Author Archives: ArtWalkSJ

September 3, 2021—FIRST FRIDAYS ArtwalkSJ + STREET MRKT

The South FIRST FRIDAYS Art Walk + Street Mrkt invites you to a unique evening of great exhibitions in our galleries and museums as well as a chance to meet and support our hyper-local creative community. All venues are open for in-person visits from 5–9pm. The nighttime DIY urban faire STREET MRKT is from 5–10pm featuring the work of 75+ artists, performers and indie creative businesses out on S. 1st St. in SoFA District. 


SEPTEMBER EXHIBITIONS





ANNO DOMINI // the second coming of Art & Design – 366 South First St. map

Anno Domini // the second coming of Art & Design is proud to present:

On view in galleryONE: Imago Philosophia by LeonKa (Spain) solo exhibition

LeonKa (Spain) returns to Anno Domini with Imago Philosophia; a new series of prints in his signature palette of rich black and luminous gold. The subject of his work deals with various philosophical topics, among which knowledge and causality are the most important. For this, the function of the objects is used in order to understand the symbolic meaning of the terms assigned to the objects. Thus, we see a work dedicated to causality according to  David  Hume, another dedicated to causality according to David Lewis, and yet another to certain medieval and Renaissance conceptions on the same subject such as those explained by Francisco Suárez. Likewise, we will find several works dedicated to a type of knowledge derived from the experience gained by observation. Several ocular instruments and eyes are used illustratively to capture this knowledge (by observation)

LeonKa is a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Barcelona. He obtained it with a thesis on ontological dependence relationships.  He started writing graffiti in 1991 and was part of the ONG streetart group. Currently he also performs tattoo work at Etther museum (Valencia) and Ondotattoo (Barcelona).  He has spent years studying iconology and scientific models, trying from the function of the objects to find a new symbolic content. 

LeonKa has had several solo exhibitions in Spain & Germany, as well as featured in group exhibitions in England, Italy, Denmark, Ireland, France, U.S. and Spain. Things, Mereology and Schemes at Anno Domini in August 2016 was LeonKa’s first solo exhibit in the U.S.A. He currently lives and works in Barcelona, Spain.

Anno Domini // the second coming of Art & Design is proud to present:

Opening reception in galleryTWO: From The Shore by Jennifer Caviola solo exhibition

“From The Shore” is a collection of portrait paintings that seek to describe the specialness of solitude and document the reprieve gifted when submerged in the natural world.  While aligned with land or sea, there are things that drift away and can be seen from afar for a time.

Caviola’s figurative and abstract works are at their centers, odes to painting. They seek to study and utilize: color, linework, geometry, painting, drawing and gilding in addition to translating biographies and interpretations of states of being through various versions of abstraction and portraiture that are transcribed onto wood panels and pieces of paper.

Jennifer Caviola received her BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York in 2002 and her MFA from Parsons in New York City in 2007. She has had solo shows in New York City, Brooklyn, and California and has participated in group shows throughout the United States, Europe and the Middle East. She has been featured in publications such as Vogue, Cultured Magazine, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Complex Magazine, Papermag, Juxtapoz and High Fructose.

“From the Shore” is Caviola’s second solo exhibition with Anno Domini.


Art Ark Gallery – 1035 South Sixth St. map

Opening reception: Silicon Valley Open Studios Artists’ Preview Show

A wonderful preview show of some of the best Silicon Valley Open Studios Artists.


KALEID Gallery – 320 South First St. map

KALEID Gallery is proud to present two new feature exhibitions by resident artists Karen Carlo Salinger, and Sarah Loyola for the month of September.

Opening reception: SHIFT by Karen Carlo Salinger 

Things are shifting everywhere, quickly and drastically.  Our climate has been changing for a long time, but the pace of the shift has been speeding up, and we as humans have to shift to adjust to it, and change our ways drastically to try to ameliorate the damage we have been causing for way too long.  Our culture is shifting, mostly for the good, for those who are waking up and trying to learn from history, to do better, and make our society a better place.  Others are resisting this shift with all their might, and doubling down on the wrongs of history, because they fear change and what that might mean.  We are in the midst of a massive pandemic, which is causing structural shifts throughout our world, and we as a species are trying to adapt and shift the way we live to hopefully combat this virus, and fighting massive waves of disinformation that threaten us all.  Everywhere we look, massive changes are happening at breakneck speed, and it remains to be seen if we as humans can adapt to this change in a way that moves our world forward, or if our attempts to shift are too little too late.
 
As an artist I’ve been observing, reacting to, trying to adjust to this change as is all of humanity.  My reflections are my way of processing the changes I’m seeing in the world, processing the fear I have, and the hope that I hold onto that the shifts we are seeing will cause the change we need to survive.  I hold onto the beauty in this world as the hope that we need to spur us on to adjust to create change for the better, and not let the darkness consume us.  

About the Artist
Karen Carlo Salinger lives and works in the beautiful and extremely flammable Santa Cruz Mountains.  She spends much of her time ruminating on the precarious balance of the world we live in, and hoping that people wake the fuck up and put their collective minds and humanity toward undoing the damage that we have created, and trying to make this delicate planet a better place, for all of us, our children, and the numerous amazing creatures that are relying on us to fix our world.  When she isn’t curled into a quivering ball of anxiety, she spends her time planting green things, teaching her children to be good stewards of this world and to make it a better place, and making weird art that is both an escape and a hope for a better future.  

Opening reception: A Little Peace exhibition by Sarah Loyola

Unexpected gifts of the past year have been time – time outside in nature with my family and time to create in and embrace a new medium – cyanotype.  This work is the joining of the two.  Long having been fascinated with textures and inspired by natural processes in my painting and mixed media works, the addition of photography has brought another element.  Printing using the sun further enhances the natural, the inexact, and the absence of complete control – as the medium directs the follow of the piece.  Through a touch of sunlight, this body of work brings the peace of the outside in, in a close-up examination of a year in 3 San Jose parks: Alum Rock, Umunhum, and Santa Teresa – a glimpse into the passage of time through the large and the small.
 
About the Artist
Sarah Loyola is a San Jose based artist working in mixed media. Her work, combining painting, collage, and most recently cyanotype testifies to her love of the natural world and the diversity of Bay Area landscapes. She focuses on abstracted natural forms and processes and celebrates texture. Sarah studied painting at UCLA and at the Accademia di Belle Arti Bologna, in Italy.  Her work has been shown all over California, including in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose, and San Francisco.  She is also an educator and brings creativity and arts integration to her work with both students and teachers.  


MACHU PICCHU Gallery of the Americas, Est 1974 – 199 Martha St. map

Stories from Lima, Peru and Silicon Valley, USAPeruvian women of shanty towns in Lima, Perú make ARPILLERAS, which are colorful three-dimensional cloth pictures/appliqués, often reminiscent of their former village and Andean lives, some are their social commentaries or story telling… 
 
First Friday hours: 4- 8pm
Visitor must text first for access Citadel building: 408-529-2296 or email MachuPicchuGallery@hotmail.com


MACLA Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana – 510 South First St. map

Opening reception: All our Senses
Participating artists: Dimebag Darla, Felix Quintana, Wulffvnky

California culture, family, intersectionality, vulnerability, and an ever changing landscape is at the forefront of the exhibition, All Our Senses. Bringing forth the work of artists Dimebag Darla, Felix Quintana, and Wulffvnky all of whom are inspired by their surroundings, family, and culture, the exhibition will offer the viewer a glimpse into the artists’ world and what they hold near and dear. 

Teen Tech Center at MACLA
500 S. 1st St.

Black & White TTC Group Show
Digital prints and performances themed in black & white.


PhantomGalleries at The Pierce – 2 Pierce Ave. map

Opening reception: “Painting the Moment” exhibit by Kushlani Jayasinha

This series is born to showcase the immediacy of the given moment. I find the less time I spend with the canvas the better the outcome. Let me explain this paradox.
 
I’ve been asked by viewers how long it takes to paint a painting, but this question misses that the less time I spend on the painting the more substance it seems to have. It’s a matter of when to stop with a painting that captures the essence of it. Because if I miss that point, I can go for days and come out with a painting that has nothing to do with what I started with. The painting goes through phases but the immediacy is lost.

This series of paintings has that sense of immediacy. They do not try to capture anything in particular but like falling water, it is, what it is. 

About the Artist:
Kushlani Jayasinha, born and raised in Sri Lanka amid turbulent social strife, is a painter whose artistic practice is informed by her Buddhist way of life and her occupational past as a Silicon Valley software engineer and a postdoctoral Physics scholar.
 
Kushlani’s paintings are created amid a traditional meditative process learned from the monks in Sri Lanka teaching her the gentle wisdom of Buddha. From this background, she became versed in studying the self in silence. The process manifests in careful and deliberate forms that are derived from natural formations but which are abstractly rendered on her canvases: a dreamy coastal fog, a far-off city in the mist, a peaceful body of water. The forms are unavoidably rooted in Kushlani’s conscious consideration of physical properties, and the result is something curiously tangible but simultaneously dreamlike.


Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose – 560 South First St. map

David Pace, Velocity, 2018, photograph, 21 x 14 inches.

On view: David Pace: Speaking Through Images

Kind, warm, and always full of enthusiasm, David Pace was a soft-spoken man who spoke from his heart and through his art and images. He was an integral part of the ICA, serving on the board of directors for 25 years and chairing the curatorial committee for more than a decade. He guest-curated well-received ICA shows, including “This is not a Book” in 2001 and “Photographer Unknown” in 2002, and, for many years, provided installation shots for the website for almost every exhibition.

His photographic work includes a decade-long project on life in a rural village in Burkina Faso that was featured in Venice during the 2019 Biennale; a series of photographs he called “Velocity” taken from the Shinkansen bullet train between Tokyo and Kyoto; and a series documenting collections of plumb bobs, tin cars, shoes, and toys, “Re: Collections.” (David himself was an avid collector of old toasters, plastic saints, and power ranger action figures.) Working frequently with other artists and writers, he created award-winning music videos and books.  

Johnna Arnold 51Ebony G. Patterson, when the land is in plumage…a peacock is in molting, 2020, glitter, glue, beads, plaster, conch shells, gold leaf, porcelain, paint, trimmings, jewelry, embellishments, fabric, jacquard tapestry, paraffin wax, 12.9 x 10.3 x 9 feet (overall).

On view: Ebony G. Patterson:…when the cuts erupt…the garden rings…and the warning is a wailing…

The ICA San José is hosting the first solo exhibition of Jamaican-born Ebony G. Patterson on the West Coast. The exhibition …when the cuts erupt…the garden rings…and the warning is a wailing…, features a large-scale, five-panel work displayed with custom wallpaper, a sculptural and tapestry installation and two large works on paper hung as a diptych. The exhibition is mixed with additional works by Patterson showing the development of the garden motif throughout her career. Patterson has long been fascinated by the garden and its metaphorical possibilities. 

The garden is a “postcolonial” symbol in her work, where the invisible remnants of violent histories interrupt visible space. The garden offers many rich possibilities for interpretation – life and death, transplanting and notions of “native” vs “foreign,” beauty, danger, wealth, and sin. Beginning with trees and plants amongst portraits and figurative work, the garden started as a background element which over the past eight years has developed into a focal point of Patterson’s work. 

Amir H. Fallah: The Facade Project, 2020. 

On view: Amir H. Fallah: The Facade Project

Appropriating images from across history, geographical regions, popular and art historical sources, and personal and universal references, Amir H. Fallah deftly creates new meanings through a fully original language of vibrant color. With his own web of sources, Fallah points to his own navigation of Iranian and American identity, reminding us that being American today often means one does not identify solely with any single nationality or heritage. 

It is his insistence on the complexity of identity, parsed through the language of painterly delight, that makes Fallah such a powerful inaugural artist for the ICA San José Facade Project. Amir H. Fallah: The Facade Project includes a fifty-foot mural and two six-foot circular paintings that offers an entirely new conception of the relationship between the street and the building’s architecture at a time when the galleries within the building must remain closed.

5-10pm Vaccine Vial Project  

For the Vaccine Vial Project artists Peter Foucault and Chris Treggiari are excited to present  “Timeline of Greatness” a large-scale, digital multimedia installation and series of community engagements. This will be a meaningful and impactful project that celebrates and honors both healthcare professionals and shares the enduring stories of patients during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The initial groundwork for this project includes interviews with the public sharing their voice about navigating the pandemic. These interviews and the collection of stories, experiences, and feelings will make up the visual components displayed on the monitors.

For the South FIRST FRIDAYS Street Mrkt event on September 3rd the artists will set up an interactive workshop that will provide the public with a free take away hand screen printed poster with a write in space that will capture stories and experiences that can be incorporated into the project. The artists will provide two (4’ x 2’) tables, one with a live screen printing demo conducted by Foucault and the second will be a conversation space where Treggiari will talk to the public and walk them through how they can respond to the conversation prompts on the poster.


Kira Dominguez Hultgren, I was India (detail), 2020

On view: I Was Inda: Embroidering Exoticism by Kira Dominguez Hultgren

On view: Stars and Stories: American Art from the Permanent Collection

Ryan Carrington, Flag #17, Carpenter’s Pants, Suits, Collared Shirts and Neckties, 2019

On view: Ryan Carrington: Contradictions

Lialia Kuchma, Noise, 2018

On view: American Tapestry Biennial 13

Last First Friday to check out our current exhibitions! Plus, our Artist in Residence, Corinne Okada Takara, now has her work up in our Hallway Gallery. Corinne has been holding community workshops all throughout the summer (in conjunction with Veggielution, Japanese American Museum of San Jose and Choptsick Alley). Her project involves BioQuilts- an exploration in biomaking with mycelium, algae & bioplastics with three communities of San Jose (Mayfair, Little Siagon & Japantown).


WORKS San Jose – South First St.

Tan Tian Seng by Kenneth Tany

An American Mosaic preview

Works presents a video and projection preview of “An American Mosaic,” an exhibition presented by Works, Mosaic America, and School of Arts and Culture at Mexican Heritage Plaza. The installation in Works’ Street MRKT tent on South First Street, and in the windows of Works, features a mix of San José artists selected by Works/San José and Chopsticks Alley Art. The exhibit will continue in September at Mexican Heritage Plaza up to the Mosaic Festival on September 25. Join us at StreetMRKT to celebrate SJ creativity!


STREET MRKT a nighttime hyper-local DIY urban faire featuring artists, performers and indie creative businesses.
First Friday SEPTEMBER 3rd from 5–10pm
Free admission & great for all ages.
Find us out on S. 1st St. between San Carlos & Reed streets in SoFA District.

Participating Artists & Indie Creatives:
Atiso Garden, Bolo Vintage, Jeff Bramschreiber, Arely Cardenas, Classic Loot, Condor Cave Vintage Dressmaking, Content Magazine Pick Up Party (in Parque de los Pobladores) • Jackelin Solorio art exhibit • Francisco J. Zarate art exhbiit • Low Conspiracy Car Club  • West Valley Fashion Design Students • DJs Flipside Lovers • Alex “Prince Ali” Flores dance performance • Barely Funktional live music, Nicholas James Dalton, Jhovany R De Ala, Sharon Deibert, Kirsten Dorsey, Doug Edwards, Ruben Escalante, Faerie Goatmother, Kristin Fjeldheim, Francisco Franco, FUSE Presents, The Get Down Dance Studio, Cynthia Gonzalez, Heiko Greb, Hand in Hand Henna, Ken Harmount, Matty Heimgartner, Higher Fire Clayspace & Gallery, Maureen Holcomb, Inside Out Clothing, KathyKay Shirts & Kimonos, Minesh Kher, Nao Kondo, David Krase, Le Joe, The Local Creative Show, Frankie McFly, Joe Mandrick, Jodi Mascarenas, David Mejia, Bruce Miles, More Más Marami Arts, Jasmin Mostafa, Sean Nash, Dee Jae Paeste, Jean-Luc Pedanou, Leslie Perez Designs, Petite Galleria, Plant Theory Co., Al Preciado, Shayla Putnam, Queer Buddha, Francisco Ramirez, REED Magazine, Marilyn Roaf & Christine Hofstetter, San Jose Jazz Boom Box, Second Hand Hustle, Gary Singh Silicon Alleys book signing, SJ Institute of Contemporary Art, South Bay Burners, Stay Tuft Rug Co., Tochtli Wear, Vaccine Vial Project  by Peter Foucault & Chris Treggiari, Willow Workshop Collective, Works San Jose, Zonkey Toys

LIVE MUSIC on the Street: (on S 1st St. in front of ANNO DOMINI Gallery)
Future Twin (8:00pm)
DJs Flipside Crew (5-10pm)

LIVE MUSIC at 455 S. 1st St.
5–10pm Open Source Ensemble presented by distortion productions
an evening of live improvisation of musical synthesis & visual projection art from silicon valley’s underground community
• featuring derek scott & charles johnson of #hapticsynapses including #antacid’s kyle griffin
• lasers by #distortioncorporation, isadora projections by rudi rudeboi, modular visual art from bill wiatroski #resonantfrequencies, tim thompson #spacepalette
• also featuring performances from mark camp #astronout, peter nyboer #sensel, juan rosales and franck martin

LIVE MUSIC in the STREET MRKT Beer Garden (S. 1st & William streets)
Emcee Mighty Mike McGee
5:00pm DJ Leydis — MACLA artist fellow

6:00-8:00pm performances hosted by Content Magazine Pick Up Party
6:00pm DJs Flipside Lovers
7:00pm Alex “Prince Ali” Flores dance performance
7:20pm Barely Funktional
8:00pm DJs Flipside Lovers

8:45pm Dogcatcher 

STREET MRKT Beer Garden features selections from our generous sponsor LVL Uproar an independent brewery, gastropub and arcade now open in the SoFA District. Please join us for a cold one and some great vibes. (located in Parque de los Pobladores at S 1st and William St).


In addition to our SoFA District neighborhood restaurants being open, we’ll have the 3 Brothers Kitchen and Road Dogs food trucks on site (located near the Beer Garden at S 1st and William St.)

Thank you to all of the participating artists, indie-creatives, our galleries and museums, and the SoFA District businesses that work with us to make STREET MRKT the best place to be in downtown San Jose on FIRST FRIDAYS.


Join us on Facebook ArtWalkSJ

The South FIRST FRIDAYS Art Walk + STREET MRKT is produced by CURATUS in collaboration with the participating art venues, local artists, musicians and independent businesses.

STREET MRKT is supported in part by a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San Jose