San Francisco’s Park Life is open­ing their first group show of 2011, “Bitches Brew,” this Fri­day Jan­u­ary 14^th. The show fea­tures work from five artists liv­ing in the Bay Area. Though a gen­tle under­cur­rent of fig­u­ra­tion exists among the work, each of the artists par­tic­i­pat­ing in the exhibit has a wholly indi­vid­ual style. Park Life, founded by Jamie Alexan­der and Derek Song, has a sim­ple mis­sion state­ment: “to show­case art and design that [they] find rel­e­vant.” They ful­fill this mis­sion by show­cas­ing ten exhibits a year from artists includ­ing Paul Wack­ers, Ian John­son, Michelle Blade, and Steven Vasquez Lopez. Their shop fea­tures work by Barry McGee, Tauba Auer­bach, Chris Johan­son, Dash Snow, Mar­cel Dzama, Chris Bal­lan­tyne, Paul Wack­ers, Thomas Camp­bell, Mar­garet Kil­gallen, Clare Rojas, Tucker Nichols, David Shrigley, Matthew Pal­ladino, and many more. For “Bitches Brew,” Park Life has brought together Aiyana Ude­sen, Hellen Jo, Kelly Tun­stall, Rebecca Ebel­ing, and Marci Washington.

Aiyana Ude­sen is a San Fran­cisco Art Insti­tute grad known for her humor­ous, col­or­ful line draw­ings. Pulling from pop-​culture iconog­ra­phy Udesen’s work com­bines ani­mals, fic­tional char­ac­ters and celebri­ties in funny and unex­pected ways, in the form of illus­tra­tions and small self-​published books. She is also one third of the wildly cre­ative art col­lec­tive Future Col­ors of Amer­ica, along with Matt Furie and Albert Reyes. Hellen Jo is a car­toon­ist and Cal­i­for­nia native. Her girl-​centric comics, like the well loved Jin and Jam #1 have won her praise from a num­ber of gal­leries and pub­li­ca­tions. Recently she teamed up with Giant Robot, Derek Yu, and her boyfriend, Calvin Wong, to cre­ate a video game in which she and Calvin are the main char­ac­ters, and a great deal of sur­real mad­ness ensues. Kelly Tun­stall, who grad­u­ated from CCAC, draws doe-​eyed, atten­u­ated female fig­ures in a vari­ety of media. She has shown at gal­leries around the world, from Giant Robot NY, to FTC in Tokyo. She often col­lab­o­rates with her hus­band, Fer­ris Plock. Marci Wash­ing­ton is another CCAC grad­u­ate and Bay Area native. Her dark, poetic paint­ings illus­trate a haunt­ing fic­tional nar­ra­tive, as if she is “illus­trat­ing a novel that doesn’t exist.” Gothic and rich, Washington’s art and zines have been exhib­ited at South­ern Expo­sure, Palo Alto Art Cen­ter, and Rena Bransten Gallery, where she is rep­re­sented. Rebecca Ebel­ing got her MFA at Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts in 2008. Her bright, abstract work ranges from col­lage and paint­ing, to sculp­tural work. Last year she had a solo show at Los Ange­les’ Maniac Gallery.

Open­ing Recep­tion Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 14^th

7PM-​10PM

Park Life: 220 Clements St, San Fran­cisco, CA 94118

Tags: Aiyana Udesen, Albert Reyes, Calvin Wong, CCA, CCAC, Derek Yu, FTC, Future Colors of America, Giant Robot, Hellen Jo, Maniac Gallery, Marci Washington, Matt Furie, Palo Alto Art Center, Park Life, Rebecca Ebeling, Rena Bransten Gallery, Southern Exposure

« Law of the Jungle x Lehmann Maupin Gallery

Artist of the Week x Charlie Isoe »

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Art, Event.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.