My first project of the year is a mural commission from the housing non-profit Bridge Housing who are building a new affordable housing building at McArthur Station in Oakland. The building will be called Mural, so fittingly will have a two story interior mural inside the main entry lobby. The back and front lobby walls will be glass so the artwork will be well-lit and visible from the outside of the building too.
The mural itself is 20 x 20ft and constructed from reclaimed wood, some specifically sourced from older homes in Oakland. Simple images of homes and plant forms aim to depict thoughts of a nurturing garden, growth, roots, connection, and community. The piece incorporates relief elements, and embedded cement panels, as well as painting. I'll post pictures as the work progresses. I've rented a temporary studio in Oakland's Jingletown to have sufficient space to lay out sections of the wood, and I expect to install the piece March - May. Very exciting! Jeff Breidenbach of Argus is shooting video of the process and you can take a peek at the progress so far at this link. Stay tuned for updates.
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My painting "Girl" will be in this salon show at The Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara CA. Reception Friday December 12th.
A four person show at the China Brotsky Gallery, The Thoreau Center for Sustainability, San Francisco. On display until January 23rd. Scroll down to my previous blog post for a map. The work of these four artists looks at landscapes and environments undergoing transformation by various influences. Diana Hobson has recorded threatened geological features in her delicate sculptural installations. Bob Stang's paintings contemplate our perceptions of the natural world in an evolving virtual culture. Martin Webb's night- scapes show the otherworldly side of familiar environments after dark, and Sarah Winkler paints and collages images reflecting the degradation of ocean reefs. For my work I was intrigued by the way familiar daytime environments are transformed at night and I started making nocturnal photography trips around by East Bay neighborhood. I’m interested in the way many of the manufactured functional components of our landscape become redundant at night, and how the world reverts to being the domain of nocturnal wildlife. The figures that do appear in these painted nightscapes, though innocuous by day, appear out of place, awkward, vulnerable, or threatening in the darkness. Glimpsing the world this way, where people are either absent or ill-adapted, hints at the fragility of our presence in it. Sales from the show are made directly with the artists, so I've listed my pieces with prices below. I'm really excited to be in this show at The Thoreau Center For Sustainability in San Francisco alongside three great artists Sarah Winkler, Bob Stang, and Diana Hobson. I'll be showing a pretty substantial number of new paintings.
Artist Elise Morris recently visited and put together a really great interview and photo piece for her artists-in-their-studios blog The Studio Work. Click the image below to read the article.
Lots of work in progress right now. I have a couple of really exciting mural projects coming up over the winter so am working on developing their designs. And coming up in November is a four person show at The Thoreau Center For Sustainability in San Francisco. I'm really looking forward to showing work alongside some tremendous artists and have large and small pieces in progress in the studio. I'll be posting details of the show early October. I've also been reworking some older pieces. Sometimes an older piece just doesn't work so it might as well be the starting point for a new piece. It can be like a wild card in your creative hand too because you have to work with certain "givens" and they might send you off in some unanticipated direction. On this big 54 x 42 piece, I painted out 95% of the old painting, and just kept the wood structure, the stuck on wood house, and the armadillo. Below are a few shots of the piece evolving. I'm not sure it's finished yet, but it's reached a point where I'm happy to live with it for a while. Evolving .... My piece Grove installed at Napa Valley Community Foundation 3299 Claremont Way Napa. Thanks to Ann Trinca for arranging this one to two year installation.
Martin Webb at Stanford Art Spaces Now extended to September 6th. Photo from reception taken by Ksenia.
"Powerful yet understated sociopolitical paintings about daily existence that render contemporary life, especially the unsung global 99%, quietly heroic, asking of the viewer only imagination and empathy." DeWitt Cheng. Stanford Art Spaces Paul G. Allen (CIS) and David Packard Buildings Stanford University Hours: 9 to 5, Monday to Friday Directions: http://cis.stanford.edu/~marigros/#visitors Contact DeWitt Cheng dewittc@stanford.edu I just finished this mural at the Regional Water Quality Control Plant in Palo Alto as a partner piece to the wooden installation Riding The Currents. It is painted onto an old concrete water tank and forms the backdrop for an outdoor classroom patio area that will be used for educational tours of the facility. The design reflects the neighboring Baylands wetland preserve and the people and functions of the plant.
Video music is Unfolding Fans by Andrew Bird. "... powerful yet understated sociopolitical paintings about daily existence that render contemporary life, especially the unsung global 99%, quietly heroic, asking of the viewer only imagination and empathy."
PRESS RELEASE Stanford Art Spaces Two Artists Fix the Passing Scene Stanford Art Spaces is pleased to announce its July-August 2014 art exhibit, featuring Artifacts: Urban Images on Habothai Silk, Charles Anselmo’s photos of the slowly crumbling architecture of Havana, New Orleans, and other cities, printed on unstretched, unframed fabric, and Specific Gravity Martin, Webb’s semi-abstract assemblage paintings of America and west Africa. Both are established Bay Area artists. Anselmo, from Redwood City, recently returned from the latest of many photo-tourism trips that he has led to Cuba in the past decade; in addition, he is represented by PHOTO Gallery in Oakland. Webb, of Albany, has shown extensively in the Bay Area, including at The Compound in Oakland, and has just installed a public sculpture in Palo Alto and is currently working on a mural at the Baylands Nature Preserve. Although Anselmo’s photographically printed silks and Webb’s paintings on wood panel are very different in feeling—ethereal versus material, and light versus heavy—both artists reveal the human presence pervading the built environment and explore the mystery of time. Anselmo’s is know for his large-scale color photographs on paper of “architectural ghosts” which convey with stunning beauty “the “rich and compelling archaeology of loss [in this] … hidden world of remnants.” Anselmo’s new works, printed on lustrous Habotai silk—the word means, in Japanese, ‘downy and soft’—, similarly evoke, in the warm palette of decay,” philosophical thoughts of transience. The romance of ruins is nothing new, of course. The eighteenth-century Italian artist Piranesi documented Roman ruins, prefiguring the empire’s-end Romantic visions of J.M.W Turner and Hubert Robert, among others, in the nineteenth. For Anselmo, such “depictions of culture[s ...] “disconnected from the ideals of their own past” have contemporary relevance, as human demands on the natural world grow ever more excessive. “Missing Building,” “Stairwell” and “Perseverencia,” with their dappled, organic textures overlaying geometric forms, gently wafting a few inches out from the wall, serve as living, breathing reminders that, in the eternal flux, nothing is forever. Webb’s work is as aesthetically solid as its hardware-store materials: found objects affixed to wooden panels. These metal fasteners are trowleled over with cement, which is then partially removed with an angle grinder, rinsed, and painted; incorporated into paintings, they are fixed in time, like memorabilia preserved in albums, shadow boxes, or bell jars. Webb: “My work comes from thoughts about people, places, and home; about age, time, and timelessness, permanence and impermanence; about movement, migration, and belonging. People and places are depicted in images and objects (keys, nails, hinges) that combine simple representations, layered abstractions, and plain-spoken materials.” Webb’s direct, unfussy approach to materials, his low-key palette, and restrained lyricism link him, for me, with Jasper Johns, who occasionally depicted himself as a shadow or silhouette. Webb’s “Super 8,” “Jacob Lawrence’s Shovel, ” and his “Day Labor” series are powerful yet understated sociopolitical paintings about daily existence that render contemporary life, especially the unsung global 99%, quietly heroic, asking of the viewer only imagination and empathy. There will be a reception for the artists on Thursday, July 24, from 4:30 to 7:00pm. The artists will discuss the work and answer questions at 6:00. Parking at all university lots and structures is free after 4:00. Stanford Art Spaces is an exhibition program serving the Paul G. Allen Building, housing the Center for Integrated Systems, the program’s longtime sponsor, and the David W. Packard Electrical Engineering Building, with smaller venues located throughout campus. All are open during normal weekday business hours. For further information, or to arrange a tour, please contact Curator DeWitt Cheng at 650-725-3622 or dewittc@stanford.edu. |
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