Bad Intentions

Counterculture expressed though painting, music and film
Collaboration by Scott J. Taylor and Clayton Glinton


Opening Paraturday March 17th 2007, 6pm-9pm
Show runs 03/15/2007 through 04/15/20

Bad Intentions is a collection of the recent work of collaborative artists and student filmmakers Scott J. Taylor and Clayton Glinton. Strongly influenced by graffiti, blues, hip hop culture and media counterculture, the young artists developed their recent work from a need to find a creative outlet in between projects while in film school. Taylor and Glinton invite you to experience their world of bad intentions through sound, video and the daunting images of characters, challenging your view of reality.


Opening night DJ’s include: Scott Taylor (waxonwaxoff productions), KODA (45 amp, urban drums), Doubleday (company truck) they will be spinning funk, hip hop, and a little jungle, included in the show will be two experimental films by Taylor:

THE NEW GODS - (black and white, silent) is about a man with a bug problem. It explores opposites and repetition in composition. With an Akira Ifukube track from King Kong vs. Godzilla. 1minute, 50 seconds.
 
A Wolf and Little Daughter - (Color) Adapted from a children's book my 3rd grade teacher used to read to us, "The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales", By Virginia Hamilton. Think "Little Red Riding Hood," but without the BS. 3 minutes.

About the artists:

Scott J. Taylor

“I do not consider myself a GRAFFITI artist.  I'm so much more than that. I mean, yeah I've done some graffiti, but so what? A lot of people do that. I also do not make BLACK ART.  Yes, it is true I am a big assed 210 pound Negro but I do not make Black Art” - Scott J. Taylor

Music is Taylor’s primary inspiration for most of his work. He has been drawing since he can remember. His father, also a graphic artist, taught him a lot.  Taylor has always had an interest in cartoons, sex, and comic book illustration.  He incorporates these subjects sparingly throughout his pieces. He has always been an avid TV casualty and comic book junkie, and it shows in his work. More recently Taylor has been experimenting with multi-layer stencils over bold mixed media backgrounds and with intense compositional framing.

Taylor has two kids, they're grrrrrrrreat--like frosted flakes. He lives in East Oakland and attends school at The Academy of the Art University.

Clayton Glinton

“I look at art as a way to satisfy the senses.  I create art for the enjoyment I get out of the process and for the sight of a finished piece.  I try to construct images filled with truth and illusions that can resemble different images to different viewers resulting in mixed views and interpretations.  Using complex mazes of color, lines and depth my paintings intend to take the mind on a spiritual, psychedelic, sexual, and sometimes, dangerous journey.  With a long background in graffiti style competition and influence I approach a canvas with an altered direction and self-satisfying goal” - Clayton Glinton
 

Originally from Colorado, Glinton developed his interest in the arts at a young age.  He started with comic books and evolved into painting characters and letters in the streets.  Art has helped him explore things in this world once never thought possible.   Currently living and attending school in San Francisco, the Bay Area has been a blessing and a wonderful source of inspiration for his work.

Press:

Bad Intentions, But Not that Bad, East Bay Express 3/14/07, By Rachel Swan

M A R T I N W E B B, “P A S S E N G E R S”

M A R T I N  W E B B

“P A S S E N G E R S” 

Paintings, drawings and mixed-media with sticks-and-mud, live music by Lucio Menegon and Suki O'Kane

Opening Artist Reception
Saturday February 17th 2007, 6pm-9pm
Show runs 02/15/2007 through 03/15/2007

"I grew up in England. Whilst the other kids were playing cricket I was drawing pictures and making things out of sticks and mud. In many ways little has changed” Martin Webb

Have you ever flown over England? The entire country is a very beautiful patchwork of fields, roads and towns. By contrast, the western US looks very different. Here, there are vast swathes of raw untamed landscape with small pockets of crazy man-made geometry. Visually, it’s a compelling combination especially the hinterlands where man and nature duke it out. 

These paintings are reflections on traveling through such landscapes, and the thoughts and feelings those travels stirred in the artist. As passengers, we presume that we are passing though, and the land is just waiting to take over once we're gone.

The people featured in Martin Webb’s “Passengers” exhibit aren’t posed. Instead, they are depicted in transition as they move from one place to another – much like the landscapes they pass through, they’re in flux. Some are drawn from real life, some from photographs. and some from memory.

 
As an art director Webb designs and produces artwork for concrete floors, which gives him the opportunity to work on a massive scale - "canvases" up to 40,000 square feet. He works throughout the United States collaborating with architects, designers and furniture makers. www.quicksandstudio.com






Lucio Menegons music works exceptionally well with Webb’s artwork, Menegon will be performing live for the opening reception.  He is a guitarist, improviser, composer, collaborator and sonic artist. His work encompasses rock 'n' roll, blues, country, punk and experimental music, and will be accompanied opening night by the amazing Suki O'Kane.
www.kingtone.com

www.quicksandstudio.com

Hands in Motion, The works of Adekunle Kabir Adejare (Jareking)
A benefit for Paths of Native Africa



Opening artist party Saturday January 20th 07, 6pm-9pm
Show runs 01/16/07 through 02/15/07

FLOAT Gallery, in conjunction with The African Outlet, presents a sampling of the life’s work of Nigerian born Bay Area award winning artist Adekunle Kabir Adejare (Jareking).

Proceeds from sales of this event will go to Paths of Native Africa , a not-for-profit organization that undertakes self-sustaining projects, education and cultural exchange to help African people overcome hardships and improve their quality of life.   

Adejare choose to name this show “Hands in Motion” for his extensive combinations of artistic media. Pen and Ink drawing, Batik painting (applied as acrylic on canvas), Rice Paper painting, Quilting, Appliqué, Natural Indigo dyeing, Tie-Dye, and Embroidery all have important roles in his art pieces. He has also developed a technique that he calls “Plywood Etching”. Due to the intricacy and detail of Adejare’s methods, many of his pieces have taken as long as three months to complete.

Adejare, who values knowledge and wisdom, has made it his life work to “Document Past and Present Events for the Next Generations". His artwork illustrates historical events, current affairs, stories and folktales. The inspiration for his work stems from his culture, which is rich with stories about good and evil, kindness and selfishness, fate and determination. 

“I strive to connect those educational and universal lessons to daily life,” Adejare explains. 

Please join us for this very special show.

Gesture and Gestalt Paintings of Albert Hwang and the Glass & Metal Sculpture of Victoria Skirpa

Opening Reception:
Saturday December 16th 06, 6pm-9pm
Show runs 12/15/06 through 01/15/07

What IS Gesture and Gestalt?

A Gesture is a form of non-verbal communication made with a part of the body, used instead of or in combination with verbal communication.

Gestalt: A collection of physical, biological, psychological or symbolic Forms that create a unified concept, configuration or pattern which is greater than the sum of its parts.

The art exhibit Gesture and Gestalt is a meeting place of opposites, an experience that summons you closer. This provocative show is akin to the surreal and evocative of human drama. Together the never before displayed black & white spiral paintings of Albert Hwang and the bodily, organic sculptures of Victoria Skirpa create a virtual theater of gesture and Form/Gestalt.

Who are the artists?

Albert Hwang began drawing from an early age.  He majored in studio art at UC Irvine and studied painting in NY before moving to San Francisco in 2005 in order to pursue his career as a painter. Much of his recent work deals with the duality of nature by rendering the tension between opposing pictorial forces.

On display will be both his black & white spirals and color paintings. These works will be on public display for the first time.

“There often comes a moment while working on a painting when it seems that the shapes and forms may actually spring to life. If this moment were realized, I may have found myself painting the perfect picture. This cycle of hope and despair is both stimulating and habit forming, acting as an impetus for each successive picture” – Albert Hwang
 

 

Victoria Skirpa is largely self-taught, gaining skills through apprenticeship and trial and error. As a result of her incredible creative and material breadth, her skills include glass casting, large and jewelry-scale metal smithing, and restoration.

Skirpa’s glass-work confronts and explores the tension in attraction and repulsion; the grotesque is a point of inquiry. Her metalwork tends to evoke futuristic universes. She often seeks a playful relationship with work, evocative of feminine iconography and sexual innuendo. However, a continual thread remains: the relationship of forms to living bodies - animal, human, and insect. On display will be glass, metal and mixed media sculpture. 

“A Gesture is a form of movement, is something that glides past its motion, resonating in space, moving beyond its initial expression. Gestalt formation is where a gesture stops gliding and is perceived as form.” – Victoria Skirpa

From Aperture to Audio

A multimedia collaboration by: Photographer Peter Lippman, and Composer Dan Finnerty.
Opening Reception:
Saturday November 18th 06, 6pm-9pm
Show runs 11/15/06 through 12/14/06


Presented for the first time, a multimedia collaboration between photographer Peter Lippman, and composer/DJ Dan Finnerty (Spinnerty).   From Aperture to Audio introduces the pairing of Lippman’s photography with Spinnerty’s computer-based compositions. Spinnerty’s music combines voices, keyboards, sampling, and everyday industrial and natural sounds.  Each image/composition is presented as one; imagery infused with music and exhibited with listening stations.
 Lippman is a self-taught San Francisco Based professional photographer who has been published internationally and has shown across the US. Most recently published in German based Feierabend, his work ranges from simultaneously stoic and sensitive black and white images to dramatic color images. Lippman’s work, often dreamlike, draws the viewer into his world. “Lippman’s images have a sense of long lost memory; like someone longing for love and affection.  They are quite moving and poetic.”,said Thai photographer Ohm.
Spinnerty’s compositions provide a lush, textured and eclectic soundtrack that is reminiscent of Radiohead, Portishead, the films of Kurasawa and 2001, A Space Odyssey. Spinnerty is trained in the traditions of classical, jazz and improvisational music; his most recent work is included in the "Discoveries" compilation due out this November on urban and electronic label Om Records.
A DVD of the photography and music is available for purchase both at the gallery and online at: spinnerty's blog

Peter Lippman
Spinnerty.com

RAW From the streets to the walls

A group show of two young up and coming East Bay Artists
Whitson Hunter & Rebecca Lord – Painting and mixed media

Opening Reception:

Saturday October 14th 06, 6pm-9pm
Show runs 10/14/06 through 11/15/06

Whitson Hunter grew up in the streets of Oakland; he lives, works and loves this city. On any given day he passes the faces on the streets that speak to why he respects and loves Oakland with such a passion. He retains the memories of those characters and brings them to life on canvas; his way of documenting the daily life of Oakland. Self described as scrappy and Raw, Whitson is one of the most powerful young emerging artists of Oakland today. Hunter learned to paint while studying graphic design at Philadelphia University, with roots in print making, his explorations have lead him to painting, photography, collages, and mixed media. Armed with his new weapon of choice; he merged his love of Oakland into his work. RAW is just a small glimpse of his view of the cultural power, Intensity and brilliance of Oakland.
Artist statement: “This body of work is a tribute to my community. It embodies the same colors and textures of Oakland. Each face has a story behind it and is a reflection of the feelings and emotions that I feel from the streets. I use solid colors, collage paper, and a persons eyes to recreate my environment, my goal is to express feelings though images.

Whitson Hunter

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Rebecca Lord a self described Berkeley poet comes from a family of artists, and combines painting and poetry into a raw vibrant cabaret/circus style of art. Mixed with a bit of shadows, chaos, and often dark text, Lord will be showing her work publicly in a gallery for the first time ever. Lord was born in Malden, Massachusetts and grew up in many different apartments in and around Brookline.  On Groundhog's day 1996 she moved to California and has lived there ever since.  She uses only gouache and her style is not quite fine art yet, not quite cartoonish, it is somewhere right down the middle. From doodles of lambchop to the Spice Girls to now painting, she has been has been creating art her entire life.

"If I couldn't express myself on paper, I would feel lost." - Rebecca Lord

Rebecca Lord

RAW

Embrace self-expression through freedom of speech . empower though words... act with vision

Gods & Aeroplanes Acrylic and mixed media of Sally Rodrigue

Show runs September 15th - October 14th, 2006
Artists reception: Saturday September 16th, 6pm - 8pm

GODS & AEROPLANES:  Unveils Sally Rodriguez’s most spectacular mixed media piece to date. Rodriguez invites you to experience a present day metaphorical tale. Her creatures both god like and of half human spirit result in a gargantuan display of multi-media pieces representing the quest of seeking god and finding ourselves.

Dioses
GODS & AEROPLANES = forces of nature divided by the actions of man
…think of it as a mathematical ratio.
AERO = to soar
PLANES = our existence

Surrounded by atmospheric gods Rodriguez’s premier piece Icarus is a colossal soaring creature designed and built specifically for this show. Icarus, half human half beast rises to the next atmospheric level post wing repair. In a compilation of blueprints, three dimensional wall blocks of sheet metal and copper nails are interspersed in paintings of vibrant red and blue abstract in both acrylic and oils.

About the artist:
Sally Rodriguez began painting in 2003 while living in Missoula, Montana, she is entirely self taught, and works in a wide variety of painting styles and mediums. Her work creates an ethereal experience filled with colorful characters and festive vibrancy.

Educated at the University of California Santa Cruz she holds a Bachelors degree in Women's Studies, with a minor in Latin American History.  Rodriguez, then 36 found artistic expression so powerful, that she has continued to explore reality through the means of color, texture, and form.  Presently she works full time as an artist and a teacher.

Artist statement:
“MY ICARUS is not about failure, but of triumph through the repair of his wings, utilizing the transformative spirit intrinsic to human creativity.  I challenge the audience to take their own interpretation of myths, gods, and beliefs and to apply them to our current times.”

fortunaluz@sbcglobal.net
http://www.fortunaluz.com/