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This resurrective retrospective presents the New Orleans-born painter, who died in 2001, as a documentarian who strove to capture the under recognized vibrancy of his lived environments, capturing iconic tropes while amplifying the often strange, bizarre, or overlooked.

Series like the palms and the construction works not only exhibit his years and dedication for Santa Monica, his chosen home of two decades, but a connection to the Mission of San Francisco, where X was trained as an artist early in his career at San Francisco Art Institute. The perspectival palm plunges characteristic of Santa Monica can be found east of Mission Street on South Van Ness looking to Bernal, or on streets that drop down away from Buena Vista Park (“The Long Walk”) . Palm trees are a token symbol of a curated environment, being ubiquitous, especially in California, yet native only to the tropics. Construction is the second largest theme in X’s work. He spent years documenting the arc of first destruction, often by Swinerton Construction, then continued, with focused fascination, to observe and paint the reconstruction of the new edifices—“Moonlight at the El Tovar”, “Entrance to the Old Getty,” and “The Sea Castle,” to name a few on view. This theme of destruction and reconstruction aptly reflects Tom X’s own arc of life, having deconstructed his given identity, Tom Johnson, and rebuilding himself as Tom X away from his nascent home and its preserved history. Throughout the nineteen-eighties and nineties, X lived in Nevada City, painting with a group of radicals, in Santa Monica, where he built a collaborative studio with friends and there began the most prolific painting years. 

Tom X left behind over three hundred works on canvas and around eight hundred original prints. Living and painting across the U.S., from New York, New Orleans to Nevada City, the Bay Area, and Southern California, he painted and used his works to develop relationships with friends who became his dedicated patrons and collaborators, leaving behind a colorful footprint across the country.

Share a drink with friends and colleagues and meet the artists at the Sherwood Gallery featuring Rejoined and Cloud; works by Kathleen Posada-Weber and Lauren Mendez.
 
Please RSVP at info@sherwoodengineers.com as space is limited.
 
Rejoined reflects on the significance of flaws and imperfection, and the artful opportunities these moments can present. As fissures, cracks, and flaws manifest in Kathleen’s work, she embraces them by highlighting their existence using precious materials and color to grace these moments with a reframed perspective.
 
Cloud focuses on the atmospheric quality in the air and sky, resulting in a minimal ‘scape where the mood or emotion is conveyed through a loose painting application. The dramatic subject matter of sky, clouds and weather contain a rich quality of feeling and memory.

Live Performance by Tea Roots at 3:30pm
Parade to start at 5:15pm

Featuring a collection of works curated by Tea Roots.
Please RSVP at info@sherwoodengineers.com as space is limited

Tea Roots presents a collective exhibition featuring the work of emerging artists related to the theme Little Boxes, a commentary on homogeneity, deculturalization and gentrification in America. Today, homogeneity moves in reverse direction, from the sprawling suburban developments of post-World War II America back into the urban core, pushing diversity outwards. Everyday we see how technology bridges us, and just as much how it segregates, the latter very apparent in the effects of the Tech Boom and Silicon Valley on the surrounding Bay Area. As urban wealth continues to swell, increasingly so does its uniformity. It imposes itself upon persons who were never privileged enough to have the suburban dream before and who are not privileged enough to keep their urban homes now. 

The concept of Little Boxes is at once a symbol of problematic social and political realities and a symbol of the tumultuous inner relationship between the individual self and the culture of conformity by which it is shaped and compromised. Little Boxes is about understanding the nature and locality of the status quo, its effects, those who fit within it and those who do not, either by choice or by political circumstance. Beyond the external realm, this investigation illuminates the timeless human struggle between conformity, limitation, creativity, self-­definition, discovery and authenticity.

Tea Roots teams up with Sherwood Gallery to commemorate the San Francisco Chinese New Year Celebration, which originated in the 1860's and is now the largest Asian event in North America. The mixture of cultures that followed the wave of tens of thousands of Asian, Latin American, Australian and Europeans immigrants during California’s Gold Rush is just one part of history that has shaped and diversified this geographic area. To continue to honor Chinese culture in this annual tradition is one way San Francisco is valuing its unique roots and identity in the midst of changes that continue to threaten its diversity. The Little Boxes Exhibition Closing Night will coincide with Sherwood Gallery’s annual Chinese New Year Parade Event on February 20.

Featuring a selection of works by Robert Minervini & Kevin Yeh celebrating the Chinese New Year.

On view by appointment only: March 8th through May 7th, 2015
Private Opening Reception by invitation only

Sherwood Gallery brings together the works of Robert Minervini, an accomplished Bay Area fine artist, along with Kevin Yeh, a second generation Chinese­-American emerging artist, in a three month gallery exhibition celebration of the Chinese New Year.

The Chinese New Year, also referred to as the Lunar New Year, is based on the movements of the moon. Minervini’s small moon paintings beautifully illustrate humanity’s collective attraction to our closest piece of the heavens. This constant presence in our sky inspires deep wonder about our world. Our connection to the moon symbolizes the duality of our need for emotional resonance as well as intellectual curiosity. Minervini uses his training as a muralist to realize his visions of our interconnected world in multi­layered acrylic works. Through dystopian cityscapes, landscapes, and still life arrangements, Minervini explores the evolving relationship between humanity and land stewardship.

Yeh works within a style of Chinese brush painting with its own variations on technique passed down from his grandfather to Kevin’s father. Yeh’s seemingly effortless graphic style brings notions of boundless energy and celebration. These swiftly painted works result in an amalgamation of stylistic freedom through strict technique.