Artist Talk and Opening Reception – Bricolage

Artists Reception: Saturday, Feb 24, 2024 from 12 to 4 pm
Artists Talk: Saturday, Feb. 24, 2-3pm, (during the artists reception)

Gearbox Gallery presents Bricolage, an exhibit of sculptures and assemblage by guest artist Rose Kelly and collages and drawings by Gearbox member Lani Asher. As the title suggests, these two artists fiddle, tinker, and make creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are at hand. Their work shares a sensibility which layers words and images and is marked by the influences of personal narrative, folk, outsider art, textiles, recycling, and travel.

Lani Asher:
Lani Asher is an artist, art critic, curator, and art teacher. She was raised in Los Angeles’s rambling San Fernando Valley famous for strip malls and freeways. She attended the College of Creative Studies at University of California Santa Barbara and chose this school because there were no grades, and it was near the ocean. At CCS James Turrell took the students flying in his private plane, John McCraken tried to teach his students to levitate, and the teachers took the fledgling artist to meet artists in their studios in downtown Los Angeles. After college she lived in New York, teaching art to elders, working in an erotic bakery, and attended NYU and the Visual Studies Workshop. The now defunct San Francisco Art institute begrudgingly awarded her an MFA in the New Genders department on the cusp of the digital revolution. She has had residencies in Wyoming, New Mexico, Vermont, and Mexico, taught for many Bay Area nonprofits, and has written for digital publications Art Practical, delicious line, and SF Arts Quarterly. Lani Asher finds refuge in her studio is in the industrial part of San Francisco where she makes paper-based collages constructed with photographs, painting, and drawings, joined together on the reverse side with rice paper and glue. Recycled paper fragments generated by her studio practice are quilted together loosely structured on grids or rectangles. The delicate surfaces are built up with layers of paint, pencil, and paper, giving the collages a tactile and sculptural dimension.

Rose Kelly:
Rose Kelly is an artist, educator, and traveler. Her work has evolved from the art-to-wear textile movement of the 1970s to an exploration of the human figure. The work investigates issues of identity, mysticism, and ritual. She often combines a variety of print techniques with weaving, stitching, collage and drawing into what she thinks of as “three-dimensional collage.” A quick sketch, a found object or sometimes, a chance phrase or poem will generate an idea for a piece. Travel, too, provides surprising encounters, unexpected visuals, and a wealth of ephemera to fuel her imagination. A series of residencies, including one in the Dominican Republic and one in Hungary, were formative experiences that provided time to experiment with scale and imagery. She counts Hannelore Baron, Bettye Saar, Lenore Tawney, and Ana Zemankova among the artists who inspire her combination of materials and techniques. A photograph of Joan Brown hangs above her desk, telling her how important it is to get to work. She lives in a light-filled live-work space in Oakland where she and her husband have wonderful studios where they share laughter, inspiration and make art. Rose is a professor in the Department of Design at the University of California Davis, her alma mater.

About Gearbox Gallery:
GearBox Gallery is an artist-run contemporary art gallery dedicated to showcasing the work of its members and a broad range of regional contemporary guest artists, fostering community and education through intellectual and cultural exchange focused on the visual arts. We are located at 770 West Grand Avenue in Oakland, California.