Brooklyn based Matt Relkin emailed over this new painting. Love it. Go here for more... and if you wanna know what was going through Matt's mind in Sept '09, check our mini interview with him.
Dying Star 1- acrylic on panel, 6"x6" 2011
This piece’s completion seems especially timely in regards to the passing of Gerard Smith. Seeing so many friends dealing with such grief has been almost unbearable. Today I just wanted to tell every friend I had that I loved them and was there for them if they needed me. I can’t help but reflect on my own life and wonder if I’ve truly become a good person as a result of all that I’ve learned and experienced in my 35 years on Earth. My personal interactions with other human beings are often tinged with cynicism, sarcasm, insincerity, all as a result of my own character flaws. I wonder what would be said about me, what memories people would have of me if I were to die tomorrow? I hate to turn the tragedy of others into my own vain worries, but these thoughts are unavoidable. I believe that there is so much potential good in all people, that there is so much that can still be done in this life to make things better for all creatures. I want my actions to only contribute to the betterment of mankind, yet so much of my time is spent frivolously and selfishly. I have always been aware of my mortality, that everything could end in an instant, and I always hear that ticking in the recesses of my mind, the hands of a clock slowly but surely running out of numbers, and still I cannot say that I’ve spent my life interacting positively with others. At what point do I start to truly believe that I AM good, that when it all comes down to what I’ve done with my time, when it’s all laid out before me neatly and orderly, I’ll look at my life and know that I did the right things? -Matt Relkin
A little taste of Henry Gunderson's second solo show @FFDG opening up next week, Thusrday, May 5th (7-10pm) -- photos from his last show White Hole in 2009.
Our friend, the talented SF based artist Tara Foley, who works at SOEX as the Artists In Education Program Manager, has a great show up now at Ampersand International out on Tennessee and 20th. The show runs through May 13th.
Kelly Puissegur emailed over this great image below. Want to post it for a couple reasons.
One: we like it, and two: OMG, it looks like the weather is going to begin getting awesome around the Bay Area, and that means wonderful evening bike rides out the beach. Love the summer summer times. Get on the whip and making your way across town for a sunset beer. Glorious.
DRY AND WARMER WEATHER IS ANTICIPATED TUESDAY INTO
WEDNESDAY. A SLIGHT COOL DOWN IS FORECAST FOR THURSDAY AS H5 DROP
AS AN UPPER LEVEL TROUGH MOVES THROUGH THE WEST. ATTM THE TROUGH
APPEARS TO DRY WITH BEST CHANCES FOR PRECIP NORTH OF THE CWA.
MUCH WARMER WEATHER IS EXPECTED NEXT WEEKEND AS HIGH PRESSURE
REBUILDS OVER THE REGION WITH MILD CONDITIONS.
A tweet from goodmorning_d to our tweet: I'm a sucker for process. After perusing @fecalface this morning, I linked over to Josh Keyes site and saw this! http://bit.ly/4kiR <-- We are too and actually have never checked out that page before. It's great to see his work in the photos, sketches and other visual tid bits.
This mural is part of over 40 murals populating the downtown Los Angeles landscape that have been curated and produced by Jet Set Graffiti for the LA Freewalls Project.
Does this put all the conspiracy theories to rest now that we know what happened as illustrated by Anthony Freda above? Thanks for the email, Anthony. Love the piece above you sent and your work.
Anthony Freda is an award-winning illustrator. His work has appeared in such publications as Rolling Stone, New Yorker, Esquire, New York Times, The Voice, Entertainment Weekly, Playboy and many others. Represented by GERALD AND CULLEN RAPP.
Josh Keyes was born in Tacoma, Washington. He received a BFA in 1992 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA in 1998 from Yale. Keyes is drawn to the clinical and often cold vocabulary of scientific textbook illustrations, which express the empirical "truth" of the world and natural phenomena. He infuses into a rational stage set many references to contemporary events along with images and themes from his personal mythology and experience. These elements come together in an unsettling vision, one that speaks to the challenges of our time. Keyes currently lives and works in Portland Oregon with his wife, graphic designer Lisa Ericson.
We've always enjoyed David Lyle's paintings and was pleased to see these in our inbox this morning. David works in oils, used to live in SF, now in NYC and is represented by a new gallery in London ~ Gallery Nosco
Aussie friends, get to this show if you're near by. Mark Whalen does some incredible work. Just check out the 2 new works below. Pretty sure you're going to like this show, no doubt.
Can't believe we didn't know about this already. Learned about it last night after I painted my shoes gold at Ever Gold (fucking camera deleted the pics) during their show last night (scroll down)... In any case, we're going to check it out. Monday night solder class? Rad.
Inspired in part by the open source movement, public spaces are emerging where people congregate to share ideas, make cool projects, teach, and brainstorm with collaborators on everything from coding to cooking. With no leaders, they have one rule: "Be excellent to each other." Take a tour of the hackerspace Noisebridge, located in the heart of San Francisco's Mission District, with co-founder Mitch Altman.
We got a lil' preview of tonight's show at North Beach's Double Punch Gallery. Wrk looks good. Check it out tonight.
Double Punch Gallery Presents "There Is No Telling"
Erik Otto, John Casey, Parskid, Justin Lovato, Jon Vermilyea
March 26th - April 16th 2011
Opening Reception Saturday March 26th 2011 7pm - 11pm
Erik, John, Pars, and Justin will be in attendance and refreshments will be served
A new HBO documentary looks at the work of street artist JR, whose giant portraits force people in troubled areas to confront the humanity that's all around them... On the day JR found out he'd won the $100,000 TED Prize, the French pasteup artist found himself in China being questioned by police for doing his thing on the streets of Shanghai. ~continue reading
Street artist JR HBO documentary premiered yesterday, May 20th
Art lovers, collectors and gallerists will gather on Thursday for Hong Kong's inaugural edition of Art Basel, sealing the city's status as an international art hub and Asia's leading art destination... Hong Kong has surged to third place in the global art auction market behind New York and London and Western galleries are falling over each other to open franchises in the former British colony. ~continue reading
Our buddy Ferris Plock opens a small show of drawings at Benny Gold on 3169 16th St this Friday, May 24th (7-10pm) featuring 31 drawings priced at 75-140 bucks.
Ferris also released the video Fingered! he produced with animator Jim Dirschberger. View it
Wowzas, there's a lot of art happenings this weekend, and while you're making the rounds, be sure to stop at SFAI's MFA show Currency opening Friday, May 17th at the beautiful old SF Mint Building (88 5th Street).
SFAI's 2013 MFA graduates—working in painting, photography, printmaking, film, sculpture, installation, digital media, performance, and across media—will present work that embraces the Institute's signature spirit of experimentation and conceptual risk-taking.
Opening reception: Friday, May 17, 7–9 pm & running through Sunday 11-6pm daily. -- complete details
London based Pedro Matos opens the solo show Building Castles Made of Sand this Friday in Los Angeles at the Martha Otero Gallery featuring a new series of oil paintings on canvas and azulejo panels - a traditional Portuguese medium of hand-painted, tin-glazed, ceramic tile work.
San Francisco -- CCA opens their 2013 MFA Thesis Exhibition this Thursday, May 16th at their SF campus. Every year another graduating class produces steller work. One of the best SF art events worth getting to, but be sure to get there early as there's always a long line. ~details
FFDG opened up the group show featuring original works by the artists of the world famous Skull & Sword tattoo last Friday here in San Francisco. Thanks to the huge crowd who turned out to support these four incredibly talented artists. Here is a taste of the show, and be sure to swing in to view in person. The show runs through June 8th.
Gary Baseman's retrospective "The Door is Always Open" at the Skirball in LA opened recently to massive crowds in a huge celebratory opening party. The exhibition is so complex and personal, delving into Baseman's background, family history, and all the layers of prolific work that he has done over the years. After the opening festivities winded down, I caught up with Baseman for an interview. We discussed the underlying meaning to some of the components of the show and how it felt for him, coming from such an honest personal perspective in putting this massive show together.
Fertile Menace, a new show of Mark Mulroney's (NY) work opened at Ever Gold on May 4th and it's not one to be missed. It is intelligently hilarious, with jokes riffing off sex, Foucault, and the body, and while it makes you laugh it's also going to make you think.
Our buddies Jay Howell, Andreas Trolf, and Jim Dirschberger are hyped as their show, which they've been working on for like 2 years, premieres on Nickelodeon Saturday. From the trailers we've seen so far and from what Jay has told us about, the show is going to be pretty epic. Congrats to those radical fellas.
Here's a little taste of work by the artists of the world famous The Skull and Sword tattoo shop who open their show at San Francisco's FFDG on Friday, May 17th (7-10pm).
Following his solo exhibition "The Collected" at Gallery Wendi Norris, painter Amir H. Fallah is in the throes of developing more new works for upcoming international exhibits. We spent some time in his studio in Highland Park, Los Angeles recently, discussing his process and inspiration.
We were first introduced to the photography of Spanish born NYC based Bubi Canal when he emailed us his great video Trust in Me a couple years ago. His solo show Special Moment recently ran at NYC's Munch Gallery in February, and he recently released his newest video Chrystelle below.
Although I missed the opening of Northern-California photographer Michael Garlington's newest show, Constructed Realities, I was fortunate enough to see the work still up during the Metaphysical fundraiser a couple weeks back at 111 Minna. Metaphysical fundraiser, an auction to benefit Wayne Ernzer. --- The ghoulish photographs in their heavy, hand-made frames are reminiscent of photos from the old west, and the glass crucifixes, complete with fetuses and guns, emphasize the accumulated time within the works themselves. Whether you're looking at the frames, the photos, or both, this show deserves a visit, and a walk through the golden archway Garlington constructed around the front door.
Fecal Face contributor Rachel Ralph (rachel(at)fecalface.com) has been profiling this Oakland based painter as he travels about Japan. In this segment, we feature some photos as he prepared for this show and residency at Spes-LaB in Tokyo which opened last weekend. Arnold will be featured in SFMoMA's Minna Street windows on June 8th.
Last Saturday, here in SF's Mission district, Guerrero Gallery opened two new shows with Philly based Alex Lukas and SF based Richard Colman respectively. Colman's work occupied the project space while Lukas' work and foliage was presented in the main space. Worth getting to if you haven't already.
Just got back to SF after a little trip south to Sayulita, Mexico. After 10 years without a vacation, me and the Mrs. headed south for some mental time off sitting in the sun, swimming and enjoying the watery Mexican beer. Here are some photos as we get back into the swing of things again.
Athens, Greece based designer, architect and artist Dimitris Polychroniadis emailed over more of his work which consists of mixed media, pop-humorous diorama sculptures that make a comment on the harsh realities my country and much of the world is facing at the moment.
FFDG will open a group show with the artists from the famed Skull & Sword Tattoo on Friday, May 17th (6-9pm). Artists: Grime, Henry Lewis, Yutaro, and Lango. Below are a series of videos on Grime for Vice's Tattoo Age produced in 2011. Fascinating look at one of the greatest tattoo artists alive today.
ARYZ (Spain) opened his newest gallery show at Fifty24SF last Friday and, if you live in the Bay Area, you need to go. This dude can obviously paint, and he doesn't need an entire building to show his impecable skill. The show has lots of small works on paper which contrast his highly-defined line work to his hard-edged painted objects. The contrast between the hard and soft was the most striking thing to me about his work, since I had never seen it in person before, and the washes blend with the thick paint seamlessly. The show also contains a larger work on canvas, a huge head suspended in the back of the room, and a big wood sculpture of a wolf figure. This diversity in such a small space was impressive, and those of us that went to the opening even got to meet the man in person. If you didn't make it out this weekend, check it out before May 31st when it closes and these works will be off to some very happy new homes.
Water McBeer is please to announce its latest exhibition "Precious" a solo exhibition by David Bayus (April 6 - May 4, 2013) -- David Bayus born 1982 holds his BFA from the Savannah College of Art and his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. David lives and works in San Francisco and is a founding member of the basement collective. This will be his first exhibition with the world renown Water McBeer Gallery highlighting his most recent achievements with paint and digital media. David Bayus will be exhibiting 5 relatively large-scale mixed media works along with a collaborative object featuring Hungarian sculptor H.R KOONS.
The Shooting Gallery handed over the reins to the Red Truck Gallery (a New Orleans based gallery) which curated their new show, Hard Time Mini Mall and opened the it on Saturday night. This is my favorite show (so far) in the Shooting Gallery's new space and was packed full of art, a mini bar, and cowhide rugs. The Red Truck Gallery chose works with clear craftsmanship and it was easy to see in Ian Berry's denim assemblages and Chris Roberts-Antieau's awesome quilts. The space was completely packed, making it hard to see each piece individually, but this show deserves a second trip anyway. I look forward to spending more time with the chandeliers, automatons, and paintings before the show comes down on May 4th.
Toronto based photographer Nathan Cyprys emailed to let us know about his newest series "Neighbour State", and we were about to post it when we spotted this series on his site entitled "Ayre (of Distances)" and had to post this one instead. After you view this one, view "Neighbour State" on his site. Both are visually enjoyable.
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.
London based David Shillinglaw who's blogged it up for Fecal Face in the past recently completed this mural in London as he prepares for his solo show at Stolen Space opening on April 26th.
Our buddy Henrik Haven, who brings us some goodies from his native Copenhagen, has been shooting some of his city's graffiti and street art. Last week we brought you part one of his camera's explorations.
San Francisco based artists Raphael Villet and Sean Vranizan are currently showing Just the Two of Us at Adobe Books through April 21. Here are some photos from the opening and works.
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