Christian Davies in SF ART ENTHUSIAST
October 28, 2012
“Me, I’m OK” at J. Rusten Furniture Studio
sfartenthusiast.com
10/28/2012
Each artwork in Christian Davies’ current exhibition, “Me, I’m OK” at J. Rusten Furniture Studio presents an engaging synergy of geometric tessellations and organic, expressionist color and textures. Patterns and designs reveal the artist’s interest in traditional quilt patterns he was exposed to through his mother, a quilter, yet as a contemporary artist he subverts that tradition’s design and symbols with his own personal, creative perspective.
Utilizing basic square and triangles, Davies breaks up the quilter’s traditional, heavily-patterned picture plane and creates unique designs, colored to create patterns within patterns, cleverly displaying his individual expressions within rigorous rules. Looking closer into the patterns that at first glance seem strictly geometric, some, if not all of Davies’ works posses telling artifacts of the artist’s hand– a fingerprint, or a variance of texture in the water colors. This is a personal touch within the medium that may be reminiscent of a fabric used in quilts that may reveal a narrative or capture a an ephemeral memory eternally.
J. Rusten Furniture Studio, founded in 2003 by Jared Rusten with “a mandate to advance the craft of woodworking, and construct beautiful and compelling objects,” speaks eloquently to Davies’ subject matter, influences, and medium. A huge, 48-starred canvas American flag greets visitors in the narrow passageway leading to the main room evokes a strong ambiance of nostalgic Americana and craftsmanship, similar to the quilting influence in Davies’ works. Paneled glass windows on the large studio door and the imperfect lines of the bead-board of the walls reinforces Davies’ subversion of his work’s strict geometry. This strong collection of new works are hung shifted from both a salon style and a defined pattern, inviting a different interpretation of the artworks’ abstract patterns.
http://sfartenthusiast.com/2012/10/christian-davies-me-im-ok-at-j-rusten-furniture-studio/
| Tags: art, Bay Area, Christian Davies, Dicky Davies, exhibition, okayokay, San Francisco, SF, Valerie Leavy | More: In The Press
Me, I’m OK
September 15, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 15, 2012
CHRISTIAN DAVIES: Me, I’m OK
October 18, 2012, 7-10pm
Each painting in Christian Davies’ current body of work presents a flat field of colorful shapes which move in and out of adherence to predetermined patterns. These all-over geometric compositions are strikingly consistent– and simultaneously unique in countless minute ways. Intrigued by the traditional quilt patterns he was exposed to through his mother, a quilter, his work explores what happens when creative energy is applied to existing patterns and structures of shared experience. He draws a similarity between this process and the instruction-based painting show by the late Bob Ross, both of which have inspired countless copies and interpretations of a single set of instructions. All spring from the same directive, and yet no two are the same.
Davies maintains a rigorous studio schedule. His practice is a mundane activity in both process and frequency. It’s certainly not about radical self-expression; however, neither is it about perfect adherence to the rules. He’s feeling out the middle-ground, wherein one gets to explore the individual self while following rules. Within that constraint, he creates a seemingly homogeneous oeuvre that is, upon closer inspection, rich with texture, improvisation, and idiosyncrasy.
J. Rusten Furniture Studio was founded in 2003 by artisan Jared Rusten with a mandate to advance the craft of woodworking, explore new and challenging solid-wood furniture designs, and construct beautiful, compelling, singular, and enduring objects. Starting in 2012, his Mission showroom doubles as a salon with the intent of showcasing the Bay Area’s talented visual artists.
J. RUSTEN FURNITURE STUDIO
2815 23rd Street, San Francisco, CA
| Tags: art, Bay Area, Christian Davies, Dicky Davies, exhibition, independent curator, okayokay, San Francisco, SF, show, Valerie Leavy | More: Press Release
Christian Davies: Me, I’m OK
September 13, 2012
Christian Davies
Me, I’m OK
Opens October 18, 2012, 7-10pm
J. RUSTEN FURNITURE STUDIO
2815 23rd Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
Each painting in Christian Davies’ current body of work presents a flat field of colorful shapes which move in and out of adherence to predetermined patterns. These all-over geometric compositions are strikingly consistent– and simultaneously unique in countless minute ways. Intrigued by the traditional quilt patterns he was exposed to through his mother, a quilter, his work explores what happens when creative energy is applied to existing patterns and structures of shared experience. He draws a similarity between this process and the instruction-based painting show by the late Bob Ross, both of which have inspired countless copies and interpretations of a single set of instructions. All spring from the same directive, and yet no two are the same.
Davies maintains a rigorous studio schedule. His practice is a mundane activity in both process and frequency. It’s certainly not about radical self-expression; however, neither is it about perfect adherence to the rules. He’s feeling out the middle-ground, wherein one gets to explore the individual self while following rules. Within that constraint, he creates a seemingly homogeneous oeuvre that is, upon closer inspection, rich with texture, improvisation, and idiosyncrasy.
J. Rusten Furniture Studio was founded in 2003 by artisan Jared Rusten with a mandate to advance the craft of woodworking, explore new and challenging solid-wood furniture designs, and construct beautiful, compelling, singular, and enduring objects. Starting in 2012, his Mission showroom doubles as a salon with the intent of showcasing the Bay Area’s talented visual artists.
| More: Exhibitions, Past
Joel Phillips: No Regrets In Life
May 11, 2012
Joel Daniel Phillips
“No Regrets In Life”
May 11 – June 30, 2012
Opens May 11, 7-10pm
S A T E L L I T E 6 6
66 6th Street
SF, CA 94107
“No Regrets in Life” opens May 11, and is the first solo exhibition of San Francisco-based artist Joel Daniel Phillips. “No Regrets In Life” examines the people that the artists encounters on a daily basis, through larger-than-life-sized renderings of individuals from his own corner at 6th and Mission. These meticulous drawings- of people most often overlooked and anonymous- frame our contradictory reaction toward the spectacle of indigence. Our voyeuristic tendencies are completely at odds with the usual behavior, which is to frequently ignore what is seen, and keep walking.
In these portraits, the subjects cease to be dark matter in our communal space and instead are revealed to be the main characters in their own narrative. “No Regrets In Life” is a visual record of the artist’s striving to recognize unknown and unacknowledged individuals through the tip of his pencil. Rendered in stark chiaroscuro, these figures are emphatically spotlighted as individuals through Philips’ meticulous application of charcoal and graphite. The anonymous becomes celebrity, at least for a moment.
Joel Phillips received his BA in Fine Arts with a Graphics emphasis from Westmont College, Santa Barbara in 2011. He has exhibited in numerous group shows both in California and New York, where he attended the New York Center for Art and Media Studies in 2009.
Satellite66 is the newest gallery in San Francisco’s Central Market District, seeking to enrich the neighborhood with regular art exhibitions, and dedicated to showcasing emerging contemporary artists with a focus on craftsmanship, concept, and aesthetic. FOR GALLANTRY.
| More: Exhibitions, Past
Erik Richard Parra: Cardinal Shift
April 13, 2012
Erik Richard Parra
Cardinal Shift
April 13 – May 5, 2012
Opens April 13, 7-10pm
S A T E L L I T E 6 6
66 6th Street
SF, CA 94107
Erik Parra thinks we could do better. He assays American culture and takes a critical stance. In this new body of representational paintings, he points his lens at concepts of success, prosperity, and conveyance, and focuses on where they collide.
Modernist design figures strongly in his work, not as an aesthetic choice, but as a narrative device. It makes appearances in architecture and furniture, and even in the formal application of paint. Parra is referencing Postwar America, a time and place filled with the promise of progress and prosperity, led by science. Looking back from our current vantage point, we can’t help but feel a longing for Yesterday’s Tomorrow, where Le Corbusier has cured our social ills with design, and smart scientists in white lab coats our physical ones.
It’s in this vein of thought (a sense of loss for a dream unrealized) that he explores issues of success. Using cultural signifiers of victory like parades, he antagonizes our inherited notions of triumph by presenting them in a detached, un-empathetic way. He is observing the spectacle from the outside– with no desire to join.
The trains, cars, and the general concept of modern conveyance that he presents make us aware of just how much they are entwined with cultural ideas of prosperity. And to what end? The postwar fixation on the automobile and the calculated demise of public transportation (a campaign by major oil companies) has resulted in dependency, a scarcity mentality, and perpetual oil wars.
Despite all this, Erik Parra’s stance is not one of a hopeless pessimist, but rather that of a faithful critic. His portrayal of America Now asks us to abandon those notions of success and victory that were handed to us by corporations in the 40s and 50s. What we choose to replace them with is up to us. We could do better.
Satellite66 is the newest gallery in San Francisco’s Central Market District, seeking to enrich the neighborhood with regular art exhibitions, and dedicated to showcasing emerging contemporary artists with a focus on craftsmanship, concept, and aesthetic. FOR GALLANTRY.
| More: Exhibitions, Past
Cardinal Shift
April 10, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 24, 2012
ERIK RICHARD PARRA: Cardinal Shift
April 13, 2012, 7-10pm
Erik Parra thinks we could do better. He assays American culture and takes a critical stance. In this new body of representational paintings, he points his lens at concepts of success, prosperity, and conveyance, and focuses on where they collide.
Modernist design figures strongly in his work, not as an aesthetic choice, but as a narrative device. It makes appearances in architecture and furniture, and even in the formal application of paint. Parra is referencing Postwar America, a time and place filled with the promise of progress and prosperity, led by science. Looking back from our current vantage point, we can’t help but feel a longing for Yesterday’s Tomorrow, where Le Corbusier has cured our social ills with design, and smart scientists in white lab coats our physical ones.
It’s in this vein of thought (a sense of loss for a dream unrealized) that he explores issues of success. Using cultural signifiers of victory like parades, he antagonizes our inherited notions of triumph by presenting them in a detached, un-empathetic way. He is observing the spectacle from the outside– with no desire to join.
The trains, cars, and the general concept of modern conveyance that he presents make us aware of just how much they are entwined with cultural ideas of prosperity. And to what end? The postwar fixation on the automobile and the calculated demise of public transportation (a campaign by major oil companies) has resulted in dependency, a scarcity mentality, and perpetual oil wars.
Despite all this, Erik Parra’s stance is not one of a hopeless pessimist, but rather that of a faithful critic. His portrayal of America Now asks us to abandon those notions of success and victory that were handed to us by corporations in the 40s and 50s. What we choose to replace them with is up to us. We could do better.
Satellite66 is the newest gallery in San Francisco’s Central Market District, seeking to enrich the neighborhood with regular art exhibitions, and dedicated to showcasing emerging contemporary artists with a focus on craftsmanship, concept, and aesthetic. FOR GALLANTRY.
S A T E L L I T E 6 6
66 6th Street
San Francisco, CA
| More: Press Release
Gregory Eltringham in SF WEEKLY
March 14, 2012
Shyly Exhibitionistic 
The area around Sixth and Market is changing. Known as one of the most poverty-stricken parts of the city, Central Market has seen a recent surge of new businesses moving in alongside old stalwarts. The neighborhood is peppered with indie shops and boutiques, restaurants, and a host of cultural organizations. Among the newest galleries is Satellite66. Since opening in August the space has hosted a string of forward-thinking exhibitions by the likes of Fernando Orellana and Anja Leonora Ulfeldt. It recently served as the center of a “200 Yards” show, featuring photographs that captured the complexities of life within 200 yards of the gallery. The newest exhibit, “Gregory Eltringham: Something for Everyone,” gives the district another strong cultural jolt. At first glance, Eltringham’s paintings look like they might have hung in your grandparents’ living room — domestic interiors and portraits with a distinctly retro feel, rendered in loose, confident brushstrokes. Upon closer inspection, a kinky undercurrent comes through the Savannah artist’s work. The matched pieces Nag and Filly each depict a woman wearing not much more than a horse’s head, while paintings Suck and Crawl Space are even more blatantly sexual. Eltringham creates his own world of half-perceived encounters and mysterious goings-on, and he encourages the viewer to peer into the shadows with him.
| More: In The Press
Gregory Eltringham: Something For Everyone
March 09, 2012
Gregory Eltringham
Something For Everyone
March 16 – April 7, 2012
Opens March 16, 7-10pm
S A T E L L I T E 6 6
66 6th Street
SF, CA 94107
| More: Exhibitions, Past
Satellite66 in THE BOLD ITALIC
February 08, 2012
Mid-Riff:
Abby Wilcox finds a microhood at 6th and Market
Satellite66 is profiled along with our neighbors in this piece and subsequent party celebrating 6th and Market:
http://thebolditalic.com/abbywilcox/stories/1641-mid-riff
| More: In The Press
Fernando Orellana in ART PRACTICAL
December 08, 2011
Aliens vs. Venetians:
Dorothy Santos reviews Fernando Orellana’s Slideways exhibition for Art Practical.
Bold lines, audacious coloration, and hidden images characterize Fernando Orellana’s latest series, Slideways, currently on view at the Satellite66. From painting to electronics to robotics, Slideways showcases Orellana’s multifaceted art practice in a series of two-dimensional works that combine traditional techniques with digital tools. Orellana rejects the no
tion that painting is “dead,” instead demonstrating that postmodern works can abide by longstanding traditions, albeit through nontraditional tools. Orellana has found a way to create something wonderfully enticing and fresh at the convergence of old and new technologies.
Orellana’s primary tools, a Wacom tablet and stream-of-consciousness method, allow him to produce prolifically. Orellana’s work, like neo-expressionist paintings, employs a wide array of color and bold, non-tentative line work. Because Orellana makes no preliminary sketches, his pieces emerge from his instinct in the moment and follow no particular order or guidance. The gesture of the work is steeped in the use of blind and modified contour drawing. Unlike the modern style, the work is filled with unmarked surfaces reserved purely for color rather than the textural quality and visible brushstrokes of Neo-Expressionism. InInvisible Canine (2011), the intense and laborious-appearing visual elements of line, shape, and form coalesce into a dense subject matter that not only make the canine visible but also a crucial part of the composition.
Slideways engages a dialogue between the perennial traditionalist and postmodern artist. Orellana’s work presents an unlikely intersection of technology-enabled production and organic notions of the creative process.Slideways reminds viewers that, technological tools and seamless lines notwithstanding, the artist, not the technology, created this body of work.
Dorothy Santos is a freelance art writer based in San Francisco. She holds a BA in both Philosophy and Psychology from the University of San Francisco.
http://www.artpractical.com/shotgun_review/slideways/
| More: In The Press
Fernando Orellana in BOMBLOG
December 05, 2011
Samuel Jablon and Fernando Orellana reveal the secret to hacking electric toys and discuss the artistic merits of Play-Doh.
Interview here: http://bombsite.com/issues/1000/articles/6283
Population, 2011. By Fernando Orellana
| More: In The Press
Robert Long: You Must Not Blame Me If I Do Not Talk To Clouds
November 29, 2011
Robert Long
You Must Not Blame Me If I Do Not Talk To Clouds
January 13 – February 4, 2012
Opening Friday, January 13, 7-10pm
at Satellite66
66 6th Street
SF, CA 94103
| More: Exhibitions, Past
Fernando Orellana: SLIDEWAYS
November 17, 2011
Fernando Orellana
Slideways
November 18 – December 31, 2011
Opening Friday, November 18, 6-9pm
at Satellite66
66 6th Street
SF, CA 94103
| More: Exhibitions, Past
Torreya Cummings: Manifest Clandestiny
November 04, 2011
Torreya Cummings
Manifest Clandestiny
A speakeasy exhibition of large-format photography held in the shell of a famous public artwork- hidden but in plain sight.
Two nights ONLY and by special invitation.
November 5th & 6th, 2011
Victor Hugo Hotel
1001 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
| More: Exhibitions, Past
FERNANDO ORELLANA @ Satellite66
October 11, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Valerie Leavy
(415) 644-8614 | valerie [at] satellite66 [dot] org
Satellite66 Presents:
Fernando Orellana
Slideways
November 18 – December 31, 2011
Reception: November 18, 6-9pm
SAN FRANCISCO, October 11, 2011 – Satellite66 is pleased to present Fernando Orellana’s new series of digital paintings, collectively entitled Slideways. The exhibition is on view from November 18 to December 31, 2011. An opening reception will be held on Friday, November 18, from 6-9pm.
The complex, multi-layered, and often humorous imagery in the series Slideways is produced somewhat automatically. “The initial drawings surface quickly, almost as if they already existed,” Orellana explains, “In many ways, I am just transcribing the images, allowing them to take shape on their own.” To achieve this, Orellana allows his consciousness to be distracted by external influences, which serves to remove deliberate mark-making from the process. Eventually, Orellana “sees” his subjects in the labyrinth of initial lines and embellishes them. The process is thus related to both the occult practices of automatic writing and Freudian ideas of free association.
Orellana uses a Cintiq Wacom Tablet and digital imaging software to create the paintings, which are then printed on a large-format, archival ink jet printer. The resulting paintings are rich with layers of line work and drenched in color.
Currently an Assistant Professor of Digital Art at Union College in Schenectady, NY, Fernando Orellana uses new and traditional media as a way of transmitting concepts that range from generative art to socio-political commentary. He has recently exhibited at Texas A&M University (Texas), the Cultural Center of Spain in El Salvador (San Salvador), Museu dʼArt Contemporani de Barcelona (Spain), Espacio Fundación Telefónica (Argentina), Exit Art (New York), The Tang Museum of Art, (New York), Glass Curtain Gallery (Chicago), The Ark (Ireland), and The Biennial of Electronic Art (Australia).
He is the recipient of a 2009, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Digital/Electronic Arts and a 2010 Full Fellowship Award at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT. He received a Master of Fine Art from The Ohio State University and a Bachelor of Fine Art with honors at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was born in El Salvador, San Salvador and currently lives in Troy, New York.
Satellite66 is a gallery that promotes art with a technological element. We seek to enrich our neighborhood with regular art exhibitions, and engage in public discourse with experiments in new media. We like to jaywalk the intersection of Art and Technology.
Opening Reception: Friday, November 18, 2011
Exhibition Dates: November 18 – December 31, 2011
Gallery Hours: Fri-Sat, noon-4pm
Satellite66 Gallery
66 6th Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
(415) 644-8614 | satellite66.org
| More: Press Release
Anja Ulfeldt in KQED Arts
October 09, 2011
Taming Static Electricity at Satellite 66
By Marion Anthonisen | Oct 09, 2011
Static electricity attracted Oakland artist Anja Leonora Ulfeldt partly because people don’t love it. No one wants static in their laundry hamper or winter hairdo, and the simple electric force can build up and destroy computers or — in super-rare cases — cause gas station fires.
The five interactive sculptures currently on display at three-month-old gallery Satellite 66 were built during Ulfeldt’s residency at the Exploratorium, San Francisco’s not-just-for-kids museum of science, art and human perception. Visitors to the show will turn small cranks on each piece, generating static electricity to ring chimes, illuminate tiny lights or make feathers float. Like exhibits at the Exploratorium, Ulfeldt’s pieces elicit surprise and delight in one’s ability to participate in a phenomenon inaccessible without the help of a device.
Ulfeldt’s focus on static electricity encourages the viewer to linger closely, to delve into various expressions of just one natural force. Participants are also pushed closer to the pieces by necessity in Satellite 66′s intimate gallery space. Part of a larger movement in business and the arts to revitalize the Central Market Corridor, tiny Satellite 66 shares an address with sister gallery the Maltese Embassy on a gritty stretch of Sixth Street between the Baldwin House Hotel and the San Francisco Barber College. The space may gain some foot traffic if the neighborhood becomes more of a destination for art seekers. Satellite 66 will likely draw those with an interest in both art and technology — the gallery specializes in the intersection between the two.
While our growing dependence on smartphones is a topic of frequent discussion, casual conversation doesn’t often turn to our longer-lived attachment to less flashy appliances like refrigerators. Yet we’re totally inconvenienced by the failure of these basic mechanical aids, too. In order to maintain our normal way of life and avoid the feeling of helplessness associated with a power outage, we need our bedroom lights as much as we need our computers. By mimicking human behavior with simple machines, Ulfeldt intends to investigate our relationship with technology defined more broadly than the newest updates to iPhone and Kindle.
Animated Life (Influence Machine #1)
Ulfeldt’s intent to bring non-living objects temporarily to life gives the work a distinct melancholy. The feathers move only when the crank turns, and their human-like quality suggests that we’re plugged in, too — but this doesn’t feel like a dogmatic condemnation of human frailty in the face of machines. The structures are beautiful, and there’s simple pleasure in using an invisible force to make a feather curl, float and undulate. While tempered with a dose of gloominess, the work is ultimately a celebration of science and a small static-y window into a deep history of technological advancement.
Anja Leonora Ulfeldt runs through November 12, 2011 at Satellite 66, 66 Sixth Street in San Francisco.