Join us for South First Fridays ArtWalk SJ on May 5th from 5–9 pm in SoFA District & beyond! Come be a part of our unique community as we celebrate the artistic expression of our community and immerse yourself in the vibrant atmosphere of San Jose’s arts & culture scene.
The South FIRST FRIDAYS ArtWalk is a self-guided, nighttime tour through galleries, museums, and independent creative businesses.
All ArtWalk venues are free admission and family-friendly.
SoFA District
ANNO DOMINI // the second coming of Art & Design – 366 S. First St. map
Artists’ reception: Between Water and Sky dual exhibition by artists Faring Purth & Daniel Jesse Lewis
Artists Faring Purth (b. Feb. 1, 1983) and Daniel Jesse Lewis (b. Feb. 1, 1981) reunite with Anno Domini to present: Between Water and Sky a new collection of individual and collaborative works that coalesces throughout the whole gallery.
Visitors of previous Lewis exhibitions (A.D. 2007, 2008 and 2012) will recognize his signature style of capturing the poetic, and sometimes enigmatic moments of the human condition playing out in everyday life. This new series of drawings and paintings have become meditations on family and fatherhood in particular, capturing a specific series of memorable moments from his personal experiences and observations of us all.
Purth’s past exhibitions (A.D. 2012, 2014 and 2019) have always included her street artist nature into the gallery. Bold, large scale paintings, complimented by delicate, yet emphatic, drawings of femininity, and insitu installations that provided a glimpse into her contemplative nature and wise spirit. This exhibition features new pen and ink works, as well as mixed media paintings that carries on her introspection into the ephemeral and mysterious.
Over the past year, in conjunction with the birth of their new son, the two artists have created their first collaborative exhibition. It is easy to see elements of both artists in these collaborations. However, in the end, there is an alchemy to this collective body of work that is unique, surprising and exciting to witness.
KALEID Gallery – 320 S. First St. map
Artist’s reception: Don’t Panic Matty Heimgartner solo exhibition
My forehead, palms, and pits are sweaty, but I’m so cold that I’m shaking. It’s hard to breathe. My vision is narrow with the center most saturated then the outer fading to a blur. My heart beats against my rib cage as if it is trying to break out of its prison. I feel like I am falling, but I’m pretty sure I am standing. My thoughts race so fast that I can’t process a single one. I’m confused. I’m afraid. And I’m certain this is going to be my demise.
You’re having a panic attack.
But they keep happening.
You have panic disorder.
I had my first panic attack when I was nineteen years old and my second not long after the first. I was certain I was having a heart attack and it took several x-rays from different doctors before I believed otherwise. I met with a therapist who explained the science behind the
attacks. The amygdala nerves in my brain send distress signals to my hypothalamus—an alarm system within my body—and then my body exudes sensations of being in danger. My anxious mind believes it. When in danger, some kick into fight mode, others flight. I freeze.
I spent my twenties trying to escape my own mind by drowning it with substances from liquor stores and back alleys, but my mind was always right back with me the next morning.
Feel the fear, do it anyway.
In sobriety, I have sought the core roots of my panic attacks. Uncertainty. Feelings of not being in control. Excessive worry. Paranoia. Some of these root problems are more manageable than others, but what has helped me through my panic most of all is creative expression. Writing, sculpting, and painting. Creating art gets me out of my head and into the work. This series is less about coherence between the pieces and more about letting go of control, paranoia, and perfectionism.
The best advice I ever received about panic attacks—something I still practice until this day—came from a panic disorder support group leader whom I met when I was nineteen: If you were making a sandwich when the attack started, finish making the sandwich and show your mind you’re not in danger.
MACLA Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana – 510 S. First St. map
MACLA’s 2023 Latinx Art Now Auction
Celebrate 50 Contemporary Latinx Artists from the Bay Area and beyond. Themes include celebrating our Indigenous roots, honoring our mothers and grandmothers, and the burdens we carry as we move through life. The mediums within the exhibition range from photography, cyanotypes, acrylic, oil, linocuts, and block printing.
Natural Do Salon – 613 S. First St. map
Hollywood by Fuquan Divine
My interpretation of actors and singers in private thought
PhantomGalleries at The Pierce – 2 Pierce Ave. map
Artist’s reception: Me Time Magic Betty Proper solo exhibition
Me Time Magic is a collection of mixed media paintings that explore the magic hidden in the simple day to day. We all seem to strive for this magic moment set aside from our responsibilities & routines to just unwind and come back to ourselves. This collection of work highlights the simplicity of “me time” in an attempt to remind the viewers that these moments do not have to be lavish to be magical and joyful.
About the Artist:
Valentina Carrillo aka Betty Proper is a self taught mixed media artist from San Jose, CA. She explores her creativity through painting, jewelry making and design. Her style & inspiration comes from her love of retro-fashion & style from different eras, coupled with illustration and everyday life as a woman & a mother.
Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose – 560 S. First St. map
Altered Perception includes works from three local Bay Area artists: Sarah Hotchkiss, Lordy Rodriguez, and Susie Taylor.
Sarah Hotchkiss explores hard-elements abstraction elements in her artwork. All the while also exploring how abstraction is a powerful communicating language, whether at the level of early human visual development, like pictures for babies or the universal symbols that games like Parcheesi or puzzles provide.
Lordy Rodriguez’s works explore the human urge to locate/define oneself by charting the environment in precise detail. Using the language of cartography, he makes drawings that go beyond map-making into abstracted, imaginary terrain.
Susie Taylor (b.1967) combines her background in Art, Design, and Craft to create abstract and dimensional textiles. She also collaborates with industry to produce modern, functional textiles that reflect the influence of the Bauhaus on her practice.
Rhonda Holberton: A Knotted World
We are on the brink of a technological and biological revolution that will change how we live, work, and relate to one another. In a Knotted World asks us to question the current state of technology that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. The work in the exhibition builds upon four series by Bay Area artist Rhonda Holberton that explores the militarization of land and the technology that both protects the soft animal of our body and extends violence outward to places we cannot see or imagine.
Rudy Lemcke: The Transit of Venus
Commissioned by the Institute for Contemporary Art San José, The Transit of Venus is an installation meant to feel as if the viewer is in a video game with no instructions or controller to navigate their path. It is a game where there is no winning or losing. Rather, the exhibition creates a space that allows the viewer to be on an unsettling threshold between worlds in anticipation of a resolution that never arrives.
The exhibition highlights a video projection based on the Transit of Venus, which happens when Venus passes in front of the bright face of the sun. These transits are among the rarest of observable astronomical events, repeating every 243 years. In the video projection, the yellow sun-like glowing frame is crossed by a red horizontal band of abstract digitally generated animations. A second video loops on a wall monitor that shows the artist walking a tightrope across the frame. Five grid-like paintings span three of the gallery’s walls and are hung in a descending arc resembling the graphics from early 8-bit video games.
Sarah Blaustein: Present Tense
The ICA San José is thrilled to display a series of site-specific, bodily works by painter Sarah Blaustein. Installed in the front gallery, the work creates a full-sensory experience of being surrounded by her paintings. Present Tense, a series of sensuous, lush paintings, is made with permanent materials. The works evoke the feeling of giving life, creation, and the human condition. A viewer can get lost in the use of bold color, the seemingly wet, saturated surface and the push and pull of the picture plane. Using deeply saturated pigments and water, Blaustein paints the sensations she feels but can not see.
SoFA Market – 387 S. First St. ma
Divine Collections by Ritika Dua
Each painting in Divine Collection represents peace and love.
Hindu gods representing love, tradition and art at the same time. Everything in this collection has a mandala dot art element and the painting itself represents the religious or cultural reference from India.
About the Artist:
Obsessed with drawing since childhood , Ritika Dua was born in Punjab, India and came to San Jose with her family 6 years ago. Just like other immigrant families, Ritika’s family came to the United States in search of a better future. Now she owns two restaurants in San Jose and thought First Fridays ArtWalk was the perfect way to showcase her recent obsession with drawing images of Hindu gods with dot art. This Divine collection represents traditional paintings but with dot mandala art. Every painting in this collection is made in a way to bring peace in your life.
Fountain Alley Area
1Culture – 136 E. Santa Clara St. map
Cinco Art Show
Artists: Adrian Delgado, Aqua One, Carlos Rodriguez, Dime, Heriberto Luna, Asspie, Heysus, Irene Shiori, Juan Velazquez, Miguel Machuca, OcelotePress, Pancho Pescador, Polaris Castillo, Quetzalli Xiuhtzin, Ricardo Estrada, Daniela Sauceda, Roberto Romo, Luis E. Garcia, Priscilla’s Arte, P.Locz, 2Hermano, Rayos_Magos, Francisco Ramirez, Lourdes Jimenez, Mike Rios.
1Culture welcomes you to experience a survey of Latinx culture in a contemporary time. We have reached out to artists from San Jose, Oakland, Portland, LA and more, to demonstrate a variety of subject matter that interprets their experience while playfully embracing and modernizing traditional iconography and cultural semiotic fields. The narratives of these artists speak on cultural surrealism, Chicanx and Mexican-Indigenous heritage, to the topic of commodities and consumptions in our day-to-day. There will be murals going up in celebration of the event, making it a great opportunity to pair local and outsource artists together to collaborate and enrich their own skills and talents. Sustaining and supporting San Jose’s local creativity.
Chopsticks Alley Gallery – 38 S. 2nd St. map
Mẹ Earth Exhibit
Chopsticks Alley’s “Mẹ Earth” Exhibit featuring artist and designer Tuan Tran, a Vietnamese American artist based in the Bay Area whose work breathes new life into old objects that were once fated for the landfill. As an eco-friendly artist, he transforms materials that can be recycled or repurposed into contemporary, eclectic, and interactive art.
6:30-8:00pm: The artist of the our current exhibition, Tuan Tran, will be at the gallery to demonstrate his unique weaving techniques and interact with guests.
7:30-8:00pm: Poetry cypher: Enjoy a circle of poets taking turns reciting poems every 15 minutes. Some participating poets are: Lindsey Leong, Erin Jerri Pangilinan, Troy Truong “Onbar”, Brandon Luu, Kristina Robertson, and Chris Locsin.
Works San Jose – 38 S. 2nd St. map
Death, Destruction, and Whimsey
Artists: Chris Verez Bunz, Cynthia Yadira Gonzalez, Hana Lock, and Lydia Rae Black, artist and guest curator.
Beauty and trauma collide in this meditation on the failures of society to understand the artist as a complete person. Four artists from extremely different backgrounds have arrived at the same conclusion—the role of the artist is filtering noise, and art is a reaction and symptom of current conditions. Avoiding the onerous expectation of providing entertainment, artists rail against the soulless manufacturing of hopeful work in a social climate that can only be described as hostile to emotional health. The exhibition will present the paradox of creating for nobody but yourself, but wanting to set it in front of an audience anyway. Although acknowledging the absurdity of art making and being completely aware of the futility of it all, the exhibition continues through May 6.
Martha Gardens District
Art Ark Gallery – 1035 S. Sixth St. map
[Timeframes & Formats]
An exhibition of San Jose photographer and Content Magazine founder Daniel Garcia’s fashion photography and editorial portrait work he has done over the decades. From street photography to Content Magazine, from 35mm to 4×5—film, digital, and polaroids.
FUSE presents at the Citadel Art Gallery- 199 Martha St. map
Different Perspectives featuring Michael Rogan and Joshua Hascall and several supporting artists.
Celebrate Cinco de Mayo by visiting FUSE presents at Citadel Gallery and view a wide variety of innovative and vibrant art sizes, styles, and prices during First Fridays ArtWalk SJ.
MACHU PICCHU Gallery of the Americas, Est 1974 – 199 Martha St. map
Celebrating Cinco de Mayo with three painters from Mexico / Celebrando Cinco de Mayo con Tres Pintores de Mexico
Artists: Leovigildo Matinez, Antonio Hernandez, and Garibay
Leovigildo Martinez was born in the city of Oaxaca, Mexico. He began his studies in 1977 at the Centro de Education Artistico de Oaxaca, and studied at the Taller de Artes Rufino Tamayo. Leovigildo lives in Oaxaca. Antonio Hernandez also lives in Mexico, and Garibay lived in San Jose and exhibited at the Mexican Counsulate in San Jose.
SAVE THE DATE!
South FIRST FRIDAYS presents:
The 14th Annual SubZERO Festival
Focused on emerging and present subcultures thriving in our region, SubZERO is a DIY, artistically bent, hi/lo-techno mashup where street meets geek.
Come downtown on June 2nd & 3rd to San Jose’s SoFA District from 5pm ’til 11pm for an inspired evening of arts & culture. In addition to the South FIRST FRIDAYS monthly art walk you’ll find a wide spectrum of Artists, Performers and live music on outdoor stages celebrating the indie creative spirit!
FRIDAY JUNE 2nd & SATURDAY JUNE 3rd, 2023 from 5pm-11pm
SoFA district in downtown San Jose
(on South First Street between San Carlos & Reed Streets)
South FIRST FRIDAYS
366 S 1st Street
San Jose, CA 95113
408-271-5155
info@southfirstfridays.com