Richard T. Walker “This, as it Isn’t (mountain #2), 2022 ” pigment prints in artists’ frames. Image courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery.
September 7 to October 21 – Richard T. Walker: Never Here/Always There at Fraenkel Gallery: Incorporating photography, video, music, sculpture, and performance, Richard T. Walker continues his exploration of the relationship between the individual and the changing natural world. In eleven new works, Walker reorders the elements of the environment, upending assumptions about humankind’s place in nature by embracing futile connections to the vast landscape. A public reception with the artist will take place on Saturday, September 9, from 1:30–4 pm. Fraenkel Gallery is located at 49 Geary Street in San Francisco.
Arleene Correa Valencia “Yaaoma” Repurposed textiles on canvas, pheasant and peacock feathers. Image courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery.
Ongoing to November 4 – Arleene Correa Valencia: Naces Así, Naces Prieto. No Naces Blanco / You Are Born Like This, You Are Born Brown. You Are Not Born White: Arleene Correa Valencia creates paintings, textiles, and drawings that reflect on patterns of migration and family separation. Her recent work is inspired by the letters that she wrote to her father as a child, during a period when her father had migrated to the United States while Correa Valencia remained in Mexico. Correa Valencia draws on her family’s archives and correspondence to craft a visual language that considers the politics of visibility and the complexities of undocumented immigration. Catharine Clark Gallery is located at 248 Utah Street in San Francisco.
Left: Julia Goodman “Farther and Farther (III)” 2023, Watercolor on hand formed paper. Pulp made from different color repurposed bedsheets and t-shirts. Right: Klea McKenna “Untitled (cascade)” from the series Rainbow Bruise, 2023, Unique photographic relief. Embossed silver gelatin photogram and fabric dye. Images courtesy of EUQINOM Gallery.
September 7 to October 28 – Vessel: Julia Goodman & Klea McKenna at EUQINOM Gallery: Vessel brings together two artists, and long-time friends, for the first time in a two person exhibition at EUQINOM. Julia Goodman and Klea McKenna are both Bay Area-based artists whose work centers time and its relationship to our human experience. While working in markedly different mediums, the artists overlap in their innovative and intimate relationship to their material processes, which are shaped by years of experimentation and adaptation. In their textural and low relief works, they also share subject matters – short and long time, bodies, human connection, caretaking, and transformation. Vessel is a presentation of two artists using their personal experiences to explore the sublime in the hard work of caring for and carrying on for each other, our children, and future generations. The opening reception is on Saturday, September 9 from 1:30-4 pm. EUQINOM Gallery is located at 49 Geary Street in San Francisco.
Top: Adia Millett “Untitled” Bottom: Heesoo Kwon, “Leymusoom Garden”. Images courtesy of SJICA.
September 16 to February 18 – Adia Millett: Wisdom Keepers and Heesoo Kwon: Leymusoom Garden: Following Naked Dancing and Long Dreaming at the San Jose ICA: Adia Millett explores the parallels and interplay between a craftswoman and a warrior. In both cases “martial arts” is an intricate set of techniques and skills used with the intentions of protecting, preserving, and building a community and its culture. While the tools used in this process differ for the soldier and the quilter, put side by side a shared story is revealed, providing a new perspective of our ancestral past, and perhaps our future. Power, endurance, and resourcefulness reveal the cultural interplay between tribal war and post-slavery reconstruction. As exhibited by the title, the characters and tools crafted in this exhibition act as keepers of knowledge, guidance and keen judgment. Heesoo Kwon explores her spiritual journey connecting Korean shamanistic and indigenous perspectives to the land with her female ancestors. Her multimedia installation extends the queer feminist utopian digital space of Leymusoom to the mysticism of the garden, deepening her connection to the land and women’s freedom and desire. Opening reception Saturday, September 16th 5-8pm. SJICA is located at 560 South First Street, San José.
Miguel Arzabe “Puma Roja” woven acrylic on canvas and linen. Image courtesy of Johansson Projects.
September 16 – Miguel Arzabe: Animales Familiares at Johansson Projects: Red pumas, shark whales, and flamingos are among the animals populating Oakland-based artist Miguel Arzabe’s exhibition at Johansson Projects. Emerging from the abstracted surfaces of his painting-weavings, Arzabe’s creatures form a contemporary bestiary that expands on a genre that spans European Middle Age illustrated books to the watercolors of Mexican modernist Francisco Toledo. Yet, whereas such artistic predecessors reflect imagined mythological beasts, Arzabe presents more familiar specimens, as declared by the title of one of the show’s anchoring pieces. Opening reception Saturday, September 16, 12-3pm. Johansson Projects is located at 2300 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland.
Top: Rupy C. Tut “Placing Self” 2023. Bottom: Patrick Martinez “Serpents (Welcome to the Jungle)” 2022, stucco, neon, mean streak, ceramic, acrylic paint, spray paint, latex house paint, ceramic tile and tile adhesive on panel. Images courtesy of ICA SF.
September 23 to January 7 – Rupy C. Tut: Out of Place and Patrick Martinez: Ghost Land at ICA SF: Out of Place, a solo exhibition of paintings by Rupy C. Tut dives deeper into experimenting with new surfaces, materials, and scale. Through her practice, she preserves historic methods of making pigments, creating delicate works inspired by traditional Indian painting—also known as miniature painting. Tut is process-driven and includes personal meditations on the nuances of hybrid identity, belonging, and cyclical time. Patrick Martinez exhibits a diverse practice, ranging from painting to mixed media and neon. His exhibition will highlight his “landscape” paintings: works that evoke the topography of personal, civic, and cultural loss. These large-scale works excavate urban histories as abstractions of the Los Angeles landscape, incorporating recognizable materials like distressed stucco, spray paint, window security bars, vinyl signage, ceramic tile, and neon. Martinez layers imagery inspired by graffiti, activism, and Mayan and Aztec symbolism to recount the overlooked stories of California residents—particularly concerning their resilience in the face of gentrification. The ICA SF is located at 901 Minnesota Street in San Francisco.