ROAD SCORES

Sudhu Tewari and Carly Hoopes sculpture and photographs

sculpture and photographs

Artist Party Friday, Jan 8, 2016, 6 to 9pm

Show runs December 27th, through March 19th 2016

Sudhu Tewari and Carly Hoopes sculpture and photographs
ROAD SCORES is a project born from the love of collecting treasures found on the side of the road (and abandoned buildings, railroad tracks, freeway underpasses, etc.)

Inspired by the burnt out wreck of an RV found in the Trinity mountains, Tewari decided to create a series of sculptures from objects found in the wreckage after spending several hours watching Hoopes find interesting shots of the untouched remains.

Carly Hoopes is a Bay Area photographer who documents “naturally” occurring compositions as she finds them (without rearranging ANYTHING). You may find her gathering bits of visual treasure on the side of the road, near railroad tracks, freeway underpasses, alleyways, dumpsters, piles of garbage (to some), or going quietly into abandoned structures.

The subject matter of Hoopes’ work is often ephemeral. She composes her photographs in camera from the momentary arrangement of weathered waste, burnt remains, abandoned structures and objects with an awareness that anything and everything could be altered dramatically by the kick of a foot, steady wind, curious hand or work of a demolition crew. While not for everyone, Hoopes has a unique perspective on rust, detritus, and neglected place and matter.

Hoopes’ photographs are honest (sometimes uncomfortably direct) expressions of her empathy for and questions regarding life, death, truths, and the inaccessible horizon as nothing is clearly seen and always in flux.  cargocollective.com/carlyhoopes

Sudhu Tewari has been called a professional bricoleur, junkyard maven and young audio-gadgeteer. Sudhu builds electronic audio devices, electro-acoustic musical instruments, kinetic sculpture, interactive installations, wearable sound art, mechanical televisions, physical models of astrophysical phenomena, lamps, objet d’ art, and sound sculpture.

Highly educated at Mills College in electronic music, Tewari has been seen performing improvised music on the east and west coasts of the US, Europe, and Japan. In 2006 Sudhu was selected to be the Artist in Residence program at the Recology in San Francisco. Since then, Tewari's visual and interactive art has been exhibited at many galleries and museums in the Bay Area and a few in Europe.

Tewari is currently a PhD candidate at UC Santa Cruz in the Cultural Musicology program. Sudhu also teaches youth and adult classes at the Crucible in Oakland and has recently been working with young adults to create interactive, kinetic, and musical public art works.  sudhutewari.com

In the realm of human adornment Photography, jewelry and wearable art by Wendy McDermott & Susan Tuttle

Artist Party Saturday October 17th, 6 to 9pm, With Tom Lattanand on guitar

Show runs September 7th, through October 24th 2015

Two brilliant Jingletown artists explore the more feminine side of art, through multiple mediums.

Susan Tuttle

"My main passions consist of photography and designing and producing jewelry, both self taught. I’ve been photographing for more than 30 years. My captured images are as I saw them and are printed without any computer manipulation other than color correction. I also enjoy creating mixed media pieces, particularly in the form of shadow boxes. I strive to capture humor, depth, and emotion of the unusual as well as the familiar. I become easily immersed in the other world behind the lens. I attempt to challenge myself in capturing an image that may not be clear to myself or to others."

Wendy McDermott

This body of work seems to have evolved directly from and is attributable to my personal experiences as a wife and mother over the past twenty four years. It also encompasses the stories of countless others who have followed similar paths - partly chosen by them and partly chosen for them by traditional societal values and expectations.

The pieces shown here are emblematic of the outer trappings of femininity and fashion while offering content that is characteristic of the internal struggles of maternal existence.

My previous work was characteristically functional – as wearable art – objects of adornment – with more thought given to design and commerce than to emotional or intellectual content. This is in keeping with generations of women that produced functional art for themselves and to sell – utilizing ornament and pattern – to beautify as well as to record their culture, religion or history into objects that they used every day. This “women’s work” imbued with these archival qualities has historically been rich with political and personal significance. (And, sometimes, it is merely decorative).

While I continue to investigate the realm of human adornment, I have now arrived at a different perspective in the body of work being shown here. This work is related to and in some ways derivative of being a jeweler and in fact, employs many of the same techniques. It exists in the framework of functional, wearable art, but is not really practical. Thereby removing itself from the context of “craft” and into a gray area where the oft separated worlds of craft and art blend.

Though this work is intensely personal (speaking to my own experience), I like to think that it is also universal (and even slightly political), in that a wide audience of viewers can and do respond to it as reminiscent of their own life experiences.

The intent here is to fill a gap - to recognize and speak to and for those ensconced in a suburban home environment, rarely recognized for their contribution, save a yearly Mother’s Day Card. It is presented in an attempt to foster a greater awareness among those whose lives are distant from this world – the world of women/moms in suburbia - who are uncompensated for their eighteen hour days - child rearing, cooking, laundry, cleaning, chauffeuring, scheduling, fixing, organizing, supporting, nesting, ad nauseum. They are the hardest working, most selfless and dedicated people I know.

Tom Lattanand on guitar

Tom Lattanand is a multifaceted guitarist, composer, song writer, and producer who resides in Oakland. His dynamic, multilayered, and percussive solo guitar playing creates a sound much bigger than one might expect. His guitar compositions are both intricate and high energy, while drawing from a wide range of musical styles. A steady presence in the Bay Area music scene since 1998, he has collaborated with a long list of artists, while he currently performs in the groups Albino and leads the newly formed project Root Logic. tomlattanand.com,  https://www.youtube.com/user/tlattanand

Drunken Octopus

Stephanie Rigsby - Photography
Jeff Ritter - Industrial Furniture Design & Sculpture

Opening Party June 14th, 6 to 9pm

Show runs June 9th though July 19th 2014

Two multi-faceted local artists living and working in the San Francisco bay area. Their work embodies the daily life and remains of the industrial era. In rediscovering and redesigning the beauty of our surroundings they reclaim our past and what we know, and love about Northern California.

Stephanie Rigsby – Photography

Occasionally, the ephemeral, presents itself as visible. Surreal couplings of shapes, saturated layers of color, illuminated light and its refraction- all exist beyond a simple surface of what we register. Often, such aspects pass undetected. Transformations in lines or shadows may flicker into view for mere minutes. It is within these precise moments, Rigsby, endeavors to capture the life of her subjects. To capture these subjects in an organic state, her photography is not modified. This allows the images to reveal a duplicitous nature of their own accord. Perception has a natural tendency to rationalize that which contradicts a usual bias. By presenting unaffected subjects in their natural state, viewers may discern themselves, if the surreal has potential to coexist with reality. Primary themes in her work include architecture, industrial landscapes, performance art, haunted locations, and curiosa. More of her work can be viewed from her artblog: colorchrome.blogspot.com

Jeff Ritter - Alchemist, Mad Man & Industrial Furniture Designer

Jeff Ritter a self taught artist living in Oakland Ca. Ritter uses reclaimed steel along with different mediums creating functional industrial furniture, and sculpture. His work is available for special order.

Impeccably Installed

Paul Baker, Constructed Sculptures

Scott Schryver, "Figstract Expressionism"

Opening party, March 15th, 6 to 9pm
"Well-Phrased" Artists' Talk: Friday March 26, 7 to 9pm
Show runs March 10th though April 29th 2014 

Thousands of people in the Bay Area make art, and perhaps hundreds work in the museum field. But overlapping those two groups results in a much smaller number, perhaps just Paul Baker and Scott Schryver.

Baker and Schryver tap their museum backgrounds to present recent personal works with the skill, precision, and impact acquired in those marbled halls. “Outsider art” is a common phrase for marginalized or self-taught artists. Ironically, Baker and Schryver can lay claim to the description of "inside outsiders" since they are conversant with the world of established art institutions…but that in no way guarantees attention, let alone appreciation. Enjoy this unique show of two artists balanced between two worlds.

Paul Baker, Constructed Sculptures

Paul's found-object work, which he terms "constructed sculptures" since 80% of each piece is built from scratch, combine wit, intuition, arcana, and museum-level craftsmanship in an interactive enigma the viewer is encouraged to explore through action and memory. pbakerart.com

Scott Schryver, "Figstract Expressionism"

Scott Schryver is an Oakland-based artist dealing in non-figurative and figurative works on paper as well as pyrography on wood panels. Schryver's work has been compared to Pablo Picasso's as well as that of a kindergarten class in Point Richmond. Neither is accurate. Schryver delves into the narrative of everyday life. "I create characters and situations," says the artist. Once the ink hits the paper, it starts speaking. Giving directions." I don't always like the direction but I always learn a thing or two," says Schryver.

"My paintings are my experiences," says the artist as he sips a peppermint tea and fans his pale face with a worn copy of Art in America. - Scott Schryver

Schryver's recent works are a combination of sumi ink and acrylic on cold press paper. They are an opportunity for Schryver to capture the gesture, the quick sketch and "freeze" it with paint. Posterity begins where the paint covers the white negative space of the paper, trapping the sumi-inked figure or non-figurative sketch. scottschryverart.com

“follow me, don’t chase me!”

“follow me, don’t chase me!”

Photography by Jan Watten & Sculpture by Benjamin T. Smith

Closing party 1/11/14, 6 to 9pm

Show runs November 17th January 11th, 2014

Two Oakland artists capture the symbols that both surround and embrace us.
Please join us!

Photography by Jan Watten:
Born into an artistic family, photographer Jan Watten has a passion for expressing the essence and core of her subject's being.  Her work revolves around the idea of identity – capturing an aspect of her sitter in an isolated moment.  Intrigued by the concept of Self, Watten has been attempting to capture unique qualities and characteristics in her subjects for more than two decades.  Whether she is photographing an adolescent boy, the weathered hand of a gardener, the elegant face of a musician or a young girl clinging to a family portrait – she is attempting to portray identity through a small but very revealing and symbolic aspect of someone. Watten photographs her subjects in black and white, as it reduces an image into simple elements and without the distractions of color and extraneous information.  Her images are captured with film and are archival traditional darkroom prints.
Watten attended California College of Arts and Crafts, and has shown domestically and internationally, and was recently profiled in Black and White Magazine.
  www.janwatten.com

Sculpture by Benjamin T. Smith:
Since the beginning I was pursued by monsters in my dreams. Until one night I stopped short and said, “If you’re going to run behind me, follow me, don’t chase me!” Since then they have been my subjects.
 
   There’s the friendly monster story. Alternately, there is the horror of the momentum of our current trajectory.  My art is a static representation of hallucination. My favorite piece is a painting by Brueghel, the Blind Leading the Blind.
 
   When you see a face in a grain of wood where is that coming from?
I’m sure we have all also seen other things that are even harder to explain. Anyway I do, everyday, in every little piece of junk around me. Incessantly, they call out to be saved. -Benjamin T. Smith
 benjamintsmith.wordpress.com

Positive Identifications, Prints by Whitson Hunter, Sculpture by Jeff Ritter

Positive Identifications

 
Prints by Whitson Hunter, Sculpture by Jeff Ritter

Opening party Saturday March 30th 6 – 9pm
Show runs through April 27th

Two Oakland artists create work that speaks to our human experience of time, space and identity.

Whitson Hunter
I define art as the physical manifestation of thoughts, predicated upon concept development, the creation process and the viewing experience. As an artist my ultimate goal is to make the immaterial material by efficiently communicating ideas or train of thought. Positive I.D.’s is a series of black and white linoleum prints with collages. Individually, each piece was made to illustrate human attributes and experiences. Collectively they illustrate relationships and commonalities. I hope this body of work can encourage understanding and solidarity among humans.

Jeff Ritter
Going down the river, a clockwise deflection, images on wooden chairs.

gaze not too long into the abyss

"gaze not too long into the abyss"

 
Paintings by Darwin Price & sculpture by Christopher Kanyusik
Opening party Saturday 2/2/13 6 – 9pm
Show runs through March 9th.

Darwin Price and Christopher Kansyusik invite you to gaze into the common emptiness, bare witness to the monstrous and the beautiful.  The Idée Fixe: a still small voice overheard whispering to itself. If we listen closely, this moment frozen in Perspex comes alive and The Abyss Stares Back.

DarwinPrice, Paintings
My art creates religious syncretism. It’s my way of challenging widely held beliefs and creating new, more personal mythologies. I aspire to a psychodrama populated by the imaginary friends from every culture and creed throughout history, but not to make a point. Rather, to excavate deeper and discover newer meanings and purpose for my life. Constructing a personal philosophical framework through art is to me more relevant than religion or any one symbol no matter how sacred. I'm attracted to the idea of Buddha peacefully 'packing a heat,' homeless angels, or Jesus creeped out of his followers because they're a little too cloying and blissful. I take these saints and holy men and put them in their place, along with their pious symbolism, back into the muck and the mire. Consecrating them in the human condition where they originated.  After all if we've got to live in it, they're not getting off so easily." – Darwin Price            DarwinPrice.net   


Christopher Kanyusik, Sculptures

Art bears greater power and relevance through ambiguity.  It transcends commonality by remaining open, provocative, and to a certain degree unclear and unfinished, rather than presenting a banal package complete with an image and a corresponding narrative, leaving little or no room for viewer engagement. My work is a product of and a participant in the historical tradition of sculptural art.  There exists within our collective, common artistic evolution a connection and camaraderie spanning past and present through our chosen subjects, and a tension between direct, reproductive modeling and abstract suggestion in our approach to the interpretations of the imagery we elect to use. The ambiguity I strive to employ in my work is actualized by a combination of elements from these two extremes.  On one side exists a literal depiction of an object, no more than a prop, involved in an explicit scenic narrative, an illustration with little or no conceptual provocation. On the opposite end of this spectrum is a kind of work so intent on being ambiguous that it looses any connection to any possibility or suggestion of conceptual tangibility, thus becoming unclear, encoded, and confusing, ultimately resulting in viewer disengagement, exclusion, and irrelevance.  The inclusion of ambiguity coupled with the implied or inherent content of recognizable forms allows my work to transcend the enclosed relationship between my self as the maker and it, as the object made.  An unspecified, ambiguous intent assists the accessibility of an artwork by engaging and including the viewer, recognizing their distinctly personal interpretation as an indispensable component in the manifestation of art.  Chriskanyusik.com

Enigma

The Art of JB-MacKinnon & Dave Meeker

Enigma

Artist Mixer, Friday June 11th, 6-8:30 pm
Artsist Dave Meeker & J.B. Mackinnon will discuss thier work
in the presence of fine company and free labations. 
Show Runs through June 12th, 2010

“The surrealists believed that objects in the world possess a certain but unspecifiable intensity that had been dulled by everyday use and utility.  They meant to reanimate this dormant intensity, to bring their minds once again into close contact with the matter that made up their world.  Andre Brenton’s maxim “Beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table” is an expression of the belief that simply placing objects in unexpected context reinvigorates their mysterious qualities.” – Jonathan Lethem

About the Artists:

James Barnes MacKinnon – 2D

Born in Chicago in 1950, J. B. as most people know him, is mostly a self-taught artist, but his work is neither primitive nor innocent. Predominantly a painter for most of his life he has studied many disciplines including photography, drawing, printing, and computer graphics. Often populated with aliens, gargoyles, and crash test dummies, his art is an exploration of the parts of humanity we have a hard time looking at or seeing. His latest work, a series of 3’ square canvases he calls “Bumps” is a study of interruptions, in our lives, our dreams, our culture. Using the metaphor of a road disrupted by speed bumps, each piece looks at an event or time in our history, or a possible future, and lets us explore the effect on us, and how we proceed.   jb-mackinnon.com

Dave Meeker – 3D

I created my first kinetic piece over thirty years ago from scraps of wood, a fan and recycled paper products that my father brought home from his job as an envelope salesman.  My art uses air to inflate, deflate and otherwise make move recycled materials.  I suppose the deeper meaning here is that I’m breathing new life into objects that otherwise would have “died”—destined for a landfill, the burial ground of our culture’s castoffs.  My pieces bring new life to these dead objects.  Davemeekerart.com
“With all my work I’m not trying to change the world, just you.  If I can wake you up to the delight that surrounds us, I’ve done my job”.  Dave Meeker

About the music:

Richard Wright (aka dj fflood, a 1st generation Jamaican born in New York City and loving living in OAKLAND) is a dj, producer, student, community organizer, and writer. As a dj he has been musically transporting crowds with his intuitive, driving, and eclectic style for 25 years. From the sound clashes of Kingston, to the warehouses of New York City, the clubs of Europe, to the art houses of San Francisco, and the lounges and lofts of Oakland, his exceptional sense of selection rand connection to the crowd has become his signature. http://www.myspace.com/fflood

Exoskeleton Paintings by Philippe Janssens, Sculpture and Jewelry by Victoria Skirpa

Opening party May 9th 6-9pm, with DJ KODA (45 Amp Recordings)
Show runs through June 20th, 2009


Electric, synaptic and mysterious, painter Philippe Janssens and sculptor-jeweler Victoria Skirpa continue to refine the evolution of imagination and adornment. Philippe Janssens' paintings are channeled directly from his spirit and imagination. He gives form to these colorful and odd-shaped beings.  They leave you intrigued and wondering, what multidimensional universe have they evolved from? What universe do we step into as we look upon them?
Victoria Skirpa draws from living forms to create her sculpture and jewelry.  Skirpa makes pieces that are dynamically functional by inter-playing the mechanical and organic, simultaneously. You will discover elements of living organisms and symbols encapsulated in the armor of her work.

Philippe Janssens
Janssens is an artist, certified metal smith and sculptor. His paintings and sculptures are expressions of the linkage between primitive and contemporary art, with the intention to remind you of your cultural and spiritual connections to people from other parts of the world. His designs are channeled directly from his spirit and imagination. With the belief that the power of the creative process itself has produced the artwork he has created.
Born in Brussels, Belgium, he immigrated to the US in 1968, and has been living in Bali since 2008. Jansens graduated from the Academy of Beaux Art, Brussels and the Art & Metiers School in Jewelry Design. He went to work as an apprentice under a master Jeweler by the name of Gustave De Cock (famous in Brussels). In 1969 he came to the US and worked as a jeweler for many years and eventually opened his own business Indigena. Indigena was recently sold in 2008.
Janssens has exhibited his work mainly in Northern California and participated at Art Festivals as well, Mills Valley Art Festival, Marin County Festival, Palo Alto Festival and at Stanford University.
“In my wide space of heaven are figures and signs with, which one you can discover the deepest secrets.”   - Philippe Janssens -


Victoria R. Skirpa, Artist Statement

“Though I am well-known for my futuristic sculpture, in recent years, I have moved more towards jewelry as a source of inspiration.

Unlike other artistic mediums, jewelry is a physical experience. It is sculpture, that engages intimately with the body. My jewelry and small metalwork shows my preoccupation with the human body, its history of protection, and adornment.

Jewelry is also a relic that shows us who we are today and gives us access to memory and history. There has always been a cosmology for the wearing of adornment, from amour to earring: in order to please the sexes, to protect from others, to designate family and tribe, to indicate relationship to God (s), to protect and identify in battle, and many other permutations.  And these things are still true in the modern world. I am profoundly interested in this phenomenon.

As a jewelry designer and sculptor, I am interested in the visual play of dichotomies such as Rough/Smooth, Fine / Crude, Interior / Exterior, Ancient/Modern, and Feminine / Masculine, Machine/Organics”

Victoriaskirpa.com, Jewelrybythelake.com


Opening night music by DJ KODA (45 Amp Recordings)

Beneath The Surface Visionary Paintings & Works on Paper by Liz Mamorsky Interactive Assemblage Sculpture by Paul Baker

Closing art party will celebrate the FLOAT Galleries 2^nd year anniversary

DJ BONSCOTT of WaxONWaxOff productions will be spinning funk, hip hop, and jungle during the event. 

Saturday 5/17, from 6-9pm

Wine sponsor:

The capabilities of the human mind like the creative process, is nothing short of astonishing. Beneath the Surface gives us a taste of that brilliance, telling stories from deep within. During this two month show we challenge the audience to experience their own path through paintings, works on paper and assemblage sculpture that utilizes found objects to stir memories.

Our closing party will mark Float’s 2^nd year anniversary in business and participants will have the ability to win a free floatation session every ½ hour during the event.

Liz Mamorsky

An artist all her life Liz Mamorsky was a child star back in New York and currently does voice work for radio, television and games, including Sims 2, Sam & Max, and AVampyre Story. She is also the narrator for the recent PBS documentary, The Remarkable Red Hat Society. Since graduating from Bennington College, Mamorsky has exhibited her unique recycled-materials sculpture, studio furniture, and visionary paintings and drawings nationally and internationally. Her work resides in numerous public and private collections including: The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco; The Spertus Museum, Chicago; The Oakland Museum of California, Sony Corporation, Nektar Therapeutics, First National Bank of Arizona, Santa Clara Medical Center and Paramount Pictures for the set of Star Trek:Voyager. You can find her hard at work in her amazing LizLand Studio in San Francisco
 

Paul Baker

Paul Baker is an assemblage artist who creates interactive sculptures. His ongoing series: Machines for Living are built intentionally to help us examine our lives and evoke memories, though insight and humor.

A native of Boston, Baker moved to San Francisco ten years ago. He has been producing art in different mediums for the past 15 years; in 1991 he settled on assemblage sculpture, perhaps latently influenced by a boyhood passion for collecting shelf after shelf of what his mother called "junk".

His background includes exhibit design at the Cleveland Museum of Art; art instructor; bird house entrepreneur; and a stint as a sales clerk in a large department store. His education includes extensive travel abroad and a Masters degree in Medieval Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, England. Baker works as an advertising copywriter by day.  www.Paulbakersculpture.com

The Depths of the Subconscious, East Bay Express: 4/9/08 By DeWitt Cheng

Piedmont Post Review of Below the Surface

A Question of Belief A group show of paintings, photography and sculpture featuring, Cherie Raciti, Nina Glaser and Marianne Hale

 through 7/14/2007

"A Question of Belief" showcases three extraordinarily diverse artists, who express the power of belief through photography and sculpture. Writings in the sand. Uncommon views of beauty. Celebrations of an artist's unique view of the Buddha…

Discover for yourself which beliefs these artists reveal...

About the Artists

Cherie Raciti:

As Professor of Art at San Francisco State University, Cherie Raciti has won multiple awards over the years. Her work is included in many permanent collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.  Raciti will be presenting acrylic, mixed media paintings of simple shapes and patterns derived from both the sacred and the secular found in many cultures. Part of this work is her Buddha Head series, a 2 1/2 D take on traditional views of the Buddha figure that invite intimacy with the viewer.

Nina Glaser:

After 20 years of an amazing international photography career that included teaching at the Academy of Art University, and the publication of two monograms: "Outside of Time" and "Recomposed". Nina Glaser has completed the body of work she felt she was destined to do. Although she no longer creates art, she has graced us with a return showing of a few of her images for this show.  Glaser's work is both haunting and extraordinarily powerful, a personal favorite in the private collection of the FLOAT curator. Glaser has transferred her story telling and creativity to the Art of Hypnotherapy.

Marianne Hale:

Marianne Hale firmly believes in the power of positive change on a global level, and does everything in her power to send out this message.  Development Associate by day, an amateur photographer all her life, she is entering the gallery scene with an intention to share her message of nature revealed with as many people possible.  Strongly under the influence of fairy dust, she quite literally writes her messages of empowerment and belief in the sand, revealing what nature already knows.

déjà vu, Photography - Janeyce Ouellette Sculpture - Kelly Steinauer

August 16th - September 14th, 2006

Artists reception: Saturday August 19th, 6pm - 8pm

déjà vu invites you to challenge your view of the human form. Life, death, presence, absence, strength, vulnerability, loss and fear are rolled into this deeply private spiritual group exhibit. On display is the hand printed black and white photography of Janeyce Ouellette and manipulated leather sculpture of Kelly Steinauer.

As a photographer Ouellette will often hear feedback about the noticeable absence of people in her work.  Their very absence, however, notes, like negative space, their presence.  Implied, anthropomorphized, or subject matter touched by human hands, now long gone, individuals are indeed present, spiritually, if not physically.

Her education and background is in both psychology and art. As a clinical social worker, Ouellette has maintained a fascination with the integration between psychology and the therapeutic aspects of art.  The creative process is deeply integrated in her professional practice, just as it is in her personal life.

This body of work resulted from her direct support to others as they coped with their loss and grief in San Francisco during a time besieged by overwhelming, and relentless loss from AIDS.  Within her professional caregiver role, ironically, she found herself without opportunity to process her own grief. Photography has become her own creative expression of honoring those no longer physically in this world.

Like life itself, photography captures an elusive moment in time; shadows and light in black and white reflect the interplay between life and death. Its absence falls somewhere within the gray, as psyche converge with objects, they transform from form to spirit. Her work is a deeply private and spiritual process; she rarely chooses to show her work publicly.

Janeyce Ouellette

415.731.0380

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Professional designer and sculptor Kelly Steinauer, prefers to work in leather because of its qualities of strength, malleability, and its resemblance to human tissue. She manipulates and molds leather with water to explore the endless textures and forms of the human body. Some of her unusual techniques include the incorporation of found objects and the application of a rusting process to the leather.

Influenced by armor, exoskeletons and anatomy, Steinauer explores fear and safety by transforming leather into aged metal and skin-like sculptures. Internal organs, featuring found metal fixtures, look like abandoned car parts with rippled cellular textures. A helmet made of rusted leather scales curls in on itself like a crustacean hiding from a predator. A set of skin-covered teeth appears to grind quietly in a cage.

Steinauer's sculptures blur the boundaries between the organic and the mechanical, and expose the body from the inside out. Utilizing the visual and structural elements of armor and anatomy, she is exploring the dichotomy of personal safety and fear.

“I have encountered and explored my fears of being attacked in remote hills of Oakland where I spend a large amount of time running alone on trails. These fears get blurred with contrasting feelings of strength and invincibility that come from exercise, movement, and breathing fresh air. I seek to capture these seemingly contradictory experiences in my work to encourage viewers to question their own ideas about safety and strength, vulnerability and comfort.”

Kelly Steinauer
www.kellyst.com