Press Release - "Coffee For Eight"
Coffee For Eight
Cannon Dill - Hilary Pecis - Hiroya Kurata
Jordan Kerwick - Kellen Chasuk
Maryam Yousif - Nick Makanna - Sarah Thibault
Opening Reception: Saturday June 9th, 12pm
1523 b Webster St. Oakland, CA 94612
info@part2gallery.com
Part 2 Gallery is proud to present Coffee For Eight, a group exhibition opening June 9th at 12pm in Downtown Oakland. Coffee For Eight will feature to works of local artists Cannon Dill, Kellen Chasuk, Maryam Yousif, Nick Makanna and Sarah Thibault, alongside Los Angeles’ Hilary Pecis Australia’s Jordan Kerwick, and New York-based Hiroya Kurata.
Coffee For Eight puts eight artists in conversation whose works explore both the complexity and simplicity in daily life. The primary intention is to create an atmosphere where the art can be engaged with openly and without pretension, which creates a casual dialogue between the group of both established and emerging artists. Speaking from eight separate backgrounds, each artist uses and expands upon the medium of painting to express new ideas, contextualize lived experiences, and build upon the medium’s enduring history. When entering the gallery, the audience enters this conversation, and can imagine the eight artists, painted work clothes and all, drinking a cup of coffee and chatting about their day, art, and life.
The gallery is located at 1523 b Webster St. and is just blocks away from both 12th & 19th st Bart Stations. Opening receptions at pt.2: are always free, kid friendly and open to the public. To receive a preview of the exhibition please contact info@part2gallery.com. Learn more about each of the artists exhibiting below.
Cannon Dill
Cannon Dill is an illustrator & painter located in Oakland, CA. Known for detailed red and black illustrations, Dill currently breaks down past detailed habits into loose painterly moments from life.
Jordan Kerwick
“Raw. Worn. Beaten, but loved. Life, stripped bare. Amid the chaos of family life lies a feeling of safety and comfort that I try to replicate in my work. Drawing on my collection of imagery of cultural markings and people, places and things, I like to explore beauty in its most organic and real state; stripping back the layers to reveal a subject in its most truthful state.”
Kellen Chasuk
Kellen Chasuk’s (b.1995) lives and works in Oakland, CA. Her studio practice is a reflection of daily life and its accumulated anxieties explored through a humorous lense. She continues to experiment with a variety of media while pursuing her BFA from San Francisco Art Institute with a focus in Painting. Her first solo exhibition Plastic Flowers opened January 2018 at Stephanie Chefas Projects in Portland, OR.
Hilary Pecis
Hilary Pecis is a painter based in Los Angeles, where she relocated after receiving her MFA from San Francisco’s California College of the Arts. Her work reflects her lifestyle in southern California, whether simple moments from home or a landscape in the desert. She has shown her work at Roberts Projects, Morgan Lehman Gallery, and Joshua Liner Gallery, and has also been featured on the pages of Art Forum, Dazed and Confused Magazine, and Juxtapoz Magazine.
Hiroya Kurata
Hiroya Kurata (b. 1980) is a New York-based painter whose work has been featured in exhibitions at Joshua Liner Gallery, Richard Heller Gallery, David B Smith Gallery, and many others. Born in Japan, Kurata moved to the United States and attended Parsons School of Design. His early paintings were primarily of baseball players, where he applied his unique gaze on the ephemera, equipment, and concepts of the sport, placing these in unexpected environments to recontextualize their meaning. Expanding from there, he continues to experiment with characters and figures interacting with their environment.
Maryam Yousif
Maryam Yousif is an Oakland, CA based artist working in ceramics, painting and installation. She received her BA in Visual Arts from the University of Windsor in Canada and her MFA from San Francisco Art Institute. Her work is inspired by American and Iraqi kitsch and pop aesthetics alongside ancient forms and structures particular to Mesopotamia. She has exhibited at R/SF Projects (San Francisco, CA), Brilliant Champions Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), CTRL SHFT collective (Oakland, CA) and Guerrero Gallery (San Francisco, CA). She is a member of CTRL+SHFT Collective.
Nick Makanna
Nick Makanna is a San Francisco based artist, creating looming ceramic sculptures which evoke a sense of dusty empires, decaying monuments and fragile landscapes. These precarious structures are Inspired as much by the Bay Area’s rich ceramic tradition and ever changing landscapes, as they are by an end of days anxiety that accompanies our impending political and environmental crises. He has exhibited most recently as part of Berkeley Art Museum’s Way Bay exhibition, and at Bay Area galleries including Guerrero Gallery, The Richmond Art Center and Alter Space. Makanna received a MFA from San Francisco Art Institute.
Sarah Thibault
Sarah Thibault is an artist living and working in San Francisco. Selected exhibitions include projects with Interface Gallery, City Limits, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, HILDE Gallery and ART in Embassies. Her paintings have been featured in The Huffington Post, San Francisco Magazine, SFAQ, The Examiner and 7x7. Thibault is the Director of The Painting Salon, a nomadic lecture series featuring monthly artist talks in the Bay Area. She is also a Charter Resident of the Minnesota Street Project studios. Thibault is working on a series of illustrated short stories to be published later this fall. She holds an MFA from the California College of the Arts, a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BA from the University of Wisconsin: Madison.