Structure

Gallery Exhibition/Event
Posted on July 28, 2011

August 18 through September 28, 2011
Opening Reception: Thursday, August 18, 2011, 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm


Location: 3245 16th Street (at Guerrero Street), San Francisco CA 94103

San Francisco, July 28, 2011— If you went around asking people what “structure” brings to mind, you’d likely get a wide variety of answers: a grid of city streets, a building’s skeleton, a bird’s nest, a popular rock song, a perfect sentence… Well, Structure, a new group show at Creativity Explored Gallery, represents all of these variations on a theme, illustrating how one concept can relate to nature, science, geography, architecture, music, language, and more. This show also reveals the artistic process — how objects are assembled, arranged, compiled, and built — as each piece celebrates material and form and tells a story about the artist who made it. Whether you view the world through a macro or micro lens, you’ll appreciate the paintings, drawings, sculptures, and mixed-media pieces in this exhibition made by over 20 Creativity Explored artists. See what happens when you zoom in on cellular particles, then out on musical notes. You will feel like you’ve traveled the universe.

It’s not often that one piece inspires an entire exhibition, but in this case, that’s exactly what happened. On a visit to the California Academy of Sciences, artist Thanh Diep looked at fish tanks and got to thinking about tiny worlds. She was struck by how even small fish will rearrange an environment to suit themselves, and adapt biologically. This led her to look at images of spores and create one of her own — an intricate specimen in charcoal and white Conté crayon on rag paper (28”H x 23”W) — based on the idea of structural containment. Layered, energetic marks make the spore look alive, as though it wants to float off the page. This is what propelled Structure curator Miranda Putman to begin working on the show. “‘Structure’ is a framework, but one that encompasses a wide variety of different subject matter and references, from cellular biology to architecture. The art by CE artists fit this larger theme, though their subjects, materials, and execution are vastly different.”

An artist in this show who seems to best represent “structure”, in its traditional and non-traditional sense, is Anthony Gomez. He created a nest-like industrial web of mixed media (12”H x 24”W x 10”D) — wire, paper-mache, and green-painted plaster — which reveals how it was created from the inside out. The natural subject matter and unnatural materials together create an interesting tension; one wonders what kind of creature would call this nest home. 

Gomez has also constructed a series of beautiful hand-sized wire sculptures, adorned with jewel-like painted plaster pieces of varying color. Not unlike the work of Richard Tuttle, this group of 25 forms reads like a musical score or foreign script. Each intricate sculpture is the artist’s structural rendering of marks from his paintings and drawings.

Another standout series by Gomez is the geometric rice paper pieces that teeter on the edge between two- and three-dimensional. One large piece of rice paper is folded into an irregular rectangle (34”H x 16”W), and four small pieces are folded into hand-size shapes whose edges are stitched with black wool. The surface areas are marked with thin graphite lines (which look quite a bit like the stitches themselves). These beautiful, vibrating works celebrate light and dark, opacity, and texture. They are simultaneously delicate and sturdy. 

Another artist who works with layering and texture, and whose 2D works seem to take on a 3D life in Structure, is Anne Connolly. Powerful brushstrokes, in an array of bright colors, overlap in four dynamic abstract pieces (40”H x 28”W). Connolly works with the structure of time. You can picture her working, using rhythmic movements to create depth and space in her paintings.

Artist Sara O’Sullivan also has a loose, painterly style. The structure she focuses on is the human body. For this exhibition, O’Sullivan has taken twenty large manila envelopes (20”H x 16”W) and mapped the human form, creating quick-study gouache and acrylic paintings of body parts, internal and external: kidneys, ovaries, thyroid, brain, heart, breast, eye, spinal cord, et al. Each piece was created gesturally, so that only the essential elements of body parts are included…though she does take the time to give her skull and skeleton each a jovial smile.

Many of the artists in this show reference maps — diagrams of the brain, landscapes, and the universe. Warren Jee’s thick foldout book seems to touch on all of these, and is itself a “structure”. The book’s pages take geographical form. He uses a sophisticated mix of materials and techniques, which include printing, etching, painting, and cutting paper, thus forming a stunning black, grey, and pink-hued collage. The resulting multi-layered surface allowed Jee to carve into it as well. The front and back painted rice paper exterior is particularly compelling and enigmatic: an ominous black hole greets viewers on the front cover and a promising white tunnel says farewell on the back. 

Other works in the show were inspired by different styles of architecture. Artist Natalie Spring has a fascination for all things equestrian. She sculpted a community of wire barns and stables (approximately 1’ square), and created clay horses to populate them. The ornate, colorful buildings of Thailand and India inspire Kevin Roach; he has constructed his “Dream House” (28”H x 12”W x 4”D) out of paper-mache, painted it with the brightest colors, and decorated the interior with patterned rugs. And circus performer-turned-artist Gordon Shepard impressively created the inside of a circus tent with gouache and Prismacolor on paper in "Under the Big Top" (22”H x 28”W) — a brilliant dioramic interpretation of tent scaffolding, spectators, a black safety net, etc. 

Whether your head is in the clouds or at the bottom of the ocean, Structure will get you appreciating worlds small and large, as well as color, texture, materials and form of every kind. Says Putman, “Together, all of the pieces in this show form a tapestry of various environments, cultures, and references, offering very diverse interpretations of an everyday concept.”

CALENDAR LISTING

Structure
EXHIBITION AND OPENING: Artists reveal the complexity of the world around us.

What
Structure, a new group show at Creativity Explored Gallery, represents endless variations on the theme of (you guessed it) "structure", illustrating how one concept can relate to nature, science, geography, architecture, music, language, and a whole lot more. This show also reveals the artistic process — how objects are assembled, arranged, compiled, and built — as each piece celebrates material and form and tells a story about the artist who made it. Whether you view the world through a macro or micro lens, you’ll appreciate the paintings, drawings, sculptures, and mixed-media pieces in this exhibition made by over 20 Creativity Explored artists. See what happens when you zoom in on cellular particles, then out on musical notes. You will feel like you’ve traveled the universe.

When
Opening Reception: Thursday, August 18, 2011, 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Exhibition Dates and Times: August 18 through September 28, 2011; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm, Thursday from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, and Saturday from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Where
Creativity Explored Gallery, 3245 16th Street at Guerrero Street, San Francisco CA 94103 (Map)

Information
(415) 863-2108
www.creativityexplored.org

Cost
FREE

Press Images
Download more images from Structure.

Creativity Explored is a nonprofit visual arts center where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit, and sell art.

Download Press Release PDF
Download Press Images (Web)
Download Press Images (Print)