VISIONS
Creativity Explored
August 3- August 31, 2024
reception for the artists August 3rd, 4-6p.m.
Jack Fischer Gallery is thrilled and proud to once again bring the work of artists from Creativity Explored to the
gallery at Minnesota Street Project.
Creativity Explored is a non-profit center based in San Francisco where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit,
and work with artists who help and nurture the creative process and expression that is inherent in all of us.
The center was founded by Florence and Elias Katz in 1983.
They also founded the other two centers in the Bay Area: Creative Growth and NIAD.
Elana Cooper
b. 1973, San Francisco ∙ CE artist since 2013
Elana Cooper is primarily known for her striking, large-scale floral silhouettes, though animals are also a common subject of her work. Cooper paints in bold strokes, the background in one color and the subject in a contrasting color, giving her representational work an abstract quality. Drawing from a journal of flowers, Cooper has created her modern floral silhouettes with ink, watercolor, acrylic and even 3-D wood cutout sculptures. Cooper began working at the Creativity Explored studio in 2013 and says, “I never made art before coming here. I didn't know I had the skills for it!” Cooper's popular floral silhouettes have been licensed by Open Editions and commissioned as large large scale public murals by State Bird Provisions. Her iconic flower designs were re-imagined in large-scale for Of Here From There | De Aquí Desde Allá, and interaction digital installation created in partnership with Ana Teresa Fernández in 2020.
James Miles
b. 1957, San Francisco ∙ CE artist since 1998
Soft-spoken and reticent, James Miles is known for his miniature ink drawings of quiet scenes that tell stories. Miles' scenes blur the distinctions between inside/outside, near/far, small/large, male/female, and past/present, enticing audiences into the paradoxically immense spaces of his diminutive artwork. His scenes celebrate ambiguity, particularly in the everyday. Miles' work has been featured in several prominent exhibitions including This Container Isn't Big Enough at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, NY, in 2004; and in 2011, Create, a traveling exhibition that originated at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Miles’ work adorned three pillow designs for CB2 as well as one of Google's 2015 self-driving car prototypes.
Lance Rivers
b. 1967, San Francisco ∙ CE artist since 2002
Lance Rivers’ art practice emphasizes the idea, above all others, of the local as monumental. No aspect of the processes that make a city function escapes him, and the attention he gives to the beauty of simple industrial compositions shows an authentic love for the Bay Area. "My work is about landscape, architecture, bridges, tunnels, and transportation. I am inspired by BART, MUNI buses, streetcars, and trains. I like nature, too. These things are interesting to me," Rivers explains.
Rivers was nominated for SFMOMA’s prestigious SECA Art Award in 2016 and his work has been exhibited internationally, including in prominent exhibitions such as the People's Biennial at Museum of Contemporary Art, in Detroit, Michigan, in 2014; and Create, a traveling exhibition that first opened at UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in 2011.
Tranesha Smith-Kilgore
b. 1998, San Francisco ∙ CE artist since 2020
Tranesha Smith-Kilgore recently joined CE during the pandemic, working virtually with teaching artist Pilar Olabarria. Tranesha recently began making art at the studio and creates beautiful multimedia sculptures using textiles and collected odds and ends. Her sculptures are made up of string, yarn, cut fabric, and ribbons, knotted together with objects like keys, bells, beads, pill bottles, and more. Tranesha ties her fibers quickly in knots, creating chains interspersed with found objects. At the studio you can find Tranesha singing along to Bob Marley as she works.
You can discover Tranesha’s magnificent pieces in Mode Brut Atelier at the Creativity Explored gallery, on view from September 10 through October 30, 2021.
When asked about how she was doing and what it’s like being at CE she responded, “Life is good.”
Nubia Ortega
b. 1976, El Salvador ∙ CE artist since 2003
Nubia Ortega brings her careful hand and attention to detail to every artwork, no matter the medium. Ortega uses color masterfully, playfully balancing earthy natural tones with bright calculated splashes of pure saturated color.
A focused artist, she spends ample time on each piece, first methodically laying out a composition and then carefully choosing colors to fill in her landscapes and portraits.
Ortega excels at clay hand building, creating stylized human figures and plant forms and firing them with ultra-colorful glazes. Ortega’s ceramic fish, cars, busts, and assorted animals dazzle the sense with texture in both her decorative elements and detailed application of glazes. Her ceramic sculptures begin with hearty and simple forms that come to life as she adds coils, circles, and details.
