2015 Artist Portfolio Reviews
Amy Cancelmo, Root Division, San Francisco
Chandra Cerrito, Chandra Cerrito Contemporary, Oakland
Kevin B. Chen, Manager, de Young Museum Artist Studio Residency Program and Public Programs Lisa Ellsworth, Palo Alto Art Center
Jenny Gheith, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Justin Hoover, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History Jackie Im and Aaron Harbour, Et al. gallery, San Francisco George Lawson, George Lawson Gallery, San Francisco Ramekon O’Arwisters, SFO Museum
Andrea Schwartz, Andrea Schwartz Gallery, San Francisco Meg Shiffler, San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries Amina Yee, Oakland Museum of California
Bios
Amy Cancelmo, Arts Programs Director Root Division, San Francisco
(https://www.rootdivision.org)
Amy Cancelmo received her MA in Queer Art History from San Francisco State University in 2011 and a BFA in painting from Syracuse University in 2004. Her current creative pursuits focus on curatorial practice, research & writing. Her most recent project, “Strange Bedfellows,” is a nationally traveling exhibition and catalogue exploring collaborative practice in queer art making. As the Arts Programs Director for Root Division, Cancelmo oversees twelve exhibitions and works with over 500 artists annually. She has been curating solo and group exhibitions of Root Division artists and affiliates at off site venues such as ODC Theater and the Spare Change Artist’s Space since 2011. As a curator, Cancelmo is interested in presenting work that addresses current social issues and creates opportunities for dialogue, learning, and critical engagement by all participants.
Chandra Cerrito, Owner and Director Chandra Cerrito Contemporary, Oakland
(http://www.chandracerritocontemporary.com)
Chandra Cerrito is a curator and gallery director in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her BA in art history from Princeton University in 1991 and her MFA in sculpture from California College of the Arts in 1994. As an independent curator, she has created and managed exhibitions for institutions such as the David Brower Center in Berkeley, Dorsky Curatorial Programs in Long Island City, NY, di Rosa in Napa, and the Sonoma Museum of Contemporary Art and Sonoma County Museum in Santa Rosa. She is also a professional art advisor and founder of Contemporary Quarterly, a web-‐based virtual exhibition space (2005-‐2007). In 2007 she established Chandra Cerrito Contemporary in Oakland’s Uptown gallery
national artists. The gallery highlights work with conceptual strength, refined craftsmanship, contemporary vision, and art historical relevance. Artist talks led by curators, critics and other arts professionals foster community dialogue and education. Chandra Cerrito is a member of the San Francisco Art Dealers Association, Oakland Art Murmur and ArtTable and regularly participates in international art fairs throughout the United States.
Kevin B. Chen
Advisor, City of Oakland Public Art and Recology, San Francisco Curatorial Committee Member, Root Division, San Francisco
Manager, de Young Museum Artist Studio Residency Program and Public Programs
Kevin B. Chen has been involved in the San Francisco Bay Area arts community for over two decades years as a curator, writer, and visual artist. He was Program Director of Visual Arts at Intersection for the Arts for over 15 years, where he curated over 60 exhibitions and hundreds of public programs. He also served as Programs Manager at Kala Art Institute, one of the country’s largest printmaking workshops. He has been a funding and residency panelist (Creative Capital Foundation, MAP Fund, Alliance of Artists Communities, Creative Work Fund, City of San Jose, SF Arts Commission, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Headlands Center for the Arts), an exhibition juror (Root Division, CCA, SF Camerawork, CSU Chico, Pro Arts Gallery, Academy of Art University), and author of catalog essays (The Third Line – Art Gallery in Dubai, Paper Museum Press/Park Life, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Light Work, AKAAKA Art Publishing, and Kearny Street Workshop). He currently serves as co-‐chair for the City of Oakland's Public Art Advisory Committee, member of Recology's Artist in Residence Program Advisory Board and Root Division's Curatorial Committee, and manages the Artist Studio Residency Program and Public Programs at the de Young Museum. His own visual work in collage and drawing investigates population growth and the world's largest metropolitan areas. He is represented by Jack Fischer Gallery. He
received his BA from Columbia University with a double major in psychology and East Asian Languages & Cultures.
Lisa Ellsworth, Curator Palo Alto Art Center
(http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/csd/artcenter/default.asp?)
Lisa Ellsworth is the Curator and sets the vision, provides long-‐range and strategic planning, and implements exhibitions, working in collaboration with the Exhibitions Team at the Palo Alto Art Center. Ellsworth brings more than 15 years of experience as an arts educator, curator, and designer of exhibits and environments in museums, having presented works by emerging and established artists form the San Francisco Bay Area and around the world, and having worked at non-‐profit organizations in San Francisco, San Jose, New York, and San Diego. Ellsworth received a BFA with honors in Visual Arts with an emphasis in Media from the University of California, San Diego. Her career began as a practicing new media artist and she is committed to supporting and sustaining the artistic practice of others as a frequent visitor of museums and galleries, and a willing co-‐conspirator to a cadre of friends working in the creative sector.
Jenny Gheith, Assistant Curator of Painting and Sculpture San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
(http://www.sfmoma.org)
Jenny Gheith is assistant curator of painting and sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) where she organized New Work: Alessandro Pessoli (2011); the 2012 SECA Art Award (2013; co-‐curator); Project Los Altos: SFMOMA in Silicon Valley (2013–14; co-‐curator); and Markus Schinwald (2014; co-‐curator), an SFMOMA collaboration with the Wattis Institute at CCA. Previously she was program director for the Society for Contemporary Art and curatorial assistant at the Art Institute of Chicago where she managed the focus exhibition series featuring artists James Bishop, Mel Bochner, Monica Bonvicini, Vincent Fecteau, Jana Gunstheimer, Richard Hawkins, Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev, William Pope.L, and Mario Ybarra Jr. She has contributed essays and film reviews to national and international publications and has lectured at the California College of the Arts and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Justin Hoover, Curator of Exhibitions Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (http://www.santacruzmah.org)
Justin Charles Hoover is a Bay Area based time-‐based artist and a curator. Hoover's curatorial practice comes out of his training as an artist, and specifically as a time-‐based artist. In this way he designs immersive viewership experiences with contemporary art, often employing a diversity of media simultaneously. His work draws much inspiration from the participatory and social essence of Fluxus, the humility yet relentlessness of Gutai, the time-‐frames of Allan Kaprow and the interactivity and sociability of Jon Rubin.
Hoover has performed, curated, and exhibited at numerous venues around the world including the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Apex Art, New York; the 2011 Art Life Festival in Guangzhou, China; Werkstattkino, München, Germany; the Time-‐Based Art Festival at the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, OR; the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; the Berkeley Art Museum, and many other venues. He is currently Curator of Exhibitions at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History and holds bachelor degrees in Peace Studies and French Literature and master degrees in New Genres Fine Arts and Public Administration of International Management.
Jackie Im and Aaron Harbour, Co-‐Directors Et al. gallery, San Francisco
(http://etaletc.com)
Jackie Im is a curator, editor and writer based in Oakland, CA. She has contributed to exhibitions at the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art, the Walter and McBean Galleries at SFAI, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Queens Nails. She has curated exhibitions at The Lab, Important Projects, Royal NoneSuch
Francisco Arts Commission Galleries, Associate Editor at Art Practical, and Co-‐Director of Et al. in San Francisco.
Aaron Harbour is an Oakland-‐based curator, writer, and artist. He is Co-‐director of Et al., a gallery program in San Francisco, and has additionally curated exhibitions at the Popular Workshop, The Lab, Important Projects, NADA Miami and New York, MacArthur B Arthur, Liminal Space, and Royal Nonesuch Gallery, among others. He runs Curiously Direct, an art criticism blog on Facebook, and has additionally written for Fillip, Art Practical, Decoy Magazine, Art Cards, and several small publications and artist catalogues.
George Lawson, Owner
George Lawson Gallery, San Francisco (http://www.georgelawsongallery.com)
George Lawson Gallery's program showcases trends in contemporary painting, as well as photography and object making with conceptual links to painting. The gallery exhibits an international roster of artists, and produces limited edition books for many of its exhibitions. These publications are available on request or downloadable as PDFs off the books page on the gallery web site. The gallery opened in San Francisco at 49 Geary in 2008, originally as room for painting room for paper. From 2011 to 2013 we maintained an exhibition space at 8564 Washington Boulevard in Culver City along with a satellite space at 780 Sutter in San Francisco before consolidating the new location in San Francisco's Potrero district. Lawson writes and lectures on the fundamental nature and contemporary relevancy of painting.
Ramekon O’Arwisters, Curator of Exhibitions SFO Museum
(http://www.flysfo.com/museum)
Ramekon O’Arwisters is curator of exhibitions at SFO Museum (SFOM). He joined the curatorial staff in 2007. O’Arwisters earned a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a M.Div. from Duke University. Prior to joining SFOM, O’Arwisters was the curator and gallery director for the
Richmond Art Center (RAC), where he organized numerous exhibitions. Preceding his tenure at the RAC, O’Arwisters was gallery director at the San Francisco African American Historical Society. He has served on the curatorial committee at Root Division and SOMArts, and was a panelist for the San Francisco Arts Commission, Murphy and Cadigan Fellowship Awards, and Visions from the New California, an initiative of the Alliance of Artists Communities.
In addition to his work as a curator, he is a social-‐practice artist and has earned grants from the San Francisco Foundation, the San Francisco Art Commission Cultural Equity Program, and Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue, New York, New York. He became a 2014 Eureka Fellow, awarded by the
Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco, for his social-‐art practice, Crochet Jam, a collaborative, community-‐based art project, infused with the folk-‐art tradition of crocheting rag rugs to foster and support a culture of community building, creativity, and liberation.
Andrea Schwartz, Owner
Andrea Schwartz Gallery, San Francisco (http://www.asgallery.com)
Founded in San Francisco in 1982, Andrea Schwartz Gallery focuses on contemporary painting of mid-‐ career artists. For over thirty years ASG has supported work that is challenging and at the forefront of contemporary practice, representing a select group of artists from the Bay Area and throughout the country. In 2012, ASG moved to its current SOMA location at 545 4th Street. The space was specifically designed for artwork exhibition, including 20-‐foot ceilings and ground floor visibility. ASG exhibits at art fairs across the country with the goal to introduce our artists to a wider audience. Recent exhibitions at the gallery have been reviewed in ArtNews, Art Ltd., Fine Art Connoisseur, San Francisco Chronicle, SF Weekly, Art + Auction, and Juxtapoz Magazine, as well as many online publications. Andrea Schwartz Gallery is a member of the San Francisco Art Dealers Association and Art Table. The gallery provides art consultation to private, public and corporate collectors and prides itself in its knowledge and expertise.
Andrea Schwartz graduated with a bachelors degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1977. She believes that her background as an artist has assisted in her understanding both sides of the art world.
Meg Shiffler, Director
San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries (http://www.sfartscommission.org/gallery/)
In 2005, Meg Shiffler assumed the role of Gallery Director for the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC), the arts agency of the City and County of San Francisco. As the Gallery Director, she is a senior member of the San Francisco Arts Commission staff, manages Gallery operations and staff, and is the chief curator of three SFAC Galleries in the heart of San Francisco's Civic Center. Shiffler is a faculty member of the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute. Since 2010, she has been a columnist for SFMOMA's Open Space blog.
Prior to her tenure at the Arts Commission, Shiffler worked in New York as a freelance curator,
researcher and consultant for the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Andrea Rosen Gallery and the Ursula Meyer Art Conservancy. She co-‐founded the multidisciplinary art center Consolidated Works in Seattle, WA, and was the Gallery Director from 1998 to 2003; prior to that, she was the Director of 20th Century Masterworks at Meyerson & Nowinski Art Associates, and the Gallery Director for MIA Gallery, both located in Seattle. Shiffler attended the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in New York.
Amina Yee, Curatorial Assistant Oakland Museum of California (http://www.museumca.org)
Amina Yee is the Curatorial Assistant at the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA), where she helps develop interdisciplinary exhibitions on California art, history, and natural sciences. Yee's recent
