Hugo Kobayashi's Nothing For Something. Paintings Of Crushed Lottery Tix

Los Angeles born, but San Fransisco based artist Hugo Kobayashi, whose painting studio is in Oakland, has a new show opening at the Hang Art gallery today.

In his third solo exhibition with HANG ART, Hugo Kobayashi continues to materialize his observations of societal obsessions through meticulous rendering. He carefully explores how drastically the perception of gambling or chance has changed over the years and how its pervasive nature now causes fun to overshadow risk. Shown together, the body begs one to wonder how the scratchers’ owners were affected. Rather than implying a specific story, shown together the body leaves the viewer to wonder how the scratchers came to be.

The show, called Nothing For Something, features hyper realistic oil paintings of crumpled lottery tickets and scratchers. Each painting measures by 16" x 32" and I love every single one of them.

Nothing For Something:

Easy Go:

Losing My Cool:

Spinout:

Uneasy:

Red Ink and Blue:

In The Red:


The show runs from May 1 through May 15th. The Opening Reception will take place Thursday at the gallery May 6, from 6-8pm.

HANG ART
567 Sutter St.
San Francisco, CA 94102
T 415 434 4264
F 415 434 2603
Mon-Sat 10am to 6pm
Sun 12 to 5pm

Paintings can also be purchased online here.

About the artist:

Hugo Kobayashi's vertical canvases are filmic, skillfully rendered, and often autobiographical. A native of Southern California, he spent four years as a comic strip writer for LA View, which gave him a strong grasp of the narrative potential of visual images. He draws inspiration from comics and films, and the tall, narrow format of his work invites the viewer to read his images from top to bottom like unreeling filmstrips.

Kobayashi's goal is to combine the graphic techniques of cartooning and design with a painterly brushstroke and representational approach, crafting powerful, unified paintings that can both tell personal stories and comment on the world at large.

Born in Los Angeles in 1962 and reared in Orange County, Kobayashi has been making images since he was five. He earned his bachelor's degree in studio art from the University of California at Berkeley in 1983 and his master's degree from Hunter College in New York in 1986. Hugo has participated in exhibitions at the Berkeley Art Center, the Keyson Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and the Falkirk Cultural Center in San Rafael.

See all of his work at his site.

The Urban Appeal Of Steven Albert's Photo-Realism Paintings

above: Stroll by Steven Albert, oil on canvas, 30" x 40", Hespe gallery

Steven Albert's oil paintings are hyperrealistic representations of urban and small town icons like cafes, coffeehouses, street windows, graffiti scrawled walls and parked cars. The mundane subject matter is executed with a deft hand, keen eye and romantic familiarity, especially to those who grew up around San Francisco.


above: 1789 Folsom by Steven Albert, 2009, oil on canvas, 30"X48", George Billis Gallery, New York

Reminiscent of the hyper realistic paintings by Robert Bechtle and Richard Estes, Alberts' work catapults us into present day venues with the graffiti and street art not apparent decades ago when Bechtle was immortalizing suburbia or in hyperrealism paintings of Stephen Magsig's Michigan.

2 ecampes of Richard Estes paintings:


2 examples of Robert Bechtle's paintings:



In Steven Albert's work, the audience's relationship to the paintings and their subject matter depends up the viewers position in relation to the scene. At times you are a voyeur peering into the crowded cafes and the patrons within, separated by doors or windows, such as in the following pieces:

Straight Through:

Blue Door:

Trinity:

Window On Market:

The Park:

Royal Grouds:

Benedictine:

All Nighter:

Evening At The Allstar:

Key Lime:


At other times, you are within the establishment, often empty and laden with a quiet calm inside as you witness the action outside, separately only by plate glass windows:

24th Street Pops:

Interstices:

Get up:

Jump:

Orange Retro:

And still, in other pieces you are a distant witness to surroundings you might often have overlooked or grown anesthetized to unless you saw them imortalized on canvas, as in the following works:

1780 folsom:

On Fire:

Moving:

Graffiti Series IV:

Blue Girlies:

Stroll:

Swirl:


Artist bio:
From the forests of Northern Maine, where he was raised,to the streets of San Francisco, Steven Albert's paintings have always been informed by patterns of clear, bright sunlight and shadows.

Although architectural designs dominate his imagery, doors and windows are often the focus, creating a sense of portal into often missed aspects of our concrete reality, whether it be rooms of mysterious and zen-like calm, or the fractured and frenetic multiplicity of urban cafes and storefronts. Albert seeks to highlight the small moments, common in our lives, but often unexperienced.

Albert's work is represented by galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York and has been exhibted in various museums and venues around the country. His paintings are included in several important collections worldwide. In 2006, he was awarded a Pollack-Krasner Foundation grant.


Artist's Statement:
In my paintings, I begin by discovering and drawing out abstract, linear and spatial order from the seemingly random activity of commonplace situations, such as those found sitting in or walking by cafes and restaurants where so many elements of normal life converge. Architectural elements are used as a sort of scaffolding to frame, and fracture the picture plane and illusionistic spaces, creating something of a kaleidoscopic collage.

Objects and events like interior/exterior, people, streets, cars, tables, chairs, cups, napkins and trees, are held together by a unifying, realistic rendering and warm, bright light, shadows, and reflections luring us in.

With no object or figure deemed more central or more important than any other, the paintings are subject-less and decentralized, seemingly expanding beyond the confines of the canvas. The final images compel, disquiet and reassure. Comfortable inviting moments are answered with jarring complexity, and sometimes confusion.

They are still, silent, possibly ambiguous, yet frenetic, complicated and active. They are without emotional or narrative context, moral or politic. They are also without existential probing and anxiety. Viewers may decide to impart such meaning depending on their own personal experiences and reactions. Instead, the paintings are distillations and attempts at acceptance of the ever changing and ungraspable and inescapable and unedited "now", brimming with imminent and potential energy. They delight is simply being "slices of life," stumbled upon and easily missed, inviting contemplation of the moments and structure within our surroundings.

Steven D. Albert
ph: (415)-225-2960
sdalbert2@gmail.com

KOPLIN DEL RIO GALLERY
6031 Washington Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90232
ph: (310)-836-9055
www.koplindelrio.com

HESPE GALLERY
251 Post Street , Suite 420
San Francisco, CA 94108
ph: (415)-776-5918
www.hespe.com

GEORGE BILLIS GALLERY
511 West 25th Street, Ground Floor
New York, NY 10001
ph: (212)-645-2621
www.georgebillis.com

More Jell-O Please. An Update On Liz Hickok's Wiggly San Francisco.

above: Coit Tower and San Francisco made of Jell-O by Liz Hickok, 2009

It's been a few years since I wrote about artist Liz Hickok's Jell-O casts in my post San Francisco: No Room For Parking, But There's Always Room For Jell-O, and at the time, the images I shared with you were her works from 2004, 2005 and 2006.

Since then she continues with the project and I'm going to share with you more of her wiggly versions of the City By the Bay from 2007, 2008 and 2009. As well as some of the molds and installations.


above: the artist and the application of 'fog' to the mold of the city

The artist sells c-prints of photos of her molds, like the one above, as well.

The project consists of photographs and video, which depict various San Francisco landscapes. She makes the landscapes by constructing scale models of the architectural elements which she uses to make molds.

She then casts the buildings in Jell-O. Similar to making a movie set, she adds backdrops, which she often paints, and elements such as mountains or trees. She then dramatically lights the scenes from the back or underneath. The Jell-O sculptures quickly decay, leaving the photographs and video as the remains.

The view from Alcatraz, 2007:


Jell-O mold #1, 2008:

Jell-O mold #2, 2009


The installation below was created for the Headlands Close Calls show. It is the Mission District from 16th to 20th Street (North to South) and Harrison to Dolores (East to West).


Church close-up:

Red warehouse view:

Dolores Park:


The molds for San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts and City Hall:

The mold for San Francisco's Ferry Building:

The molds for the houses:



If you've never seen her earlier images of San Francisco cast in jell-O, check them out here.

Liz Hickok's site