111 Minna Gallery are proud to present WONDERLAND – the very anticipated group show, curated by award winning, multi-talented Irene Hernandez-Feiks; founder of Chillin Productions.  Throughout the past 11 years, Irene has provided a platform for thousands of emerging Bay Area artists with Chillin Productions, and watched them flourish into their careers.  Wonderland is a particularly significant project for Irene, as she began her art career at 111 Minna Gallery, in 1998.  Since then she has dreamed of curating a show here, and we at 111 Minna are proud and excited about this incredibly dynamic show she has put together.Wonderland features 60 of Irene’s all-time favorite artists, each have greatly influenced and contributed to the local art community.  This very special exhibition showcases a wide variety of exciting and diverse visual artistic talents, and true Bay Area art icons.

Aaron Johnson
Alex Garcia Ferrá
Amandalynn
Andrzej Michael Karwacki
Angela Scrivani
Ben Collison
Brian Barneclo
Brooke Farrington
Chris Stokes
Christie Newman
Cinthia Dennis
Conor Burns
Daniel J. Valadez
David Rozelle
DEEPSI{X}
Erin Schroeder
Faith Allen
Ferris Plock
Fidel Lirio
Freda Banks
“elle”
Gianluca Franzese
GINNE
Hilary Williams
Ian Ross
Jaiv1
Jason Michael Aumann
Jeff Neugebauer
Jeffrey Nemenzo
Jenny Wehrt
Jeremy Mann
Jocelyn Meggait
John Patrick Campbell
Jonah Burlingame
Kelly Tunstall
Kimi Recor
Krescent Carasso
Kukula
Lady Millard
Lee Harvey Roswell
Manny Fabregas
Marcus Herrera
MARIAFATIMA URBI
Mary Syring
Merkley???
Misha Vladimirskiy
Natalia Gomez
Paul Trapani
“Ptah Amen”
Rebecca Peters
Robert Garcia
Romanowski
Samanta Tello
Slava Likhatchev
Spencer Hansen
Steve Javiel
Telopa
Ursula Xanthe Young
Yuri Psinakis
Yvette Buigues

My last solo show was Feb. of 2008; this next opening is pretty much my first endeavor since then. In May of 2008, I left on a year long travel through Central America, Asia, Australia, Africa and Europe. I decided to put down my brush during the entirety of the year and, instead, use a camera as my tool of creative expression. The idea was to inject myself with as many outside influences, experiences, and cultures as possible, over the course of the year. Let it all sink in and begin processing once I crawled back into my studio. What has transpired has been a difficult transition back into painting where I have ultimately found myself exploring several different avenues of development all at once or on top of one another. I’m beginning to see the influence of my travel encounters lacing itself through my current work.

Taking so much time away from painting has created a bombardment of ideas for me, that while processing, has given birth to this show, Resurface. Resurface, for me, is basically picking up a brush again, putting back out for the public, and reinventing techniques which I learned over a decade ago. Resurface offers a variety of  ’surfaces’ as well. The show consists of a series of intense portraiture of Cambodian refugees, much looser multimedia paintings, which have brought me into an open consciousness form of painting that I have been trying to accomplish for years. There will be work on glass, fine line drawing, charcoals, color studies and in addition, I will be debuting my photography. Basically, the pieces of Resurface have opened up a series of work that have grown beyond the borders of 111 Minna Gallery. Resurface is more than a body of work, but a new style of creating that will go beyond this opening. This show is an opportunity to view the beginning of my next journey.

111 Minna Gallery is proud to host NeighborhoodSF, a group show featuring some of San Francisco’s most exciting and prolific artists, co-curated by Ryan Malley of the ArtPrint.net and Martin Olive of sQuint. NeighborhoodSF is a collection of San Francisco’s finest artists who are each given the task of representing this City’s many unique neighborhoods, showing at 111 Minna Gallery from September 3rd through the 26th, 2009.

San Francisco is without a doubt, one of the most diverse cities in the world. Its neighborhoods are each legendary in their own way and it’s residents are iconic in their varied personalities.

NeighborhoodSF brings a visual life to the people, places and things that create our environment. With over 40 original paintings, illustrations and installations, the artists involved in NeighborhoodSF have created a body of work that is a worthy and relevant representation of of this great City.

To say the show is star-studded would be an understatement… With the likes of Mike Giant, Jeremy Fish, Sylvia Ji, MARS-1, Coro [Justin Kaufman], Nate Van Dyke and Adam 5100 just to name a few, this showcase of local, homegrown talent is going to be one for the history books.

Tattooed women combined with beautiful Black Sharpie line work are just some of the techniques that make up the signature style and imagery of Mike Giant [GIANT ONE]. Mike applies them adeptly to illustrate the best parts of what is dark and beautiful about the Mission. His original illustration will be accompanied by limited edition prints available throughout the show dates.

Jeremy Fish made the move from the Sunset to North Beach and never looked back. Whole-heartedly embracing the neighborhood that hugs him back. His medium of choice, painting on a large multi-layered wood cut that brings together all the best parts of San Francisco’s “Little Italy.” Jeremy sought to give something back to the neighborhood that has treated him so well, so he will also be showcasing limited edition silkscreen prints of a unique North Beach piece which will sell for an unprecedented low price of $40! Proceeds will go the homeless outreach organization; North Beach Citizens.

Coro has spent the last few years calling the Tenderloin home and he wouldn’t have it any other way. His dark vision of one of San Francisco’s most haunting neighborhoods will bring chills down your spine and have you begging for more like a TL junkie on Sunday morning.

Illustrations and an installation from Matt Furie will bring to life the psychedelic nostalgia of the Haight-Ashbury District. It’s definitely a fitting locale for his kaleidoscopic monsters and animals.

With all this San Francisco based talent; Adam 5100, Adam Flores, Akira and Helen, Brett Amory, Brian Barneclo, Collin Hill, Coro [Justin Kaufman], David Chong Lee, David Imlay, Eric Bailey, Ferris Plock, Jay Howell, Jeremy Fish, Lee Harvey Roswell, MARS-1, Micah Lebrun, Mike Giant, Nate Van Dyke, Romanowski, Ryan Malley, Sylvia Ji and Wesley Burt, NeighborhoodSF promises to be an amazing and inspiring showcase that truly represents the continuing story of this most wonderful of cities… San Francisco.

Limited edition prints of work by Mike Giant, Jeremy Fish, Sylvia Ji, Coro, and Brett Amory will be made available opening night and for the duration of the show.

Local band City Light and DJ’s Nick Andre and E da Boss will be performing throughout the evening.

The inhabitants of San Francisco make this city the great place that it is, so please come share great space with us.

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111 Minna Gallery is delighted to present Ferris Plock+Kelly Tunstall’s SEA OF LOVE, a new body of collaborative works, from August 6 – 29 2009.

The latest large-scale collaborative exhibition by San Francisco-based artists Ferris Plock and Kelly Tunstall, SEA OF LOVE is an entirely new body of work that explores relationships between sailors and mermaids, stories of lost love and misguided navigation, the diversity of creatures inhabiting the oceans and their individual roles as different vessels of possibility.

Plock and Tunstall share a studio space in San Francisco’s Alamo Square and their collaborative work for this exhibit exudes a playful, colorful and whimsical tone, with a fluid intermingling of each artist’s point of view.

Working in acrylic, collage, spray paint, pencil, pen and ink, gold leaf and some secret sauce, the experimental, yet classically grounded works live somewhat comfortably in a space between graphic expression, stylized representation, surrealism, and sketch. The simplicity of the messages are enhanced by the underlying vitality and complex layering within the work.

In her studied portraits, Tunstall renders stylized, leggy female figures and their pets, prey, powers, and dreams. Their physical forms and accompanying exteriors represent and mirror internal thought processes ad turmoil. For instance, frequent themes such as mermaids, twins, or extra limbs concede a desire, a reliance, an adaptation, or more simply, an aspiration to something greater than being a painting. Tunstall has gone on to exhibit internationally and nationally. Tunstall’s has been exhibiting regularly at 111 Minna since 2003.

In contrast, Plock’s work centers on the inner animalistic tendencies and reactions reflected by humans (transfigured into monsters, in some cases) in the context of modern life. Disgruntled animals trying to capture clowns, animals teaching their young how to escape their predicament and even animals that don’t always socialize coming together to aid each other feature prominently in this new exhibit. Born in New Jersey, Plock has been showing his work for over eight years.

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On July 2nd, Hamburger Eyes presents EXODUS at 111 Minna Gallery. This exhibition will showcase black and white photography from regular contributors of Hamburger Eyes Photo Magazine. Photographs will range in size from large murals of 8 feet x 10 feet, to the traditional standard of 8 inches by 10 inches.

The shows title, “EXODUS” evokes not only the feelings of mass migration, but of transmogrification. Hamburger Eyes Photo Magazine, subtitled “The continuing story of Life on Earth”, has dedicated their pages to the study of the human condition. And, in this exhibit they intend to display their visions of transcendence from past, present, and future-kind. It is a mission of containing time by setting it free, thus shall begin the EXODUS.

This event will also celebrate the release of Hamburger Eyes Issue 013. Hamburger Eyes Photo Magazine is based in San Francisco. It is off-set printed in black and white on glossy stock, perfect bound with a cardstock cover, holding 150 pages at a run of 3000 copies. Hamburger Eyes is carried in shops, stores, libraries, galleries, and museums across the entire planet.

A new installation of epic proportions from Sacramento, CA artist Skinner | June 4- June 27th, 2009

Watch this: http://vimeo.com/4976900
Artwork & Music by Skinner TheArtofSkinner.com
Animation by Jim Dirschberger of EightyFourFilms.com

111 Minna Gallery is proud to present “Worship Thee Kindly The Dark Hand That Guides Me”, an exhibition showcasing new and recent works from Skinner. This full bore installation of sculpture, paintings and mixed media work will mark Skinner’s first major solo effort and will be available for enhanced 3-D viewing on the night of the opening reception.

Like some fantastical LSD nightmare, the art of skinner is a full bore visual assault that maintains a vicious stranglehold on one’s senses. Rivers of blood cut valleys out of crystal mountains that cradle the battleground of the war for evermore. From the ashes and dust rises one warrior, a very strange warrior, on a mission to destroy preconceptions of visual art and paradigm all the while maintaining a very very dark sense of humor.

Sacramento, CA resident Skinner has carefully crafted a balanced triad of impressive mural work, overwhelmingly intense wall to wall installations and a prolific commercial career. A product of 80’s pop culture, early skateboarding scenes, a broken home, dungeons and dragons and a lot of heavy metal, Skinner’s mind is one full of meyhem driven by a calculated chaos.

Gallery Hours: Tues-Sat, 12pm-5pm, Saturday, 1pm-5pm and viewing by appointment. 111 Minna Gallery is located at the corner of Minna and 2nd Street in downtown San Francisco. The Gallery offers a full bar and welcomes ages 21 and over.

Curator Contact
Gabe Scott
415.974.1719
scott.gabe@gmail.com

111 Minna Gallery is proud to present “Berliner Unkraut”, an exhibition showcasing and surveying recent works from some of the top artists from Germany working within the lowbrow / pop-surrealism movements as well as two of the country’s top street artists.The line -up consists of Mateo, Johan Potma, Evol, Pisa 73 and Tina Zellmer. The ARTIST-ATTENDED opening reception on Thursday, May 7, 2009, 6pm-late.

TINA ZELLMER was born in 1974 in the north of Germany. I traveled around Australia after graduating in illustration design at the Art and Design Academie in the Netherlands in 2000 (Academie Minerva) and have been working as an freelance illustrator and designer ever since. In 2002 I moved to Amsterdam and since 2003 live and work in Berlin. My work harmoniously blends dreamy textures and ideas with stark and graphic elements. The artwork combines the strengths of collage, painted textures, photography and handmade pencil drawings.

MATEO was born in San Mateo, California. From a young age he was addicted to the idea of creating his own world full of odd monsters. As it is now, in those days it was not uncommon to see Mateo with pencil in hand, fervently giving life to his next creation. At the age of 20 he had an epiphany. He realized he could continue creating his world of offbeat characters and do so without getting a dreaded desk job! That sounded too good to be true. So he went to school, learned to paint, became somewhat known in San Francisco, then he moved to Berlin, Germany. In Berlin he painted on whatever he could find (old boxes, windows, tins, etc.). He then secured a spot at the flea market, and soon he and his artwork became a well known fixture of the Boxhagener Flea Market and of Berlin. His world of freaks and monsters can now be seen in his gallery Zozoville, alongside the artwork of his colleague Johan Potma. Mateo can usually be found in the back room of the Zozoville Gallery covered in paint, creating new monsters.

JOHAN POTMA’s work is done is acrylic paint and usually consists of more then one material As a kid growing up he learned a lot from skateboarding. It was this sport that opened up my his eyes to his surroundings and see possibilities everywhere. The city was my playground and to this day still is. Also, the world of imagery, strongly connected to skateboarding has clearly giving me direction as where to go with my artwork. As a Dutch artist living in Berlin, Potma has always had a deep interest in old materials to work with and developed the style he works with today during his time at the Minerva Art Academy. The old materials are a big part of my artwork since they, in their own way, tell a part of the story Potma is trying to get across. Stories told through stains, cracks and bumps in the material  usually wood and old paper collage) Inspired by these materials Potma adds layer after layer of his own story, played out by all sorts of goofy, weird and crazy but lovable characters, that take on a central role in his artwork. Recent works by Pisa 73 and Evol will also be on display courtesy of the Wilde Gallery in Berlin. The opening is free and open to members of the public 21 and over.

The exhibition will run from May 7- May 30, 2009

Through the influence of both eastern and western cultures, philosophies, and practices, Ted creates paintings that explore the transitory nature of landscape. Drawing from his background and experience in eastern culture he uses industrial materials such as steel, aluminum, acids, and automotive enamel to create landscapes that simultaneously feel strong and illusive. The austere nature of his materials are softened and rendered into contemplative spaces.

Using sumi ink and rice paper each piece is begun employing a chance driven process based on a traditional style of Chinese landscape painting. The monk Wong Mo pioneered this method (the Pomo method) during the T’iang dynasty (618- 906 AD). To this foundation he adds various combinations of painting methods that include, but are not limited to, the use of acrylic paint, epoxy glazes and automotive paint to create a hybrid of Eastern and Western techniques. With the addition of other elements such as the bar codes, binary codes and geometric shapes, the modern is persuaded to co-exist with the ancient. The combination of the abstract organic spaces created by the ink, and the more formal modern elements, helps coerce a visual dialogue between nature and its filtration through technology. In doing so, Ted dissects ideas of censorship, diversion, and manipulation, which are themes that he continues to explore.This work manifested after an intensive study of landscape painting in China in 2000.

A graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, Ted is 35, lives in Gainesville, and when not in his studio he can be found riding or fixing his bikes and small engine vehicles.