Sofia Carmi Roadway Series: View From Above
The Roadway Series is a new outlook which combines previous ideas of abstract nature landscapes with a new interpretation–one that employs biomorphic and geometric shapes. The Roadway Series at Outland Gallery will cover paintings done from 2020 to 2025 in oil and acrylic on canvas. I selected the metaphor of a road as one possible choice in life. The principal inspiration for the Series were the steep hills and roads of Potrero Hill, where I have lived for many years. The Roadway Series has been exhibited at a group exhibit at Creating in Place at Analog gallery, San Francisco, in 2020 at Canessa gallery, San Francisco, in 2023 at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in 2021 for the art in recovery for children with cancer, and at the de Young Museum newsletter under the title Emotion during the lockdown.
Jakub Kalousek: Inspissation
It is not abnormal that an author does not want to speak of his/her work. Despite possibly claiming otherwise, authors know a little of their process in making in the same way that the processed food knows little of its origin. But to abstain from fashionable cynicism, I will say a little.
I create work with intent to persuade a witness, jury, but not necessarily a conscious viewer. My work is my rhetoric that nudges my neighbor into the future, that is forming fluidly in front of both of us, and for the future audience to be able to reflect on its past. I do not expect to have a broad audience that will grasp my work as the nomenclature and rubrics for art is a permutation of too many variables that have no bearing on its quiddity, but it also is an easy excuse to feel unhindered to create for someone else's expectations, and in the worst possible scenario, it may be flippant arrogance to excuse oneself for not making anything good (vis-à-vis William Kentridge's "The Centre for the Less Good Idea ). In another word, while it may be utterly vainglorious to pin the status of "art" to any objects created in our lifetime by anyone, "artist" inclusive, it does not need to be so if this effort is an attempt to persuade.
I strive not to be recognized, famous, rich or otherwise venerated by the public, now, though, conceivably, in bad faith. I promulgate this stance with an attempt not to be arrogant, however, because it is a prerequisite for my position, I am perspicacious not to pursue this claim. I understand that culturally, this stance is made possible, in part, as I happen to come from a privileged class. I do want to have an audience to experience my work and as an author, I can gauge whether they have been persuaded to give a right course to their perception or not.
If my work is made for the future, then I should not worry about whether there is an audience now, that groks the "future". On the other hand, it would be false to think that I have a monopoly on the making of the future as well. ... Luckily, I do not!