Richard Painter’s work since 1995 has utilized burning. Painter's unique method begins by working on medium density fiber board in a process he calls making a reverse silhouette. Flame retardant is applied to the outlined image and the board is charred using a roofing torch. Later, more detail is added to the image using a pencil torch. The application of soft pastels further adds to the contrast of subject and medium. Many of his pieces have a photographic quality that is increased by the positive and negative aspects of this reverse process.
Also featuring work by San Franciso painter Frances McCormack. Please visit our Artist page to see images.
Celebrating his first exhibition with Gilman Contemporary, Craig Mooney’s oil paintings translate the emotional impact of a place or moment. His imagery feels familiar, but specific. The sky is a dominant force in most of his works as light reflects on a surface, shifts across a room or spreads over a valley, holding that moment in suspension. Mooney's elegant figurative paintings allow the viewer to observe quiet moments or passing moments of ever changing light.
Valeri Stuart's paintings resonate with a rich color pallette. Color has the capacity to convey emotion and is deeply connected to human feeling, sentiment, and sense of place. By creating abstract color fields with a strong emphasis on the emotional qualities of color, attempting to allude to undefined, yet commonly felt human feelings. The color fields encourage viewers to temporarily leave their present state of mind and enter a world of abstraction, where color serves as the emotional catalyst and method of communication.
Stuart uses layering process in her chromatic key construction, combining plaster and marble dust to create depth and texture with overlays of oil glazes. By adding the illusion of atmospheric luminosity with oil glaze applications, she adds to the depth and levels of gradation of the human experience and its connection to color. By incorporating scratching and marking upon the surface of the canvas, further adding a component of tension between the universal language of color and the individual language and experience of artist.
Gilman Contemporary is excited to exhibit John Westmark's unique paintings. Using paper-sewing-patterns and paint he creates figures of women who exemplify strength and courage. The sewing patterns used are reinterpreted from their usual function to present the female figure either as an agent of revolt in the form of resolute warriors or within the controlled setting of the formal societal portrait.
Award winning American photographer Jason Langer is best known for his psychological and noirish visions of contemporary urban life. Most recently, Jason was this year's recipient of top prize at Madrid Foto 2012.
Following graduation, Langer worked as an apprentice and printer for some of the Bay Area’s most renowned photographers, including Ruth Bernhard, Arthur Tress, and Michael Kenna, who became a lifelong mentor and friend.
Over the past two decades Langer has developed a photographic language,which has been described variously as “cinematic” and “poetic”, “contemplative” and “iconographic”, “haunting” and “romantic”. Avoiding staged tableaux on the one hand, and the “deadpan” aesthetic popular in much contemporary photography on the other, his images strive always to capture the unanticipated or chance moment, layered with timeless drama and dynamism. Langer descends from a tradition of photographers—George Krause, Ralph Gibson, Roy deCarava, Bill Brandt, Matt Mahurin.
Jason's newest book, “Possession” from Nazraeli Press will be available for sale at the gallery. Please contact the gallery for more information.
Gilman Contemporary celebrates the tradition of abstract art by bringing together painters Robert Atwell, Marco Casentini, Alex Couwenberg and Stephanie Weber. This exhibition examines both the personal and conceptual connections of hard edge, abstract art. The exhibition title itself - Constructive Spirit - is taken from the 1946 manifesto issued by the Madí, a Buenos Aires-based abstract artists' group that asserted the relevance of geometric abstraction for all countries.
Featuring Gilman Contemporary's leading ladies, this exhibition includes a selection of works that represent the artists' idea of identity as both journey and construct.
Laura Schiff Bean's dresses are figurative yet abstract. Her surfaces have a sensual quality, raw and scarred, creating tension in the empty dress, resonating the critical moments and turning points that mark our lives.
Donna Rosenthal's sculptural dresses and coats examine the nature of relationships, gender roles, and social position. Materials, technique and text are combined to reveal the struggles, distinctions, expectations, and joys that make up our identity.
Finally, Jane Maxwell's collages illuminate and deconstruct the feminine ideal. Deconstructed silhouettes of runway models, showgirls and Hollywood icons combined with layers of vintage produce crate labels, Hollywood posters, and related ephemera compose the colors, patterns and text that surround and become the figures. Jane presents a modern woman who is empowered with her own identity.
It is with great pleasure that we present the work of celebrated New York photographer Rodney Smith.
Rodney Smith's ability to capture magical scenes in the moment is a testament to what a brilliant force he is in creating urban fairy tales and surreal imagery. Shooting solely on film without photo-manipulation in post-editing, Smith has a sense of pride in retaining the integrity of the art form.
This exhibition will be our largest photography installation to date. Celebrating his forty years in photography, Gilman Contemporary will presentover 20 images. We look forward to sharing with you photographs that so beautifully blur the boundary between imagination and reality.
Join is August 3rd for Gallery Walk and step into Smith's enchanted world balanced by beauty, laughter and whimsy.
We are happy to be celebrating 5 years at Gilman Contemporary. We are grateful to the artists, patrons and the community for continued support. Group exhibition featuring painting, sculpture, and photography. New work by Isabel Bigelow, Ashley Collins, Alex Couwenberg, Gerardo Hacer and Kevin Sloan.
Come celebrate with us where you can always expect the unexpected.
Painter Erik Hall has a unique approach to his paintings. Spending everyday in his studio developing color against canvases and entertaining himself not with trees or roads, but with the interplay of transparent colors layered one over the next. The images are simply vehicles for this laborious and often seemingly needless approach to his work. Upon closer examination, the images dissolve and the true nature of the work is made apparent. Like water freezing, the paint forms a crystal, which gives way to a larger and larger form until the entire canvas is covered with an image. Like ice, the image was born out of process, shaped perhaps by its surrounding, but having very little to do with the neighboring aesthetic. That is to say, that Hall's work is not about landscapes at all.
Join us May 17- 20, 2012 in San Francisco as we present new works by several of our artists at artMRKT SF art fair. We will premier large scale photographs by world-renowned photographer Rodney Smith. In addition, Gerardo Hacer is completing two brand new oragami sculptures for us to introduce at the fair. Laurie Victor Kay will release new photographs from her Metro series. Cecil Touchon, Alicia Tormey and Erik Hall are completing several new paintings for the exhibition. Additionally, we will bring a few of our favorites by painter Laura Schiff Bean, sculptor Donna Rosenthal and collage artist Jane Maxwell.
Jane Maxwell’s collages explore the perception of the “ideal female form” that we are presented with on a daily basis, in the media that surrounds us and consumes us. Maxwell uses images of female figures from the runway, fashion magazines and pin up girls, and alters them by removing the details of their faces, filling in the silhouettes using Hollywood ephemera, old advertisements and vintage fruit labels and other relative materials. Maxwell creates collages that are multi – layered works combining texture, color and text that challenge the ideal body myth with an empowered perspective that is both playful and interesting.
Stephanie Weber's paintings reflect her years of purposeful construction and seeing, engaged in the history all the while making her paintings singular in the lexicon of contemporary art.
Exploring emotion and logic, texture and color Weber produces logical, linear structures while seeking to strike and emotional chord by creating a tension between the concrete and the intangible.
Working on aluminum panels, while challenging, also creates possibilities of light and shimmer not found on canvas. For her there is an ongoing dialogue between sensuousness of painting and a cool industrial feel of the metal.
Gilman Contemporary is excited to exhibit new paintings from Anke Schofield and Luis Garcia-Nerey in Bosque IV. Through the use of imagry, Anke and Luis construct a surreal environment in which subjects co-habitat and interact. In this space their attempts are for the viewer to connect and compare the subjects so that they may ultimately find the parallels between them.
"I am interested in early natural history art from the era now referred to as the Age of Discovery. Many artists painstakingly and accurately illustrated the newly discovered natural world, giving their audience a look at new and exotic discoveries. My recent work is a continuation of the ideas of natural history art with the contemporary addition of a narrative and poetic element. Freed from the need to describe for science, I can describe the natural world through the allegorical, poetic and sometimes social lens". ~ Kevin Sloan
As we were making plans for 2011, Casey, Raine and I decided it was time to put together an exhibition that not only celebrated the diversity of our artists, but also the diversity of people's taste in art. I love that art is subjective. I love that two people can look at the same piece and take away something entirely different from the other. While the three of us here in the gallery share a similar aesthetic, our individual tastes do vary. This exhibit features a little bit of each of us. We embrace this wonderfully elastic format that will accommodate all manner of ambition and desire, curatorial and otherwise, serious and not.
Join us on October 7th at the opening, where we hope to provide something a bit "unexpected".
Cheers!
Ancora, the italian word for 'still', is a collection of 30 new photographs made during the fall of 2010 and winter of 2011. Inspired partly by the word of various travel writers and Joseph Brodksy's book "Watermark", David Burdeny revisited many locations in Venice, Italy, France and themes from previous images of Japan while courting new areas in Thailand, Vietnam and Hawaii. Photographed from distant vantage points, these images reference the romantic tradition where humans stand in contrast to immense landscapes. Working in rain, fog, and mist usually shortly before dusk or dawn, conditions that effectively eliminate extraneous background clutter and deep shadow, providing minimal and slightly surreal presentations.
Ashley Collins begins with a blank hand-crafted wooden panel, which is used rather than canvas because panel can support the final resin finish. The first layer is typically book pages, layered on one another and/or next to each other. These pages are sometimes from children’s stories, sometimes dictionaries and often books from the early 1900’s. This layer represents the information we are given through life and how that shapes our character. After this layer, Collins applies a “calming” layer of aged papers to soothe the “noise” of the initial pages.
The next layer is the application of paint. Ashley Collins will also include other imagery at this time, the longer you look at the work, the more you will discover. A resin finish is used so that the viewer can physically touch the work. Unlike so many works of art that are hands off, resin invites intimacy and for Collins the resin is the sensual and physical part of the work. She moves the resin across the panel using a blow-torch, so the natural element of fire completes the piece.
We are excited to welcome back award winning photographer Laurie Victor Kay at Gilman Contemporary. Laurie's unique eye offers a fresh perspective on our surrounding through a deliberate process. Incorporating her background in painting, Laurie creates a dynamic image whether it be of an urban or natural setting.
A Kaleidoscope is a constantly changing pattern or sequence of objects.
My background as a painter always influences my work. I inject super-real hues and manipulate the space to feel symmetrical and balanced. The image that I photograph in-camera is but a fragment of the piece. My technique of digitally manipulating, flipping, and sometimes multiplying the image continues to allow me to create these inspired spaces.
The Parisian Métros and various subways I photograph have many of the elements that intrigue me and continue to find their way into my work. Movement that is ever-changing; people become part of the palette and story, framed by the colors of the tiles, benches and advertisements. Tracks jut deep into space allowing me to use them as architectural elements that are boundless in their depth.
In contrast, my work with trees has been a new and refreshing departure. Trees are profound in their symbolism. Photographing them for this series has helped me reflect and simplify certain elements of my work. The three pieces that I am exhibiting for this exhibition include trees from three very different parts of the world, yet all are based on a moment in time; before a storm, during sunrise, in the midst of a morning. - Laurie Victor Kay
New paintings by John Dempcy, Jared Rue and Valerie Stuart.
We are excited to welcome back Los Angeles native Mike Stilkey for his second solo exhibition at Gilman Contemporary. Stilkey's unique approach to painting includes using ink, acrylic, coffee, lacquer and colored pencil to create his paintings as well as using vintage book covers and pages as his canvas. The characters that inhabit his paintings convey a worldliness, sophistication and insight that comes from a weariness of knowing or seeing too much but always with an underlying sense of humor.
Opening reception Friday, March 11, 2011, 5-8 pm. Artist in attendance.
Italian painter Marco Casentini's paintings are vibrant and textural cityscapes that are constructed from feelings and memories of a place rather than being representational. Influenced by the Southern California light and architecture Casentini uses color to recreate the rhythms of a place and time, transforming the landscape through planes and lines.
Opening reception Friday February 18, 2011, 5-8 pm
2nd Annual Photography Group Exhibition ~ The magic of photography spanning the decades. A curated exhibition of renowned photographers; Frank Horvat, Melvin Sokolsky, Ormond Gigli, Julie Blackmon, Jason Langer, David Burdeny and Nick Brandt. While photography was once considered documentary realism, or extravagant displays of mass culture, these photographers have found unique ways to reveal the magic and sublime mystery of this medium.
In their third installment of BOSQUE, artists Luis Garcia-Nerey and Anke Schofield, explore questions on the human construct of the forest and its inhabitants. The exhibition travels to Gilman Contemporary, where the artists will present a series of collaborative paintings and installations.
This exciting annual group exhibition features a collection of new paintings, sculpture and photography of gallery artists Brad Howe, Valerie Stuart, Richard Rush, Mike Stilkey and Nick Brandt. This high impact exhibition reminds us to never underestimate the power of color, form and function.
Gilman Contemporary presents Valerie Stuart, "Portalis". This series of paintings inspired by ancient walls and the rich color palette of Italy emphasizes Stuart's unique process. Working marble dust into the canvas and adding layers of oil and oil glazes Stuart's canvas works are at once contemporary and ancient and impress upon the viewer a familiar sense of place.
Exploring the issue of women, negative body image and the feminine ideal, Maxwell takes the iconic female form -- women on the fashion runway, women posing for pictures, pin-up girls - and deconstructs the form to comment on this issue. She takes away the sexy skivvies and skin tight dresses and replaces them with layers of vintage produce labels, old hollywood posters and related materials. The final layer of resin creates a juxtaposition to the vintage materials beneath the modern, slick surface.
\\"Like most of us, I am trying to better understand what it is to be human, and for me, creating art is the natural path on this journey of self discovery. It excites me to translate an idea or emotion onto a physical surface. Jackson Pollock once said “Because a painting has a life of its own, I try to let it live.” Through my ongoing creative explorations I am learning a visual language that is unique to me and one that often reveals new perspectives on the world and what it means to be alive in it.\\" Alicia Tormey
Abby’s pieces reflect a reverence for and reference to the landscape. Influenced by her study as a practicing Buddhist, Abby remains mindful of the Masters before her, often choosing natural palettes derived from theirs for her work. Richard Rush, a self-taught painter, creates works that are often dream-like, futuristic landscapes or scenes in which nature and technology are evolved and imagined. His work is an attempt to create permanent record of a feeling that exists in a moment be it from a dream, a person or a place.
Join Gilman Contempoary Art Chicago 2010. Booth 12-555. April 30 - May 3. Art Chicago 2010, the annual international fair of contemporary and modern art, brings together the world’s leading emerging and established galleries. Art Chicago offers curators, collectors, artists and art enthusiasts a comprehensive survey of current and historic work, from cutting-edge to modern masters in a wide variety of media including: painting, photography, drawings, prints, sculpture, video and special installations.
Gilman Contemporary presents the photographic journey of internationally acclaimed photographer Roberto Dutesco. First recognized as a fashion photographer for industry greats like Elle, Vogue and more, Dutesco moved his attention to the horses of Sable Island; the site of over 275 shipwrecks and home of more than 300 horses. The photographs, which are printed on metallic paper, explore the myth-like beauty of the horses and the landscape. Visit with Dutesco and share his view of a unique and private world few are able to experience.
ARTIST RECEPTION: nFriday, February 12th 5-8pm“Though I live in the middle of a relatively large city, much of the inspiration for my paintings has come from close to home. I consider myself a landscape painter, so it becomes a little stretching at times. Of necessity, I need to see the quality and essence, and not just the whole--the character and the nature, not only the obvious. I hope beauty has not become too familiar for us to appreciate."nnImages left to right: Reverie, 30 x 40 inches, Taut, 72 x 72 inches, Entwine 48 x 60 inchesn
The magic of photography spanning the decades. A curated exhibition of renowned photographers; William Klein, Melvin Sokolsky, Chris Jordan, Julie Blackmon, Laurie Victor Kay, Jeri Eisenberg and Roberto Dutesco. While photography was once considered documentary realism, or extravagant displays of mass culture, these photographers have found unique ways to reveal the magic and the sublime mystery of this medium. (IMAGES FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: WILLIAM KLEIN, JULIE BLACKMON, MELVIN SOLKOLSKY)
NANCY SANSOM REYNOLDS, BRAD HOWE & MIKE STILKEYnThree sculptors come together using various mediums including; plywood, steel, book covers and paint to capture movement and energy in this dynamic exhibition.
Bohrer's use of antique car doors, or other found mechanical parts, provide a framework for vignettes of life working the land. The viewer is able to peer through the window, literally at times, as stories unfurl before them. The unique use of materials enables Bohrer to successfully capture a compositional and emotional moment in time.
Weber's paintings on aluminum are a study in contrasts. Rich in color and texture, Weber's paintings combine the layering of paint with the shimmer of metal. They are both abstract and illusionistic with a sense of layered space and subtle hints of photo processes.nnStephanie Weber will be in attendance at the Gallery Walk Friday, September 4thnn
Opening Night - Friday, August 7, 2009 5:00 - 8:00 pm nArtist in Attendance
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Celebrating our 2nd Anniversary, Gilman Contemporary will exhibit new photography, paintings and sculpture from gallery artists. Introducing Jeri Eisenberg and Therese Lahaie.nIMAGES: Therese Lahaie, Brad Howe, Jeri Eisenberg
Opening Night Friday March 6, 2009 5:00 - 9:00 pm
Opening Night: Friday, February 13, 2009 5:00 - 9:00 pm
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Opening Night: Friday, December 26th, 5:00 - 9:00 pm. Big Impressions II. This exciting annual group exhibition features works all 36 inches and under. With contributions from all gallery artists, this high impact exhibition reminds us to never underestimate the disproportionate power of small, precisely executed works. (Images: Kevin Sloan, Isabel Bigelow & John Dempcy)
Gallery Opening Friday, November 28, 2008, 5:00 - 9:00 pm
Four artists come together to exhibit both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional work that blends paint and metal into incandescent, silken works of art. Featuring Robert Atwell, Bernd Haussmann, Brad Howe and Stephanie Weber, this exhibition celebrates the vitality and energy they bring to this unyielding medium.
Opening Night Friday, August 29, 2008 5:00 - 9:00 pmnArtists in Attendance
Opening Night Friday, August 1. 2008 5:00 - 9:00 pm
Opening Night Friday, July 5th 5:00 - 9:00 pm
ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION - Opening Night Saturday, May 24th, 2008
Two very different views of Paris come to Ketchum, Idaho. Gilman Contemporary will exhibit the photography of Laurie Victor Kay and Charles Kay Jr. from March 1 to April 15, 2008.
There is no shortage of images of Paris. At its best, it is a city charged with iconic spaces and breathtaking beauty and at its worst the subject matter of dorm-room motifs. For hundreds of years, artists have found inspiration within its surroundings.
To husband-wife team Laurie Victor Kay and Charles Kay Jr., Paris symbolizes a metaphor for their creative lives together, however the end result of this collaboration could not be more different. Lauries Kaleidoscope series features sharp architectural lines along with blurred painterly-color that has come to characterize her work. Charles Still Life Paris black-and-white pieces resonate with the history of Paris that speaks quietly and continues to do so today.
Laurie says of the Kaleidoscope series, Images are only partly real and mostly imagined. Some are formal studies of shape and form. Others are fantastical dreams in which blurred people are twisted and turned to create new forms.
An opening reception will be held with the artists Friday, March 14, 2008.
Weberss works on aluminum are a study in dichotomy; the cool industrial nature of aluminum with the warmth of color; the thick, opaque color blocks against the luster of aluminum; the reductive and the additive. She describes not only her materials, but also the end piece as the stuff of life, from the top down. This sense of the cosmos can be viewed at Gilman Contemporary through the month of February. Artist walk-through at 5:30 Friday, February 15th.
Join us for GALLERY WALK 5:00 - 9:00, Friday, December 28th. Paintings, photography & sculpture by gallery artists whose work is no larger than 36 inches.
From watercolors to coffee stains, smoke rings to etchings, this unique exhibition explores work on paper. Select artists lend their talents to this delicate medium including Donald Sultan, William Wegman, Alex Couwenberg, Abby Grosvenor, Isabel Bigelow, Mike Stilkey, Rae Mahaffey and Cecil Touchon.
A SELECT GROUP EXHIBITION with local photographers: Willy Cook, Eric Kiel, Elissa Kline, Kendall Nelson and Becky Smith.
A SELECT GROUP EXHIBITION WITH WORK BY ISABEL BIGELOW, NICK BRANDT, MARCO CASENTINI, ALEX COUWENBERG, CHARLES KAY JR, LAURIE VICTOR KAY, RAE MAHAFFEY AND STEPHANIE WEBER.
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A SELECT GROUP EXHIBITION WITH WORK BY ISABEL BIGELOW, NICK BRANDT, MARCO CASENTINI, ALEX COUWENBERG, CHARLES KAY JR, LAURIE VICTOR KAY, RAE MAHAFFEY AND STEPHANIE WEBER.
A SELECT GROUP EXHIBITION WITH WORK BY ISABEL BIGELOW, NICK BRANDT, MARCO CASENTINI, ALEX COUWENBERG, CHARLES KAY JR, LAURIE VICTOR KAY, RAE MAHAFFEY AND STEPHANIE WEBER.
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A SELECT GROUP EXHIBITION WITH WORK BY ISABEL BIGELOW, NICK BRANDT, MARCO CASENTINI, ALEX COUWENBERG, CHARLES KAY JR, LAURIE VICTOR KAY, RAE MAHAFFEY AND STEPHANIE WEBER.