My name is Akira Horikawa, born in Japan, live and work in NY. For past five years, I have been continuing a project called "1000 Drawing Project." In pocket size sketchbooks, I draw and reinterpret images that come into my mind, happenings, dreams, and emotion at the time. Through the project, I try to re-evaluate values and cognition that I have experienced in my life to welcome the nonsense with awe. Currently, there are about 36 pages left to reach 1000. I have created a blog about last 100 drawings of the project. -Akira Horikawa

Thanks for emailing, Akira. Enjoyed checking out your sketchbook and made me realize how I need to get to a cafe with mine, relax, and spend a couple hours drawing with some tea. Interesting drawings.

#949 Occupy the Occupier

#950 Reunion

#951 Self Portrait

#953 A Beautiful Person

#938 Going to the Bottom

Sam Rolfes emailed some recent works from his BFA show at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Synthesis, acrylic media, ink, and inkjet print on paper

Post-Humane, 2012, acrylic media, spray paint, oil, ink, and inkjet print on paper

Bound, 2011, oil, ink, spray paint, metallic screenprint ink on translicent glassine over canvas

Fracture Through Travel, 2011, metallic screenprint ink and tape on translucent DuraLar over paper

A little preview of Cigarettes, Phone Cards, and Hip Hop Clothing opening Friday, April 20th (6-9pm) at FFDG in San Francisco's Mission District.

Artists: Tom Betthauser, Kelsey Brookes, Ryan Travis Christian, Scott Greenwalt, Robert Hardgrave, Hiro Kurata, Mildred, Pacolli, Marco Zamora, and Alex Ziv.

Kelsey Brookes "Untitled" 12x12in. Mixed media on Wood

Marco Zamora

Alex Ziv - Study 2 "Meat Bait" 12"x16" pen and ink on paper

Tom Betthauser

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Preview inquires, email: info(at)ffdg.net

Akihiko Miyoshi abstract mirrored photographs.

Portland 2012 Biennial Installation View

As we prepare for Friday's opening of Cigarettes, Phone Cards & Hip Hop Clothing @FFDG (6-9pm), we wanted to show you some of Scott Greenwalt's newest works.

Greenwalt got his MFA at CCA and currently lives and works in Oakland. Will be showing his most recent painting Upon the Palace Gates, gouache, acrylic gouache, ink on paper, 25x29" 2012 pictured below.

Upon the Palace Gates, gouache, acrylic gouache, ink on paper, 25x29" 2012

This just in from Mickey Reyes' Instagram via Paule Anglim.

A special exhibition at our off-site space 1717 17th Street, San Francisco hours: Thursday - Saturday 11am -5pm April 14th - May 19th , 2012
Reception: April 14th from 3:00 - 6:00 p.m

San Francisco CA Gallery Paule Anglim is pleased to announce a special exhibition by Barry McGee at the gallery's off-site space at 1717 17th Street in San Francisco's Potrero Hill district. Contemporary Arts Centre describes the community acknowledging its present and past: an installation featuring work by McGee and fellow invited artists.

Moving easily across the boundaries of street art, historical High Art, private/anonymous art practices and museum-sanctioned collections, Barry McGee has created and collaborated on artworks appreciated by a broad audience. Acclaimed for his work as a graffiti artist and for his installations in galleries, museums and art festivals around the world, the artist crafts a language that resonates as a shared public experience as well as on a private intimate scale. Addressing social concerns of urban life, yet elaborating a unique personal style, McGee's works focus on a shared humanity, one painstakingly hand-detailed, finely-painted image at a time. McGee's work has been shown widely in the San Francisco community and internationally, including The Venice Biennale (2001) and the Biennale de Lyon (2009-2010,) the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA Los Angeles, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the BALTIC Centre in England and the Watari-um Museum in Tokyo. A retrospective exhibition of his work will be presented at the Berkeley Art Museum opening August 2012.

A reception for McGee & the artists will be held Saturday, April 14th from 3:00 - 6:00 p.m. Please visit the gallery's website at www.gallerypauleanglim.com

[Copenhagen] --- How are social realities mediated through Things? How does objects become vessels for ideas and meanings? How does our collections and use of objects, influence social and historical constructions of power? And how can these be negotiated?

These are some of the questions, which Asbjorn Skou (Armsrock) and Sif Itona Westerberg investigates in their exhibition "Stedfortradere" (Substitutes) at MOHS, Copenhagen.

Together they have created a fictive archive of science-fiction archaeology, fake ethnographic objects and mimicked ritual space. Through a series of sculptural installations, drawings and photographs, various aspects of object cult and - culture is investigated. The exhibition is created as a journey of discovery, taking its starting point at the center of the earth.

The show opened March 16th and runs until April 21st at MOHS Exhibit, Sonder boulevard 98 Copenhagen.

So pleased to present some newer works from San Francisco based Alex Ziv. We've had the pleasure of watching this SFAI student's work change and develop over the last couple of years. Also very pleased to announce that he'll be in the group show:

Cigarettes, Phone Cards, & Hip Hip Clothing
Opening Fri, April 20th (6-9pm) @FFDG
Works by  Tom Betthauser, Kelsey Brookes, Ryan Travis Christian, Scott Greenwalt, Robert Hardgrave, Hiro Kurata, Mildred, Pacolli, Marco Zamora, and  Alex Ziv.

20-year-old illustrator Charlotte Caswell (Lancashire, England) emailed over this interesting series inspired by layered fabric.

Last weekend was the opening of a massive photo festival in Knokke-Heist, Belgium called Wonderland. Christophe De Jaeger, the curator of the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels (BOZAR), chose six international photographers to show their work all over town, indoors and outdoors on a gigantic scale. The photographers include Michael Light, Ruud Van Empel, Sanna Kannisto, Olaf Otto Becker, Corey Arnold, and Gerco De Ruijter.

Knokke is a high class beach town on the coast of Belgium, and they spared no expense producing enormous inkjet prints on Canvas and Dibond plates. The show was designed to be a bike tour taking you on a scavenger hunt around the city and countryside. I also had a solo exhibition of Fish-Work images at the Sincfala Museum in Heist. Here are some snaps! There is also an cultural TV station interview online that you can watch the here. The Europeans know how to spend money on public art. The show show runs through June. www.fotofestival.be -Corey Arnold

Ralph Pugay - Night-tide Daytripping
ROCKSBOXCONTEMPORARYFINEART
Portland, Oregon
March - April 2012

Ralph Pugay creates visual works that are formulated through the mash-up of ideas mined from philosophical inquiries, themes of the everyday, and binary thought processes. Be sure to check the captions and to view more great works, check his site: ralphpugay.com

Collage artist Lola Dupre emailed over a recent collaboration she did with photographer Jonathan Waiter and artist FiST. First the photo, then Lola cuts multiple photos up for her creation while FiST then does a lil' pen work over it.

Kelsey Brookes recently opened a new show in Maibu, CA entitled Meditations on Symmetry, and the work is amazing. He'll be participating in the group show Cigarettes, Phone Cards, & Hip Hip Clothing opening Friday, April 20th @FFDG. More details on that forthcoming.

The Status Faction [T$F] have been a force of the underground Los Angeles graffiti/street-art scene for the last ten years. And when one of their members moved to Atlanta [GA] they took over that city as well. They are unique in the fact that each one of their paintings usually incorporates some form of performance – like the time they showed up to a party in full swat team gear and then painted a giant wall without anyone's permission. Or, the time they decked out an abandonded house to look like suicide scene and then left the door open for everyone to peek in. For T$F, it's not being the coolest, or the best, it's just about going out every single night, hand pulling every silke-screened poster, pressing spray tips with their fingers, and not being afraid to get grime. T$F is the stand against the computer.

During the turn of the millennium, we noticed a lack of Angelenos mixing street art with traditional graffiti. So, we abandoned most of our individual identities as artists to focus on promoting one unified name - The $tatus Faction. The soul of our goal was to form a collective where each member would be a jack-of-all-trades. A crew where everyone could do whatever they wanted, get away with it, be ever changing, and totally unpredictable.

We strive to make a point of not being pegged as one trick ponies, by constantly reinventing ourselves. We don't want T$F to become a repetitive brand like some of the other crews out there, which are basically t-shirt companies now. So, for us, it's more about putting our hearts into every piece we make and that's why we like it all to have a handmade feel to it. The imperfections and minor differences between each piece are what makes it human.

A big part of our art has to do with the process of physically creating it, which you can't get from pushing a couple buttons on your computer and hitting print. We mean, what would most street artists do if computers were wiped off the Earth? They'd be totally lost.

This Friday, Mar 30th, FFDG will be open till 8pm serving up Tectates and wine as a soft closing party of sorts for Midnight on the Sun featuring works by Mark Whalen (Kill Pixie) & Jay Howell. Come on through, see the show, and have a drink on us.

Drinks Friday, Mar 30th 6-8pm
Gallery Hours: Thurs - Sat (1-6pm)
2277 Mission St. @19th St.
RSVP on Facebook

Works available, email: info(at)ffdg.net

Untitled 5 - Mark Whalen (Kill Pixie)
2011, acrylic, ink, gouache, and resin on paper on wood panel
11.5" x 9"
pricing and availability, email info(at)ffdg.net

Untitled 6 - Mark Whalen (Kill Pixie)
2011, acrylic, ink, gouache, and resin on paper on wood panel
11.5" x 9"
pricing and availability, email info(at)ffdg.net

Marco Zamora emailed over a couple recent works which are incredible.

Marco Zamora lives and works in LA and will be participating in a group show @FFDG opening April 20th. Details on Cigarettes, Phone Cards, & Hip Hip Clothing soon.

http://www.marcozamora.com

Ludo emailed over a lil' recent Paris activity he's gotten into with his billboard manipulation.

A while back English photographer Simon Weller stopped in to tell us about his series of photos on South African Barbershops and a forthcoming book on the subject. Often a converted shipping cantainer holds the shop which also acts as a neighborhood community gathering point adjorned with lovely handmade signage. The book, South African Township Barbershops & Salons, is a collection of interviews with proprietors, customers and the sign makers along with the photos to reveal a great deal about South Africa today and the people who live in the townships.

David Lyle opens Misbehaving at NYC's Lyons Wier Gallery Thursday, April 5th, 2012, 6-8pm.

Working from found photographs, Lyle's paintings are created through a reductive painting process where each piece is rendered using only black paint and turpentine. Lyle begins this process by priming a panel with white gesso. He then paints a thin, rich, oily black veneer over the primed panel, slowly and systematically developing his images by removing some of the black paint with a cloth. In doing so, Lyle renders layer upon layer of various values of black paint resulting in his signature-style of luminescent works.