AMY BERK (MFA 1995)
CITY STUDIOS
Amy Berk (MFA 1995) took over as Director of City Studio in March 2018. She has been growing the program that offers underserved youth high-quality arts education in their own neighborhoods.
She has also been embarking on several new initiatives directed towards professional development of the City Studio Professional Teaching Artists and Teaching Assistants, City Studio youth, and City Studio community partners, enhancing its successful multi-generational model for mentoring and arts education.
With this initiative, current SFAI students are employed in the program along with recent (and not so recent) SFAI alums. She also teaches SFAI’s City as Studio Practicum course that offers real world experience as well as arts education pedagogies to SFAI students.
Last spring, she was interviewed for the podcast “Teaching in the Arts:”
If anyone would like to teach, volunteer or learn more about the program to contact Amy at aberk@sfai.edu.
Images courtesy of Amy Berk
IRENE CHAN (MFA 1997)
CH’AN PRESS
Irene Chan is a multidisciplinary artist who works conceptually in print media, papermaking, installation, storytelling performance, and book arts. Her books and works on paper have been exhibited internationally and held in 70 public collections including the Walker Art Center, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Tate Modern, Victoria & Albert Museum, and British Library in London.
Chan established Ch’An (ch’ ahn) Press through which she has self-published prints and 34 limited-edition artist books to date. She is the recipient of grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Arts Council, Maryland State Arts Council, Washington D.C. Commission of the Arts and Humanities, of fellowships to 22 artist residencies, and has exhibited and performed in 62 venues in the last ten years.
Irene Chan holds an M.F.A. with honors from the San Francisco Art Institute and a degree in architecture (BArch) with a Minor in English from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Besides running her own press and studio, she is also an Associate Professor of Visual Arts (Founder and Head of Print Media) and Affiliate Faculty of Asian Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, U.S.A.
To learn more about the artist please click here.
Images courtesy of Irene Chan
JANNEKE VAN DER PUTTEN (BFA 2008)
“On 17 – 28 September 2019 I will give a workshop, open studio exhibition and performance at Salon of Colombian Artists (45SNA), Espacio de Interferencia, Espacio Odeón, CARRERA 5 #12C - 73, Bogotá (CO).”
Curated by Ana Ruiz Valencia. More info about the workshop here.
Janneke van der Putten (Amsterdam, 1985) is a visual artist and performer based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her practice involves experiences of listening, performances, sound and video, documentations in image, text and textile, workshops, music projects, and creating platforms for cultural exchange. Her voice is her main tool, guiding her through physical and sonic explorations in different landscapes. Engaging with specific sites and local contexts, and through her personal experiences, she investigates (human) responses to her surroundings, and their relation to natural phenomena and transitions, such as the sunrise.
For more information about the artist please click here.
Image courtesy of JannekeVan Der putten
PATRICIA ARAUJO (BFA 2005)
Patricia Araujo was born in Miami, Fl, the daughter of Colombian parents. Her father was an architect at Walt Disney and during his last years he assisted with the development of Epcot Center. Patricia grew up in Bogota, Colombia and since childhood, she was enchanted by architecture and form. After completing high school in Bogota, Araujo moved to Northern California to pursue her college education. She studied architecture, painting, and photography. In 2005 she obtained her B.F.A in Painting, from the San Francisco Art Institute.
For over a decade, Patricia Araujo has painted the facades of both iconic city landmarks and downtown buildings. Her paintings depict praiseworthy examples of San Francisco architecture, some utilitarian and others grandly ornamental. She’s been bewildered by the architecture of cities she’s lived and traveled to and by imaginary places.
From 2008 to 2010, she dedicated a series of works relating to Tomorrowland and as of most recent she’s devoted to painting the architectural wonders and forgotten treasures of “GGIE” (the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939 at Treasure Island) - the last World’s Fair of San Francisco Bay. Her interest in researching the urban landscape continues to grow, addressing the evolution and decay within a city.
Araujo continues to deepen her conceptual themes on architecture, place and change in the urban landscape. She has been exhibiting in San Francisco since 1998. Some of the venues exhibited include: Arc Gallery, Arttitud, Bayview Opera House, HANG ART, Roll Up Gallery, STUDIO Gallery, the Old Emporium, Pen Club Gallery in Budapest and most recent at the Old Mint with Treasure Island Museum.
In 2008, she published her first book, entitled ”SOMA SEEN”. Her work has been written about in the San Francisco Chronicle, ARTslant, 7x7 SF, Huffington Post, Examiner, Beyondchron, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. She lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.
To view her complete portfolio and resume online please visit: Here.
Images courtesy of Patricia Araujo
PHILIP PERKIS (BFA, 1962)
Philip Perkis (BFA, 1962) has published his fifth monograph, Mexico, Anmoc Press, Seoul, 2019, distributed by Photo-eye books, Santa Fe.
Link: : Click Here
This Publication accompanied Mexico, Perkis’s solo exhibition of gelatin silver prints, at Ryugaheon Gallery, Seoul, in 2019. Most of these works were also shown in a two-person exhibition, Philip Perkis and José Hernandez- Claire, at the Jalisco Government Palace, Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2017.
In 2019, Perkis’s photographs were also shown in Watershed: Contemporary Landscape Photography, Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA, an exhibition that originated at the Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, in 2017.
Preceding publications include: In a Box Upon the Sea, 2015; Twenty Days, Twenty Comments, 2014; The Sadness of Men, 2008; Teaching Photography, Notes Assembled, 2001—with additional editions in English, 2005, Korean, 2005, and Italian, 2017; and Warwick Mountain Series, 1978.
Image courtesy of Philip Perkis
SETH LOWER (MFA 2008)
Units contains photographs taken from 1994–2017. The images depict a variety of everyday materials and situations, many seen in sets, parts, or multiples. Within such scenes, Lower seeks out a kind of integrity (or lack thereof): standards of measurement, materiality, vague questions about the boundaries of entities and experience.
A sign swallowed by tree bark, a small collection of funnels, a stove for sale in the sunshine. Where does one unit end and the other begin? It is certainly possible to be part of the whole and at the same time separate, existing with a foot in both worlds, but does this say anything about the units themselves, or only the way we define them?
Graham Harman writes that such pieces are ‘terminal points, closed-off neighborhoods that retain their local identity despite the broader systems into which they are partly absorbed’.
Click here to learn more about the artist.
Image courtesy of Seth Lower
TOM LAUGHLIN (MFA 2013)
OPENING RECEPTION FOR SIGNAL
You are welcome to join on September 21 for the opening for Signal,a public art piece by Tom Laughlin on Treasure Island.
The event begins with a champagne reception at 4 pm, followed by a dedication ceremony at 5 pm.
Please RSVP through Eventbrite page. Directions are available HERE or at SignalSF.com.
To learn more about the artist please click here.
Images courtesy of Tom Laughlin
MARK TOSCANO
REMAINS TO BE SEEN
A mystery program of archival experimental film with Mark Toscano.
Thursday, September 26 | 8 PM
Doors 7:30; $5 admission.
Mark Toscano is a filmmaker, curator, and film preservationist based in Los Angeles. Since 2003, he has worked at the Academy Film Archive, where he specializes in the curation, conservation, and preservation of artists’ films. He works with the collections of over 100 filmmakers, and has overseen the conservation and preservation of hundreds of films, including work by Stan Brakhage, Barbara Hammer, Chick Strand, Tacita Dean, Penelope Spheeris, the Whitney brothers, Gus Van Sant, Pat O'Neill, Suzan Pitt, and many others.
He has curated and presented programs at numerous venues, including MoMA, Arsenal, Eye Filmmuseum, Tate Modern, and festivals in Rotterdam, London, Oberhausen, Zagreb, Bangalore, and elsewhere.
He is a programmer with Los Angeles Filmforum, and has lectured at various universities on experimental film and archiving, as well as teaching the History of Experimental Animation at CalArts.
Please click here for more information about the artist.
Image courtesy of Marc Toscano
NINA ELDER (MFA 2009)
WHAT ENDURES
Closing September 15.
There is one week left to see this exhibit!
It has been a stellar experience to work with the crew at SITE and make this dream a reality! The show is a retrospective of my drawings from the last decade.
Nina Elder is an artist, adventurer, and arts administrator. Her work focuses on changing cultures and ecologies. Through extensive travel and research, resulting in meticulous drawings and interdisciplinary creative projects, Nina promotes curiosity, exploration, and a collective sense of stewardship.
Nina advocates for collaboration, often fostering relationships between institutions, artists, scientists and diverse communities. She is the co-founder of the Wheelhouse Institute, a women’s climate leadership initiative. Nina lectures as a visiting artist/scholar at universities, develops publicly engaged programs, and consults with organizations that seek to grow through interdisciplinary programing.
Nina’s art work is widely exhibited and collected and has been featured in Art in America, VICE Magazine, and on PBS. Her research has been supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Rauschenburg Foundation award for Arts & Activism, the Pollock Krasner Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation.
She is currently an Art + Environment Research Fellow at the Nevada Museum of Art, a Polar Lab Research Fellow at the Anchorage Museum, and a Researcher in Residence in the Art and Ecology Program at the University of New Mexico.
Please click here for more information about the artist.
Images courtesy of Nina Elder
DICKY BAHTO (BFA 2004)
Dicky Bahto lives in Los Angeles. He has exhibited work utilizing still and motion picture photography, sound, and performance at a variety of museums, galleries, microcinemas, film festivals, conferences, alternative spaces, and scenic locations spanning the Northern Hemisphere, including commissions from Monday Evening Concerts and The Huntington.
As a member of the EPFC Co-op, he is a corecipient of an inaugural Artist Project Grant from the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. His interest in music has led him to both collaborate with and perform works by various composers, including Casey Anderson, Ashley Bellouin, Luciano Chessa, Carmina Escobar, Corey Fogel, Julia Holter, Sepand Shahab, Mark So, Laura Steenberge, and Tashi Wada. In addition to creating album art for some of the above musicians, he has made several music videos for Julia Holter, and his portraits of artists including Ashley Bellouin, Sarah Davachi, Julia Holter, Laida Lertxundi, and Tashi Wada have been printed in The New York Times, Bomb, Vanity Fair España, The Wire, and MOJO, among other publications.
He has curated programs of experimental film and video, performance, and music, including regular programming at the Echo Park Film Center, as well as programs at REDCAT and the wulf. in Los Angeles, Artist’s Television Access and San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco, Exploded View in Tuscon, and Yale University in New Haven.
He received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2004 and an MFA from the University of California, Riverside in 2017, and has himself taught at the Echo Park Film Center, Museum of
Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Otis College of Art and Design, and the University of California,
Riverside.
Please click here to learn more about the artist.
Images courtesy of Dicky Bahto
