✨  Happy holidays from SFAI and best wishes for a stellar 2017! ✨ The following artworks were submitted for SFAI’s annual holiday card—like Elena Padrón Martín’s (MFA, 2017) Bay K Comet. Enjoy our e-card below, and read about Elena’s inspiration. 

Artist Statement

Elena Padrón Martín (MFA, 2017)
 

Every time I Iook at the marks and paint stains on the studio’s floor at the 3rd Street Graduate Center, I wonder who made them and why? Was it accidentally? Was it on purpose as a way of saying “I was here at SFAI?” Many questions come to mind: Are they now successful artists? Are they teaching here?

That “presence of the absence” of those art students who came before us creates many narratives in my imagination.

This is my favorite of all the pictures that I took of the floor of my studio for a project titled Bay Area in order to highlight the high concentration of art schools, art institutions, and artists that is characteristic of this part of the West Coast. They are all linked like constellations in an artistic universe. Some of them live long like comets. Some of them are just shooting stars.

Since SFAI’s Graduate Studios are moving to Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture next year, I thought this could be a nice souvenir or reminder of the history of the building that we will be leaving behind, as well as the good wishes we make for the future.

Image credits: 1) Elena Padrón Martín (MFA, 2017), Bay K Comet, 2016; 2) Sofia Villena Araya (BFA Painting and Art History, 2016), untitled, 2016; Graphite and charcoal on paper; 3) Danielle Melen.