Lordy Rodriguez
Untitled (Islands 005), 2004
Ink on paper
16 x 7"
Courtesy of the Artist and Hosfelt Gallery, SF
Filipino-American artist Lordy Rodriguez has worked with cartography for nearly two decades. It began as a way to overcome being homesick while he was studying in New York. He explains, “Whenever I felt homesick, I would look at my maps of Houston until one night I drew a map of Houston and New York next to each other.” Today, he continues to create abstract ink drawings of fictional maps that chart a particular narrative – one that may emphasize history, culture or global relationships. He is interested in the power of the cartographer to control what is included on a map and more specifically, what is excluded (like all the states and roadways between New York and Houston). As Rodriguez notes, before Google Maps and other GPS aids, we would plot our journeys on those exasperating multi-fold paper maps. The highlighted route represented a singular narrative among the myriad of options created by the cartographer. With our route plotted out, the other details on the map became inconsequential.
Rodriguez’s work is based on extensive research and on his personal experience and heritage. He is a man of multiple origins including Chinese, French, Spanish and Filipino. He was born in the Philippines and raised in Louisiana and Texas. He received a BFA from the School of Visual Art in New York and an MFA from Stanford University. His work has been exhibited in California, New York, Texas, Nevada, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Maryland and Maine as well as in Istanbul, Turkey and Paris, France. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at San Jose State University. - CK
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Leah Rosenberg
Paint Roll, 2015
Acrylic paint and gold leaf on mirror
15 x 15"
Courtesy of the Artist
Leah Rosenberg is a painter, sculptor and a pastry chef who uses a pure, unabashed love of color and an inventive use of materials to create her work. Before it closed, Rosenberg worked as the lead pastry chef for the rooftop coffee bar at SFMOMA where she applied her love of art, artists and cake-making to concoct desserts that celebrated the works in the permanent collection or on display in an exhibition.
Paint Roll is the perfect embodiment of Rosenberg’s diverse interests. It consists of layers of paint that Rosenberg has rolled into a colorful confection, covered in gold leaf and then cut in half. The rings of paint visible in the circular loaf are like rings in a tree, revealing a registration of time and effort, days and experience – sorrows, joys, pains, loves, fears and hopes.
Leah Rosenberg was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She received her BFA in Visual Arts from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia and her MFA from the California College of Art, where she wrote her thesis on the artistic possibilities of cake. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US and Canada and has most recently been included in several Bay Area exhibitions including Happiness Is…at Montalvo Arts Center and Bay Area Now 7 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She lives and works in San Francisco. - CK
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Vanessa Woods
(In)Visible, 2014
Original collage
11 x 14" framed
Courtesy of the Artist
Draped cloth has been used throughout art history as a way to help tell a story of emotion, from bereavement in Michelangelo’s Pietà (1498-1499), to passion in René Magritte’s Les Amants [The Kiss] (1928). Bay Area-based artist Vanessa Woods created a body of work entitled (In)visible, in which she used images of fabric-covered heads, limbs and torsos to serve as a metaphor for the beginning and end of the life cycle.
The series began during Woods’ first pregnancy, a time that also coincided with her grandfather’s death. She first received her baby bundled in a hospital blanket, and when her grandfather’s body was taken away, he was covered with a cloth. Using fabric as a way to reconfigure and reimagine history, time, and the body, Woods states “I was thinking about the furling and unfurling of life and how mysterious and arbitrary it can be – how there is a constant sense of unknowing or invisibility.”
For her collage piece in the auction, Woods combined found paper ephemera into an arrangement of black and white cut outs anchored by a dramatic stream of deep red. An anthropomorphic image with exquisite curves reveals only a single elegantly posed arm, resulting in a simplistic yet poetic composition.
Woods earned her BA from Barnard College, Columbia University and MFA in Film/Photography from San Francisco Art Institute. She has exhibited her artwork and films internationally, and received several awards such as the Ella King Torrey Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts, and Murphy & Codogan Fellowship for Film. - DN
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Imin Yeh
Paper Power (Bolts + Outlet), 2015
Rives BFK paper
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the Artist
Imin Yeh is a sculptor, printmaker, installation and performance artist. Her series Paper Power explores the unseen labor and production that goes into the manufacturing of ubiquitous, everyday objects. Her meticulously crafted paper replicas of electrical outlets, nuts and bolts, elevate these taken-for-granted necessities of modern society to precious works of art. Yeh explains, “The near invisibleness of my laborious projects, the utter lack of utility in either function or value, the absence of color, and the small, softly placed interventions are all a provocation to think about how much time and energy is invested in things we cannot, or choose not to see.” Yeh chooses to use paper for these conceptual sculptures because it too, is a commonplace material.
Yeh received her BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her MFA from the California College of the Arts (CCA). Her work has been exhibited at various museums and galleries in the Bay Area. She is an Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford University, San Jose State University, and CCA, and was recently awarded a Eureka Fellowship from the Fleishhacker Foundation. - CK
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Add the auction events to your iCal calendar:
Silent Auction and Party, October 10, 6-9pm: iCal
Live Auction Gala: October 24, 6pm: iCal
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