Opening Reception – Elizabeth Sher: Bound, Unbound, Rebound

Elizabeth Sher has always approached her art through series, much like a musician creating albums across different genres, yet maintaining a signature style. At the beginning of her career as a printmaker, in the 1970s, Sher sought to push the boundaries of traditional etching by extending the image beyond the plate and onto the surrounding paper in a series of images of rope. As she worked on them, she realized they were symbolic of the limitations she felt in her life as a mother, wife, professor, and practicing artist in a predominantly sexist era. In response to these personal and societal constraints, Sher began making images of bags and women bound with rope. Working on large unstretched canvases, she layered silk-screened images with paint and drawing to visually express those boundaries.
Humor, for Sher, also became a tool of resistance — a way to challenge the seriousness of the art world and subvert the expectations placed on women of that time. This newfound freedom infused her art practice as she moved forward with each series reflecting her authentic self.
While Sher’s work has continued to evolve, society has unfortunately experienced a setback following the recent election. So with her children grown and after decades of teaching and exhibiting, she returns to the imagery of rope, expanding on this earlier theme. Her recent work incorporates a rich array of materials: paint, oil stick, acrylic, pastel, digital layering, and video, allowing her to reinterpret her artistic past while simultaneously moving beyond the limitations that once defined her.
In her exhibition Bound, Unbound, Rebound, Sher skillfully balances the personal and political, the historical and contemporary. Her technical mastery and conceptual depth shine through, inviting viewers to explore the complexities of the female experience.

Bio:
Bay Area artist and filmmaker, Elizabeth Sher is Professor Emeritus of Art at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco where she taught painting and media arts. Currently working in video, artist books, digital mixed media on canvas, paper, and metal, Sher passes freely between static and moving images, paint and pixels, traditional and new media. She mixes these with a strong basis of formal discourse and a quirky sense of popular culture blended with insightful honesty and humor. Career highlights include her work being widely collected including SFMOMA and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum of California; her films have been broadcast on PBS and internationally including “PENNY: Champion of the Marginalized” Film (writer, director, editor) and “Rituals of Remembrance: Exploring the Art of Mourning” (co-director and producer); exhibits such as “Good Coffee, Bad News” solo Show at Mercury 20 Gallery in 2024 and “Ten Years of Artist Books” curated by Donna Seager at the Brooklyn Central Library; an artist residency at Studi D’arte Nel Castelio, Aragonese, Castle, BAU Institute in Otranto, Italy; and as a featured artist at the Bioneer International Conference in 2022.

January 3 – February 1, 2025
Gallery Hours: Friday and Saturday, 12 – 5 pm (and by appointment)