SUPERBLOOM Sarah Klein
November 19th – December 18th
In SUPERBLOOM, a window installation at The Great Highway gallery, Sarah Klein harnesses her skills as an animator and printmaker to create a vivid display of patterns and motion. The installation expands on the ancient method of storytelling using hand shadows. In two of the animations, silhouetted hands hold flowers and plant cuttings. As the hands sway and rotate around, patterns begin to emerge, producing kaleidoscopic effects and eventually morphing the screen images into large flowers. In the gallery space, silkscreened prints, originated from still frames in the animations, form paper borders that stretch and crisscross the walls. Klein transforms the gallery into a newly invented botanical landscape.
In recent years, her work has focused on themes of loss, separation, and remembrance. The botanical source imagery was taken from Klein’s garden and also the garden of a friend, who passed away several years ago, the latter during one of the recent Northern California fires. As smoke was sent down the coast, it produced a peculiar light that was both beautiful and haunting. With firestorms becoming a regular occurrence around the world, the habitats and living species in these vulnerable areas will forever be changed or possibly lost. Loss comes in many forms. With this work, Klein takes time to grieve and remember.
About the Artist
Sarah Klein is a San Francisco-based visual artist. Informed by a decade of working in stop-motion animation, she expands on the language of movement within print-based works. Klein earned her MFA from Mills College in Oakland. Her work has been presented at the Exploratorium, Mill Valley Film Festival, Southern Exposure, and Telematic in the San Francisco Bay Area; Anthology Film Archives, Exit Art, and Transmitter Gallery in New York; Aurora Picture Show in Houston; Visual Arts Center of New Jersey in Summit; Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Festival Tweetakt in Utrecht, and General Public in Berlin. She has been awarded residencies at AGA LAB, Djerassi Resident Artist Program, M.H. de Young Museum, Jentel Artist Residency, and the Ucross Foundation. She has received awards from Kala Art Institute, Headlands Center for the Arts, Trust For Mutual Understanding, and Zellerbach Family Foundation. Most recently she worked in partnership with the Jim Campbell Studio to create a site-specific animation for the top of the Salesforce Tower.
Learn more about the artist:
sarahklein.com
@the_sarah_klein
