Varnish Fine Art, 16 Jesse Street, #c120, San Francisco, California 94105 – phone: 415-433-4400

Artist Reception: January 14, 2012, 4pm to 7pm

JANUARY 14 – FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Lending rock and alternative music a form of visual expression in sync with their urban environments, Chuck Sperry, Chris Shaw, and Ron Donovan embrace, alter, re-assign meaning and re-contextualize images until they become the medium-the subject emerging, used purposely–irreverently or reverently–to transform ephemeral events and experiences into a lexicon of shared cultural visual memory.

“Donovan, Shaw and Sperry have made their living creating expressive contemporary prints and posters for both the collector and the general public whose capacity for images is not just at its maximum, but teetering on overload. Dedication to their craft has rewarded them with a mastery of color theory, composition and print design that creates a language that can be seen, perhaps almost heard, amidst a visually competitive, urban environment. Never known for following the consensus of any art establishment, these three have a strict loyalty to their craft, and have become leading innovators of the rock poster art form. Their suspicion and disdain for mainstream American politics often characterizes their approach to making art. With a sincere dedication to a broad public audience, they reflect a social consciousness and draw much from the immediate urban environment.” – Renee de Cossio, curator SFMOMA

In Mind Spring, Sperry creates an icon of the Worldwide Occupy Movement and it’s antecedent in the Arab Spring. The figure wreathed in blooming spring flowers is a representation of the surprising enlightened humanism, the opening mind, the broadened socio-political possibilities which has swept the world in 2011.

Press Release

We look forward to seeing you, and celebrating the closing of our installation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

I will be offering new large format works on wood panel, with limited paper and variant paper editions as well. These will be released at the show and then very soon after on my website at a time to be announced. Stay tuned I’ll post these new works, and release times as the show approaches.

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Below, I’ve included SFMOMA curator Renee de Cossio’s statement on our installation at the Museum:

Ongoing until January 12, 2012, SFMOMA Artists Gallery is presenting three S.F. Bay Area artists Ron Donovan, Chris Shaw and Chuck Sperry and their site specific art installations in a 24/7 exhibit at the SF MOMA Garage Windows on Minna and Natoma Streets.  For almost twenty years, Donovan, Shaw and Sperry have been cultivating and developing an important component of the music scene and culture: the Rock Art Poster.   Lending rock and alternative music a form of visual expression, in sync with their urban environments, the artists embrace, alter, re- assign or retain meaning, re-contextualize the image, not just as the image, but the image as the medium. The image is their medium, and the subject emerges and is used purposely, irreverently, or reverently, engaging viewers – asking them to stop, look and listen.

Donovan, Shaw and Sperry have made their living creating expressive contemporary prints and posters for both the collector and the general public whose capacity for images is not just at its maximum, but teetering on overload. Dedication to their craft has rewarded them with a mastery of color theory, composition and print design that creates a language that can be seen, perhaps almost heard, amidst a visually competitive, urban environment.

Donovan, Shaw and Sperry often reference the legacy of founding rock poster artists, such as Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso and Stanley Mouse (creators of famous album covers for Grateful Dead, Steve Miller, Quicksilver, and Aoxomoxoa, and the many posters of the 60’s and 70’s that papered walls and street posts announcing concerts for Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Led Zeppelin, to name a few).  These originators of the rock poster including promoter Bill Graham, had established it as a visual arts vehicle, giving it an identity of its own, characterized by unusual, off-beat color combinations, dynamic fonts and captivating imagery.  Irreverence, imbedded into the beat of the times, resonated through many forms of expression.  Many of these early rock poster artists made a conscious break from formal art norms and standards taking departure through artistic exploration that included altered perceptions and “new” ways of thinking and seeing.  The posters became part of a messaging system that played an important role both locally and nationally, in moving and gathering people, engaging them to take part in the social movements of the time.

Building on the socially aware art poster scene of the 1960’s and acutely aware of its mostly unwritten art history, Donovan, Shaw and Sperry share a philosophy, a DIY (do it yourself) mindset; the use of their art sprang out as an expression of guerilla marketing, contributing to the successful efforts of many musicians and independent music labels, (Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label, and bands Metallica, Green Day, Faith No More, and The Melvins, etc.).  Remarkably, these three working artists with a prolific work output demonstrate an acute awareness of social context and popular culture. In doing so, they can often be seen as a visual measure, even mediums, of social currents and constructs.  It is where Internet 2.0 comes full circle around to life in the physical world; with a language of visuals and word of mouth marketing that is art.

Heirs of the 1960’s San Francisco Bay Area rock poster artists, Donovan, Shaw and Sperry are the next generation, whose process and approach to art making, reflect the varied complexities of contemporary times.  In this exhibition, the artists expand beyond the confines of formatting described by standard paper dimensions, to create monumental, colorful, hand painted, multi-dimensional, art installations – which are black lit at night.

In the Minna Street windows, each has created his own individual installation and has chosen a female as his main subject.  Although the artists have worked closely together for years, each installation is as different in style as its creator:

Chuck Sperry’s Saint Everyone, features a woman with long hair gazing toward the viewer over her bare back and right shoulder.  On large canvas, she is surrounded by an opt-art patterned sphere and background and is painted in fiery-hot red drastically contrasted by her features and details painted in an opaque sky blue.  With an ambiguous stare suggesting worry, fear or perhaps anger, she lifts a lotus flower upward between the viewer and her gaze, as an offering gesture, perhaps a warning.  Her presence evokes a sense of humanism, sensuality and spirituality—all which seem caught in a crucial state in a chaotic world displayed by the painting’s reactive background.  

Next to Sperry’s installation, is Chris Shaw’s Madonna Fukushima.  The richly colored painted canvas features a Japanese woman in traditional dress standing, caught balancing herself with a container of flowers, nature’s gifts from the garden, in one hand while grasping at her cloak in the other.  Sadly things will never be as they once were.  Her expression speaks of shock and alarm.  Her once calm, peaceful world has turned into a stirring, crashing deluge of catastrophic proportions described by a Hokusai wave and ocean swells engulfing the Fukushima nuclear reactors in the background. 

In the third window is Ron Donovan’s multi- layered print on wood panels titled Keeper of the Gate. Amazonian-in presence, provocative, his main female subject is suited in an armor of multi-cultural symbols and imagery from eastern and Pan Pacific ethnicities.   She stands grasping a Hindu sword in each hand.  Sexuality, spirituality, and ancient religious mythology and metaphor are her weapons. Wearing wings, like Garuda the male winged god, she displays the combined characteristics of animals and divine beings. 

Black lit? Rather than to remind one of the head shops of earlier decades, the change in lighting activates the artists’ delivery of alternate perceptions of color, and maybe even a moment of synesthesiastic viewing.  (Synesthesia is a neurological condition where stimulation of one sense or thought process leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in another sense; for example, seeing colors when you hear music, and vice versa). The work raises questions about how one really sees color and if, in the act of seeing, there is more to experience than some acknowledgement of what you think you are seeing?  Can or does one feel color– perhaps even hear it?  Marrying music with a visual art form, Donovan, Shaw and Sperry continue exploring and seeking ways to expand the visual experience.  They apply their depth of knowledge of color theory principles, ultimately by purposely and creatively altering formal color relationships and aesthetics. Viewers can see these works under conventional light conditions by day, and return to a very different experience under the black lights at night.  Through color and perception, the artists suggest opportunities for new sensorial visual perceptions, introducing non-classified forms of art to a much classified and defined art world.

Never known for following the consensus of any art establishment, these three have a strict loyalty to their craft, and have become leading innovators of the rock poster art form.  Their suspicion and disdain for mainstream American politics often characterizes their approach to making art.   With a sincere dedication to a broad public audience, they reflect a social consciousness and draw much from the immediate urban environment. 

In the Natoma windows, Chris Shaw and Chuck Sperry collaborated to present Temporary Bound.  In 3 separate hinged and painted panels totaling almost 60 feet in length, are three gorgons representing the Greek myth of Perseus and Medusa. There are different translations of the myth, but each share a reaction in one way or another to the perilous nature of feminine beauty.  

Shaw and Sperry describe the installation:

“The work’s form is derived from an Asian “accordion” book, while the  subject, “Three Gorgons” reflects the artists’ western influences.  The free intertwining of Eastern and Western references is not only  evocative of the modern technological world, but also of San  Francisco, a cultural melting pot on the Pacific Rim.”

Here is a link to continue reading their description of the work.

- Renee de Cossio, curator SFMOMA

An auburn-haired songstress holds a fawn.  Shocking magenta hair falls to the shoulders of a blue nude strapped with artillery.  A 1950s-model cop car rests peacefully at the bottom of the sea, washed in blues and purples revealing a silent white angel.  Each outstanding print on display represents a prominent rock band.  Each was created by Chuck Sperry.

In early 2011, Chuck Sperry, San Francisco artist and co-owner of Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company, made an unprecedented donation to the Library’s Art, Music and Recreation Department of over one-hundred limited edition, hand-printed rock art posters.  Officially entitled, The Chuck Sperry Archive, this collection comprehensively documents the Goldenvoice Music Series (at the Regency and Warfield Theaters) from 2008 to present, as well as selected Firehouse productivity related to the cultural-life of San Francisco.

This collection is exciting in both use of color and variety of content. Each silkscreen print is comprised of up to sixteen colors, applied as individual layers. The pieces reference styles ranging from Japanese nishiki-e, Austrian Expressionism, 1960s psychedelia, to the provocative punk poster tradition of Sperry’s youth.  Musicians such as Neko Case, Danzig, Bad Religion, Nick Cave, Soundgarden and The Black Keys are represented, as are a talented group of Bay Area graphic artists (Ron Donovan, Alex Fischer, Gregg Gordon, Dave Hunter, Alan Hynes, Scott Johnson, Dennis Loren, Chris Shaw, Frank Zio, and Zoltron) who contributed to the Firehouse Goldenvoice Poster series under the art direction of Chuck Sperry.

High Volume will be on display on the Fourth Floor from Oct. 7^th, 2011 – January 6^th, 2012.  An opening reception will be held in the Latino/Hispanic Room on Thursday, Oct. 20th beginning at 6 p.m.

It was a sincere pleasure to work with Chris Shaw on this poster designed for Public Enemy at The Regency – and hella fun to go and see the show together – WORD! Here’s Chris:

“I was thrilled when Chuck Sperry asked me if I wanted to do a Pub­lic Enemy poster for his Gold­en­voice series, I’m a huge Pub­lic Enemy fan from way back when. Doing a poster for a band you love isn’t always as great as it sounds, some­times you can get hung up on try­ing to get a per­fect image and idea and over­work the art. Try­ing not to over-think things, I decided to go with an old-school polit­i­cal poster, the kind of thing I was mak­ing in the 80’s when I lis­tened to P.E. con­stantly. I’ve made a ton of art over the years lis­ten­ing to that band, and felt like going back to my roots.

Some­how I think I’ve wanted to make this poster for a long time. The last time I made a Pub­lic Enemy poster it was for the Fill­more, I don’t think a riot cop with a bloody baton would have passed pre-screening over there. In par­tic­u­lar, I decided to make this poster a BART cop. BART is a Bay Area tran­sit agency who’s police force has been involved in some very ques­tion­able shoot­ings, have been han­dling them­selves pretty badly, they’ve been in the news a lot. Know­ing the band, the image seemed fit­ting, and timely.

The image is a col­lage of pieces from dif­fer­ent riot cop pho­tos, put together to make an espe­cially sin­is­ter fig­ure. I altered a lot of the small details along the way then sep­a­rated the art into 3 col­ors, stan­dard “pol­i­tics” black & red, plus a bright sil­ver… the sil­ver gives it that rock poster feel. For the vari­ants, we printed a pure cyan instead of the black plate, and used some dif­fer­ent stock. A big thanks Chuck for being the mas­ter of his press, this was an espe­cially clean run of posters.”

Chris will have these posters and vari­ant edi­tions drop­ping at a ran­dom time on his web­site this Fri­day, August 26, 2011. Full poster details, loads of photos and documentation, at chrisshawstudio.com

Tem­po­rally Bound (Three Gor­gons): An instal­la­tion by Chris Shaw & Chuck Sperry

June 2011 to January 2012

SFMOMA Window Gallery, Natoma Street, SF
Acrylic on 3 sec­tions of 6 artic­u­lated hard-panels.
Each sec­tion mea­sures 6’8″ x 12′ installed. (6’8″ h x 18′ flat.)

Chris Shaw and Chuck Sperry have been close friends for many years, but have only worked in tan­dem cre­at­ing art on a hand­ful of occa­sions. Both artists have both incor­po­rated and appro­pri­ated con­cepts and imagery from a myr­iad of sources in their designs for Rock Posters and paintings.

“Tem­po­rally Bound” marks this col­lab­o­ra­tion by the two artists not only as an event, but also in the form and sub­ject of the art­work. The work’s form is derived from an asian “accor­dion” book, while the sub­ject, “Three Gor­gons” reflects the artists’ west­ern influ­ences. The free inter­twin­ing of East­ern and West­ern ref­er­ences is not only evoca­tive of the mod­ern tech­no­log­i­cal world, but also of San Fran­cisco, a cul­tural melt­ing pot on the Pacific Rim.

The instal­la­tion is com­posed of 3 sec­tions of 6 artic­u­lated hard pan­els, painted in acrylic and hand-made paints. The artic­u­lated form allows the art­work to bend or com­press, the which lets the art­work take almost any form, in 2 or 3 dimen­sional space. Sperry and Shaw’s design con­cept for the Natoma Street win­dows of the SFMOMA Window Gallery called for an 18 foot wide hor­i­zon­tal image to com­press into a 12 foot wide area. The artists chose wooden hard-panels for the instal­la­tion sub­strate which cre­ates a sturdy self-supporting struc­ture with 52º angles, a golden pro­por­tion har­mo­nious to the instal­la­tion space.

In their expe­ri­ences in cre­at­ing Rock Posters, Shaw and Sperry had both worked pre­vi­ously with multi-panel poster images. When com­pos­ing the “Three Gor­gons” the artists paid spe­cial atten­tion to the way the images would frag­ment when the pan­els were in their com­pressed and folded state. Because many of the view­ers pass­ing the instal­la­tion on the side­walk would be approach­ing at very oblique angles, the artists cre­ated semi-symmetrical images that would appear to change and unfold as the viewer passed by. View­ing the art at oblique angles and close prox­im­ity cre­ates a dis­tinct sense of “false abstrac­tion”, while view­ing the pieces from afar (the oppo­site side­walk) gives the viewer cohe­sive, rep­re­sen­ta­tional images of the Three Gorgons.

The 3 Gor­gon images were cre­ated to work indi­vid­u­ally or together as a unit. In tan­dem, the artists each cre­ated their own dis­tinct ver­sions of a Gor­gon (Shaw,left / Sperry, right). While each artist cre­ated their com­po­si­tions and selected color indi­vid­u­ally, cer­tain deci­sions were made together to help enhance the over­all art­work when viewed in a unit. Red and Gold were both cho­sen as main color com­po­nents, which again ref­er­ences East­ern art. The over­all bold col­ors and hard graphic black­line of the Gor­gons addi­tion­ally reflects the artists work as poster artists and print­mak­ers. Sperry and Shaw then worked together to cre­ate the 3rd, cen­ter Gor­gon, a “hybrid” of their styles that would fur­ther bridge and inte­grate their indi­vid­u­ally cre­ated Gor­gon panels.

Sperry’s highly tex­tured Gor­gon (right panel) evokes the paint­ings of Vienna Seces­sion, pri­mar­ily the work of Gus­tav Klimt, who is an influ­ence in Sperry’s use of metal­lic pig­ments and tex­tured lay­er­ings of paint. Sperry’s Gor­gon offers a dynamic man­i­fest inves­ti­ga­tion in paint­ing of the styles and themes of the poster tradition.

The cen­ter, “hybrid” Gor­gon as a co-creation is a meld­ing of the 2 artists ideas and styles. Shaw’s sub­tly ren­dered mother-of-pearl Gorgon’s face is accented with cop­per and black metal-flake paints. Sperry cre­ated the Gorgon’s pre­req­ui­site head of snakes, com­bin­ing gold ser­pen­tine forms with lin­ear rays of sil­ver and cop­per. The two com­po­nents of the image are seam­lessly inte­grated with a bold black­line, char­ac­ter­is­tic of both artists’ work. This piece will also pro­duce the opti­cal illu­sion men­tioned above as the viewer passes the art­work on the sidewalk.

Shaw’s Gor­gon (left sec­tion) is a hard-line and sharp shad­owed, woman’s face in pure yel­low with pupil-less red metal­lic eyes. The Gor­gon is accen­tu­ated by a head­ful of styl­ized gold snakes based on a pre-Inca Moche head­dress. The sym­me­try in the face and forced per­spec­tive cre­ates a dis­tinct “Hol­beinesque” opti­cal illu­sion when viewed in the folded 52º state, as the face will appear to rotate as the viewer passes. Shaw’s work with large-scale stage art fos­tered an inter­est in the way large images can change when viewed at very oblique angles.

Saint Everyone, 2011

11 feet by 9 feet

Acrylic and Silkscreen Appliqué on Canvas

I installed my 11 foot by 9 foot acrylic painting, “Saint Everyone,” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art yesterday. It will be on view at the SFMOMA’s Artists Gallery Windows on Minna Street from June 2011 through January 2012. There are florescent lights which are timed to go on at dusk until 2 am.

My large scale painting, “Saint Everyone” is figurative, a postmodern pastiche of Pop, Op and Rock Art. Its theme is inspired from the very recent spontaneous popular movements which have swept the world since January 2011. My iconic figure holds a lotus, it’s unfolding petals suggest the expansion of the soul. The growth of its pure beauty springs from the fertile mud of its origin and grows into a benign spiritual promise. The figure is a loose appropriation and is re-imagined by the artist from a rock poster created by The Big Five (Mouse, Wilson, Griffin, Kelley, and Moscoso) for the 20th anniversary of the Summer of Love in 1987. The Summer of Love in 1967 is the San Francisco analog of the change that is sweeping the world in 2011. This image was originally used on a poster I designed and printed for “American Artifact, The Rise of American Rock Art,” directed by Merle Becker. Appliqué disks employ elements of Op Art, inspired as they are from the work of Martin Sharpe, the British psychedelic artist. They are produced via silkscreen and applied – like a poster would on the street – in rhythmic patternization. The disks suggest decentralization or cell structure. I wanted to combine acrylic painting and silkscreen techniques in a seamless composition, and “Saint Everyone” is the result.

This painting was a year in planning and six weeks in execution. Renée de Cossio curated the project which involves me, Chris Shaw and Ron Donovan. Renee has been a constant source of support and inspiration and I thank her and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for making this show happen.

Make sure to check the websites of my collaborating artist friends Chris Shaw and Ron Donovan to see their paintings and art work. They will be posting pictures and more very soon!

The six weeks spent working in this resulted in scores of paint layers, many in florescent acrylic, silkscreen and painting processes. There are certainly at least 30 layers of paint on this and the depth shows. The red blue chroma literally stopped traffic yesterday when Chris Shaw and I were hanging these – someone driving down Minna Street actually skidded to a stop to look at our paintings and ask our names.

I have several process videos of the painting in progress. The first is a short montage of photos I took throughout the process:

Below are some of the more photogenic processes in timelapse. First, removing a mask I cut with an exacto knife to paint the gold Op Art patterns that surround the figure:

Next, I’m printing the appliqué optical patterns on very nice Japanese rice paper that resonates with and continues the motif painted in gold:

Here’s a timelapse video of me applying the rice paper op patterns to the canvas with gel medium under and gloss medium over to fully embed the rice paper to the painting surface:

Finally here are some beautiful photographs taken by my friend Stephen Abramson of the final reactive blue color getting layed down. Click to see larger: