The bold works of our featured artists recall animalistic themes, creating order from chaos and influences from the Southern Hemisphere.  The pieces all have textures, layers and commanding visuals that will excite and engage the viewer.  CARNAGE explores identity through various mediums, each artist presenting works that evoke a unique signature through leather burning, fork and spoon sculpture and assemblage.  Featuring the creations of artists Tanya Herrera, William Rhodes and Jemison Beshears.  Learn more about each of the artists below and join us Mar 28th to meet the makers!

CARNAGE is on display March 28-May21.

Opening Reception MAR 28 4:30-6:30pm, 701 Amador Street

Tanya Herrera

It’s hard to write about your relationship to art when you’ve been making art since you can remember. It’s like trying to describe how you started walking, you just did at some point and have kept moving forward ever since. Both my parents were never drastically artistic, but I am the youngest of three siblings, and both my sister and brother were huge influences growing up. Everyone dabbles in art as a kid, but when I was about 8 my sister studied fine art at college in San Francisco and always came home with interesting projects and wonderful new tools and art supplies I never got to see in my art class in elementary school. My brothers illustrative and musical abilities further inspired me, I was considerably more enthralled after that. Where the three of us got the art bug, my parents never knew, but they supported our abilities and always were open to our goals.

I learned early on the hardships of being a fine artist, and surviving on the very little that you earn. As much as I loved making fine art, when thinking about my career as an adult, I decided to be creative in the design world as a graphic designer. I did this knowing in the future a design job would support my slowly blossoming fine art career. I went into college with the notion that I would one day return to my art and once I had become successful designer. I became an In-House designer in Portland Oregon, and made art and participated in shows for 5 years there before moving back to the bay area where I was born and raised.

My art consists of an accumulation of many different techniques I have learned over many years of experimentation and collaboration with fellow artists. I have also been influenced by the growing amount of waste going to landfills and the beauty one can find in objects that some would consider garbage. I try not constrain myself with materials, techniques or genres. Instead I open my mind to making art with what I am given and attempt to unlock the inner beauty that can be found in any object. Each piece is VERY unique and could probably never be duplicated, even if I wanted to try. Please enjoy my many years of hard work, and see there will be many more to come!

William Rhodes

I began my creative journey at the Baltimore School for the Arts.  I later earned a BA in Furniture Building and Design from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and a MFA from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.

My creative works are in the collections of various galleries and museums and featured in several major publications. I strive to blend fine craft, sculpture and design with meaning and function. I explore themes of hidden knowledge, iconographic imagery and forms and how they can change meaning in a given cultural context. My art has been strongly influenced by my extensive travels, particularly to Africa, Asia, and Central and South America. The people, art and cultures of these societies have inspired me to consider non-Western approaches to art and sculpture. Explorations into the contrast between these traditional cultures and our modern one have also added depth to the narrative quality of my work. Additionally, recycled materials are an important component of my work as purposeful support for recycling. By reusing discarded materials I give objects new value and a second life.

williamrhodesart.com

Jemison Beshears

I have always enjoyed old things, the way they look, made to last, refined. Used with care and better looking when showing the scars of life. Found or discarded objects that performed some individual task in the past, now left to become a character ingredient in a visual poem…At beaches, at flea markets or antique stores…the things I have encountered on my road through life…Out the corner of the eye. An old toolbox, marbles, blocks of text, a glass mercury ball…at one time utilitarian, now chosen for its shape, color or patina. I try to marry formalism with bygone utility. Hopefully, being intimate without being sentimental.