THE COMPOUND GALLERY & STUDIOS » Past

He-Charmers: by Katherine Sherwood (October 15th-December 4th, 2011)

the compound — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:00:41 +0000

He-Charmers: Katherine Sherwood

(October 15-December 4, 2011)

Closing Tea & Artist Talk: Sunday, December 4, 2011, 3-6pm
(Talk starts at 5pm)

Katherine Sherwood continues the series Healers from the Yelling Clinic with the introduction of new multi-paneled, mixed- media paintings at the Compound Gallery. Brain imagery from neuro-anatomy from the 16^th. Century to the 21^st. make up these figures. Hats, faces, jewelry and breasts are constructed from the illustrations of Vesalius to Ramon y Cajal to today’s MRI’s. Unlike previous healers, these clinicians are decidedly male.

The Yelling Clinic is an art and disability collective co-founded by Sherwood. Their aim is to further global disability studies by researching military pollution and its affect on the disabled population. In December she will work with disabled artisans in Hue, Vietnam. Her artistic contribution to the Yelling Clinic is her series of healers.

Katherine Sherwood’s acclaimed mixed-media paintings gracefully investigate the point at which the essential aspects of art, medicine, and disability intersect. Her works juxtapose abstracted medical images, such as cerebral angiograms of the artist’s brain, with fluid renderings of ancient patterns; the paintings thus explore and reveal, with a most unusual palette, the strange nature of our time and current visual culture. In addition to showing regularly throughout the United States, she co-curated the exhibition “Blind at the Museum” at the Berkeley Art Museum, and organized an accompanying conference at UC Berkeley. Sherwood was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship 2005-2006 and a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant 2006-2007. Her work was included in the Smithsonian Museum’s “Revealing Culture” and at a solo show at Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco in 2010. Katherine is a professor at UC Berkeley in the Art Department and the Disability Studies Program. She is the artist-in-residence at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and the co-founder of the art and disability collective- The Yelling Clinic.

Zoologia: New work by Adrian Van Allen (August 27-October 9, 2011)

the compound — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 10:08:23 +0000

Zoologia: Adrian Van Allen

(August 27-October 9, 2011)

Opening Reception: Saturday, August 27, 2011, 6-9pm
Open Late First Friday, Friday, September 2nd til 10pm
Closing Tea and Artist Talk: Sunday, October 9, 2011, 3-6pm
(talk starts at 4pm)

While a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome, Van Allen researched the layered histories of science in the city, focused on mapping them into three conceptual and physical pathways. Her fascination with the origins of the museum led her outside the city to collections and archives in Bologna and Florence. ‘Zoologia’ is a visual cross-section through the research she collected.

This work represents different aspects of Van Allen’s practice: as an artist and an anthropologist she focuses on the history of science and technology as an object of study. As she researches, designs, and builds various projects, she does not experience these aspects as separate – each is a way of understanding and organizing the world around us through a different lens. For her, these lenses almost always overlap.

Van Allen is interested in the way knowledge is constructed and deployed in and between individuals, communities, and cultures. It is what her work centers around, whether it be the reconstruction of Galileo’s first telescope in exact detail, observing interactions in a synthetic biology lab, or portraits of taxidermy in 18th century natural history museums. Through observation and classification of the natural world, we attempt to know, contain, and control the universe we inhabit. Van Allen’s projects are a series of attempts at transcribing that knowledge construction – to recreate her own scientific methods, collections, and displays that parallel scientific research, both historical and contemporary. She considers her art projects to be collaborations with dead natural philosophers, and her anthropology work as the observation and analysis of living scientists. The ways in which these overlap and intersect provide new perspectives into the construction of art, science, and anthropology.

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Making the Road by Walking: Thomas Haag and Martin Webb (July 23-August 21st, 2011)

the compound — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:33:49 +0000

Making the Road by Walking:

Thomas Haag and Martin Webb
(July 23-August 21, 2011)

Artist Talk and Closing Tea:
Sunday, August 21st, 2011 3-6pm
(talk starts at 4pm)

“Making the road by walking” showcases new work by two painters whose work is heavily influenced by their own travel experiences. For both Thomas Haag and Martin Webb the process of creating work is an open-ended process and exploration of images and ideas guided by a mix of strategy, reflection, and intuition. With a nod to the Magical Realists, the work of both artists features humans and animals as protagonists, symbols or metaphors in their oblique narratives.

The roles of the migrant and traveler are central to Martin Webb’s work and this new group of mixed media paintings draws partly from recent time spent in the coastal towns of Senegal. For some time, Webb’s work has reflected the belief that there’s more that makes us similar than makes us different, and this body of work looks closely at the necessity of work; the desire to travel for opportunity; the centrality of water in supporting our lives. In this new collection of work, an anonymous cast of animals and people play out these ideas to the accompaniment of spirituals and work-songs.

Gathering the symbols, iconography, and discarded materials of the various cultures in which he finds himself participating, Thomas Christopher Haag’s new work fuses various religious and spiritual traditions into a vague contemporary mythology. Using discarded books and “reclaimed” house paint taken from chemical disposal facilities, Haag constructs multi-layered collaged paintings which reference mythical beings or creatures having a spiritual “event”. These new works explore the idea of the neo-pilgrim, the modern wanderer and seeker of the vaguely spiritual.

American Vinyl: Jeanne Lorenz (April 30th-June 5th, 2011)

the compound — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 00:24:39 +0000

American Vinyl
by
Jeanne Lorenz

(April 30th-June 5th, 2011)

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Open til 10pm on First Fridays
Artist Talk and Closing Tea: Sunday, June 5th, 3-6pm

The Compound Gallery is pleased to present Jeanne Lorenz’s solo show “American Vinyl”. Jeanne Lorenz‘s fictitious last record store on the planet, “American Vinyl” comes to the Compound gallery. You are invited to rifle through bins of lushly painted record prints, and listen to the images of impasto oil painted records hung on the walls. Each record is laden with seemingly familiar phrases of a dead American moment.“Epic Tomorrow”, “Incandescent Past”, “Finite” and “Infinite” are titles which are found floating freely on the visual music and prompts human response.

Just as the entire musical experience of a record fabricates a multi-dimensional matrix of cultural reality, Lorenz’s paintings equally inspire the viewer to investigate this reality further— drawing us deeper into a familiar, yet lost America. Lorenz’s use of textures and monochromatic color harmonically produce music for our eyes, and her paintings imbibe the spirit of American pop culture. The vinyl record simultaneously evokes nostalgia, the fullness of music, and the simplicity of its own image. The unnoticed space between the grooves, which creates and defines meaning, is always in tension with the opaque and impenetrable nature of its surface.

Lorenz’s paintings layer the digital present under our analog past, so that we may witness the evolving technology that circles back to eternal modes of communication. Fascinated by industrial materials and cast off technology, Lorenz draws round connections between the cosmological engravings of Robert Fludd and the piles of American vinyl destined for the dumpster. Celestial and circular.

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Compound (June 11-July 17, 2011)

the compound — Wed, 11 May 2011 00:29:30 +0000

Compound Group show & Open Studios
(June 11- July 17, 2011)

Closing Tea, Sunday, July 17th 3-6pm

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This exhibition features work by artists who have studios at The Compound. The Compound Studio artists work in a variety of media including: printmaking, ceramic sculpture, painting, woodworking, metalworking, cement, jewelry, and mixed media. All 20+ studios will be open to the public through the duration of the show during business hours.

Featuring the work of: Alison O.K. Frost, Andreina Davila, Annie Frykholm, Crystal Morey, David Spiher, Eric Sanchez, Faye Kendall, Genessa Kealoha, Giles Goodhead, Jeanne Lorenz, Kiera Heiser, Lena Verderano Reynoso, Mary Marxen, Matt Reynoso, Noah Sakamoto, Ryan McJunkin, Sophie Leininger, Stevie Howell, Take Etani, Tallulah Terryll, Thomas Haag, Zach Clark, Zan Truman

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Charmers: Christopher Romer (March-April 2011)

the compound — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:19:39 +0000

Charmers by Christopher Romer
(March 12th-April 24th, 2011)

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Artist Talk and Closing Tea: Sunday, April 24th, 3-6pm
(Talk starts at 4pm)

Hailed as the “star of the show” by John Hazlehurst of the Colorado Springs Independent, sculptor Christopher Romer’s The Charmers land in Oakland’s Compound Gallery. For his second show at this venue, Romer takes viewers into an expansive installation of wooden wall pieces—turnings of various shapes and sizes that are painted, sanded and embellished. Produced over a 10-year period, this is the largest gathering of The Charmers shown to date.

Inspired by the quintessential American artifact, the wooden fish decoy, these oblong shapes, randomly scattered across the gallery’s walls, recall common features of the natural world and carpentry. Together, they resemble swarms of insects released from a jar that have landed on the wall, depositing themselves high and low, singly or in sundry clusters.

Made from North American woods, each piece is fashioned from reclaimed material, such as old baseball bats, chair and table legs, ceiling joists, beams, posts, doors, windows and pallets. Once shaped, a deliberate process of sanding away the paint then produces fantastic patterns and pigmentation. For Romer, this process is analogous to “a powerful metaphor for the all-pervasive pounding down of life, the harshness of the elements, and the passage of time.” Paradoxically, this very notion of the harshness, and the ‘pounding down of things,’ supercharges another powerful and constant aspect of these pieces: the sensuous and erotic associations in the rolling curves and surfaces.

Now living and working in Berkeley, Christopher Romer first studied at Chelsea School of Art in England, where he grew up. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and later taught and practiced in New York. Romer is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, and has exhibited widely throughout Europe and the U.S. For more information about the artist, visit www.christopherromer.com. The Charmers will be on view at The Compound Gallery in Oakland from March 12 through April 24. Opening reception on March 12, 6-9 pm; Artist Talk and Closing Tea on Sunday, April 24, 3-6 pm.

Outside the Box (January 29th-March 6, 2011)

the compound — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:01:46 +0000

OUTSIDE THE BOX:
Featuring Art in a Box Artists

(January 29th-March 6, 2011)

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OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, JANUARY 29TH 7-11PM
CLOSING TEA: SUNDAY, MARCH 6TH, 3-6PM
(OPEN LATE until 10pm on First Fridays, February 4th & March 4th)

CLICK HERE to see if we are streaming LIVE

The Compound Gallery is pleased to present Outside the Box: featuring work by Art in a Box artists. Art in a Box, The Compound Gallery’s art subscription service, was established in 2008 and supports local Bay Area Artists. Art in a Box has sent out over 700 works of art by Bay Area artists to subscribers all over the world and continues to gain subscribers each month. Our featured artists create original works of art that fit inside our 11″x17″x3″ boxes. Outside the Box gives the public the opportunity to see and purchase full sized work by Art in a Box Artists.

Featured Artists: Alex Rosmarin, Alison O.K. Frost, Alissa Goss, Ben Belknap, Clare Szydlowski, Crystal Morey, Giles Goodhead, Jeanne Lorenz, Kelsey Robinson, Kerri Lee Johnson, Lena Verderano Reynoso, Martin Webb, Masako Miki, Matt Reynoso, Patricia Gillespie, Renee Johnson, Ryan McJunkin, and Tallulah Terryll

GRAND OPENING OF ART IN A BOX HEADQUARTERS!

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Held in conjunction with Outside the Box, is the exciting Grand Opening of the Art in a Box Headquarters on January 29th, 2011! Former behind the scenes action is now on display in our fully functioning retro communication themed headquarters.

Watch interviews, clips, and other Art in a Box snippets on our black and white tube television and listen on vintage Bell Operator headphones, talk on our CB (channel 21) to other local Bay Area folks, read artists bios, and view all the artwork ready to go out to subscribers. New subscribers can even choose their first piece off the wall! Experience Art in a Box in an entirely new way.

Featured artist: Martin Webb.

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It’s Better than a Lump of Coal: Art SALE & Professor Squirrel Presents Holidayland (December 2010)

the compound — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 05:26:29 +0000

It’s Better Than a Lump of Coal
&
Professor Squirrel’s Holidayland!

(December 3rd-December 19th, 2010)

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Participating Artists:
Alissa Goss, Anne Garvey, Carol Ponsaran, Donna Mendes, Elke Savla, Fatima Camiloza, Jeanne Lorenz, Kelsey Robinson, Julianne Sterling, Kerri Lee Johnson, Kimberly Rowe, Lena Verderano Reynoso, Maritza Kim, Peter Max Lawrence, Ryan McJunkin, Shara Finerman, Sophie Leininger, Takehito Etani, Tallulah Terryll, Thailan When and More!

View photos of our photobooth “Professor Squirrel’s Wild Ride” below. Photobooth open Thur-Sun 12-7pm until December 19th. (Squirrel might be available at the closing tea on December 19th)

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BEASTMASTER: work by Jaime Lakatos (October 30th-November 28th, 2010)

the compound — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 03:34:57 +0000

BEASTMASTER: Work by Jaime Lakatos

(October 30th-November 28th, 2010)

Closing Tea & Artist Talk: Sunday, November 28th 3-6pm
(Talk starts at 4pm)

All events streaming LIVE here

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The Compound Gallery is please to announce the solo exhibition BEASTMASTER: Work by Jaime Lakatos. Lakatos earns the sobriquet, “Bride of Darwinstein” for her creation of an amazing hunting lodge of evolution gone wrong. A seeming sense of familiarity beckons the viewer, while the peculiarity of her forms reminds us that something extraordinary is happening. The viewer must decide whether Lakatos’s sculptures exist in a implausible world, or whether these fantastic creatures echo something deeper within our own environment.

Her ‘vegan’ taxidermy sculptures are flanked by her drawings, which personify animals as manifestations of our struggles with mankind, as well as our own existential reality. Lakatos’s work remarks on the relationship between man and nature, and her playful approach juxtaposes dark daunting images with bold color, rousing the observer to explore Lakatos’s world further.

Wanderlust for Wonder’s Sake: New work by Kerri Lee Johson

the compound — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 23:27:38 +0000

Wanderlust for Wonder’s Sake:
New Work by Kerri Lee Johnson

(September 25-October 24, 2010)

Closing Tea and Artist Talk:
Sunday, October 24, 3-6pm

All Events Streaming LIVE …click HERE to view

Kerri Lee Johnson’s work implies an overarching narrative that alludes to the migratory movements and rituals of a fabled society. Through a reoccurring cast of characters, objects and landscapes, she anachronistically blends various historical identifiers to create a society subject to its own alternate trajectory – at once reliant upon and devoid of history.

Kerri Lee Johnson lives and works in Oakland, CA. She received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and has shown her work both nationally and internationally. Exhibits include, CSAW Gallery, Houston TX, Elevator Gallery, Toronto, Canada, Fleetwing Gallery NY, David Cunningham Projects, SF and the SFMOMA Artist Gallery, SF. She is currently a member of the Compound Gallery “Art in a Box” program and in addition to having her work featured on record covers and posters, she is illustrating a children’s book due to be released in 2011.

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THE COMPOUND GALLERY & STUDIOS » Past

He-Charmers: by Katherine Sherwood (October 15th-December 4th, 2011)

He-Charmers: Katherine Sherwood

Zoologia: New work by Adrian Van Allen (August 27-October 9, 2011)

Zoologia: Adrian Van Allen

Making the Road by Walking: Thomas Haag and Martin Webb (July 23-August 21st, 2011)

Making the Road by Walking:

Thomas Haag and Martin Webb (July 23-August 21, 2011)

Artist Talk and Closing Tea: Sunday, August 21st, 2011 3-6pm (talk starts at 4pm)

American Vinyl: Jeanne Lorenz (April 30th-June 5th, 2011)

Open til 10pm on First Fridays Artist Talk and Closing Tea: Sunday, June 5th, 3-6pm

Compound (June 11-July 17, 2011)

Compound Group show & Open Studios (June 11- July 17, 2011)

Closing Tea, Sunday, July 17th 3-6pm

Charmers: Christopher Romer (March-April 2011)

Charmers by Christopher Romer (March 12th-April 24th, 2011)

Artist Talk and Closing Tea: Sunday, April 24th, 3-6pm (Talk starts at 4pm)

Outside the Box (January 29th-March 6, 2011)

OUTSIDE THE BOX: Featuring Art in a Box Artists

*CLICK HERE to see if we are streaming LIVE*

GRAND OPENING OF ART IN A BOX HEADQUARTERS!

It’s Better than a Lump of Coal: Art SALE & Professor Squirrel Presents Holidayland (December 2010)

It’s Better Than a Lump of Coal & Professor Squirrel’s Holidayland!

(December 3rd-December 19th, 2010)

BEASTMASTER: work by Jaime Lakatos (October 30th-November 28th, 2010)

BEASTMASTER: Work by Jaime Lakatos

(October 30th-November 28th, 2010)

Closing Tea & Artist Talk: Sunday, November 28th 3-6pm (Talk starts at 4pm)

All events streaming LIVE here [[Show as slideshow]]

Wanderlust for Wonder’s Sake: New work by Kerri Lee Johson

Wanderlust for Wonder’s Sake: New Work by Kerri Lee Johnson

(September 25-October 24, 2010)

Closing Tea and Artist Talk: Sunday, October 24, 3-6pm

All Events Streaming LIVE …click HERE to view

Thomas Haag and Martin Webb
(July 23-August 21, 2011)

Artist Talk and Closing Tea:
Sunday, August 21st, 2011 3-6pm
(talk starts at 4pm)

Open til 10pm on First Fridays
Artist Talk and Closing Tea: Sunday, June 5th, 3-6pm

Compound Group show & Open Studios
(June 11- July 17, 2011)

Charmers by Christopher Romer
(March 12th-April 24th, 2011)

Artist Talk and Closing Tea: Sunday, April 24th, 3-6pm
(Talk starts at 4pm)

OUTSIDE THE BOX:
Featuring Art in a Box Artists

CLICK HERE to see if we are streaming LIVE

It’s Better Than a Lump of Coal
&
Professor Squirrel’s Holidayland!

Closing Tea & Artist Talk: Sunday, November 28th 3-6pm
(Talk starts at 4pm)

All events streaming LIVE here

[[Show as slideshow]]

Wanderlust for Wonder’s Sake:
New Work by Kerri Lee Johnson

Closing Tea and Artist Talk:
Sunday, October 24, 3-6pm