Wave Forms by Embark Gallery

WAVE FORMS

10.27.18 - 12.08.18

WAVE Laurence Elias | CCA

FORMS

Water, air, space- three universal strata through which to understand the human experience. The intangibility of sound and light waves inspires a poetic response and this exhibition features artwork whose interpretations are fluid - objects that relate to the tides, the planets, and the other unseen forces that govern our world. Hannah Perrine Mode’s installation “Europa (pouring in from Taurus)” merges printmaking with scientific research in the field. Using water taken from different locations and the power of the sun through cyanotype, Mode presents a set planetary prints that are, like Earth at present, simultaneously beautiful and fragile. Referencing the rape of Europa as well as Jupiter’s glacial moon, Mode’s work explores how scientific phenomena can be used as a tool for intimate storytelling, cementing this exhibition’s focus on our collective human experience of waves. Elena Padron-Martin’s work brings us under the water in a deep sea GoPro recording of the Atlantic ocean. In the silent video the viewer is surrounded by calm aqua ripples that give the impression of softness and safety, like being in the womb. As the gaze of the camera looks up to the sun, one can’t help but think of birth - the moment when we emerge from dark water into the light. Across the room, separate from the moving liquid on the screen, is the soundtrack of these ocean waves, further challenging us to consider what role our senses play in how we perceive the world. The work of Laurence Elias is similarly concerned with perception, this time of light and matter. His uniquely fabricated prints of semi-solid geometric shapes are printed on reflective material and hung on the wall at various heights and angles. As one is drawn to the shiny surfaces there is an effect of distortion on our

perceived reality. Are they photographs of liquid, solid, or air? Flat or 3-dimensional? The answers vacillate creating a cognitive dissonance and we are reminded of the fallibility of visual perception. Following this theme into the realm of sound, Amina Kirby presents an auditory experience titled “A Click Between Walls.” An exploration of sonic phenomenon and relativity, the piece changes as the sound waves bounce between two hard surfaces. What one hears depends completely on their positioning - an important reminder of bias and subjectivity. Ruxue Zhang is concerned with humankind’s place in the universe. Her illusory paintings of pictures of space have a sense of humor, and seem to suggest the futility of comprehending the vastness of this world and beyond. By replicating photographs of outer space with a decidedly analog process, Zhang also points out the shortcomings of this light-based technology in helping us to understand the bigger picture. At the conclusion of the exhibition is “Alan (Flag-Bearer),” an immersive installation by Shirin Khalatbari. Alan means Flag-bearer in Kurdish. The piece is a tribute to Alan Kurdi, the Syrian refugee child who found dead on the shore of Mediterranean Sea on September 2015. The somber subject and ghostly presentation acts in this exhibition as an exploration of death as the ultimate void or vacuum in which there are no more waves, only total absence of sound or light.

Angelica Jardini | Curatorial Director

Laurence Elias | CCA

“My work hinges on distorted or distorting geometric patterns and forms, and their response to light, reflectivity, and transparency. Objectives include disruption of familiar perceptual modes, and attainment of an experience of the sublime, or of the uncanny. I have a background in scientific research, and I continue to embrace experimental process and discovery. My sensibility is informed by the emergent intricacy of nature and living things. My practice is photography-based and executed by UVcured printing on laser shaped reflective acrylic sheet. The imagery is from close-up photography of transparent models of “platonic solids”, posed with differing backgrounds and lighting. I selectively employ collage, painting or surface etching, adding further layers of meaning and experience. The resulting work is generally displayed at angles several inches off the wall using custom fixtures. The pieces often thereby present compelling and uncanny illusions of solid objects, while functioning essentially as complex abstractions.”

Shirin Khalatbari | SFSU

â&#x20AC;&#x153;My fascination with disputed and disputable narratives of history and time informs my art practice. I observe and explore the visual traces of history in the present time, cognizant of the impacts and legacies of the pre and postcolonialism, particularly in western Asia, in recent wars and forced immigration. My practice is anchored in my attention to the entropy of perception and recorded memory, with attention to the ways in which their gradual descent into disarray may engender a new reality. Employing my background and practice as an archeologist, I document fleeting moments by collecting visual fragments of the present. Later, these images reappear in my work, usually in an abstract form, to create a transformative environment in which perception of the present and reality are challenged. My installations are immersive and site-adjustable. I use simple principles of light and programmable microchips that allow for these installations to be easily scaled and fit within different sites. Based on my mythological, historical, and linguistic research, in the process of making, I allow the subject-matter to determine both its medium and material. By combining photography, painting, sculpture, sound, and video I produce ambiances that defamiliarizes one's sense of time and space, allowing the viewer to travel through spacetime.â&#x20AC;?

Amina Kirby | Mills

“ "A Click Between Walls" was created using a small amplifier, a horn speaker, and two parallel walls located in a courtyard of the Rothwell Center at Mills College. The horn was positioned between the two walls, and short, percussive impulse sounds were then played through the horn using ‘TweakyBeat’, a drum sequencing app for iPhone. This created an audible ping-ponging effect between the parallel walls which invited the listener to explore the space between the walls and how the ping-ponging changes throughout the space. In terms of the Wave Form exhibition- "A Click Between Walls" is an exploration of sonic phenomena which we often experience in our everyday lives, but rarely have opportunities to explore in depth. This piece is an invitation for the listener to engage with the sound and the space utilized to create the ping-ponging effect. Additionally, the piece is intended to bring awareness to the ways in which acoustic spaces can drastically affect the sounds we hear.”

Hannah Perrine Mode | Mills

“Working across mediums, and often drawing upon scientific research, I use the Earth as both material and subject for storytelling. I make objects and installations that incorporate time-based processes and transformative materials, tapping into their aesthetic qualities as well as their utility – the sensitivity of cyanotype, the ephemerality of ice, the malleability of clay. Artworks become proxies to document the passage of time, personal experience, and human interaction with our environment. I seek ways to bring the vastness of geologic time to an intimate human scale, and explore how to make space for vulnerability and empathy within that context. I write love letters to glaciers, create and tend to systems of melt and erosion, trace my body along fault lines. Whether performed socially or in solitude, these gestures are exercises in hope and (sometimes) futility – reimagining the way we care for each other and our planet, to foster new visions for the future.”

Elena Padrón-Martin | SFAI

“My work focuses on the sensation and the psychological effect of color, texture, light and space. It explores questions of presence and absence; notions of spatiality, as well as the physicality of human relations to space, this being primarily landscape, although including architecture. I am a language learner. I translate photography into painting and paintings into installations. An idea for a piece often starts from a potential title, a pun or random words I hear from people around me. My work is also the result of paying attention to the formal qualities of my surroundings . Creating sensorial atmospheres, my work intends to be immersive and the audience is invited to participate in and reflect upon. I am from the Canary Islands and I am exploring how oceans differ from one another. I asked my friend Javier Batista-Llamas to film the sun from below the surface, in a specific point of our island: Tenerife. I described to him the composition and the light effect in the water that I was looking for. He dived with a GoPro camera and sent me the Atlantic via wetransfer.”

Ruxue Zhang | CCA “I spend a lot of time looking at images of outer space—movies, photographs--and also looking at outer space itself, although at a great distance, by looking through telescopes. I paint representations of outer space and the vastness of the universe which symbolize the anxiety of the unknown. It is my process of translation, both as an artist and as a foreigner. I see things, feel something, and then paint. My paintings express my feelings of disorientation and encourage the viewer to question where they are, and question the idea that the planet is both infinite in a way we cannot grasp but also finite and a collectively held resource. I question where the center of the cosmos is and if there is an edge to the universe. The outer space is so dark that you feel like you are staring at a black hole, an eerie abyss, but something is hiding in it. But you know those sparkling stars can lighten the way you head to. I want to capture insurmountable problems on the canvas: The impossibility of being understood and the problems of communication; problems created by our distance between things, the proxies we use for the real world. How the digital world creates a divide in our minds and our reality. I print out photos of universe and stick them on my studio wall. These photos make me think how I really observe these things. I am not looking at outer space. I am looking at photos of outer space.The pictorial representation and visual perception make me think of how I want to express my feelings through painting.”

Ruxue Zhang | CCA

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Leila Grothe Lauren Dare Marcel Houtzager Matt Lopez Jeannette Sturman Brooke Valentine Silke van de Grift Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture Sartle.com Thor, Zeus & Jasper

Embark Arts offers exhibition opportunities to graduate students of the Fine Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area. We provide a space for an engaged community of artists, curators and scholars, and we aim to expand the audience for up and coming contemporary art. A non-profit gallery, Embarkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s programming represents the diversity of the talented artists studying at eight local artinstitutions: San Francisco Art Institute, UC Berkeley, California College of the Arts, Mills College, San Francisco State University, UC Davis, San Jose State University, and Stanford. The juried exhibitions are held at our gallery in San Francisco at the historic Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture.

Tania Houtzager || Executive Director Angelica Jardini || Curatorial Director