FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 21, 2016
“Hi/Lo” features Bay Area Graduate Students’ Explorations of Economic Value
Image: Sarah Chan. Cat Corner (video still), 2015. Digital Video Projections.
Inspired by the recent rapid economic changes in San Francisco, Hi/Lo is a group show at Embark Gallery that challenges extant systems of value and exposes the fallacies in that which we choose to give importance. Exhibiting artists attend various graduate programs in the greater Bay Area.
Our esteemed jurors Amy Cancelmo (Root Division), Kerri Hurtado (Artsource Consulting), and Megan McConnell (Anthony Meier Fine Arts) selected artworks that question divisions between public and private space, address housing politics and displacement, and rethink the various products and consequences of contemporary capitalism.
Image: Ashley Valmere Fischer. La Chateigne Living Room, 2012-2014. Digital photograph
Ashley Valmere Fischer chronicles an intentional living community in France, while Alice Combs’ work laments the loss of artist-run spaces in San Francisco. Garth Fry utilizes discarded materials in his sculptural work, while Lynn Dau erects a towering totem of domestic goods. Sarah Chan also explores the domestic, questioning it’s true value with a video projection that enacts a strange memory, constructed from objects she found on the street. Luis Pinto takes refuse as inspiration in his extraordinarily detailed pencil drawings. Elizabeth Bennett’s parking signs address the hierarchies that exist in even the most mundane environment, and present visitors a choice as to what kind of space they will occupy.
Embark Gallery, a 1,500 sq. ft. non-profit art space that opened in February 2015 and located in Fort Mason Center, helps create and support an engaged community of young artists, curators and scholars during their studies and as they leave their graduate programs. We assist students to embark on their professional careers, while expanding the audience for up and coming contemporary art.
The gallery represents the diversity of the talented artists studying at eight local art institutions including California College of the Arts, Mills College, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco State University, San Jose State University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Davis.
Artists:
Elizabeth Bennett - Mills
Sarah Chan - UC Davis
Alice Combs - SFAI
Lynn Dau - SJSU
Ashley Fischer - Stanford
Garth Fry - CCA
Luis Pinto - CCA
Opening Reception: Friday February 5th, 6-9pm
Hours: 12–5pm every Saturday from February 6th 5 to March 12th and by appointment only every Monday from February 8th to March 7th.