JOIN US for the South FIRST FRIDAYS Art Walk
First Friday APRIL 7th from 7–11pm RSVP
SoFA District (& beyond) downtown San Jose

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 Art Walk venues are FREE and open to the public.

NEW EXHIBITS…

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

  
  

  Artist’s Reception: “Stay in the Light” by Ken Davis (CA), solo exhibition

  Recognizing the oftentimes cryptic realities of the eternal battle between good and evil, Ken Davis creates a body of work meant to be shields from evils and negativity while acting as signals to attract like minded positive energies dead set on fixing the world around them. A sign painter by trade, Ken uses his skill set of single stroke brush calligraphy and line work to create a language of symbols meant to create an overall sacred piece. These paintings are heavily influenced from a sometimes disputed theory of the meanings behind Pennsylvania Dutch barn hex signs in which these colorful design intensive pieces of folk art are meant to ward off “hexes” or “bad luck”. Ken brings a modern dialogue to these in his work by referencing history, numerology, and symbolism relevant to his path and those groups he identifies with while mixing it with his own life experience in the worlds of punk rock, skateboarding, hip hop, and other creative subcultures. In the end, these works Ken creates are meant to ward off the ever creeping darkness in our modern times and attract individuals who are also intent on improving the world for all life.

  
  

  Also on view in galleryONE: HEADS by Bohdan Burenko (Kiev, Ukraine), solo exhibition

  For me, a human being is the focal point and the pièce de résistance of the arts, that is why I do portraits and “headshots.” The Face is the unique part of the human body. Destruction of a human face evokes strong emotions both in real life and in painting. I do not draw specific people so it’s impossible to identify a person in my works. I think that it is the absence of references to specific people that makes it possible for an observer to see an image properly, without any prejudice.

  The current “Heads” series is inspired by human anatomy charts of 17th and 18th centuries. These graphic illustrations created before the advent of cameras made a strong impression on me. I was also inspired by the Victorian photography and the Early Renaissance portraits.

  My painting is not about reproducing reality or existing forms, and not about developing new forms, it is about capturing forces. Forces which inexplicably act on observers, like magic. ~Bohdan Burenko

•  Art Ark Gallery – 1035 South Sixth St. map

  
  

  Annual SVOS Preview Exhibition
  We are pleased to show 2D and 3D work by over 25 Silicon Valley Open Studios artists.

  Participating artists: Anita Bora, Eric Bodtker, Brian Sal Corral, Eliane Davidovich, Florence deBretagne, Carol Golemme, Leanne Hamilton, Marilynn Host, Crystal Huerta, Corinne Landphere, Anne Pegolotti, Ted Reynolds, Marie Serda, Pragati Sharma, Charles Woodruff Coates

  Live music by: Paolozzi Tango Trio

• KALEID gallery – 88 South Fourth St. map

  Join us for the artists’ reception for two new feature exhibitions by KALEID Gallery resident artists Julie Barrett and David Mejia

  
  

  “Dark Expressions” by Julie Barrett

  Julie Barrett is a Bay Area artist, born and raised. Capturing dark expressions and inner thoughts, focusing on those darker images that flash in your head. Fear and Anxiety can be cagey and playful too. However, these thoughts thrive in the dark…

  
  

  “Shamanism: Images of a Mythic Journey” new work by David Mejia

  I have always been intrigued by the path of the Shaman who lives between the worlds of the known and unknown. The power of myth and magic throughout the ages and into this modern world.

  David Mejia is a local San Jose artist who has appeared at art events through out the Bay Area and Northern California drawing quick portraits of patrons at both public and private events for the past 6 years. Drawing since the age of 6, Mejia’s styles vary between realistic, abstract, and cartoon. He works with mixed media, including pencil, watercolor, acrylic, and ink.

  I like to live IN my art. I like to take the real world with all its random stressful complexities and cruelties, and transform it into this simpler colorful brilliant world of my imagination.

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

  
  “Indigenous Roots Denied…No More” (2016). It is a collaboration between Arlene Mejorado and Ernesto Yerena.

  In the visual gallery: Latino Art Now! Annual Art Auction + Exhibition

  Latino Art Now! Annual Art Auction + Exhibition, opening on April 7th with Artist Talks at 7:30pm,. The auction includes work by established and emerging contemporary artists from the Bay Area and beyond. All artwork will be auctioned off on Saturday, May 13.

  

  In the Castellano Playhouse Theater: First Friday Fiesta with Valverde Dance 8-10pm

  The work of Valverde Dance is dedicated to traditional dance and music from South America, especially from Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina and Chile. Come see snippets of the diverse cultures of the Andes Mountains!

  In the DMCStudio:
First Friday Monthly Youth Showcase & Open Mic, 6-7pm
  Come out to the DMC Studio’s First Friday Monthly Youth Showcase & Open Mic! Watch the public premiere of DMC Studio short films, insightful photography, original music, and poetry presented by the students of the program throughout the evening! All performances are free. Must be ages 13- 21 to perform in the Open Mic.

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

  

  “Monumental Coast” by James Dewrance

  For over 30 years West Coast artist James Dewrance has foraged compositions on the coastline of what has recently been designated a National Monument-The Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument.

  Working with the large format 4×5” film camera has enabled him to achieve a richly detailed yet sparse and elemental vision of the monumental aspects of the park, as well as the ephemera of the surf torn coast.

  All photographs are shot in films, printed and toned silver gelatin prints or archival pigment prints.

• Works San Jose – 365 South Market St. map

  
  “Precious time” by Erika Gomez Henao

  “Alternative Facts”

  Works, your community art center, presents an open community exhibition of artists at all levels of experience and in all manner of media as a broad survey of responses to the title phrase, which has entered our lexicon from political speech to the Urban Dictionary. The phrase “alternative facts” was originally used by Kellyanne Conway, United States Counselor to the President, during a Meet the Press interview on January 22 of this year. She used the phrase to defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s false statement dramatically inflating the number of people in attendance at Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th President of the United States.

• Downtown Yoga Shala – 450 South First St. map

  
  Artist Jonathan Kermit

  
  Artist Bob Rose

  Downtown Yoga Shala features the creative collaborative work of wire sculptor Jonathan Kermit and painter Bob Rose, as they exhibit their work together for the first time. Both artists use color and line to define their work.

• Paseo Public Prototyping Festival at Hammer Theater – 101 Paseo de San Antonio map

  

  The Paseo Public Prototyping Festival will celebrate the culmination of the San José State University Paseo Prototyping Challenge at the SJSU Hammer Theatre Center in downtown San José. The event opens First Friday April 7th at 5pm with art and technology exhibitions from ZERO1: American Arts Incubator and the Life, Art, Science, Technology (LAST) Festival.

  On Saturday, April 8th, the Paseo Public Prototyping Festival will feature exhibitions, speakers, live performances, and SJSU student teams presenting their final prototypes for the Paseo Prototyping Challenge, a year-long civic innovation challenge designed to incubate solutions to pressing social and environmental problems in the city of San José.

  The event is free and open to the public.

• SoFA Market – 387 So. First St. map

  

  “Security Blanket” by Roan Victor

  She weaves in and out, parts exposed, parts hidden. In order to make a difference she comes out and she’s brave. She laughs, she loves and she fights. Some days, in the quiet, she is vulnerable and she disappears into where it is comfortable. She reaches for the familiar and wraps it around her. She rests, recharges and then she’s ready to go out again.

• Social Policy – 200 South First St. map

  

  “Immersion” featuring artists Giorgiani Mathey, Sophia Ronen, Nik Radford

  “Immersion” is a collection of local painters who all tackle the canvas abstractly in different ways. Through manipulation of size, scale, color and shape, each piece offers a journey within itself. Come join us as we immerse ourselves in stunning art and fantastic people.

• Vyne Bystro – 110 Paseo de San Antonio Walk map

  
  Artist The Art Hub

  
  Artist The Art Hub

  
  Artist Francisco

  Group exhibit featuring The Art Hub and Francisco

  An artist collaboration from the Art Hub came together to depict a personal view of urban structure. Francisco depicts the way society is perceived with the use of sweets. By using simple imagery he satires the current system in this country.

CONTINUED EXHIBITS…

• PhantomGalleries at The Pierce – 2 Pierce Ave. map

  

  “Aesthetic Meditations” paintings and beach art by Brandon Anderton.

  I began creating as a sort of necessary mindful meditation in dealing with chronic pain, depression, and anxiety.

  Through the creation process, i have caught glimpses into what i see as humans possible purposes here on this earth, this realm of physical existence.

  Rather than we are currently, the self proclaimed triumphant rulers and shapers of nature, i find that we were meant to be the shepherds and tenders or a garden we inherited from a long sense forgotten source.

  We can each show examples of this through creating through whatever process and medium we chose while benching the self critic as well as disregarding the reflections of others whose motivations may just be to tear down anything that threatens their own paradigm of self validation.

  I prefer to create for the sake of creation and for creation’s sake. In this way, i’m free from the judgment of others or myself to validate my exchange of time or measuring it in any way.

  In this way it enables us to create more, by receiving fulfillment from our own creations and as with any craft, with time and attention, it becomes more honed by which no standard can be measured.

• Caffé Frascati – 315 South First St. map

  

  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.

  

  “I Want To See You More” by Kyle Harter

  “I Want To See You More” is a collection of pen and ink drawings, prints, and mixed media paintings that span four years. This collection holds particular feelings of the artist’s personal lens through loose and expressive portraits of figures exposing vulnerable confessions, sentiments, and encouragements.

  While the prints can stand alone, there’s a nonlinear narrative that points to an inner world. “I Want To See You More” attempts to make this world tactile. The minimal aesthetic allows for the work to breathe and be viewed as passing moments.

  The textured paintings work in a similar vain as the prints. For most of these paintings, the artist used mix media to create the texture and line work.

  In viewing this collection together the artist hopes a collected inward experience will be revealed, paving the way for a deeper connection with it’s audience.

  

  Upstairs gallery: “Fortunates” by Marvin Garcia and Jamie Gaspar

  “Fortunates” is an ongoing interactive installation by two up and coming artists. This collaboration came to be through a shared interest in textiles and public art. The audience are invited to this participatory installation, to inspire others to write and share a recollection of memories, confessions, and omens or, simply an inspirational quote/s and poem/s to uplift someone’s state of being.

  These colorful fabric pockets are suspended from the ceiling or tree branches. Each sewn piece contain a written note or message by previous participant, waiting to be unveiled by future ones. Their whimsical display serves as an open platform for dialogue and invites the public to participate and contribute to this ongoing project (project goal is to amass a large amount of written messages for SubZERO 2017 installation.)

  About the artists/collaborators: Jamie Gaspar is a multidisciplinary designer and artists who focuses on the nature of patter and repetition. Marvin Garcia is a sculpture, printmaker and arts educator who focuses on the notion of “power in numbers,” as a means for social change.

• Psycho Donuts – 288 South Second St. map

  
  art work by Michael Foley

  “EVOL/LOVE 2017”

  Group show featurings many wonderful gems by: Christine Benjamin, Nic Caesar, Kori Thompson, Jared Kanopitski, Julie Meridian, Michael Foley, Don Bon, John Hageman, David Mejia and Valery Milovic.

• Studio Climbing Gym – 396 South First St. map

  

  “Carbon Hand Print” a collection of charcoal drawings on paper by Jeffrey Hemming.

  These works are a result of spending many hours outdoors in the western landscape hiking, skiing, and showshoeing. I use charcoal for both its speed and flexibility. Achromatic works focus the effort on value, composition, and texture. My most inspirational times are usually spent outdoors. For me, these drawings are serve as a record of places traveled and time well spent.

  Jeff grew up in Northern California and began painting in high school. A self taught observer he took his inspiration from the cold beaches and waves around Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay. While longing for more tropical climates, he moved to Oahu to attend college at Brigham Young University pursuing an art degree in painting. Living in Hawaii taught him to see the details and colors of nature and he began rendering tropical scenes of the North Shore, Koolau Mountains, and other sites. Since then he has completed hundreds of paintings working with galleries, private collectors, and doing various art shows. To further his education in the arts, Jeff attended Florida State University earning a Masters Degree in Painting. Not satisfied with only one style of painting, Jeff utilizes both traditional techniques for his work as well as more contemporary abstract approaches. He currently works at UC Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College teaching Painting and Drawing.

OTHER PARTICIPATING VENUES…

• San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles – 520 So. First Street map