Territorios, La Frabri-K, El Salvador, C.A. Installation La Cenicienta de la Catedral, MCCLA, San Francisco, CA Music Boxes, De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA Silhouettes (first exhibition), Project about migration for a traveling show, Richmond, CA Music Boxes, Artists Television Access, San Francisco, CA Sin Casa, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA To Be or Not To Be, MACLA, San Jose, CA Fantasmas del Pasado, Teatro Presidente, El Salvador, C.A.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2015 2015 2007 2006 2006 2006 2006 2005 2005 2005 2004 2004 2002 1999 1997
Silhouettes, 5th sculpture Migrant Children. César Chávez Student Center, SFSU, San Francisco, CA Hermanos Lejanos, El Gran Despecho. With Victor Cartagena. CIIS, San Francisco, CA Shifting Dreams, Migrating Realities. MACLA, San Jose, CA Rompiendo Fronteras, ESARTE 06. Museo Nacional David J. Guzman, El Salvador, C.A. Inmigración-Emigración (Silhouettes), Curated by Ivon Le Bot. Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico Contemporary Art from El Salvador, With ADAPES. SOMArts Bay Gallery, San Francisco, CA State of the Nation, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA CaliVera (installation). The Days of the Dead. Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA Latin Spirit, MOMA Artists Gallery, San Francisco, CA International Exhibition of Etching, Galería Nacional de El Salvador, El Salvador, C.A. Day of the Dead, Courtly Art of Ancient Maya. Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA Occupied Space (Music Boxes). MACLA, San Jose, CA -273.15°C: Inmovilidad Molecular, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo W.Lam, Havana, Cuba VISIONS 2000 (featuring new artists). Vorpal Gallery, San Francisco, CA Tamoanchán y Taller del Sur, Allen Priebe Gallery, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, Wisconsin
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS 2014 Demarcando Siluetas, Propias y Transculturales. La Neta Neta.net 2006 The New Americans, The Salvadoran Americans by Carlos B. Cordova, San Francisco State University Contemporary Art from El Salvador, Salvadoran Plastic Artists Association (ADAPES) 2002 Catálogo, Proyecto Batiscafo, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo W.Lam, Havana, Cuba 1998 When the Dogs Ate Candles by Bill Hutchinson (cover art) 1997 The Spiritual in Art by Terri Cohn. Artweek magazine, January 1997 Carlos Cartagena
Carlos Cartagena
Estatuas de Sal mixed media on canvas diptych 36" x 72" each
Carlos Cartagena
Rodney Ewing
While debating demanding topics such as race, religion, or war, it is simple enough to become polarized, and see situations in either black or white, right or wrong. These tactics may satisfy individuals whose position depends on employing policies or implementing strategies that promote specific agendas for a specific constituency. But as an artist, it is more important to create a platform that moves us past alliances, and begins a dialogue that informs, questions, and in some cases even satires our divisive issues. Without this type of introspection, we are in danger of having apathy rule our senses. We can easily succumb to a national mob mentality, and ignore individual accounts and memories. With my work I am creating an intersection where body and place, memory and fact are merged to re-examine human interactions and cultural conditions to create a narrative that requires us to be present and profound.
720 York Street #107 phone: 510-467-5946 San Francisco, CA 94110 email: ledette@gmail.com website: www. rodneyewing.com
EDUCATION 1992 1989
Master of Fine Art: Printmaking, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV Bachelor of Fine Art: Printmaking, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2016 2015 2014 2013
What’s Inside Her Never Dies... A Black Woman’s Legacy, Yeelen Gallery, Miami, FL Declarations for the New Year, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA stArtup Art Fair LA, Highland Gardens Hotel, Hollywood, CA Take This Hammer, Art + Media Activism From the Bay Area: YBCA, San Francisco, CA Fact&Fiction/Cloud Jar, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA Between Worlds, Arc Gallery, San Francisco Selected Works, Jack Fischer Gallery, CA Untethered, Nancy Toomey Gallery, San Francisco, CA What’s Inside Her Never Dies… A Black Woman’s Legacy, Yeelen Gallery, Miami, Fl Voices, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA Artist in Residence, de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA Passport, San Francisco Art Commission, San Francisco, CA Security Question, David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA stArtup Art Fair, San Francisco, CA Obsidere, Micro Climate Collective, Alterspace Gallery, San Francisco,CA Hiraeth: 3.9 Collective explore the concept of home, Thacher Gallery, USF, SF, CA Ebb/Flow, Pro Arts Annual, Oakland, CA Placed/Displaced, SOMARTS Gallery, San Francisco, CA Introductions 2014, Root Division, San Francisco, CA The Intuitionist Show, The Drawing Center, New York, NY Wabi-Sabi, MicroClimate Collective, Alter Space Gallery, San Francisco, CA Scope Art Fair: A Simple Collective, New York, NY Rituals of Water, IcTus Project Space, San Francisco, CA Pulp 3 (ire straits), Beta Pictoris Gallery, Birmingham, Al Bay Area Currents: Navigating the New, Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland, CA Collective Works, 3.9 Collective, ArtPadSF 2013, San Francisco, CA ArtSpan Selections, ArtPadSF 2013, San Francisco, CA Trace+Gestures, Greymatter Gallery, Milwaukee, WI
Rodney Ewing
Rodney Ewing
Portals silkscreen on wood and glass doors each door: 84" x 48" x 2"
Left Handed Magic (H. Box Brown) silkscreen with printed text 15" x 10" x 4" limited edition of 5
Rodney Ewing
Michal Gavish
Embroidering an emblem of Diaspora DNA, I integrate science and politics with my personal history. During an artist residency in Budapest in 2011 I drew large portraits on fabric depicting family members from Hungary and returned them to their lost old inhabitance. This performative action relates my family members, many of whom perished in the Holocaust, to contemporary conflicts where genetic identities mark rivalry and borders.
מיכל גביש, גנטיקה אני רוקמת את רצף הדנא המזהה שלי כסמל המחבר את סיפור משפחתיי ציירתי,2011 בעת שהותי ברזידנסי לאמנים בבודפסט בשנת.למדע ופוליטיקה דיוקנאות רחבי מימדים של בני משפחתי מהונגריה והעמדתי אותם בפתחי אשר רבים מהם, במיצג אני מקשרת את אבותי.בתיהם אשר איבדו לפני שנים נספו בשואה לקונפליקטים עכשוויים בם הזהות הגנטית מתווה גבולות .ותככים
email: 4michalgavish@gmail.com website: http://michalgavish.com
EDUCATION 2008 1993
MFA Painting; San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA Ph.D. Physical Polymer Chemistry; Graduate Center CUNY, NY
SELECT EXHIBITIONS 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011
Reclaimed, Satellite Contemporary (co-curated), Las Vegas, NV Peter’s Projects; Spectrum, Art and Science exhibit, Santa Fe. NM Science and Technology Project, Ben Gurion Airport. Tel Aviv, Israel Life, Art and Science and Technology festival, Stanford University, Stanford CA Presented Past, solo exhibiton, Cabrillo Gallery, Santa Cruz CA Nano Portraiture; solo show, Zadik Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel Spotlight: Figure, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA Chasm Arena, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA Presented Past; solo show, Jewish Museum of Hungary; Budapest, Hungary Bet-Hagefen Arab-Jewish Center, Haifa, Israel Circa1 Gallery, Berlin, Germany Speaker' Corner, London, UK By Mainly Unexpected Means, Meridian Gallery, San Francisco CA The Future Imagined, invitational video, Zero One Biennale, San Jose CA My Objectivity, solo show, Sandra Lee Gallery, San Francisco, CA Objectivity, solo show, Zadik Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel Collaborative exhibition with Palestinian artist Zeina Barakeh, Ictus Gallery, San Francisco CA National Women's Caucus for Art (WCA) solo online featured artist Contemporary Bay Area Artist's Books Sonoma Valley Art Museum, Sonoma CA Nuevos Nombres: Conversation 2, BBVA, Bogotá Colombia
RESIDENCIES AND PROJECT 2015-16 2012-11
Nano Portraiture, LASER Leonardo UC Berkeley, Berkeley CA Visualizing DNA, University of San Francisco, San Francisco CA Visualizing DNA, UC Davis, Davis CA Stage Design, The Pear Avenue Theater Mountain View, CA LIA, Leipzig International Art Programme; Artist Residency at the Spinnerei, Leipzig, Germany International Artists Residency, Budapest Multi Cultural Residency Program, Budapest, Hungary International Artists Residency, Cooper Union NYC NY
Michal Gavish
Michal Gavish
Family Portrait installation: mixed media and embroidery on fabric: 97" x 116"
Portrait 1 embroidery on fabric 25" x 35"
Portrait 2 embroidery on fabric 19" x 27"
Michal Gavish
Taraneh Hemami TARANEH HEMAMI works with materials of history, organizing images, data, and information into patterns, colors, and maps, weaving complementary and contradictory narratives that reveal the complexities and connections across cultures. Her recent works highlight the collective struggle within Iran and its diaspora, investigating the universal connections between radical movements across times and geographies.
email: taranehh@earthlink.net website: http://www.taranehhemami.com
EDUCATION: 1991
MFA, Painting; California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland CA
SELECT RECENT EXHIBITIONS: 2016 2015-17 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011-13 2011 2010 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002
Hall of Reflections, AG Galerie, Tehran Iran Extension.ir, Triumph Gallery, Moscow, Russia Chain Reaction, SFAC Galleries, San Francisco CA Spectra: A Counting, West Wall Commission, Walter and Elise Haas Fund, San Francisco CA Print Public, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley CA Fabrications: Theory of Survival, curated INSTALLATION at Southern Exposure; San Francisco CA /seconds, Sharjah Arts Foundations, UAE True to Life?, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, UK Short Stories, Dar Al-Funoon Gallery, Kuwait City, Kuwait Ping Pong, US Embassy, Belgrade, Serbia Resistance, solo exhibition at Luggage Store, Theory of Survival Productions, San Francisco CA Reverberations of Stone, solo installation, and curated performances, St. Ignatius Church, USF, SF Light from the Middle East, Ceramics Collection Commission, Victoria and Albert Museum, London UK FREE, Public Commission, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco CA EndGame, with Ghazaleh Hedayat, at Azad Gallery, Tehran Iran Zendegi, Art and Life in Contemporary Iran, Beirut, Lebanon A Dream of Eternity, Boghossian Foundation, Villa Empain, Brussels Depth of Surface, San Francisco State University, San Francisco CA Evocations, Rose Issa Projects London, UK Theory of Survival, Bay Area Now 5, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco CA The Way That We Rhyme, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco CA We Remember the Sun, Walter and McBean Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco CA Most Wanted, solo exhibition, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco CA Global Eyes, Siggraph International Exhibition, San Diego, CA Homes, ZeroOne, International Symposium of Electronic Arts, San Jose CA On the Edge of Culture, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Milwaukee WI Represent, Cross Connections, Oliver Arts Center, California College of the Arts, Oakland CA Of Past and Present, Cross Connections, Intersection for the Arts, CCA, San Francisco CA Sacred Spaces, Berkeley Arts Center, Berkeley, CA Poetics of Proximity, Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Orange, CA Sharjah 6th International Biennial, United Arab Emirates (UAE) Hall of Reflections, solo exhibition; San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco CA
SELECT RECENT AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS, RESIDENCIES 2014 2013 2007 2000
California College of the Arts, Faculty Grant San Francisco Arts Commission, Individual Artist Award California Council for the Humanities, Community Stories California Institute of Integral Studies, Research Residency KALA Art Institute, Fellowship Award Creative Work Fund, Visual Arts Award
Taraneh Hemami
Taraneh Hemami
Absence from the Hall of Relections series pigment print on fine art paper variable installation; twenty images: 4" x 6" each
Taraneh Hemami
Golbanou Moghaddas Yesterday This Day’s Madness did prepare; Tomorrow’s Silence, Triumph, or Despair: Drink! For you know not whence you came, nor why Drink! For you know not why you go, not where. Omar Khayyam, “Rubayiat”, Translated by Edward Fitzgerald Growing up in Iran, I often noticed the agony and restlessness of our close relatives who lived abroad and longed for being back home. Among my close family there was an idea of building a green farm where we could all live together peacefully, free of an ill society despised by most of its inhabitants. The farm remained a dream and we all scattered around the world. None of us were able to fully settle in our new homes and we couldn’t let go of the dream farm. In Iran they say a dove with two nests remains unfed. It means that you don’t fully belong anywhere. Each place assumes you have already been fed in the other place, whereas you haven’t. In my triptych etching named From Water to Water, I aim to tell the story of the gradual separation from the native home. I’ve created my personal character for the story: a human-turtle-dove. The bird represents the ambitiousness of the person who seeks answers to its existence. The turtle is my respect for slowness, something that I miss immensely ever since leaving home. The story begins by the Caspian Sea, where I was born, and ends by the Pacific Ocean, where I currently reside.
website: http://golbanou-moghaddas.com/
email: info@golbanou-moghaddas.com
EDUCATION 2014 MFA, Printmaking Fellowship, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA 2011 MA Communication Design [Illustration] with distinction, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London, London, UK 2006 BA, Graphic Design [Illustration], Tehran Azad University of Art & Architecture, Tehran, Iran SELECTED SOLO & TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2013 2010 2008
Quarter Horse Coffee Gallery, Oxford, UK The New Rose, London, UK Gisha Gallery, Tehran, Iran
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2016 Between Worlds, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA Palimpsest, Southern Graphics Council International Conference, Soltesz Fine Art Gallery, Portland, OR First Fire, Hi-Lo Press, Atlanta, GA 2015 Al Mutanabbi Street Project, New Hampshire College, Hampshire, MA, USA Raised on Replicas, Campfire Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA Monster Drawing Rally, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA, USA Tondo Mondo, Southern Graphics Council International Conference, Knoxville, TN, USA 2014 Absence and Presence: A Printmaking Response to the Bombing of Al-Mutanabbi Street, San Francsco Center for the Book, San Francisco, CA, USA Wuda Wasa, Walden Studios, London, UK Monster Drawing Rally, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA, USA Principal: San Francisco Art Institute MFA Exhibition, The Old Mint, San Francisco, CA, USA Serial Relations, Southern Graphic International Conference 2014, Peninsula Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA, USA OK To Print, Modern Eden Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA A Vibrant Fusion of Art & Life, Southern Graphic Conference International 2014,Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA XXL Relief, Southern Graphic Conference International 2014, Mullowney Printing, San Francisco, CA, USA 2013 Murphy & Cadogan Contemporary Art Award, SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA, USA Kala Art Auction, fundraiser, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA Nomads, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA 2012 Streets of Gold, Museum of London, London, UK 2011 Images 35 AOI the Best of British illustration Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London, UK Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design Final Show Selected Works, Rochelle School Gallery, London, UK AWARDS & RESIDENCIES 2015 - 2012-14 2013 2011 2011-12
Member of California Society of Printmakers 2015-present, San Francisco, CA, USA San Francisco Art Institute Master of Fine Arts Fellowship in Printmaking, San Francisco, CA Murphy & Cadogan Contemporary Art Award 2013, San Francisco, CA, USA. Best of British Illustration, New Talent, AOI, London, UK Printmaker resident, Byam Shaw School of Fine Arts, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, UAL, London, UK
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
The Special Collection and Archive of Framingham State University, Framingham, MA, USA National Library of Baghdad, Iraq AOI: Association of Illustration London, UK
Golbanou Moghaddas
Golbanou Moghaddas
From Water to Water Hard ground etching printed on Japanese gampi paper chine collĂŠ
Plate 1: The Rise The fantastical creature is coming to life from the sea. The birth is under the sky with the sun and the moon inspired by an astrological design form medieval Persia. Image Size: 22 x 17" Paper Size: 28 x 22" Framed Size: 34 x 27" Edition Size: 15
Plate 2: The Way In this frame exist a home of traditional architecture of northern Iran, its roof transformed into a dove protecting the home. From its eyes it sends off the migrant to the unknown lands protected by the birds of home. The journey is filled with hardship. There are violent boarder keepers that don’t allow an easy crossing. The migrant succeeds in passing through with only her permitted belongings in her hands. Image Size: 22 x 35" Paper Size: 28 x 40" Framed Size: 34 x 46" Edition Size: 10
Plate 3: The Drowning Here she arrives in the new land, a place already dealing with gentrification, displacement, and homelessness. In the new place the roofs of the beautiful Victorian buildings have transformed into mourning doves. The Pacific Ocean is not gentle. She can’t deal with the waves. She doesn’t know how to surf and it’s nearly impossible to swim. She drowns. Image Size: 22 x 17" Paper Size: 28 x 22" Framed Size: 34 x 27" Edition Size: 15
Golbanou Moghaddas
Maja Ruznic Soil As Witness In this new body of work, I return to large-scale oil painting after five years of working solely with water-based media. I conceive of the landscape as a body, just as I do the figures that it spontaneously generates. Relying on color, rather than line I create a community of psychopomps- intermediary figures who transport dying souls from this world to the next. Soothers of discomfort, these exhausted bodies represent intergenerational trauma and how it is manifested in the flesh. I rub the paint into the surface of the canvas to create stains that compel new figuration or signal forgotten histories and the implied absence of who or what might have been. The paint bleeds and washes over these bodily forms and personalities who are without clear boundary; they are made up of all that surrounds, skin porous and memory infinite. A fear of contagion floats somewhere between the figures, perhaps subtly beneath fields of color, and is responsible somehow for their terrible mistakes and bad behavior. I use color to speak about this fear and allow gesture to be the narrative.
Maja Ružnić Zemlja kao svjedok U ovom novom opusu, nakon pet godina rada samo sa medijima na bazi vode, vraćam se velikom platnu i uljanim bojama. Zamišljam pejzaž kao tijelo, baš kao i figure koje spontano stvara. Oslanjajući se na boju, a ne crte i red, stvaram zajednicu psychopomps posrednika koje prevoze duše na umoru iz ovog svijeta u drugi. Ublažavajući nelagode, ta iscrpljena tijela predstavljaju međugeneracijske traume i način na koje se manifestiraju u tijelu. Utrljam boju na površinu platna da stvorim mrlje koje pod prisilom stvaraju nove figuracije ili signaliziraju zaboravljene povijesti i podrazumjevanog odsustva onoga što je moglo biti. Boja krvari i sapira ove tjelesne forme i bića koja su bez jasnih granica; oni su napravljeni od svega što ih okružuje, porozne kože i beskonačne memorije. A strah od zaraze pluta negdje između figura, možda suptilno ispod polja boje, i nekako je odgovoran za njihove strašne greške i loše ponašanje. Koristim boju da govorim o ovom strahu i omogućim da gest postane priča. inquiries: Jack Fischer Gallery
phone:
415-522-1178
website: http://www.jackfischergallerycom
EDUCATION
BFA Univeristy of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 2005 MFA California College of Arts, San Francisco, CA, 2009
GALLERIES
Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco, CA Galerie d’YS, Brussels, Belgium
SELECT SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2016 2015 2014 2012
Soil As Witness, Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco Yellow Throat Ribs, Galerie d’YS, Brussels, Belgium Untitled, Candyland Gallery, Sweden Like Little Miracles, They Shimmered, Conduit Gallery, Dallas, Texas Messengers, Trailer Park Proyects, Puerto Rico
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2016 Werewolf, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles CA Between Worlds, Arc Gallery, San Francisco CA 2015 YIA Art Fair, Galerie d’Ys, Paris , France Sincerely Yours, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA Painting Is Dead?!, Figure One, Champaign, IL Angeles With Dirty Faces, Galerie Ernst Hilger, Vienna Austria The Boogeyman Is Here, Maja Ruznic and Luz Maria Sanchez, She Works Flexible, Houston, TX Lonely Hunters, Maja Ruznic and Ranee Henderson, Eastside International, Los Angeles, CA 2014 “I” in their Own Words, Galeri G-Art, Istanbul, Turkey Boundary Battle, organized by RedLine and on view at Carmen Wiedenhoeft Gallery, Denver, Colorado Exquisite Corpse, MASS Gallery, Austin, TX Refuge, Maja Ruznic and Nina Kluth, Born Gallery, Berlin, Germany Among The Missing, Maja Ruznic and Joshua Hagler, Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco CA Tender Remains, Maja Ruznic and Yevgeniya Mikhailik, Bustamante Gallery, Los AngelesCA 2013 3-person show with Martin Assig and Eleanor Moreton, Galerie Vidal St.Phalle, Paris, France SquaredAlumni, Arc Gallery, San Francisco CA What The Mouth Sees, Alter Space, San Francisco CA 2012 What’s Left Behind, Alter Space, San Francisco CA Active, Michael Rosenthal Gallery, San Francisco CA 2011 Figure 8, HANG Art Gallery, San Francisco CA FourSquared, Arc Gallery, San Francisco CA Cries of San Francisco, Southern Exposure Gallery, San Francisco CA Perfect Place/No Place: Re-Imagining Utopia, MicroClimate Collective, San Francisco CA AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS Dave Bown Projects - 9th Semiannual Competition, Award of Excellence Featured Artist in JUXTAPOZ magazine, Septemeber 2014 issue Featured in New American Paintings, Pacific Coast Section No.109 Featured in Studio Visit Magazine in 2013, volume 22, page 139 Appeared on the cover of New American Paitings, Pacific Coast Setion No.97 Voted as a “Noteworthy Artist” in 2011 by Anne Ellegood, senior curator of HAMMER Museum (Los Angeles) Maja Ruznic
Maja Ruznic
Pile oil on canvas each door: 48" x 60"
Woman Washing Feet oil on canvas each door: 48" x 60"
Maja Ruznic
Michal Wisniowski Inspired by communist-era propaganda posters from Poland, these renditions take tech company messages out of their normally encountered context and put them to work as unapologetically authoritarian dictates. As self-portraits, they point to our complicity in using the tools provided by our tech overlords while also searching for our diminishing agency. Where delivery of the message has become more glossy with time, the meaning has blurred the line between profit motive and some form of social control. Obrazy są zainspirowane polskim komunistycznym plakatem propagandowym. Przenoszą one w bezkompromisowy sposób język charakterystyczny dla firm z branży informatycznej z jego natywnego wymiaru w kontekst autorytaryzmu. Autoportrety skupiają się na podświadomej ale czynnej kolaboracji z dominującym systemem władzy informatycznej a także na poszukiwaniu siły osobistej. Przekazanie tego obrazu jako całości z ubiegiem czasu gdzie lśniące effekty dają złudne wyobrażenie co w rzeczywistości jest walka pomiędzy motywacją finansową a formą odgórnej kontroli społecznej.
email: michal.wisniowski@gmail.com website: http://michalwisniowski.com
EDUCATION 2013 2003
MFA, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco BFA, Rocky Mountain College, Billings, MT
SELECTED SOLO EXHBITIONS 2014 2009 2008 2005
WHITE WASH, Studio 110 Projects, Sausalito, CA [peripheral/interface], The Artbox, Wilmington, NC Caffé Phoenix, Wilmington, NC Bleecker Street Studio and Gallery, Carrboro, NC
SELECTED SOLO EXHBITIONS 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012
Between Worlds, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA The Known Universe, Root Division, San Francisco, CA (Im)materiel, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA BAN7 / Clinic II: Object of Transformation, Room for Big Ideas, YBCA, San Francisco, CA Survival Adaptations, Aggregate Space, Oakland, CA SCRAP Art: Creative Reuse in the Bayview, The Reclaimed Room and Public Glass, San Francisco, CA Art for HUEmanity, Fouladi Projects, San Francisco, CA Currency, The Old Mint, San Francisco, CA Futures, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA Murphy & Cadogan Awards Exhibition, LH Horton Jr Gallery at San Joaquin Delta College, Stockton, CA Art by Telephone... Recalled, Swell Gallery, San Francisco, CA Masquerade, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA (Juror's Choice Award) Murphy & Cadogan Awards Exhibition, SOMArts, San Francisco, CA The Negotiation, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA
COLLABORATIONS / CURATORIAL PROJECTS 2014 2013 2012
Curator: Studio 110 Projects, Object(ive) Transformatives, Sausalito, CA Contributor: CHATFACE: An Experimental Art Talkshow (archived at http://chatfacebk.tumblr.com), Pio Bujak and Michal Wisniowski: Eastern Bloc Party, CHANNEL E BROADCAST: "Resistentialism", and CHANNEL E2 BROADCAST, in collaboration with Stephanie Syjuco Exhibition Coordinator: Swell Gallery, Art by Telephone... Recalled, San Francisco, CA Curator: Diego Rivera Gallery, The Negotiation, San Francisco, CA
PUBLICATIONS 2013 2013
“LUXUS Magazine at Wrocław Contemporary Museum,” DailyServing, 25 Sep 2013. Web “Chto Delat: To Negate Negation,” DailyServing, 25 Sep 2013. Web
Michal Wisniowski
Michal Wisniowski
We're Shapping The Future! acrylic on canvas 30" x 48"
What's On Your Mind? acrylic on canvas 30" x 48"
Michal Wisniowski
Wanxin Zhang Wanderer Twenty years ago, when I was about to board the plane to America for the first time, my mom said something to me that I'll never forget: "Son, I'm glad you're going to study abroad, but please don't turn bad. You know you're going to a capitalistic society." When I wasn't sure how to respond, she continued with good humor, "I heard all the Gods are in the Western countries. It makes me feel better for you to have their protection." My mom's concern and advice were authentic and meaningful. Because I grew up in the '60s and '70s of last century in China, during the Cultural Revolution, my educational background was based on a single political mindset - that the communist society in China is the best model. That it's the only country that can save the world. That Western capitalism is harmful and repressive for the people. With this advice, I put on an invisible gas mask and stepped onto American soil with the hopes that I'll be protected by some God. Whether it's my mom's good wishes or by the grace of a God, I quickly fell in love with my new country. Being in a place where I finally experienced, first-hand, how a country can respect its citizens and allow their freedom of speech, it's natural that many of my previous fundamental opinions shifted. Demonstrated by both my personal life and through my works, I slowly grew to love the land that I once held many suspicions about. So much that it made a wanderer like me decide to make my life's work here. So much so that it completely revitalized my inspirations to create and communicate with clay, and to use it to reflect my personal thoughts and feelings about society. Due to my upbringing and personal growth, I was unable to stop myself from criticizing politics through my art, to raise my suspicions about religion, to view humanity through humorous and sarcastic lenses, and to insert the nostalgia of a wanderer. I started the Gas Mask series a few years ago. Every time I'd go back to China to visit my relatives, my mom would ask me to bring high quality masks made in America to protect against the immense pollution in China - pollution that was bad enough to a point where people aren't able to breathe outdoors without developing issues in later years. As everyone in China knows, they are suffering from the consequences of a country-wide push to global economic success in just decades. A mindset derived from the end of the Cultural Revolution, when there was no talk of values or morals as a country, with immediate shifts to destroying culture to focusing on growth and wealth. What's even more damaging to China right now isn't the just the air, but really the mindsets of the people. And upon further reflection, it's not just China. This kind of thinking is present all over the world, across religions and amongst all political landscapes. So I often ask myself, how long do I have to wear the mask for? My piece, like my other works, is a bit autobiographical - representing a wanderer who has been exploring two worlds with different political mindsets and different values. I have been exploring the world in a haze, in confusion and asking myself, "Will I ever be able to stop?" inquiries: Cattharine Clark Gallery
phone:
415-399-1439
website: https://cclarkgallery.com
WANXIN ZHANG had been on the faculty of the Academy of Art University, Department of Art Practice at University of California, Berkeley and Califorina College of The Art in Oakland. Zhang currently is a visiting faculty at San Francisco Art Institute. EDUCATION 1996 1985 1980
MFA Sculpture, Academy of Art University, San Francisco CA BFA Sculpture , Lu Xun Academy of Fine Art, ShengYang, LiaoNing, China Diploma of Fine Art, Jilin Art School, ChangChun, Jilin, China
SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2004 2002 2001 1997 1996
Clay National, Peninsula Museum of Art, Burlingame CA Totem, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco CA Wanxin Zhang: Ceramic Sculptures, Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica CA Wanxin Zhang's New Works, Turner Carroll Gallery, Santa Fe NM Wanxin Zhang, Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Palm Desert CA New Works , Art Beatus Gallery, Hong Kong, China Wanxin Zhang: A Ten Year Survey, Richmond Art Center, Main Gallery, Richmond CA Wanxin Zhang: A Ten Year Survey, Holter Museum of Art, High Gallery, Helena MT Wanxin Zhang, Pacini Lubel Gallery, Seattle WA Wanxin Zhang: A Ten Year Survey, Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue WA Wanxin Zhang: A Ten Year Survey, Morean Art Center, St, Petersburg FL Wanxin Zhang: A Ten Year Survey, Boise Art Museum, Boise ID Wanxin Zhang: A Ten Year Survey: 1999-2009, Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe AZ Detour, University of San Francisco, The Thacher Gallery, San Francisco CA Contemporary Warriors, Sonoma State University, University Art Gallery, Rohnert Park CA Contemporary Warriors, Bedford Gallery, Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek CA New Warriors, The Alden B. Dow Museum of Science & Art, Midland Art Center, Midland MI Pit #5: My Nation, Art Beatus Gallery, Hong Kong, China California Artist, Too!, Fresno Art Museum, Duncan and Hallowell Galleries, Fresno CA Wanxin Zhang’s New Works, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami FL Pit #5 Laramie, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie WY Figures of the Future‘s Past - Pit #5, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami FL Ceramic Sculpture, Triangle Gallery, San Francisco CA Treasures of China-A-Dialogue, Vorpal Gallery, San Francisco CA Wanxin Zhang 1997, Space 303, San Francisco CA Dialogue, MFA Graduate Show, Sculpture Center at Academy of Art University, San Francisco CA
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2016 2015 2014
2013 2012
Fired Up: Monumental Clay, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto CA Character Studies, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose CA Natural Substance, Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Palm Desert CA Collision and Confluence, Asian Cultural Center, New York, NY Local Clay Heavies, Trax Gallery, Berkeley CA Transmigrational Ceramics from the Corridor, Benicia Museum of Art, Benicia CA Da Tong 2nd International Sculpture Biennial, Datong, Shanxi, China Visiting Artists Exhibition, Bray North Gallery, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena MT Local Treasures. Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley CA
Wanxin Zhang
张万新 游走者 二十多年前当我准备登机离开中国飞往美国的那一刻，我妈对我 ¬说的两句话至今记忆犹新：“儿子你去美国学习是件好事可千 万别学坏呀！你知道你去的是一个腐朽的资本主义国家”。在我 不知如何回答妈妈话的片刻，她又接着带有默话语说”听说上帝 们都在西方国家那边，有神的保佑，妈也放心“。 妈妈的担心和放心即不过份又真诚。因为我成长在上世纪中国的 六十至七十年代，正是众所皆知的文化大革命年代，我们的教育 方式完全是以一个声音的政治言论为要纲，那就是社会主义的中 国是世界上唯一欣欣向荣的国家、是唯一能拯救全人类的大国， 西方的资本主义文化除了毒草就是剥削压迫，尤其是美帝国主义制度如夕阳西下，像兔子尾巴长不 我是戴着一个无形的防毒面具，怀揣着兴许被上帝关照的梦想踏上了美利坚合众国的土地。也许是借 了母亲的吉言得到了神的赐福，我很快的爱上了这块新土地。当你真正置身和受惠於一个相对尊重个 人价值的生存环境，由于地理位置和人文状态的转变，很自然的改变了对很多事情的原本看法。正如 我对艺术创作一样，在加州竟着迷于以往不屑一顾的泥土，如寻到了生命之根，也许是土的自然属性 贴近生命意识和灵性，从而住留了这位寻梦漂流者，正像圣经所传递的理念人类最终归于大自然的土 地，它给予了我美好的理由去深信上帝拾土造人的传奇，也圆了我久仰的对传统文明艺术重释的梦 想，我开始用泥巴来表达我个人对我们这个世界和对这个时代的感受。 由于我的成长和文化背景的因素，我无法阻挡自己在艺术创作题材中对政治的批判精神，对信仰的怀 疑和人性的自讽态度及漂泊思乡的情系。 防毒面具系列是我在几年前开始的，正像每次在我回囯探亲访友时，妈妈总会在电话里嘱咐我要带上 美国生产的高密度的防毒面具，因中国的空气质量已被污染到了使人不能正常呼吸的程度，这是因为 如众所周知中国今天正在付二十多年经济飞速发展的代价，从文革年代粉碎般的摧毁了民族的道德底 线到直接转向全民致富的運动，当年播下畸形种子在各行各业开花结果人文环境污染更加恐怖过自然 环境..... 而纵观全球恐怖的阴云从没消失过无论从种族到文化，从信仰到政治新的新冷战一波未了一波又起， 带着对人性的质疑和对今天时化的感受，我的面具系列就此而生常常我会问我自己，这面具我要戴多 久？ 今天的时代的变迁，造就了地球村和国际人类学。我这件作品像是我很多作品一样含有自塑像成分， 表现一个游走于世界，尤其游走过两个不同政治制度和不同社会价值观的国家的探索者，在游走者的 人生旅程里寻找，迷茫你，能停下来吗？
The Wanderer Fired clay & glaze 16" x 46" x 18"
Wanxin Zhang
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arcgallerysf@gmail.com 415-298-7969