Rapping with Isabel Samaras

We enticed Isabel Samaras with chocolate away from her painting to answer some burning questions about her work, process, influences and how the past, present and alternate dimensions come together to create new narratives for old characters.  Isabel, represented by Varnish Fine Art, is best known for lush and meticulously painted riffs on Old Masters that send up pop culture and classic fables. Her subjects are tender, witty, and mysterious painted narratives that are classical in technique and pop in content. Her ribald images are interwoven with references to classic horror movies, ancient mythology, hip-hop music, and childhood fairy tales. Magical realism and the forbidden fantasies of fabled characters present a world where elusive desires become reality and ill-fated journeys turn into enchanted honeymoons.  

From Beginning to End: Ron Garrigues

Farewell to the Gorgons

Mind Spring featuring Chuck Sperry, Chris Shaw and Ron Donovan ends Saturday, so come by the gallery for a last look at the Gorgons, hand-pulled screenprints, and luminescent originals.  

You'll find Sperry in the Mission Sunday teaching an art class, and you'll never get better silkscreen instruction:

Occupy Art with Jon-Paul Bail & Chuck Sperry

Jon-Paul Bail & Chuck Sperry present
OCCUPY Art!
an Art Course at the Free University

Sunday February 19th, 2012

The Free Uni­ver­sity of San Fran­cisco Art Class is every Sun­day from 2:30pm to 5:00pm (Feb­ru­ary 5th to March 4th) at Vira­cocha - 998 Valen­cia Street (at 21st Street), San Fran­cisco, CA.

The Free Uni­ver­sity of San Fran­cisco aims to make the high­est level of edu­ca­tion avail­able, com­pletely free, to any indi­vid­ual who wants it, regard­less of color, creed, age, gen­der, nation­al­ity, reli­gion or immi­gra­tion sta­tus — a uni­ver­sity free of money, taught for free. The only require­ment for mem­ber­ship is a desire to teach and/or a desire to learn.

Course Descrip­tion:

The Free Uni­ver­sity Art School is very proud to present Jon-Paul Bail (of Polit­i­cal Grid­lock) pro­lific Bay Area artist who uses the streets of the world as his can­vas. Since last year’s bril­liant pre­sen­ta­tion of street art com­plete with a wheat paste demon­stra­tion (video taken by yours truly) at the Free Uni­ver­sity, Jon-Paul Bail has been extremely active mak­ing a series of Hella Occupy posters for the Occupy move­ment across California.

The Relaunch(es) make way for Mind Spring

With the Relaunch Part II (all sculpture show) ending tomorrow, Varnish Fine Art is pleased to present the upcoming show: 

Mind Spring: New paintings, installations, and limited silkscreen editions by Chuck Sperry, Chris Shaw, and Ron Donovan.  Lending rock and alternative music a form of visual expression in sync with their urban environments, Chuck Sperry, Chris Shaw, and Ron Donovan embrace, alter, re-assign meaning and re-contextualize images until they become the medium-the subject emerging, used purposely--irreverently or reverently--to transform ephemeral events and experiences into a lexicon of shared cultural visual memory.

Please join us for the Mind Spring opening reception on Saturday, January 14th, 4pm to 7pm.  On exhibit through February 18.

In the title piece Mind Spring (shown above), Chuck Sperry creates an icon of the Worldwide Occupy Movement and it's antecedent in the Arab Spring. The figure wreathed in blooming spring flowers is a representation of the surprising enlightened humanism, the opening mind, the broadened socio-political possibilities which has swept the world in 2011.

Chuck Sperry has honed the craft of designing and hand screen printing for over 15 years to become recognized throughout the world as one of the foremost rock poster artists. Elevating the craft to fine art, Sperry creates socio-political artwork beyond rock. He adheres to the ideal that beauty strengthens his message. Sperry works in San Francisco, but exhibits internationally from Bristol to Belgrade. He has been featured in documentaries for film and television in the US, Europe and Australia.

Chris Shaw's work (shown above) is collected by both rock poster fans as well as art collectors. Shaw’s posters and paintings have been featured in several books, notably, The Art Of Modern Rock. Shaw’s artwork has also been published in a myriad of newspapers and magazines both domestically and abroad. German Rolling Stone magazine named Chris Shaw “Artist of the Year” in 2001. Shaw’s posters were featured in the 2009 documentary film “American Artifact”. In 2011, Shaw, Sperry and Donovan collaborated on a 6 month installation exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.


For the last 2 decades Ron Donovan has created hundreds of cutting-edge rock posters (pictured at left), all the while spilling spurious political propaganda. Prolific rock art poster artist Ron Donovan opened The Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company together with Chuck Sperry in the late '90's. Donovan became well known for his rene­gade, abun­dant cre­ative energy and can­did expres­sion. His Pacific Island back­ground and influ­ence invig­o­rated his focus on Amer­i­can polit­i­cal satire and rela­tions, and multi-cultural stud­ies. It was also in col­lege where he met Chris Shaw, fel­low col­lab­o­ra­tor.


Give us a shout at the gallery or visit our website for more information about this exhibit.  

Here Comes the Sculpture for Relaunch Part II

The video above shows Crucible founder, Michael Sturtz, setting up his amazing Atomic Blender sculpture which is sooo much fun seen in person!  

Jose Fernandez also arrived today with his incredible bronze sculpture Struggle and Stanislav Szukalski's emotional Defense.  Our Relaunch Part II group show grew to include 21 artists with the addition of Gabrielle Curry and her stunning bronze dinosaur The Listener.  


We're sorry to come to the end of our 21 artist show Relaunch Part I, but Part II, the all-sculpture show following on its heels takes our breath away too!


Relaunch Part II opens with a reception on Saturday November 12, 4-8pm.  

Laurie Lipton

We're thrilled to present two Laurie Lipton detailed works as part of our Relaunch Part I show at Varnish.

Monday Morning (doors closed)

Laurie Lipton's vast and eerily memorable drawings have been widely recognized for their sublime references to life's predicaments. Portrayed with teeth-clenching humor and consummate skill, her work is rich in imagination, artistry and social awareness. Laurie has been drawing since the age of four and has developed her own technique inspired by the 16th Century Flemish Masters: using thousands of tiny lines, like the brush strokes in an egg-tempera painting, to build-up tone and form.

Monday Morning (doors opened)

The subjects of her art -- fear, politics, sexuality, murder, mayhem, greed, indifference -- are timelessly classic yet relentlessly up to date. She was the first person to graduate from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pennsylvania with a Fine Arts Degree in Drawing (with honours). She has lived in Holland, Belgium, Germany and France and has made her home in London since 1986. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the USA.

“… but it’s not just her pencil that is sharp, her wit has an equally fine point which comes through in the titles of her detailed drawings.”

- The London Evening Standard

“Technically Lipton is a profound draftsman. She captures nuances of light and shade with masterful proficiency.”

- Artweek

“Her exhibition returns constantly to the theme of social masks while laying bare those deeply harboured fantasies and terrors which belie supposedly “normal” appearances.”

- The Times (London)

“No escapism here; all dark corners are revealed.”

- The Guardian

“Laurie Lipton draws in immaculate pencil with the precision of a brain surgeon. The results are stunning, worrying, funny and, above all, vengeful.”

- Artseen

Hung Up and Over

Laurie Lipton's artwork is truly incredible to experience, especially in person.  Stop by the gallery before November 5th when her drawings and the current exhibition come down.

Cheers!

Folio Fantastico

Isabel Samaras Nutz plate just joined her books on the shelf at the gallery in time for the Gallery Walk tomorrow.  


Yay! 


These plates are fancy, detailed, awesome, silly, wonderful little versions of the original painting hanging in the closing room.  


You can also pick up copies of Isabel's On Tender Hooks and her saucy coloring book.

Isabel Samaras' quirky, sexy, pop-surrealist art has had a cult following for years and now at long last her first monograph, On Tender Hooks, is here. Drawing her influence from classic TV shows and paintings by the Old Masters, for example riffing on Gricault's Raft of the Medusa by replacing the figures with characters from Gilligan's Island Samaras has created a witty, erotic, and surreal body of work.

Chris Mars Tolerance, The Extraordinary Drawings of Laurie Lipton, Robert Williams Through Prehensile Eyes ---just one of several R. Williams' currently on the shelves, Scott Musgrove's The Late Fauna of Early North America are just a few of the fantastic Emporium items on display on the gallery shelves.


Tolerance features 159 of Mars' technically brilliant and emotionally stirring paintings as well as numerous essays by Mars regarding the nexus and symbolism of individual works, offering rare and candid insight into the mind of the artist and the imagined minds of the troubled and triumphant souls who populate his canvases. 

A collection of Robert Williams' most paintings from his first three shows at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York (1999-2005). The images range from Williams' familiar lowbrow and biker culture, stretching deep into a faux science of quantum mechanics leaving the viewer in a world of scientific mind-play. After singlehandedly becoming the model of Lowbrow art, Williams has now penetrated the inner sanctum of the fine arts movement. 


Scott Musgrove unearths previously undiscovered animals through a dedicated and scientifically un-approved practice of zoological impressionism. A lone-star in the field, he ventures where the gray-maned, khaki-clad, anthropologists with ivory walking sticks have not--tunneling beneath freeways and ditch-combing along the rough borders of American mini-malls, in search of undiscovered and, up to this point, at least, extinct animals.  The Late Fauna of Early North America features lush, highly detailed landscapes and up-close encounters with all manner of strange and beautiful creatures. Full color reproductions of his paintings abound, including unique antique frames, custom gold engraved nameplates, carved wooden sculptures, watercolors, ink drawings, and pencil renderings from the field. 

Laurie Lipton's vast and eerily memorable drawings have been widely recognized for their sublime references to life's predicaments. Portrayed with teeth-clenching humor and consummate skill, her work is rich in imagination, artistry and social awareness. Laurie has been drawing since the age of four and has developed her own technique inspired by the 16th Century Flemish Masters: using thousands of tiny lines, like the brush strokes in an egg-tempera painting, to build-up tone and form. The subjects of her art -- fear, politics, sexuality, murder, mayhem, greed, indifference -- are timelessly classic yet relentlessly up to date. Almost all of Laurie's works are black and white, but the book is printed in full color, showcasing over 70 drawings spanning 3 decades. 


The Emporium is always open online, and there you'll find quite a few more publications, ephemera, prints, objet d'art to choose from.  

Still, it's a lot more fun to come in and see it all in person, and for us to see you!  You can get anything you've seen online right here at the gallery.  So if you can't join us on Saturday October 15, 4-7pm for the Yerba Buena Alliance Fall Gallery Walk, then come by when we normally open every Tues.-Sat. 11am to 6pm.  Or, check out the Gallery Walk as we live stream from the gallery.