Adobe, Dolby Chadwick, and more

To be honest, it's been kind of a struggle writing in this blog of mine. Every time I sit down to write something about the galleries I've visited in the past week, all I want to do is grab my pencils or paints. Whether it's really bad work that inspires me to do what they aren't doing or really amazing work that drop kicks me to challenge myself more with my own work, I'm getting impatient on writing about it.

But here are some highlights and some serious lowlights:

I'm kind of in love with Sean McFarland and his tiny found landscape photographs that have been framed with paint to look like old polaroid borders and covered in wax. They are treasures that you would imagine to find tucked away in some box on the floor of an old bookstore. I don't think McFarland could have chosen a more perfect venue. It was sort of reminiscent to Barry McGee's works of pictures of the sun found on the internet photomontage, but this was so much better. Maybe because it was in a dusty old place instead of a stark white, clean museum...I don't know.

Then I went to Needles and Pens...

The story behind this show is that friends, Daniel Higgs and Kyle Ranson, decided to be pen palls and play a little back and forth de kooning and rauschenberg drawing play except nobody gets their drawing erased. Indirectly I thought of Carl Jung's collective unconscious, where the artists are pulling from their subconscious imagery database to reference something from a previous image. Eventually a metamorphases results. This style of work is popping up all over the place, whether is fecalface.com or mission murals or fashion magazines, even graffiti artists doing obscure looking portraits. 

Here's Tom Leiber's work from Dolby Chadwick Gallery. It was nicely framed. It's obvious he has a good sense of creating space with color but overall, the gestural quality was pretty boring. They are pretty big, about 72"x 72", and its obvious the works are about a full body experience, action painting. I wasn't surprised to read in the artist's statement about meditation and yoga.

But here's some exciting news, Ms. Chadwick has an artist I've been keeping my eye on, Alex Kanevsky, showing October 7th-30th. I never thought I would ever get the chance to see his works in the flesh, but she personally brought out some pieces for me to view when I was there. Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous, is all I have to say. I almost don't care that the figures in their space don't make any meaningful sense to me. The way the paint is applied and use of color is just amazing in person.

Wonderland September 2nd Opening

I recently read an article in ArtForum by Olafur Alaisson that, in short, provoked the idea of the museum space and challenges whether quiet, white and traditional are still necessary, or if it ever was? By white, I meant walls, specifically, but we all know it means more than that. That's why I think galleries are so necessary and why the Mission district can be such an exciting place to view works in a setting that activates the content of the work.

This past thursday evening I visited Wonderland gallery/boutique showcasing the "Fantasy Girls/Mujeres de Fantasia" exhibiting figurative work by 18 bay area artists.  Here are a few of the artist's work:

"La Muerte y la Doncella (Death and the Maiden) 30"x30"

by Rachel Znerold

"Patience"

by Amanda Lynn Andrzej

Mark Campbell

"Description for image 5"

by Mark Campbell

Most of the work was ornamental and played off of trends in fashion and popular culture. The artist who stood out the most to me was Mark Campbell for his ability to successfully use his original surface to give form, and to integrate paint seamlessly. But my interests ended there, because it was mostly line based and just about the figure. Figurative works have never made me that excited because I can't make that great of connection to the context or importance of the person. It just comes down to the fact that I don't know them or what they mean to the artist, (unless there are better visual hints to a global contemporary social issue or painterly issue, I can't keep interested).  

Overall, the show was boring. It took me about 15 minutes to get around the large crowd to see a lot of works that weren't thoughtfully put together. Watercolor works that were buckled, bad lighting, and lack of cohesiveness to the transition of works and overarching theme. Plus a bunch of art groupies with red cups and bad balance.