Disarticulated Production


Alicia Escott

July 17th  – August 29th
RECEPTION – Saturday, July 24th 5 – 8PM 

The Great Highway Gallery is thrilled to present Disarticulated Production,  installation and mixed media works by artist Alicia Escott.

Disarticulated Production
A sculpture of individual handmade drawings of Live Oak Acorns rendered on scraps of plastic gathered from construction sites throughout the city (and recology.) The plastic used on this is often used to cover sites of construction. Its clean, glossy, shrink wrapped aesthetic glossing over construction belies a material that off gasses terribly, creating an additional hazard for workers. Escott acquired a great amount of this material at recology, later during the pandemic and a subsequent injury that limited her mobility began cutting scraps of it down to make individual drawings of acorns, disarticulated from the larger piece as a way to continue making amid the interruptions of the pandemic, the work was in dialogue with daily walks though live oak tree habitat in a nearby park which she is helping to restore. Each drawing is a meditation on the possibility inherent in a single seed or acorn: the possibility of an entire oak tree, and all the entangled lives it supports. Thinking about the clearing of time and dismantling of systems during the pandemic in relationship to the clearing of space that fire or fallen trees create, opening up sun for new growth to emerge. Both byproducts of crisis. Each acorn was a meditation on slowness, intention, transformation and inherent possibility that only needs the right circumstances to manifest.

In the reverse of the possibility of a single tiny acorn or seed the messy accumulation and production in this work references the plethora of acorns produced by any given tree and the generosity of nourishment it returns to the multispecies community it is entangled within. Should only one acorn mature in all its years— it is success, a continuation of all of these efforts— if we should try to measure success in that way, genetically— and not in the squirrels, fungi or other entangled lives it nourishes.

As the fire season accelerates the meditation on these fire evolved trees, turns from possibly to desperation. The plastic used to cover construction sites for homes, melted to form a new join of things torn apart, the unsettled convergence of human homes and non-human homes amid land coevolved with fire.  Referencing human participation in both historic Native collaboration with fire to shape the landscape and the subsequent suppression of fire by settlers over the last century, coupled with the production of fixed inhabitation. The fluid rigidity of the melted plastic references the artists unease and sense of collective precarity. By being each unique hand made drawings drawn from only 20 or acorns, this work also meditates on reproduction and mutation. The drawings of acorns remain what they are: images of the nut, entirely disassociated with the functions and realities of what each portrays. As with all of my work, this plays with the exploration of humans as image makers using the production and reproduction of images of “natural” or other-human life as a self-soothing device to cope with living amid omnicide.

About the Artist
Alicia Escott is an interdisciplinary artist based in The Outer Sunset district of San Francisco. She/they practice in solidarity with thinkers across fields undoing the construct of “nature” as a thing separated from us and our world. Escott work is informed by how we each are negotiating our immediate day-today realities and responsibilities amid an awareness of the overarching specter of climate change, massextinctio and the subsequent unspoken individual and collective experience of loss, heartbreak and\longing — as well as the related social and political unrest this rapid change, unprocessed grief and latent anxiety produces. She/they approach these issues with an interstitial practice that encompasses writing, drawing, painting, photography, video, sculpture, social-practice, and activism. Escott’s work has been shown in over 90 art institutions, galleries, and alternative spaces — including exhibitions at the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Berkeley Arts Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The San Francisco Maritime Museum, The Berkley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and The Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbra. She/they have been an Artist in Residence at Recology, The Growlery, Djerassi Artist Residency, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Irving Street Projects and The JB Blunk Artist Residency. Escott is a founding member of the collective 100 Days Action and half of the Social Practice Project The Bureau of Linguistical Reality. Her work has been featured in the Economist, The New Yorker, KQED, MOMUS, The San Francisco Chronicle, and many others. Her She holds an MFA from California College of the Arts, where she received the Richard K. Price Scholarship and a BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago.
 
The Great Highway Gallery
3649 Lawton St.
San Francisco, CA 94122
phone: (415) 680-3891
email: info@thegreathighway.com

Dark Beach curated by Innocnts

Saturday May 29th 5:00pm

Dark Beach exhibition statement:
Inspired by more dramatic elements within surf culture, Dark Beach is an exploration of themes, individuals, and emotions that exude grittier qualities of aesthetic within the scope of contemporary surf art. Looking beyond the waves for more than just visceral beauty or physical release, we find the genuine perspectives of individuals, whose artistic sensibilities have been shaped by their experiences in the water and along the coast. As surfers, we have witnessed both the beauty and the reality of riding waves in modern society and the stark differences between the two present an area rich with creative potential. Curated by Los Angeles based surf entity Innocnts, Dark Beach offers viewpoints of a culture whose authenticity is most accurately reflected by those endeavoring to survive within it and gives equal weight to an alternative perspective within the realm of surf-related art exhibitions, where the surfing lifestyle is often presented as existing outside the realities of everyday life.

About INNOCNTS:
INNOCNTS is a lifestyle-based project that manifests itself through various means including art curation, happenings, clothing, brand collaborations, and surf/skate related media. We are a mixed grouping of lesser knowns from various international environs attempting to carve out a genuine path of our own. Based in Los Angeles, INNOCNTS started as an brick-and-mortar art gallery in the Los Angeles and has gradually grown into a larger movement of friends and like minded individuals. INNOCNTS has strong connections to the art, surf, and skate communities and continues to present authentic projects and persons doing things their own way.
visit Innocnts website

Demi Boelsterli
Keegan Gibbs
DJ Javier
Matt Wessen
Susanne Melanie Berry
C.R. Stecyk III
Ben Brough
Russek Crotty
Evan Mendel
Josh Klassman
Mike Truck
Pandora Decoster

Sean Tully
Jonah Reimes
Charles Smith
Jai Lee
Stephen Milner
Chase Wolcott
Thom Gatt
Sean Bernhardt
Clay Wagner
Mia Larson
Sam Crookshanks
Scott Massey

Rite of Spring

Kirk Maxon

April 8th – May 23rd

The Great Highway Gallery is excited to present Rite of Spring a window installation by San Francisco artist Kirk Maxon.

Kirk Maxon’s work reflects his appreciation for the magic inherent in nature. This understanding was fostered by family walks and mushroom foraging with his mother growing up in Oregon. Kirk continues to forage for his botanical muses that he then turns into perfectly detailed metal sculptures. Living in San Francisco his recent work is influenced by urban plants that often go unnoticed or unappreciated. They represent a City of survivors.

Kirk manipulates metal in the same way you might see done with paper. His specimens are photographed, photocopied then cut into patterns that he uses to meticulously cut his metal herbarium installations.

Exhibition Statement
In 1913 Igor Stravinsky wrote Rite of Spring when it was premiered in Paris, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography and possibly the anti Russian sentiment caused a sensation. Many have called the first-night reaction a “riot”. In the 1980’s a Heavy Metal band named Rite of Spring was a mainstay of the D.C. Punk Scene. They where considered the first emo band but they rejected any association with emo genres. In 2011 A horror movie named Rite of Spring was released to a plethora of bad reviews with a plot revolving around kidnappings and monsters. In 2021 a group protesting the loss of Donald Trump rioted inside the capital building. 

A paganistic installation of brass prickly wildflower bushes will fill the window, referencing the protest and real horrors of these recent times. 

About the Artist
Kirk Maxson moved to San Francisco in 1992, and lived in the Mission and participated in the San Francisco Mission School art scene. He exhibited artwork in the seminal exhibition spaces of Adobe books, Scene/Asena, and ESP during the height of the Mission School. Subsequently he has created multiple permanent site-specific installation for corporate collections including ClimateWorks Foundation, San Francisco, CA, Kilroy Realty Corporation, Bellevue, WA, UBM, San Francisco, CA, Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, CA, Morgan Stanley Corporate Collection, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Collection, Avant Corporate Collection, Menlo Park, CA and Fresh Connection Corporation, Lafayette, CA.

He has also created numerous installations for private residences. He has previously worked with Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco, Eli Ridgeway Gallery and the Gensler Architecture firm in San Francisco. 

Kirk is also a part of the Ocean Beach community. His expansive sand drip castles are an impermanent gift to those who stumble upon them or lucky enough to see him at work. 

About

The Great Highway is a fine art gallery and working studio featuring contemporary works in all mediums. The gallery has a deep appreciation for images and ideas that explore where lands meet water.

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Location and Hours

The Great Highway
3649 Lawton St.
San Francisco, CA 94122

phone: (415) 680-3891
email: info@thegreathighway.com

Hours:
By appointment 7 days a week

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