Some great upcoming Print Shows in the Bay Area

There are a couple of great shows coming up in the Bay Area print world.

First up, the Kala Institute of Art has a show at 1337 Fourth Street in San Rafael called ‘Lightscape/ Darkscape‘ featuring new work by Kala Artists, and curated by Andrea Voinot. Many of my favorite Printmakers have work in this small, but perfectly formed show. It’s well worth a visit!

Secondly,  The 9th Biennial Turner Print Competition is on in Chico  January 30th – March 4th. Works have been selected by Franklin Sirmans, Curator and Department head of  Contempory Art at the Los Angeles County Museum Of Art.

The show is presented in two locations – The Turner Print Museum in Meriam Library, and The University Art Gallery in Taylor Hall.

Ellen Heck , another  Kala Artist, has some lovely drypoint/ woodcut prints in  in the show and is one of 88 Artists to show their work in this high quality show.

Printmaking in Zacatecas, Mexico

November turned out to be a busy month. After a successful open studio at Hunters Point, a bout of the flu,  and an exhibition at ARC in San Francisco, I headed off at sparrow fart (1.00 am) to fly down to Zacatecas, an hour or so north of Mexico City, to teach a monoprint workshop over the course of a week.

It took 15 hours to get there, so I was knackered (tired) when I arrived. I was picked up at the airport by Eric Nava and dropped off at the lovely apartment attached to the Museum of Modern Art in the old town, Museo Grabado.  The printmaking facility is housed within the museum, so is very much part of the everyday life there.

Next morning I met Plinio Alvina, Director of the Museo, who had invited me to Zacatecas and was to be my translator.

Jenny and Plinio

Unfortunately, I don’t speak any Spanish, apart from maybe ‘dos cerveza’, which will be good for later, but not much help in the Print room.

I had a group of great artists (and unusually for my courses, all men) in the workshop, and had a really interesting and fun week.

Unfortunately, Plinio went down with a bug the second day, so I was pretty much translator-less, but thankfully had some help from Eric. I have to say running a workshop in a language I don’t speak was fairly challenging, but the guys all rallied, put up with my pigeon Spanglish  and produced some really  fabulous work.

The printmaking Workshop at Museo Grabado

“Decay” – an exhibition at the Arc Gallery, San Francisco

“Decay” presents artworks addressing the changes of life and its movement, for reasons of environmental condition, economic variables, and social-political drifts. We live in a time when the force of gravity is not simply physical. It is also cultural and spiritual. With “Decay”, the artists that we have selected have explored urban decay, biological decay, societal decay, physical decay and moral decay. All of the works are reminders that everything that we are attached to is ultimately ephemeral. And, the exhibition is a stark reminder that “Decay” is nature’s change agent.

Co-curators, Micaëla van Zwoll and Michael Yochum, selected eight artists with ties to the San Francisco Bay Area. They are each concerned with these ideas of change, its extant deterioration and shift; and they consistently represent those ideas with their work.

The eight artists exhibiting are Philip Alden Benn, Sidnea D’Amico, Marie-Lou Desmeules, Chanel Matsunami Govreau, Phillip Hua, Dan Newman, Jenny Robinson and Tim Roseborough.

Decay runs from November 5 to December 3, with an opening reception on November 5th, 7-10PM.

Arc Gallery
1246 Folsom St.
San Francisco

http://arc-sf.com

Hunters Point Open Studio this weekend

It’s Fall Open Studio at Hunters Point Shipyard Artist Community this weekend, running over Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 6pm each day.

I’ve almost knocked my studio into shape (see below), so I can now swing a cat in there.

I have a lot of new work to show – fresh from my 2 month Artist in Residency at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley. So be there – free parking and marshmallows! I am in Building 101, Studio 2410.

William Wolff

I just received an invitation to the opening of a new exhibition this Saturday to William Wolff: Persons and Portraits, at Art Zone 461 Gallery, between 5:00 – 8:00 pm.

“Wolff’s work is bold and powerful and communicates something very visceral in his woodcut prints. These prints speak from a different age, or a different worldview. They speak in a language of direct experience rather than reflected experience. There is no irony, nor really any artifice. The woodcut prints are a presence in themselves and feel iconic and sculptural.
Wolff was a long time member of the Graphic Arts Workshop and the California Society of Printmakers. He taught art at Juvenile Hall in San Francisco for 26 years. He was early associated with many artists of the Bay Area Figurative Movement but went off in his own more mythological oriented direction after taking up woodcut prints in the early 1960s. A retrospective of his work was held in 2002 at the Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art. His work is in the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress and the Achenbach Collection among many others.”

"C: De Foucald", 1975, color woodcut, 11 1/2" x 10 1/2"

Billboard print animation

Here is an animation of  a backlit billboard print I did as a part of the IN Extremis show at the Meridian Gallery in San Francisco earlier this year.You can see Art Hazelwood, curator of the show, in there if you are really eagle eyed!

New Work, hot off the press

Here’s a quick peek at one of my new prints hot off the press. These will be featured in my upcoming Open Studio at the Hunters Point Shipyard, October 29 and 30.

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