shop

News

Thomas Heinser Reduziert Press recap

March 18, 2016

Thomas Heinser's solo exhibition Reduziert received a significant amount of international press.

Here's a recap of a few recent articles.

Josh Jefferson featured on the cover of New American Paintings Issue #122

February 26, 2016

Excited to announce that Josh Jefferson is featured on the cover of New American Paintings Issue #122. Congrats Josh!

Cover of Issue #122 of New American Paintings

Josh Jefferson’s “Head Into the Trees” reviewed in Artillery Magazine

February 26, 2016

JOSH JEFFERSONGallery 16 / San Francisco

Human beings are genetically programmed to respond positively to the face, no doubt a survival instinct, as babies bond with their nurturing parents. Perhaps not coincidentally a fairly recent dad himself, Boston-based Josh Jefferson has tapped into this universal attraction, with an exhibition titled “Head Into The Trees” at Gallery 16.

Having taken up painting a mere three years ago, his work has been gaining momentum in the art world, and notably has been getting a boost from his social-media presence. Also a noted avant-garde jazz saxophonist, Jefferson takes the notion of “portraiture” as a point of departure for a variety of unusual works on paper and canvas in which simplified faces, heads and botanical organisms mesh and morph into one another. An abstracted, rather amoeba-like tree shape recurs in many of the works including the trio Little Blue Tree (2015), Blue Tree (2015) and Tree #5 (2015) hanging together on one wall. In Little Blue Tree, the cobalt form stands out on a brilliant gold background; Jefferson, one may learn, is actually largely color-blind, and these dramatic chromatic shifts work well for him because he can see them clearly, whereas ones with more subtle variations in hue may evade his range of color perception—pink, apparently, appearing gray, or vice versa.

Josh Jefferson, Blue Tree, 2015

Along the adjacent wall are four paintings on black backgrounds, in which the “tree” form meshes with a head.Hair Tree Top (2015), a smaller work, has a roughly half-circular base in sea-foam green marked with gray, black, red and blue; the top is a blob-like crimson red form overlaid with wide brushy strokes in electric blue, suggesting hair. Depicting heads, a dozen small collages and mixed-media works on paper hang nearby in two rows of six. These feel more contemplative and have greater compositional complexity than the paintings. Untitled Head #4 (2014) uses crayons, ink and gouache on vintage paper. The nose and mouth of this head are formed by a dull green shape suggesting a frog. With rudimentary indications of features and loose interpretations of anatomy, Jefferson draws from the Cubist tradition, along with art of so-called “primitive” cultures that inspired it, as well as a childlike, cartoon-related aesthetic more closely akin to Philip Guston and his many disciples.

Jefferson’s studio practice is one of prolific creation, often including the recycling of earlier works as collage elements, with the editing process taking place later on. He is drawn to work which appears effortless, and this attraction to ease of execution and an unfiltered, deliberate process of mark-making is clearly felt. With tens of thousands of Instagram followers, his boldly graphic and accessible work clearly appeals to a broad range of people. Whether pulled by our collective responsiveness to human physiognomy, or by their often bright, attractive colors, these quirky works have a definite appeal. At the same time, provocative questions of how social media increasingly shapes and informs our perceptions of contemporary culture also emerge.

Michelle Grabner's "Gingham" at Rocket Gallery, Art Forum Critic's pick

February 26, 2016

Michelle Grabner, Untitled [cadmium red deep/green], 2015, oil, gesso, burlap, 24 x 48".

For over twenty years, Michelle Grabner has taken the vernacular patterns of domesticity as a departure point for the creation of abstract paintings. For “Gingham,” her latest exhibition, the artist transmogrifies this common, happy-looking, and picnic-ready fabric into thickly painted works on rough burlap.

From a distance, Untitled [cadmium red deep/green], 2015, looks like a crisscross of red stripes on a white ground. Up close, it reveals itself actually to be made up of pink, red, and white squares over a green ground, the red and pink squares butting against each other in synchronous harmony. The green ground seeping out from beneath each square creates moments of chromatic vibration, loosening the representation of “gingham” into an odd geometric abstraction, a relative of psychedelic Op.

In the project space, Grabner has partially reconstructed her first show at the gallery, “Home Painting,” from 1998. In this installation, seven enamel-on-panel paintings are hung alongside a monitor playing an episode of Martha Stewart’s 1990s television show. “Home Painting” is a marvelous opportunity to see the artist’s graphic, painterly evolution. Her “Gingham” works are fat, voluptuous—rather in stark contrast to the lighter and more fluid stenciling of the older paintings. Grabner’s current pieces, as is made clear through the parallel shows, have become slower to the gaze, transcending the prosaic Martha Stewart domesticity of her inspiration.

— Sherman Sam

RIP David Bowie

January 11, 2016

A man with a tremendous impact. He will be missed.

Design by Rex Ray

Robert Hardgrave in New American Paintings, Issue 121

January 05, 2016

Congratulations to Robert Hardgrave for making the current issue of New American Paintings! We are looking forward to our first exhibition with the artist later this year. Keep an eye out!

Tucker Nichols on Design Matters with Debbie Millman

December 29, 2015

We're pleased to share an excellent audio interview between Debbie Millman and Tucker Nichols, posted December 28 on Design Observer.
Listen to the full interview here!

http://www.debbiemillman.com/designmatters/tucker-nichols/

excerpt:

TN: "I don't care as much about what it's all for. I think I care less and less all the time - particularly in my studio when I'm painting or drawing - I think as time goes on I grant myself more and more permission to just let the thing become whatever it's become and then to be extremely rigid in my judging of that thing the next day. And if I don't like it, to kill it. And if I like it, to keep it, defend it protect it, whatever it needs. But at the time of making it I'm not really thinking. I'm thinking as little as possible. Or I'm trying to compress the amount of time that I spend when I'm making it into as tight as space as I possibly can. And sometimes that works out really well and sometimes it doesn't, but it can't afford attachment. That process gets poisoned by liking something as I'm making it. So, that just means theres a whole different wave that comes after thats about evaluating. And that process needs to be really close."

Thomas Heinser featured on LensCulture

December 28, 2015

December 2015

Überblick // Overview

Across aerial, studio and location photography, Thomas Heinser employs his distinctive aesthetic and technical expertise—not to mention helicopters, cherry pickers and subtle, natural light—to create a compelling body of landscape photography.

In Überblick, which consists of three ongoing bodies of work, photographer Thomas Heinser surveys the earth from above, finding the graphic intersection of nature and structure, of man and landscape—and recent changes to that landscape. The project, which is translated as "overview" or "view from above," began as an aerial survey of feats of architecture and engineering. As it grew, Heinser began to see the images as a means of decoding the beauty of structures that serve man in crucial ways.

Heinser ended up reaching beyond this exploration to create a series at once aesthetic and, as a subtext, documentary in nature. Their essential stillness and innate sculptural qualities set them apart.

Conduits

Beginning in 2009, Heinser began to investigate the interaction of man-made structures and landscape, specifically, aerial views of bridges, expressways and airport runways. In this series, he asks us to re-imagine these structures as more than arteries of action, depicting them as stand-alone semiological elements. He extends our perceptions of these agents of everyday interactions, contemplating the concept of "bridging" in a broader way.

This body of work includes views of some of the world's most distinctive bridges, airport runways and architectural/functional structures, from Lisbon and Millau to New York and San Francisco.

Heinser picked each bridge for its potential to illustrate a specific point of view, although he emphasizes that his goal was not to describe but to photographically capture how these structures function as graphic subjects. The photos depict both large and small bridges, as well as empty ones, including a new span of the Bay Bridge, which was under construction when photographed. His inspiration to shoot it at this time was that its antithetical emptiness allowed him to see it with fresh eyes (it's just next to his Northern California home after all). Here, we view it as a structure normally activated by presence but now defined by absence, a conduit created by man but temporarily devoid of usage.

Heinser says that he isn't trying to address the concept of scale but in fact is trying to avoid it. "The way I use the aerial perspective," he says "is by cutting out any horizon line, reducing landscape into more of a two-dimensional image. I try to avoid representing the dimensional aspect of landscape, and of scale altogether."

Changing Landscapes

In documenting a terrain transformed by fire and drought damage, Heinser's original interest was in reworking photographic language to describe the landscape. His concern about environmental change led him to document these changes in ways that bridge the binary of aerial distance and the poignant, on the ground realities that face humans and their contemporary lands. Some of these images, including one of bare pines and their shadows in the ashen landscape, are from Lake County, where in the fall of 2015 fires cost people their lives, homes and tens of thousands of acres.

All over the state, drought is reshaping California's natural and agricultural landscape and restricting its water usage. Heinser's engagement with these changes is a way of challenging photography's borders.

From far above, houseboats floating on a lake look like abandoned refrigerators: the lake's water level is now so low that the dock no longer leads to the shore. Groves of almond trees wither because their grower can't afford to water them anymore. The ghostly, shadowy image of an old train bridge refers to its recent emergence after years of aquatic immersion. A curvy anthropometric patch of land is rendered as purely sculptural figure and form, its shape, rimmed by concentric rings, a record of earlier water levels.

Heinser's response to these environments is to expand their meaning, to render them simultaneously as evidence of environmental impact but also to resist the limitations of geographical categories. "The mystery about the objects in the images, their not being 'readable' is what is important," he says. "Looking at houseboats—you're not necessarily recognizing them, until you closely look at the image. I'm interested in creating these kinds of patterns."

"The difference between the conduits and this landscape work," he adds, "is that with the landscapes I am reacting to a more organic shape—almost like body shapes. They summon an internal, connected-to-the-earth response."

Salt Ponds

The Bay Area is home to some 8,000 acres of salt evaporation ponds, and site of one of only two sea salt works in the country. The clay soils and Mediterranean climate here traditionally provide ideal salt making conditions. Environmental changes disrupting the moderate rainfall characterizing this climate have also affected the ponds.

The shallow man-made ponds that extract salt from seawater deposits and naturally evaporate it are also protected wildlife refuge areas and an important component of the ecosystem. Algae and other microorganisms regulate water quality as well as anchor the local ecosystem and local marshes supporting more than a million shorebirds, waterfowl and other wildlife, including over 70 species of birds and several endangered species.

These evaporation ponds are something we only occasionally glimpse when approaching SFO, San Francisco international airport, marvelling at their vibrant colors—magenta, green, blue, yellow and pink—resulting from microorganisms at varying salinity levels.

But Heinser has gone a step further, transforming these oft-ignored ponds into indecipherable calligraphic carpets in bright hues. His quintessentially painterly images, drawing from a quotidian daily feature of the landscape, attain the level of purely aesthetic abstractions. By isolating landscape elements from such a distance, Heinser's seemingly close-up captures paradoxically create the look of a painting's blown-up detail. What seems like thickly layered, paint-cracked impasto, is in fact photographed from hundreds of feet up in the air. Heinser says, "the content is almost secondary to photography turning it into something else," adding that he is "looking for a place of resolution" within these landscapes, one that has "a composition and order to it."

—Doreen Schmid

Holiday schedule // Extension of "Head Into the Trees"

December 18, 2015

We are pleased to share that we will be extending Josh Jefferson's "Head Into the Trees" exhibition through January 29, 2016.

If you have yet to see this fantastic solo show, please visit us in the New Year!

The gallery will be closed December 19 - January 3rd.

Have a wonderful holiday and happy new year!

Gallery 16

Josh Jefferson "Head Into The Trees" // November 13, 6-9 PM

November 03, 2015

Gallery 16 is thrilled to announce our first exhibition with Boston-based artist Josh Jefferson.

Jefferson’s painting and works on paper balance on a line between figureation and abstraction. His work is a celebration of abandon and control. It retains a palpable sense of the joy in it’s making and the struggling to maintain order. Jefferson’s choice of materials often reinforce the sense of playfulness in his work. The artist uses crayons, colored pencils and common acrylic paint, often upon the pages of art history books. It is not uncommon to turn over a Jefferson drawing to find the image of a famous work by Mondigliani or Titian.

2015 has been an exciting year for the artist. He has mounted shows in New York and Los Angeles as well as a number of feature articles including Forbes Magazine. His work has become an internet sensation with tens of thousands of Instagram followers, proving that new ways to discover the arts are constantly evolving.

In a interview with Beautiful/Decay, Jefferson described his style and motivations: “What really gets me excited is when I see a painting that seems effortless — when an artist has confidence and it appears that the painting came about like one fast whiplash moment. If I could convey that feeling of loose abandon and control I would be happy. The distortions and geometric interpretations in my drawings and paintings act as structures for me to build on and react to. I kind of need to repeat things to find their meaning, and the structures help with this process.”

Jefferson’s work combines material experimentation and visual simplicity. He frequently uses a collage process of cutting and combining previously painted works into a harmonious whole. Jefferson seems less concerned with the results of his labor, than he does with the enchantment of the studio alchemy. He makes objective and non objective work with equal regard. In order for this equilibrium to exist, curiosity must be the guiding voice. His improvisational style may be formed by his devotion to experimental jazz. Like his playing, his visual art is an accumulation of chance moments and intense focus.

gallery 16 / 501 Third st / san francisco, ca / 415 626 7495 / gallery16.com

account