New Works by: Valentin Popov, Wosene Worke Kosrof, Samuel Takembaiyee and other artists
Event co-sponsored by Terra Firma Gallery.
We would like to welcome you to a VIP Cocktail event celebrating Art Week in San Francisco.
We are very happy to present an incredible collection of art and a new happening gallery in San Francisco: Arttitud.
Valentin Popov
"Applying his self-styled philosophy of "romantic cynicism", Valentin Popov fuses opposites of sign, symbol and mood. Bringing to bear the sensibility of a Russian mystic, a medieval allegorist and a post-modern aesthete, he is apt to treat Batman as the centerpiece of a religious altar, replete with hagiographic episodes from the life of the saint; contrive sweeping, large-scale emblems such as Life, with its pair of goggle-eyed Victorian toddlers gazing wonderingly upon a dripping hourglass; or to mix collage with assemblage in Leonardo-like notebooks of wax, metal, leather strips, handmade paper, inscriptions, images of fish, birds, 19th century dignitaries and Rembrandt imitations. With his unique blend of technical mastery and ideological innovation, Popov is a distinctly satisfying artist whose work is hauntingly evocative."
"Popov, himself a product of traditional art education in the former Soviet Union, spent long years mastering conventions in the Academy of Art in the Ukraine. Equally expert at painting, etching, collage, photography, sculpture, and installation, Popov often mixes media within genres, and is as comfortable emulating Russian religious icons as he is contriving kitschy decorative imagery suitable for Liberace's dining room. Borrowing liberally from the greatest imagery in the classical canon, Popov practices a method of appropriation, adaptation, and transformation where he puts familiar images to unfamiliar uses or indulges in extremely novel exercises in technique. As a master engraver, he has done exquisite linocuts and monotypes based on classical literature and, as an extension of this skill, paints on aluminum using his brush as a stylus!" - Rick Gilbert
Wosene Worke Kosrof
"Kosrof embroiders into his style qualities of the best traditional African art: solemnity, otherworldliness and transcendency." - Allan Gordon, Artweek, June 1995 (cover feature)
Wosene Kosrof has been exhibiting since 1970 in fine galleries and museums in Africa, Great Britain, Europe, the Caribbean, Japan and the United States, including the Orlando Museum of Art, Sacramento's Crocker Museum, and the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa. His works are included in the Rockefeller Collection, the United Nations, as well as many international private collections.
In 1995 two of Wosene's paintings were selected for the seminal exhibit "Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa" which began at White Chapel Gallery in London and ended at the Malmo Konsthall in Sweden. In 1996 Wosene was the first African artist to receive a prestigious Rockefeller Fellowship, spending a month as Artist-in-Residence at the Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio, Italy. In December 1996 he was honored in his homeland, Ethiopia, with a major exhibition of new works.
Samuel Takembaiyee
The abstract paintings of Samuel TakemBaiyee are a journey of his deep psychological and philosophical concepts tied to the human experience, all of which are inspired jointly by his rich African heritage as well as Buddhist teachings. TakemBaiyee has always sought deeper thinking through the works of Henri Bergson, Heidegger, J.T. Suzuki, Cheik Anta Diop, Carl Gustav Jung, Plato and Immanuel Kant. In addition, he has always held respect for all types of eclectic cultural experiences, and finds the United States to be an ideal setting for this type of personal evolution.
Through process psychology and process philosophy, he is able to seamlessly weave the spiritual and the physical, simultaneously creating new symbols and motifs that are enlivened by beautiful colors and translated into a new language. Locally fostered, his take on global emotions are captured through TakemBaiyee's intuitive creations, as he continues to develop a style of painting and expression that takes him to explore the unknown, and ultimately find solace and understanding. It is his hope the viewer finds these works enriching and stimulating, that conversation is sparked, and that a greater spiritual connection to the whole can be derived.