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

Uncertainty, Prints by Besarion Khidesheli & Industrial furniture and sculpture by Jeff Ritter

Artist Party November 14th 2015, 6 to 9pm

Show runs October 25th, 2015, through December 26th 2015

Two Oakland artists working both in and from uncertainty - The lack of certainty, a state of having limited knowledge where it is impossible to exactly describe the existing state, a future outcome, or more than one possible outcome.

Besarion Khidesheli - Artist

"My name is Besarion Khidesheli, I'm a 24-year old self-taught artist from Tbilisi, Georgia, currently based in Oakland, CA. I have been moving from place to place every two years since I was 15 years old. I have been lucky enough to spend good chunks of my late teens and early adulthood in Georgia (the one in Europe), different parts of California, Mali, and Spain. At first, such movement made me anxious -- there are many uncertain aspects to upcoming adventures. Eventually, this anxiety transformed into excitement. My most recent project titled 'Illusions' is centered on the theme of uncertainty. In terms of technique, I first draw by hand, then scan my drawings, digitally adjust these images, and finally re-print them on canvases. I usually find the most interesting details of a given work once it is done, as each step adds a new level of complexity. Also, the viewer can never be certain of what the piece represents. Different angles invoke different emotions and understandings, making my work quite introspective. I have come to appreciate uncertainty in most aspects of life, and I hope to convey that feeling in other humans as well."  besartion.com,   https://www.facebook.com/besartion

Jeff Ritter – Industrial furniture design & sculpture

Jeff Ritter a self-taught artist living in Oakland Ca. Ritter uses reclaimed steel along with different mediums creating functional industrial furniture, and sculpture. Custom orders available.

Auspicious

An illuminated group show

Artist Party Saturday January 24th, 6 to 9pm
Show runs January 8th, through February 21st 2015

Stephen Widmark
I received my degree in physics from UC Berkeley before joining the Air Force to fly F-111s.  After my discharge, I became a high school physics teacher.  I’ve been making art most of my life, first as a painter and then as a maker of illuminated art.  Lately I’ve become interested in conceptual SciArt and have been producing works that are informed by my background in physics.  I’ve exhibited in shows throughout the San Francisco Bay area.  paleoneon.com

Michael Clarke
Clark works entirely in garbage, illuminated garbage. What others can find no use for, he sees as a medium to reproduce the natural beauty in the world.

“I am a conservationist and peripheral visionary, together I create perfectly imperfect light from within” – Michael Clark   theinnershade.com

R+D
R+D fabricates steel tables that take on the identity of animated, industrial sculpture by combining organic shapes and smooth postures. These sturdy, functional art pieces are hand crafted originals created in collaboration by artists Peter DeLucchi and Jeff Ritter. R+D is based in Oakland.
 peterdelucchi.comm

Cheryll MacIntyre
Playfulness, that’s me + art. It is the playground in which I am free, to experiment. to explore.
to smile at the many layers of paint. to break. to trust . to be, in each and every moment.   coloursoutsidelines.com

Escape from Scarce City

Hannah Woebkenberg
J. B. Mackinnon
Opening Party July 26th, 6 to 9pm
Show runs July 21st though September 6th 2014

A view on creativity from the urban underground, two very different artists explore how we possess the power of creativity beyond any limitations. 

Hannah Woebkenberg – Abstract Artist

Hannah Woebkenberg is an active artist and practicing Emergency Medicine physician in the East Bay.  She came from Indiana via Atlanta and currently lives in the Jingletown arts community in Oakland while working in several East Bay hospitals.  Ever since college she has been attempting to perfect the balance of art and medicine.  For the past 6 years she has been working primarily with nylons as a medium, which allows an aspect of sculpture and painting to arise in her work.  She has created, displayed and showed art throughout the Midwest, Georgia, and is now excited to introduce the Bay area to her work.  Hannahsevolution.blogspot.com

J. B. Mackinnon – Champion of creativity

Escape from Scarce City/ Canvas and Comics a series of new work.

Monsters, aliens, lizards, and fish populate the paintings and drawings of J. B. MacKinnon, The Champion of Creativity. Highways, deserts, dreamscapes and cityscapes provide the backdrop, and road signs, old bones, old cars, pickups, semis, and even a harbor crane clutter the scene, and of course graffiti breaks up the areas you might least expect. Together they give a complicated and seemingly dark world that verges on chaos, but on closer inspection a humor, warmth, and even an unusual access to humanity is found.

We are led from piece to piece by a trail of comic book pages that at once reference individual works, and weave them into a tale of breaking free from where the Twentieth Century has left us, letting us, "Escape from Scarce City".    jb-mackinnon.com/about

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

AutoErotica 2

 

     "It's all about the Car" A group show featuring:

Phillip Hall - Digital light painted photography
Bill Silveira - Auto inspired assemblage sculpture
John Sheridan – Paintings and prints 

Opening party, February 1^st, 6 – 9pm

Show runs through March 8^th, 2014 

Let’s face it…. Big old beautiful cars are sexy!

The US, with its love for the car, is still fighting the need to become fuel efficient, healthy and green. But no, we don’t want to adorn our walls with mini porn car art! Huge American cars are in our blood and we aren't letting them go easily.

Each of these three Bay Area artists has their own unique take on the love of the car. They honor our rapidly disappearing, uniquely American, decadent automotive past.
About the Artists:

-Philip Hall
Philip Hall takes photographs of classic cars. Or, at least, at first glance that’s what the viewer might assume he does. However, on closer inspection, it becomes clear that while the classic (and sometimes not so classic) car is the predominant object in the pictorial field, it certainly isn’t the only subject. In fact, what Philip Hall does quite remarkably is use the classic car as a vehicle (pun intended) through which he can talk about highly sophisticated concepts in contemporary art and photography.

Philip Hall graduated from the California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts) in Southern California and as this might suggest he has a very thorough understanding of contemporary art concepts and the mechanisms of art criticism and appreciation. His images are littered with visual quotes from Contemporary Art. One of the artworks being shown is “California Cruisin’.” Hall has layered warm, diffuse sunset tones over the contours of a rare vintage 1953 Corvette. The car’s cherry-red taillight and the flesh-colored curves subliminally evoke the nude female form. The filtered, patterned light in

this composition is the direct influence of cinematic lighting techniques Hall learned in his Hollywood years: shadowy fronds, like palm leaves in a coastal breeze, fade into and out of focus. Hall’s dreamy composition equally encapsulates the sensuality and nostalgia of an imaginary ideal—an ideal not only personal to Hall, but nearly archetypal to an entire generation. Philiphallimagesandlight.com 

-Bill Silveira
Slightly curmudgeonly, a bit on the eccentric side and possessing a rabid enthusiasm for the automobile, Bill Silveira enjoys making art out of discarded auto parts, rusty scrap metal and other unique items that seem to find their way into his vast collection of interesting and eclectic junk. A long term resident of Oakland's Jingletown Arts District, Bill can often be found wallowing through the skeletal remains of his rusty old vehicles while pondering the future of what was left behind. Picture a maniacal Fred Sanford with a warehouse full of crap, a scruffy dog named Scrapmeister and an old welder.

-John Sheridan

Imagine trying to find the Muse of artistic inspiration in an American culture that is both expanding and deflating at the same time. Where a minute is like a century. And where its people can only recall the past as a kind of blur. 

John Sheridan chooses and arranges images found in a long (endless) search for meaningful content in American culture. He has discovered and learned much from the past 50 plus years of portable, commercial and short-term imagery - put it on canvas and painted and printed the results. 

The artist uses a large, colorful and surprising palette of existing images, words and paint which strike resonant chords because they are both art and also come from and target the American working class. The paint is simple house paint, saved before it becomes landfill. The images he uses often contain logoistic corporate and other mesmerizing and controversial elements, which cannot be separated from the great energy that has always marked the poor, blue collar and working culture of the country. These works on canvas explode with cars, pinups, superheroes, numbers, logos and images from the deep (or not so deep) popular unconscious as well as from the most persuasive propaganda machine the world has ever seen – American advertising. johnsheridanart.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

Occasional gunshot sounds

FLOAT Gallery is proud to present:

Occasional gunshot sounds
Paintings & skate decks by Yvette M. Buigues



Opening Party Saturday September 15th, 6pm – 9pm
With live music by Laura Inserra
& Free 5 minute tuning fork Tune-Ups by Shen Sounds
Show runs September 9th through October 28th, 2012

Paintings & original art skate decks by fine artist Yvette M. Buigues. From the streets of West Oakland, her work contains great whimsy, subtle observations and a dark sense of humor.

Yvette M. Buigues:
Paintings emerge from my intuition, dreams and sentiments; rarely do I know where a blank panel will take me.  Working with icons and discovering the full text of the story as I move through a painting, I often find I have been directed to a place that is real yet far away. And when finished, I have gained new insight and understanding in my surroundings.

Using acrylic paint, colored pencil and, sometimes, collage and found objects, I work in translucent and opaque layers creating many textures.  Paint brushes, dental tools, screw drivers, sticks, rocks, and palm sanders are some of the tools used. Upon first glance, my images appear as silk-screens or stencils; a closer look reveals that each subject is an original, each icon unique.

Why skate decks?
“I needed a birthday gift for my husband, I grabbed his skateboard and the fun began!
I allow myself to get very playful with these, using characters that, up until now, have not made it out of my sketchbook along with those that are regular subjects in my paintings. A healthy mix of humor and darkness, these decks are an escape to a place where hurt is healing and “doom & gloom” is bright. I am currently working on finding a licensing representative to market and reproduce my designs. “
- Yvette M. Buigues heavyblackline.com

Opening night:

About the Music:
Laura Inserra is a vibrant and talented composer, multi-instrumentalist, teacher, performer and artistic director.  For the opening party she will be performing HANG. The sound of the Hang creates an ambiance, a sonic tapestry, an atmosphere that is spacious and easy to immerse oneself in. The sounds drift in and out of awareness, like the scent of nearby incense. www.laurainserra.com
Free 5 minute tuning fork Tune-Ups by Shen Sounds:
"Get grounded and Get In-Tune with Shannon at Shen Sounds. Shannon is offering free 5 minute tuning fork Tune-Ups to get your OM on for the weekend! Fork yeah!" www.shensounds.com