Bill’s Art Shows 2019 – Part One

Here are five notable art shows that I enjoyed in the past year:

Richard Shaw & Wanxin Zhang at Sonoma Valley Museum of Art

The Sonoma Valley Museum of Art exhibited Richard Shaw and Wanxin Zhang together….sculptors who bring clay from a craft to a fine art. Their collaborative show explores the cultural exchange between China and the West, each using humor and political satire in seamless reference to global history, popular culture, and personal experience.

Shaw image: Canton Lady, 2014
Zhang image: Unbelievable Promise, 2014

Mike Henderson at SFAI and Haines Gallery

San Francisco was treated to two displays of paintings by filmmaker and blues guitarist Mike Henderson showcased his broad range of styles were at both the San Francisco Art Institute in the fall and at the Haines Gallery in December….rich in their variety, often politically-charged and sometimes wickedly funny.

image: Mike Henderson, Me and the Band, oil on canvas, 55″x96″, 1968

Stacey Steers at the Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist and filmmaker Stacey Steers had an artist residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts. At her open studio she showed her Surrealist collage manipulations of Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford and Janet Gaynor, including an animated video project referencing George Melies. The past brought forward that is both nostalgic and timeless.

image: Stacey Steers, Edge of Alchemy, photograph #6, 2017

Vivienne Flesher at Jack Fischer Gallery

I’ve long admired the art and illustration of  Vivienne Flesher.  Her show, called The Face of Another, at Minnesota Street Project’s Jack Fischer Gallery features powerful, impasto portraits of some mysterious characters, appealing in that their true selves are slightly obscured.

image: Vivienne Flesher, Man in a Yellow Hat, 22.5″x20″, mixed media on paper, 2018

Chiura Obata at the Crocker Art Museum

Artist Chiura Obata was a leading figure in the Northern California art scene, notably as an influential educator, teaching at the University of California, Berkeley fro 22 years. His numerous paintings, drawings, prints, and personal items showed at The Crocker in Sacramento. Most vivid are the drawings he made while incarcerated  at an interment camp in Utah during World War II.

image: Chiura Obata, Setting Sun on Sacramento Valley, California (detail: 15″x10″), color woodcut, 1930

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Golden Eye, 25”h. x 25”w., spray enamel on panel © Bill Russell