Embark's Five-Year Anniversary Exhibition “Later Days”

For Immediate Release

November 5, 2019

Eight Bay Area Alumni Artists Showcase Current Practice

Fort Mason Center Gallery to Close After Anniversary Exhibition Ends

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“Later Days” marks the five-year anniversary of the opening of Embark Gallery at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. Throughout the past five years of extensive programming, we have had the pleasure of working with some of the most talented emerging artists in the Bay Area. To celebrate this milestone, one artist from each of the eight Bay Area MFA programs will showcase how they have grown as artists. The exhibition will explore the passage of time, the archetype of the “Artist,” and the perseverance inherent in creative practice. 

Embark is proud to present this exhibition which also reflects upon our own story as a Bay Area arts institution--“Later Days” will be the final show in our brick and mortar gallery space. In the last five years Embark organized 44 shows and exhibited over 170 artists, bringing dynamic contemporary art exhibitions to our community and supporting emerging talent along the way. 

While we are closing the doors of the physical gallery space, Embark Arts is not disbanding! We look forward to the pursuit of new and exciting ways to strengthen and grow the Bay Area art scene in the future.

The eight artists selected for “Later Days” were chosen for their bold visions, and embody the rigor and passion that Embark has strived to represent in our programming. Each artist has moved forward from their participation in Embark to great success, with accomplishments including solo shows at premier art galleries, well-respected residencies, and the much-coveted commissions from local tech giants, among others. The throughline for their work in this exhibition is the human experience - What does it mean to be an artist? The artists in this show are archivists, feminists, comedians, therapists, poets, protestors and more. 

Angela Willets performance work, both poginant and at times humorous, explores feminine archetypes. The body and its connection to natural materials in the environment - stone, water, sunlight - is at the center of this work. Jacqueline Norheim is also interested in tropes of femininity, often using imagery of found objects from nature. Her doubled photographic prints on mesh metal screens are subtle and poetic musings on beauty, life and death. With a different perspective on the “natural,” Courtney Sennish’s sculpture focuses on man-made materials, finding meaning in details often overlooked: a crack in a sidewalk, a tree’s shadow on concrete. The objects encapsulate the push and pull of real life playing out in a fabricated reality and consider how and why our environs are constructed.  

H.M. Wang’s photographic installation considers the constructs of government and power. Utilizing social media and tattooing, Wang creates her own language of resistance to censorship, while illuminating the importance of human connection and the inherent trust in collaboration. Carmina Eliason’s interactive installation gathers people together over shared stories of mistakes, downfalls, and tragedy. These narratives challenge our preconceived notions of certain “types” of people, and foster empathy through honest descriptions of relatable negative experiences. The shared human condition is also paramount to Leslie Samson-Tabakin’s work, the exuberance of which is immediate and irresistible. Samson-Tabakin presents a site-specific installation that, though playful, also triggers contemplation - a recognition of the uniquely strange experience of living. 

The rituals of daily life are important to Jose Joaquin Figueroa, who religiously captures his lived experience in autobiographical sketches, which inspire large, colorful paintings that are both carefully considered and joyously free-spirited. His work in this show considers sacred spaces, queer identity and the archiving of memories. Also making use of an archive of a dedicated daily practice, Joe Ferriso draws upon his vast collection of serial watercolor musings and animations of those drawings. For “Later Days” Ferriso creates a monumental sculpture that explores the linear aspect of time and movement, a consideration echoed in his painting and animation practice, examples of which will be shown alongside the new piece.

Participating Artists: 

Carmina Eliason                                                           Leslie Samson-Tabakin

Joe Ferriso                                                                   Courtney Sennish

Jose Joaquin Figueroa                                                 H.M. Wang

Jacqueline Norheim                                                     Angela Willetts 

Embark Gallery offers exhibition opportunities to current and recently graduated Masters of Fine Arts students in the San Francisco Bay Area. We provide a space for an engaged community of artists, curators and scholars, and we aim to expand the audience for up and coming contemporary art. The juried exhibitions are held at our gallery in San Francisco at the historic Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture.

Press Previews by appointment starting February 1st, 2020.

Opening Reception:  Friday, February 7, 2020, 5-9PM 

Hours: 12–5pm every Thursday-Saturday from February 8 - April 4, 2020. 

Media Contact: 

Angelica Jardini | Curatorial Director

info@embarkgallery.com




Embark Gallery Presents "Backbend"

Ten local artists explore the role of optimism in contemporary discourse

Yourong Zhao. Happiness To Go, 2018. Souvenir pins on wire.

Yourong Zhao. Happiness To Go, 2018. Souvenir pins on wire.

A backbend: a straining stretch or a playful symbol of childlike freedom. Falling down, but reaching up towards the ground to achieve the pose - in this show, the backbend becomes a metaphor for optimism. The artists in “Backbend” explore the discomfort in hoping, the posturing of happiness, and the futility of optimism in the face of inevitable demise. At the same time, they endeavor to rewrite histories, wish for possible futures, and make an argument for finding joy in the present moment, absurd as it may be. 

Altered photographs by Hannah Waiters look to the past, reimagining memories and rewriting narratives by hand painting on recorded remnants. Woven textiles by Margot Becker consider the myths we use to understand our environment, and consider the importance of legacy - the kinds of stories we leave behind. Similarly concerned with future generations, Lizzy Blasingame’s sculptural installation is a call to action, suggesting education is where best to put our hope, and that optimism should be taught in order to achieve positive change.

 
Collin Pollard. Just Do It, 2018. Archival pigment print.

Collin Pollard. Just Do It, 2018. Archival pigment print.

 

Mengjiao Zhang’s photography considers our fraught relationship with nature, and captures surreal moments in the constructed space of the zoo, the zoo being both a place of optimistic conservation efforts and entertainment at the animals’ expense. Connie Zheng’s video work “The lonely age” confronts uncomfortable truths about ecological disaster and the inefficacy of our response, though there is a hopefulness in the fantasy the film presents, in the imagined community and collaboration required to save the planet. 

Alexandra Lee’s wishing sculptures center on the hope of finding love and the faith inherent in ritual, or at least the comfort found in taking action towards fulfilling our desires, symbolic as making a wish may be. Hailing from the high deserts of New Mexico, Santino Gonzales’ performative video explores the intersections of ufology, technology and folklore. The yearning to connect with extraterrestrial life is born out of anxiety and isolation, but the quest is ultimately optimistic, illuminating the human desire for connection.

The performativity of well-being in the digital age looms large in the body of work Yourong Zhao calls “Happiness, Inc.”, which points out the artifice in broadcasting our happiness online to the ultimate profit of capitalist social media companies. Sean Peeler similarly riffs on technology and the joy of consumerism, using the often romanticized cyanotype printing process to recreate stock photos of smiling actors shopping online, or laughing at a computer screen. Humor is also present in the photographs by Collin Pollard, whose playful images point out the absurdity of our reliance on material products for a sense of satisfaction, as well as the shallow nature of aesthetically pleasing, ‘feel-good’ advertising.  

This exhibition was juried by Angelica Jardini, Curatorial Director of Embark Arts.

Participating Artists: Margot Becker (CCA), Lizzy Blasingame (SFSU), Santino Gonzales (CCA), Alexandra Lee (CCA), Sean Peeler (SJSU), Collin Pollard (SFAI), Hannah Waiters (CCA), Mengjiao Zhang (SFAI), Yourong Zhao (SFAI), Connie Zheng (UC Berkeley)

Embark Gallery offers exhibition opportunities to current and recently graduated Masters of Fine Arts students in the San Francisco Bay Area. We provide a space for an engaged community of artists, curators and scholars, and we aim to expand the audience for up and coming contemporary art. The juried exhibitions are held at our gallery in San Francisco at the historic Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture.

Press Previews by appointment.

Opening Reception:  Friday, October 25, 2018, 6-9PM 

Hours: 12–5pm every Thursday-Saturday from October 26 - December 7, 2018. 

Media Contact: 

Angelica Jardini | Curatorial Director

info@embarkgallery.com

Embark Gallery Presents "Extra Ordinary"

A range of exploration of memory, ritual, embodiment through objects

Image: Natasha Loewy. Bulletin Board, 2019. Paper, pins, nicorette, and clay on inkjet photo. (Photo credit: Nathan Kosta).

Image: Natasha Loewy. Bulletin Board, 2019. Paper, pins, nicorette, and clay on inkjet photo. (Photo credit: Nathan Kosta).

Embark Gallery is proud to present Extra Ordinary, a group exhibition highlighting the complexity of objects in relationship to memory, ritual, identity and the physical body. The work presented throughout the exhibition ranges in medium including installation, video, sculpture, performance and photography. 

Extra Ordinary creates an opportunity for viewers to reconsider their frequent interactions with the daily objects around them. This includes acknowledging the participation in their purchase of beauty and other consumer products to recognizing their vast browser and data history over just a single year period among other activities. 

Objects are also innately and intimately tied to identity. Many of the exhibiting artists work hint at the misconstruction of identity through either branded objects or objects that have the ability to contain or hold the body. Additionally, some of the artists question, what are the implications when objects become lost or are temporary? Can they still act as a physical vessel for memory? 

From a range of varying perspectives, exhibiting artists each address the relationship to the body in their work. Specifically, the photographic work on view emphasizes vantage points on how the body exists in space, as well as the remnant of objects that can be left behind on the body. In totality, this exhibition creates new connections for how we move through the world, choosing certain objects to carry with us, and how visible we allow these objects to be in our life and daily rituals.

Shirin Towfiq. No, I Never Went Back (ghost print), 2019. Photographic print byproduct.

Shirin Towfiq. No, I Never Went Back (ghost print), 2019. Photographic print byproduct.

Exhibiting Artists:

Katie Curry, Kathryn Gardner Porter 

and Haley Toyama (SFAI)

Mason Hershenow (SJSU)

Mallory Kimmel (CCA)

Natasha Loewy (SFSU)

Harlee Mollenkopf (Mills)

Beril Or (SFSU)

Efe Ozman (CCA)

Sherwin Rio (SFAI)

Stuart Robertson (Stanford)

Shirin May Towfiq (Stanford)

Juror: Samantha Reynolds, Art Programs Director, Root Division

Embark Arts offers exhibition opportunities to current and recently graduated Masters of Fine Arts students in the San Francisco Bay Area. We provide a space for an engaged community of artists, curators and scholars, and we aim to expand the audience for up and coming contemporary art. The juried exhibitions are held at our gallery in San Francisco at the historic Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture.

Opening Reception: Friday, September 13th, 6-9pm

Exhibition Dates: September 14 - October 19, 2019

Hours: 12–5pm every Thursday-Saturday

Press Previews by appointment.

Media Contact: 

Angelica Jardini | Curatorial Director

info@embarkgallery.com



Embark Gallery Presents "Kung Fu Goo"

Local ceramic artist Matt Goldberg presents a sculptural installation in the Guardhouse of Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture

 
Matt Goldberg. Mercury Surgery, 2018. Ceramic, faux seaweed, thermometer, dentist mirror, Operation board game, tuna cans, bolts.

Matt Goldberg. Mercury Surgery, 2018. Ceramic, faux seaweed, thermometer, dentist mirror, Operation board game, tuna cans, bolts.

 

Matt Goldberg’s ceramic studio is attached to a karate dojo. The spaces each foster a version of ‘kung fu’– which refers to any discipline requiring patience, energy, and time to complete. In this way, the two adjacent rooms make perfect neighbors (aside from the dust). Kung Fu Goo combines elements of discipline with the looser tradition of West Coast ceramic ‘goo’ ­– the Bay Area’s legacy of canonical, if goopy, ceramic sculpture.

In KFG, the irreverence of Bay Area funk ceramics is replaced with broader material considerations, the relationship between objects across media, and the friction between the intimately caressed and cared for material and the American consumer product. The coldness and ease of the online shopping click married to clay forms and their evidence of hand. The relationship of food-to-object through the longevity of the ceramic vessel and the short-lived yet over-sized consumer packaging of our snacks. Each work forms its own visual poem while the series provides insight into a practice of collecting, sourcing, and building a vocabulary of idiosyncratic art objects. 

Kung Fu Goo is a precursory exhibition to Embark Art’s show “Extra Ordinary,” which  explores the function of everyday objects in art and opens on Friday, September 13 (6-9 PM).

 
Matt Goldberg. Cold Turkey, 2018. Ceramic, plungers, rotary phone dial, flocking.

Matt Goldberg. Cold Turkey, 2018. Ceramic, plungers, rotary phone dial, flocking.

 

Matt Goldberg is an artist living and working in San Francisco. His work is primarily sculptural and stems from a background in ceramics as well as reclaimed objects and materials. Matt received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and holds undergraduate degrees from the University of Colorado. His work has been shown around the Bay Area and he has participated in residencies at Recology and the Palo Alto Art Center. Matt works as the Director of Ceramic Programs at SOMArts Cultural Center. 

Embark Arts offers exhibition opportunities to current and recently graduated Masters of Fine Arts students in the San Francisco Bay Area. We provide a space for an engaged community of artists, curators and scholars, and we aim to expand the audience for up and coming contemporary art. The juried exhibitions are held at our gallery in San Francisco at the historic Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture.

On view 24/7: Starting August 16 in the Guardhouse at Fort Mason Center.

Opening Reception: August 17, 2-6 PM. Live music by artist’s band Sputnik. 

Off The Grid Event: August 23, 7 PM. Live music by band Juice Bumps, during OTG food truck festival.


Media Contact: Angelica Jardini | Curatorial Director | info@embarkgallery.com

Embark Gallery Presents “Out of Line”

Eight Local Artists Redefine the Practice of Drawing

For Immediate Release: March 14, 2019

Opening Reception:  Friday, April 12, 2019 | 6-9PM

Ricki Dwyer. Ghost Print: 203, 2018. Monoprints on archival cotton rag print paper.

Ricki Dwyer. Ghost Print: 203, 2018. Monoprints on archival cotton rag print paper.

“Out of Line” features drawings made with anything but pen or pencil: light, fabric, seeds, architectural drafting software and even heavy metal particles from air pollution. The result is an exploration of boundaries in our lives that would otherwise go unseen. Like ghostly memories of the actions of the artist, the artworks in this show capture the immediacy and intimacy we recognize in traditional drawing. Through their use of innovative materials and techniques, they add layers of complexity to the act of mark making, while still doing the essential work of drawing- to detect and highlight the shape of the world in new and interesting ways.


Calum Craik (SFSU) presents a recorded performance piece wherein the artist draws a large rectangular shape by sewing Hawthorn seeds on a plot of contaminated land due to be developed at Pier 70. Crataegus laevigata: English Hawthorn were used historically to enclose large sections of land in the UK, which displaced the large peasantry which lived there communally. This work alludes to the historical parallels of the British enclosures to land use in contemporary San Francisco.

Ricki Dwyer (UC Berkeley) is a textile artist and weaver whose monoprint studies capture a momentary gesture of cloth. In reference to a history of drawing as documentation and towards a practice considering the vernacular of drapery, it's within the expediency of the printing process that the cloth is used to draw and document its own form.

Sarah Frieberg (UC Davis) uses the line as a tool to uncover unseeable moments of stillness in nature. The instability of the raw materials of tea, mud, egg and honey frees the artist’s control of the line and, when combined with the repetition and simplicity of the work, creates a dynamic tension between the unfettered natural world and our efforts to constrain it.

Ava Morton (CCA) draws in space with found electrical cord, wire, rope, hardware, and plaster to create sculptural forms. The work stems from the legacy of feminist handwork created through repetitive looping, knotting, and sewing. Using found urban materials belies the delicate nature of the craft, and the artist uses their own body as a framework for the skeletal structures, further connecting their practice to the corporeal traditions of feminist art.

Sally Scopa. All the Oceans, 2018. Pigment scraped from oceans of two world maps on canvas.

Sally Scopa. All the Oceans, 2018. Pigment scraped from oceans of two world maps on canvas.

Claire Rabkin (Mills) frames cloth to delineate translucent doorways all across the gallery space. These ethereal portals, which have previously acted as the set for performance work by the artist, suggest a transitory state. They act as poetic drawings of the familiar past, as well as emblems of a possible future.

Lindsay Rothwell (Mills) has extrapolated a Vanitas painting into an architectural flythrough video, working in a hybrid space they call 2.5D. Utilizing speculative tools, such as architectural drafting software, the artist draft moments from the past provides the viewer access into otherwise inaccessible spaces: personal memories, lost buildings, or in this case, art historical still life paintings.

Sally Scopa (Stanford) scrapes pigment from maps, meticulously separating out each color as it is mined from the document with an X-acto knife. The artist approaches this process as a type of reverse-drawing or reverse-cartography, scratching away the rigid lines and freeing up the colors so that they hang in suspension, suggesting, yet not explicitly defining, other possibilities for representing the globe.

Emily Van Engel (SJSU) collects deposits of air pollution (small granules of heavy metals) and adheres them to a blind contour drawing made by an eraser. The process mimics the way in which society is blindly feeling through the new social, environmental and political realities that are the consequences of climate change, and speaks to the destructive nature of pollution and extraction of resources.                 

This exhibition was juried by Tania Houtzager, Executive Director of Embark Arts.


Participating Artists: Calum Craik (SFSU), Ricki Dwyer (UC Berkeley) Sarah Frieberg (UC Davis), Ava Morton (CCA), Claire Rabkin (Mills), Lindsay Rothwell (Mills), Sally Scopa (Stanford), Emily Van Engel (SJSU).

Press Previews by appointment.

Opening Reception:  Friday, April 12, 2019 | 6-9PM

Hours: 1–6pm every Thursday-Saturday from April 13 - May 18, 2019.

Media Contact:

Angelica Jardini | Curatorial Director

info@embarkgallery.com

Embark Gallery Presents "Laughter and Tears"

Eleven Bay Area artists take on humor as their medium.

For Immediate Release

January 18, 2019

Laughter and Tears showcases a group of eleven artists who use humor and play to engage in a dialogue with and subvert the world around them. Across various disciplines and mediums, they use humor as a tool to think critically about social and political events.

Nathan Kosta. Conduit. 2018. Archival Pigment Print.

Nathan Kosta. Conduit. 2018. Archival Pigment Print.

Brian Bartz (UC Berkeley) uses technological systems such as Google Maps to explore and articulate a perception of the world at large. Bartz creates interactive video installations to deconstruct how the internet network systems and the cloud alter our perception of supply chains and geological depletion.

Calum Craik (SFSU) is an artist who works in video, sculpture, and installation. His sculptures, assembled using found materials with personal and sociopolitical significance, often take on a poetic and absurd sensibility. The work entices viewers to make connections between the materials and their emotional weight for both the viewer and the artist.

Ricki Dwyer (UC Berkeley) is an interdisciplinary artist who currently works primarily in textile and installation. Through weaving, a medium deeply connected to culture and tradition, Dwyer communicates ideas of temporality and transformation. Is it a palm tree or a stream of pee from behind a curtain?  Whatever viewers imagine behind the curtain implicates them in an act of abstracted voyeurism.

Ricki Dwyer. I Never Got To Be A Dyke, But I know I'll Get To Be A Fag. 2017.Mixed Media Installation.

Ricki Dwyer. I Never Got To Be A Dyke, But I know I'll Get To Be A Fag. 2017.Mixed Media Installation.

Zoe Eagan-Gardner (CCA) is a sculptor and installation artist whose work brings to mind both Dada and Funk Art. Childlike and somewhat austere, the work inspires stream of conscious thought and imagination. Eagan-Gardner uses sculpture to recount stories of her childhood and coming of age experiences. Her sculptures exist somewhere between being seductive and hilarious.

Neil Griess (Stanford) is an artist who primarily works in painting and sculpture. Through the recontextualization of objects taken from day-to-day life,  his sculptures are an absurd and subversive way of seeing the social structures of the world at large.

Becca Imrich (CCA) is an artist whose work is based in sculpture and installation. Through text, punctuation, and other visual markers, Imrich questions codified structures and systems. Imrich uses her background in sociology to supplement and enhance the conceptual rigor of her work.

Nathan Kosta (SFSU) is an artist who works within the disciplines of photography, video, and sound. Kosta seeks out absurdity in mundane day-to-day moments and creates humor through the lenses of portraiture and found landscapes.

Heesoo Kwon (UC Berkeley) created “Leymusoom,” a continuously evolving religion that supports a feminist utopian worldview. Through performance, sculpture, and social practice, Kwon invites everyone to imagine a world that provides love and support to all of Earth’s creatures.

Leslie Samson-Tabakin (SFSU) is an installation artist who uses whimsy, absurdity, and material seduction to draw viewers in and provoke questions. Her installations feel both familiar and otherworldly and tap into the multilayered experiences and emotions of the human psyche.

Hannah Tuck (SFSU) is an interdisciplinary artist who currently makes video and text based works. In her text pieces, she uses unedited and poignant excerpts from her diary to communicate feelings of fear and anxiety. Her raw installations evoke resonant feelings of familiarity and shared intimacy.

Yiling Zeng (SFAI) is a filmmaker whose work examines ideas of a multivalent identity. In her surreal short film “Carol and Jill,” Zeng explores an immigrant narrative through the relationships between cartoon sea creatures who try to make sense of life on land.

The opening reception of Laugher and Tears will feature a performance titled "Genesis of Leymusoom" at 7:30pm. This performance is about the genesis of the feminist religion, Leymusoom. Originally written by Heesoo Kwon, the piece was collaboratively developed as a performance by Kwon and six of the believers.

Performers:
Heesoo Kwon
Alvaro Azcarraga
Yujin Hwang
Gen Kasaneiwa
Michelle Kim
Ran Kurumazuka
Reniel Del Rosario

This exhibition was curated by Natasha Loewy and Kristen Wong, winners of Embark’s call for curatorial proposals and MFA candidates at SFSU.

Press Previews by appointment.

Opening Reception:  Friday, February 8, 2019, 6-9PM

Hours: 1–6pm every Thursday-Saturday from February 9 - March 30, 2019

Media Contact: Angelica Jardini | Curatorial Director, info@embarkgallery.com

Embark Gallery offers exhibition opportunities to current and recently graduated Masters of the Fine Arts students in the San Francisco Bay Area. We provide a space for an engaged community of artists, curators and scholars, and we aim to expand the audience for up and coming contemporary art. The juried exhibitions are held at our gallery in San Francisco at the historic Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture.







Embark Gallery Presents “Wave Forms”

Six Local Artists Explore Light and Sound from a Cosmic Perspective

For Immediate Release

September 24, 2018


Water, air, space- three universal strata through which to understand the human experience. The intangibility of sound and light waves inspires a poetic response and this exhibition features artwork whose interpretations are fluid - objects that relate to the tides, the planets, and the other unseen forces that govern our world.

Hannah Perrine Mode. Europa (pouring in from Taurus), 2018. Ice (Oakland tap water, Antarctic ice core samples, Juneau Icefield glacier water) and cyanotype on filter paper. Detail.

Hannah Perrine Mode. Europa (pouring in from Taurus), 2018. Ice (Oakland tap water, Antarctic ice core samples, Juneau Icefield glacier water) and cyanotype on filter paper. Detail.

Hannah Perrine Mode’s installation Europa (pouring in from Taurus) merges printmaking with scientific research in the field. Using water taken from different locations and the power of the sun through cyanotype, Mode presents a set planetary prints that are, like Earth at present, simultaneously beautiful and fragile. Referencing the rape of Europa as well as Jupiter’s glacial moon, Mode’s work explores how scientific phenomena can be used as a tool for intimate storytelling, cementing this exhibition’s focus on our collective human experience of waves.

Elena Padron-Martin’s work brings us under the water in a deep sea GoPro recording of the Atlantic ocean. In the silent video the viewer is surrounded by calm aqua ripples that give the impression of softness and safety, like being in the womb. As the gaze of the camera looks up to the sun, one can’t help but think of birth - the moment when we emerge from dark water into the light. Across the room, separate from the moving liquid on the screen, is the soundtrack of these ocean waves, further challenging us to consider what role our senses play in how we perceive the world.

Ruxue Zhang. Our Cosmic Insignificance, 2017. Oil on linen.

Ruxue Zhang. Our Cosmic Insignificance, 2017. Oil on linen.

The work of Laurence Elias is similarly concerned with perception, this time of light and matter. His uniquely fabricated prints of semi-solid geometric shapes are printed on reflective material and hung on the wall at various heights and angles. As one is drawn to the shiny surfaces there is an effect of distortion on our perceived reality. Are they photographs of liquid, solid, or air? Flat or 3-dimensional? The answers vacillate creating a cognitive dissonance and we are reminded of the fallibility of visual perception.

Following this theme into the realm of sound, Amina Kirby presents an auditory experience titled A Click Between Walls. An exploration of sonic phenomenon and relativity, the piece changes as the sound waves bounce between two hard surfaces. What one hears depends completely on their positioning - an important reminder of bias and subjectivity.

Ruxue Zhang is concerned with humankind’s place in the universe. Her illusory paintings of pictures of space have a sense of humor, and seem to suggest the futility of comprehending the vastness of this world and beyond. By replicating photographs of outer space with a decidedly analog process, Zhang also points out the shortcomings of this light-based technology in helping us to understand the bigger picture.

At the conclusion of the exhibition is Alan (Flag-Bearer), an immersive installation by Shirin Khalatbari. Alan means Flag-bearer in Kurdish. The piece is a tribute to Alan Kurdi, the Syrian refugee child who found dead on the shore of Mediterranean Sea on September 2015. The somber subject and ghostly presentation acts in this exhibition as an exploration of death as the ultimate void or vacuum in which there are no more waves, only total absence of sound or light.

This exhibition was juried by Leila Grothe, Associate Curator for the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art.

Participating Artists: Laurence Elias (CCA), Shirin Khalatbari (SFSU), Amina Kirby (Mills), Hannah Perrine Mode (Mills), Elena Padrón-Martin (SFAI), Ruxue Zhang (CCA).

Press Previews by appointment.

Opening Reception:  Friday, October 26, 2018, 6-9PM

Hours: 1–6pm every Thursday-Saturday from October 27 - December 8, 2018.

Media Contact: Angelica Jardini | Curatorial Director | info@embarkgallery.com