Asha grew up in the Philippines and traveled extensively before choosing the United States as her home in 1992. She has extensive training in charcoal drawing, oil, chinese watercolor painting and fabric design. She fuses all her knowledge together into a rich mixed media process.
In her paintings, Asha presents chaos as the perfection that it is, allowing for complete surrender. Her painting transports you from reality to a vibrant, mystical and abstract world, where you are the story teller, creating and interpreting your own stories.
"My process in painting is one which is more meditative and intuitive. I experience calmness, peacefulness and solitude. I believe that making art feels good and brings pleasure to others. Looseness and uncertainty, above all, are important to my interpretation of the mysterious energy of the spirit."
Image: 'Oriental Summer' Mixed Media, Acrylic on Canvas 58" x 56" 2007
DAY OF THE DEAD - documentary photography byMaria Bartola Mejia
OCTOBER 29 - DECEMBER 9
ARTIST'S RECEPTION: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12
5 - 7p
venue: The Mezzanine Gallery at Hotel Triton
342 Grant Ave (x. Bush St.)
hours: 24 / 7
MARIA BARTOLA MEJIA considers herself a documentary photographer, pushing the boundaries of how to connect with her subjects in found scenarios rather than staged or posed settings.
This exhibit features select images from her journey to capture the spirit of the people that participate in the unique cultural celebration, Day Of The Dead.
The Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) is a holiday celebrated mainly in Mexico and by people of Mexican heritage (and others) living in the United States and Canada. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and relatives who have died. The celebration occurs on the 1st and 2nd of November, in connection with the Catholic holy days of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. Traditions include building private altars honoring the deceased, using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed, and visiting graves with these as gifts.
IMPROMPTU - mixed media paintings byJean Wu
venueXYZ
181 3rd St (x. Howard)
OCTOBER 15 - DECEMBER 12
ARTIST'S RECEPTION:
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4 6 - 8p
(a FIRST THURSDAY event)
"My passion for life and years of training in both music and art motivated me to develop a series of abstract paintings with colors, forms, lines, and strokes all interplaying within a confined space. Much like a unique arrangement of musical notes creates a distinct tonal harmony, each canvas is a visually harmonious arrangement of color combinations designed to be universally understood as well as personally felt and appreciated."
- Jean Wu
Image: 'Impromptu #1' Mixed Media on Canvas 48" x 60" 2005
$8 at the door for Beer Bust (Moby Dick is open to anyone 21 + during the event; full bar service available during the Beer Bust at regular prices)
PhotographerBlake Tucker turns his eye towards the Men of The San Francisco Spikes to capture images that depict the grace, strength and allure of the male form. This exhibit features selections from the upcoming calendar, Men of The San Francisco Spikes.
The exhibit runs October 8 - December 3
Image: Ryo's Flight 1/10, Digital Print, 21" x 25" 2008
ARCHITECTURAL TEXTURES
photography by Ravi Anand
SEPTEMBER 24 - NOVEMBER 19
ARTIST'S RECEPTION: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15 5:30 - 7p
venue: 2223 Restaurant
2223 Market St. (x 16th St) SF
hours: 5:30 - 9:30p Su - Th; 11pm F, Sa; 11a - 2p Sun brunch
I try to explore the elegant geometry in both the natural and the man-made world with my camera. I seek to bring the observer into a visual world that is often inconspicuously familiar. The idea is to encourage the viewer to see our seemingly trivial everyday reality with a spirit of inquiry.
Image: Rectangles, Digital Print, 24" x 28"
GROUP EXHIBITS (4)
SERENITY, FALL 08
Serenity, Fall 08 is the fourth installment of the Serenity series sponsored by UCSF Center of Excellence at The Center for Reproductive Health. Each part in the series invites 6 Bay Area artists to present a body of work that interprets the idea of ‘serenity’ in order to inspire relaxation, well-being and calm.
Curator: Matt McKinley
OCTOBER 21 - JANUARY 20, 2009
venue: UCSF Center for Reproductive Health Floors 3 & 7
2356 Sutter St (x. Divisadero)
ARTISTS' RECEPTION: Tuesday, November 18 5:30 - 7p
Featuring: Natasha Dikareva, Elaine Toland, Mira M. White, Stefanie Atkinson, Sarah Haba, Kazuyo Leue
THERE IS STILL LIFE IN A STILL LIFE
Contemporary variants on the still life genre in iterations from abstraction to realism and all points in between.
Curator: Matt McKinley
OCTOBER 4 – JANUARY 10, 2009
ARTISTS' RECEPTION: Wednesday, October 29 6p – 8p
Venue: Polarity Post Productions
69 Green St. (x. Front St.) SF, CA
hours: 9 - 5 M - F
Featuring:
Dannell Powell (featured artist, Lower Level Gallery), Kim Thoman, Anna Seven, Alla Viksne, Heather Hanan, Kirk Brooks, Jane B. Grimm, Kenna Allen, Terence K. Stephens, Jean-Pierre Fortin, Virginia Garcia
FLORA
This exhibit features work that explores the beauty, mystery and captivating essence of plants and flowers. Curator: Matt McKinley
Featured Artists: Blake Tucker, Greta & Manu Schnetzler, Tim Fleming
OCTOBER 1, 2008 – JANUARY 7, 2009
ARTISTS' RECEPTION: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6 5:30pm – 7:30pm
wine and hors d'oeuvres on floors 3, 4 and 5
venue: The Monadnock Building
685 Market St (x. 3rd) SF, CA Floors 3, 4 and 5
viewing hours: 9 - 5 M - F
Blake Tucker
I've been lucky to have my work called dynamic, cinematic and luminous. I like to test my own sense of scale, sometimes by making the smallest detail very large, or by focusing so tightly on something that it becomes its own image and is not immediately recognizable. I often find myself lying on floors, climbing into strange places or putting my camera on the ground and walking away just to see from a different perspective.
Greta and Manu Schnetzler
We were invited to photograph a friend’s incredible flower garden in Atherton, California. We were most impressed with the late afternoon light shining through the flowers. After trying with varying degrees of success (or lack thereof) to capture this “trick of the light” in nature, Manu came up with the idea of bringing the flowers into the studio. Isolating the flowers against a white background, we could suddenly appreciate the individual characteristics and details of each blossom. Greatly enlarging the images and eradicating any sense of scale transformed the images again, allowing them to become more abstract and sensual.
Tim Fleming
The images you see here are photographs made without a camera. The photographs are called scanner art or scannography. The process dates back to the late 1990's; I have been scanning objects and making large format fine art prints on archival inkjet paper since 2005. Since its rather crude beginning I have improved this process by carefully selecting and drying my own flowers and collecting interesting objects on my far ranging walks.
An open-themed, all media exhibit of eclectic contemporary work!
Curator: Matt McKinley
SEPTEMBER 30 - DECEMBER 15, 2008
Bayshore Studios is a commercial film and photography studio rental space used mainly for shooting advertising campaigns. In addition to traditional sales and rentals of the artwork on display, each installation promotes participating artists to Art Directors who specify and rent our art for backgrounds for movies and other film projects.
Featuring: Eric D. Bohr, Eric Feathers, Aisjah Hopkins, Corina Marie Howell, Daniel Malone, Yoko Mazza, Asha Menghrajani, Gianfranco Paolozzi, Alex Shonkoff, Nad Wolinska
