JOIN US for the South FIRST FRIDAYS Art Walk
First Friday, DECEMBER 1st from 7–11pm
SoFA District (& beyond) downtown San Jose
RSVP on our event page here.

The South FIRST FRIDAYS Art Walk is a self-guided, nighttime tour through galleries, museums, and independent creative businesses featuring eclectic art exhibitions and special performances. All ArtwalkSJ venues are FREE admission & open to the public.

NEW EXHIBITS…

• KALEID gallery – 88 South Fourth St. map

  
  Pictured artwork (left to right) by: Shannon Amidon, Karen Carlo Salinger and Rachel Forrest

  Opening reception: “HARK! 12th Annual Holiday Show & Sale”

  50+ invited artists offer hundreds of original works of art at holiday gift giving prices. You’ll find the perfect unique gift in our selection of original drawings, paintings, photography, sculptures, jewelry and textiles. (It’s also a great time to treat yourself!) All art work purchases are first come, first served and purchases may be taken home at the point of sale.

  HARK! 2017 Participating Artists: Murphy Adams, Shannon Amidon, Darius B’Alexander, Mariana Barnes, Julie Barrett, Steven Borelli, Jeff Bramschreiber, David Canavese, Dotti Cichon, Joshua Curry, DonBon, Donna Eck, Angela Elsey, Masako Esparragoza, Michael Foley, Force 129, Rachel Forrest, Marvin Garcia, Cynthia Gonzalez, Ike Greca, Katie C. Gutierrez, Ken Harmount, Matthew Heimgartner, Kyoko Hirota, Andrew Irvine, Leah Jay, JAYCEE, Whitney Kitty, Denis Korkh, Airy Kurktchi, Joe Mandrick, Nicole Margaret, David Mejia, Theresa Merchant, Julie Meridian, Jorge Mieses, Lourdes Morante-Mieses, Celeste Moss, Laurus Myth, Sean Nash, Avery Palmer, Anthony Palomo, Gianfranco Paolozzi, John Paulson, Joe Perea, Al Preciado, Betty Proper,Jenifer Renzel, Marilyn Roaf, Jamila Rufaro, Karen Carlo Salinger, Harumo Sato, Masha Schultz

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

  In the DMC Studio at MACLA:
  MACLA’s DMC Studio Youth Showcase & Open Mic 5:30-7pm
  Join the DMCStudio youth for their monthly slam poetry, live music, and photography showcase on Fri, Dec 1, 2017!

  Must be ages 13-21 to perform in the Open Mic. Sign up list opens at 5:30 pm; open Mic/Poetry Slam from 6–7pm. Each performer will be allowed to perform 2-3 pieces OR a 5 minute set.

  
  Artwork: “Fantasy Island” by Shey Rivera Rios

  In the Visual Arts Gallery:
  “Notes on Democracy” group exhibit featuring artists: Shey Rivera Rios, Juan Capistran, Jaque Fraguá, Luis ‘Xago’ Juarez, Gilda Posada, Ricardo “Tijuana Rick” Cortez, Rosa Gonzalez, RoCoCo (KC Rosenberg and Modesto Covarrubias)

  “Notes on Democracy” examines works that explore the depths of political discourse, process and the ideology of democracy.

  In the Castellano Playhouse Theater 8–10pm:
  4 con 3
  Celebrate the end of the year with Cuban music and dance!

• Caffé Frascati – 315 South First St. map

  

  Upstairs Gallery: “Men in Bloom” by Alice D.Chen

  “Men in Bloom” is an illustration series that features men of all colors adorned in their culture’s native flowers who represent “woke masculinity” in order to counter the spread of “toxic masculinity.” Local poets’ poems on the topic of “woke masculinity” will be on display in conjunction with the illustrations. Throughout history, flowers have been misogynistically used to symbolize outer feminine beauty or labeled as “girly,” as if femininity was a detraction from one’s identity. However, in reality, flowers and plants are the strongest survivors and teachers. They grow in defiance, abundance, and resistance against the odds of the harshest conditions in order to bloom and give back to life. They teach us that strength is not shown through aggression or violence, but through thriving past obstacles and growing symbiotic relationships. They are Givers, Healers, and Creators. Find and honor your inner flower and you will find the strength of the sacred feminine–connection, wholeness, and compassion. By emulating their example, we can transform and uproot the toxic patriarchal values that are destroying life internally, spiritually, socially, and politically. The sacred feminine and masculine coexist inside of us all, and the real beauty is in embracing their balance, so that there is no “other,” just unity.

  Alice D. Chen is a freehand illustrator who primarily works with pen and ink and natural materials. Her work is inspired by her wonder and respect for nature as the ultimate healer and teacher, and her interests in ancestry, traveling, esoteric studies, philosophy, spirituality, symbology, and transcendentalism. Simultaneously whimsical and serious in tone, her art reflects not only her reverence for nature, but her desire to challenge and break social paradigms. A few themes she explores include the intertwined balance of the sacred masculine and feminine, nature’s resilience and wisdom, symbiosis and oneness, mysticism, honoring one’s roots, and embracing one’s true identity.

  

  Downstairs Gallery: “Everyday Familiarity” by Tiffany Que-Smith

  We walk around our environment with an intention of “getting things done” and often times, we may miss the details all around us. For this exhibit, I want to take a minute and pay attention to these details. For instance, let’s take water hydrants and flow regulators that offer a sense of safety and security. Do we just walk by them without valuing their design , purpose , and structural flaws/ When viewed from different angles, the object may appear alive and offer a different perspective. Maybe, if we look at our environment and the people in our lives at different angles, we may find beauty in their flaws and a profound appreciation of their history .
  Tiffany has a genuine curiosity in people and their environment. She’s the friend who will stay up all night getting to know you, just out of pure interest and empathy. To her, it’s important to understand how environmental contexts influence people’s thoughts and actions. She’s interested in how people perceive their world and how that perception may persuade their everyday judgement and their outlook of life. She finds solace in sharing how she perceives life in her own environment and hopes to offer a different perspective while also bringing attention to details that are habitually left unnoticed .

  Tiffany earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Art/Studio Practice, a Minor in Biology and a Master’s in Occupational Therapy from San Jose State University. With background in creative arts and natural sciences, Tiffany is able to draw from various scientific influences and express them in different artistic mediums. Tiffany is half Chinese/ Irish and spent much of her childhood in Cebu City, Philippines prior to moving to the Bay Area at the age of 9. She currently works in the rehabilitation department at a local skilled nursing facility as an occupational therapist and loves every minute of it!

  Currently, her preferred medium is oil on canvas. Her inspiration is a combination of abstract realism, impressionism, anthropomorphism and a tinge of chiaroscuro. Her recent artwork aims to reveal the details often overlooked and bring them to life .

  

  First Fridays is Caffe Frascati Opera Night presented by First Street Singers, with the Bay Area’s finest opera singers performing your very favorite classical arias and duets live in the cafe! for the South FIRST FRIDAYS Art Walk.

• Phantom Galleries at Pho69 – 321 South First St. map

  
  

  “Vertigo” by Zayra Yves

  Vertigo is the emotional expression of art works created while working with a cervical spine issue that leads to spontaneous moments of vertigo, seeing halos and being off balance. In some cases I choose to paint while I was in a state of vertigo. The concept is to embrace the vertigo rather than fight it. The mediums used in this collection vary from enamel paint and mineral based golds to using various chemical components to break the paint apart. In this collection I was attempting to express the range of human spirit in the midst of adversity. It is an exploration of resilience and grit. Each canvas is a universe of its own with a story to tell.

  Zayra Yves is a multi-dimensional experimental artist who is currently dwelling in the realm of abstract painting via hydrodynamics and flow painting. She did not have formal or childhood training in art or exposure to culture until twelve years of age when she developed a passion for creative writing and assemblage collage. The influences at that time came from a librarian, her cousin and an English teacher; however, it would be another two decades before she would return to creative expression or sharing her work publicly. She is still not formally trained, although she has been to a number of terrifically inspiring workshops and seminars throughout the passage of time.

  Exhibition produced by Phantom Galleries guest curator Robert Ragazza.

• Social Policy – 200 South First St. map

  
  Artwork by Kedrick McKenzie

  “Fritz” with participating artists: Kedrick Mckenzie, Richard Small and Jeanine Parish

  Glass is a ubiquitous material in the 21st century. It is used in all aspects of our lives ranging from kitchens to cars to hospitals to computer screens. It can be made into virtually any shape from thin sheets to hollow tubes to cylindrical vessels. Regardless of its final form, all glass begins as a mixture of raw materials, or frits, that fuse together to form glass.

  This show highlights that enormous potential and celebrates the beauty and complexity of glass. The group of artists in this exhibition all approach the same raw material and create diverse and individual works. Join us for a show that features a diverse group of artists exploring the enormous potential found in a material that is present in every aspect of our lives.

• SoFA Market – 387 So. First St. map

  

  Phantom Galleries is proud to present a bold new mural by visionary painter Sara Tomasello inside the SoFA Market. Tomasello will be on site during the South FIRST FRIDAYS Art Walk 7pm–11pm working on “Resonate” if you’d like to see the magic in progress and chat with the artist.

  

  Also on view: Art by Joseph Arruda

CONTINUED EXHIBITS…

• Anno Domini // the second coming of Art & Design – 366 South First St. map

  
  “By the River Tarauaca with Maria Martins” by Bruno 9Li,
  Indian ink on museum quality archival cotton paper, 32.25” x 59”

  On view in galleryONE: ‘Night in the Tropics” new drawings by Bruno 9Li (São Paulo, Brazil) solo exhibition

  Bruno 9Li returns to Anno Domini for his third solo exhibition since 2007. Bruno’s new body of work “Night in the Tropics” embody his experiences with MAHKU in the Amazon Rainforest in the form of hyper detailed black and white drawings and accompanied by a soundtrack of native animals and the music of the indigenous people Huni Kuin he recorded during his stay there.

  “Night in the Tropics” by Bruno 9Li

  “Night in the Tropics” is a series of drawings started in an immersive experience in Amazonia with the art indigenous collective MAHKU / Movimento dos Artistas Huni Kuin (Huni Kuin art movement). Night in the Tropics consists of very detailed, intense and sharp line drawings made of black ink on paper. I think that ink drawings have this direct connection between an state of mind and its process. It’s direct, that’s why I decided to dedicate to that language just to give to the drawings as fresh substance as I could. For this series of works I have renounced color as a philosophical act, just to propose a mode in which I could experiment reality considering the simplicity of black and white.

  About the forms represented in my drawings; I aimed a joyful way to deal with Brazilian and amazonian imagery, popular culture and deep experiences with the Huni Kuin myths. The forest, specially through the Huni Kuin lens, is the theme and form the atmosphere for “Night in the Tropics”. The sacred tea Ayahuska (or “Nixi Pãe” in Huni Kuin language) is represented by the many vines that crosses in a wiry way good part of the drawings. I aimed to transmute, in a very personal way, my perceptions of the forest, the way Huni Kuin (the people of the boa constrictor myth) live Amazonia and its enchantments.

  There is a popular, generous and seductive feeling in these drawings, a kind of affective presence. Those animals represented in “Night in the Tropics” impose a personality and also can remind like the first representations of Brazil from the European travelers that painted the Brazilian flora, fauna and culture in the beginning of XIX century (Debret, Taunay and Rugendas), but they come in this very personal form in its comic and mysterious presence. I also aimed to bring different icons of Amazonia/Brazil to pervert them with iconic popular cartoon from North America – there are small “intruders” in most of the drawings – like an ambiguous presence of a deep intricate and very detailed drawings with popular culture.

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  On view in galleryTWO: “PILLARS” by Travis Lawrence (St. Louis, MO) solo exhibition

  There are numerous accounts throughout Western traditions heavily referencing the use of pillars to house the Holy or contain hidden knowledge. These tales describe the pillars to be entrances to a temple, or the primary source to uphold it. The traditions speak of wisdom preserved inside these timeless vessels. It was the duty of the seeker to pass through or align with these pillars in order to discover the truth hidden within.

  “Pillars” is the title of an ongoing series of relief prints by Travis Lawrence. Influenced by Jungian psychology and mythology, Travis uses the art of printmaking to create illustrious allegorical imagery. Reinterpreting medieval alchemical illustrations and illuminations, each symbolic print appears to be an excerpt of narration filled with mystery and metaphor. The viewer is invited to explore the content of these pillars through a contemplative interaction with the archetypes.

  Additional pieces included in the exhibition are works that were created during the relative period of time and selections from a prior series entitled “The Vessel.”

  Travis resides in the Midwest where he was born and raised. Having a religious upbringing opened his perspective to the interaction with ideas greater than and/or within oneself. The creative process is an act of opening doorways and manifesting these ideas through symbol and metaphor. Similar to alchemy, Travis uses printmaking as a meditative procedure of transforming the mundane into a higher state.

•  Art Ark Gallery – 1035 South Sixth St. map

  
  art work by Bryant Sina

  “More the Merrier” Closing Reception

  Artists: art by moe, Abby Bettencourt, Nancy Brown, Shone Chacko, Dotti Cichon, Steve Clark, Dash Desai, Mario Dimas, Eames Tillson Collaborative, Donna Eck, Alyssa Eustaquio, Roberto Fierro, Cody Garza, Caden Hastings-Dennis, Chris ‘Toaf’ Imai, Joella Kermit, Jonathan Kermit, j.b. lambert, Luna Soul, Anna Maiko, Theresa Merchant, Hayley Montgomery, Avery Palmer, Gianfranco Paolozzi, Elizabeth Patrician, Al Preciado, Quality HDR Photography, Zlata Rabinovich, Sahana Rajmohan, Francisco Ramirez, Valerie Raps, Eugene Reshetov, Bob Rose, Suhita Shirodkar, Bryant Sina, Lexi Snyder, Volga Solak, Suha Suha, Hema Sukumar, Martin Vivanco, Alayne Yellum, Rosa Younessi

  “More the Merrier”: is a holiday art sale and exhibition with more than 40 artists selling affordable art! Art varies including jewelry, ceramics, sculpture, painting, photography collage and more! Please join us for food, fun and great sales on local art!

  Live music by Paolozzi Tango Trio.

• PhantomGalleries at The Pierce – 2 Pierce Ave. map

  
  

  “Abstract Drawings” by Jemal Diamond

  A special collection of limited-edition prints by abstract artist Jemal Diamond. The collection, created solely on the Apple iPad, explores the cross section of digital design and traditional mark making, utilizing next-generation drawings tools to create contradictory, layered, abstracted figures and landscapes. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Jemal uses a playful, improvisational approach that aims to keep the viewer’s joyful engagement while introducing a wide-range of darker graphic indicators and visual cues.

  All of Jemal’s artwork is titled by outside observers. Individual pieces may have several titles depending on how many people have contributed. Each title offered is collected and documented over time. Asking the viewer to title the artwork engages their personal interpretation and activates their imagination. It bridges an intimate connection between the artwork and the spectator. It also allows each person to take ownership of the artwork by giving it a title. The artwork becomes a community entity. You will have the opportunity to title Jemal Diamond’s work in person at his upcoming reception and you are always welcomed to title his work online. #TitleMe

  Exhibition produced by Phantom Galleries guest curator Vivian Giourousis.

• Works San Jose – 365 South Market St. map

  
  Artwork: Robert Schultze, Portraits of the 99% #153

  40th Anniversary Benefit Art Auction

  In its 40th Anniversary Auction, Works presents an amazing array of past, present, and even future area artists. Build your art collection by supporting your community art center in the South Bay’s most eclectic and accessible art auction! With more than 100 local works of art, the Benefit Auction is a survey of great local artists, a gathering of great friends, and a celebration of South Bay art! The exhibition continues to Auction night on Saturday, December 2. Support Works by bringing some home with you!

• Studio Climbing Gym – 396 South First St. map

  

  Wildlife and nature photography by Ansate Jones

  Just as ethologist Jakob von Uexkull theorized the existence of Umwelten, or ‘self-centered worlds’, for each living being, my work revolves primarily around the concept of nature and how we relate to it. I like to incorporate a bit of life into my photographs and illustrations to showcase this sort of interaction as well as to emphasize the delightful oddities that can occur in everyday life. There’s something about visually capturing a moment that fascinates me; everything we create forms a record not only of where we are in our internal processes but also how we’re influenced by the world around us.