NIAD Main Gallery Closing Reception // “Unbridled” organized by Piper Snow
Join us at the closing reception for Piper Snow’s new NIAD exhibition, Unbridled, and a toast to the New Year at 2pm. Read More …
Danny Thach
NIAD Main Gallery Reception // “Unbridled” organized by Piper Snow
Join us at the reception for Piper Snow’s new NIAD exhibition “Unbridled.” We’ll offer food, music, and holiday cheer as we celebrate the “Unbridled” artists. Read More …
NIAD Windows // “Heart & Soul of Richmond”
“Walking down a narrow path, you’re surprised as you reach a clearing.This sudden openness makes you stop short and catch your breath as you begin to absorb the change in landscape.Works in a clearing beckon, inviting you to enter.Each artist composes forms evolving from intuitive, rather than predetermined, thinking. In these works, the initial pattern elements break down and fall away, creating an opportunity for something unknown to arise. Overlapping and unpredictable shapes and colors create conversations, inviting viewers to come closer, soften their gaze, release expectations. Through a variety of materials, these artworks attain a color energy using vibrant hues and textures. Optical vibrations and textures rumble as deeper looking opens to a clearing.” Read More …
NIAD Main Gallery Exhibition // “a clearing”, organized by Mel Prest
“Walking down a narrow path, you’re surprised as you reach a clearing.This sudden openness makes you stop short and catch your breath as you begin to absorb the change in landscape.Works in a clearing beckon, inviting you to enter.Each artist composes forms evolving from intuitive, rather than predetermined, thinking. In these works, the initial pattern elements break down and fall away, creating an opportunity for something unknown to arise. Overlapping and unpredictable shapes and colors create conversations, inviting viewers to come closer, soften their gaze, release expectations. Through a variety of materials, these artworks attain a color energy using vibrant hues and textures. Optical vibrations and textures rumble as deeper looking opens to a clearing.” Read More …
NIAD Annex Gallery // “Danny Thach: Best Buddies”
Danny Thach: Best Buddies in the NIAD Annex Gallery About Danny Thach: Danny Thach is a versatile artist stylistically and materially. He practices primarily in printmaking, painting, ceramics and fiber art. Rather than having a specific chosen medium, Thach likes all materials equally. A meticulous draftsman, his process is precise and methodical. He shares that he works in pencil first and paint second when working on a canvas painting. Screen printing is a focal point for Thach’s attention to detail, a process he uses to create his handmade t-shirts. Thach has been a prolific artist since childhood and has used Read More …
April NIAD Opening Reception + Artist Talk // “a clearing”, organized by Mel Prest + “Danny Thach: Best Buddies” + “Heart & Soul of Richmond”
“Walking down a narrow path, you’re surprised as you reach a clearing.This sudden openness makes you stop short and catch your breath as you begin to absorb the change in landscape.Works in a clearing beckon, inviting you to enter.Each artist composes forms evolving from intuitive, rather than predetermined, thinking. In these works, the initial pattern elements break down and fall away, creating an opportunity for something unknown to arise. Overlapping and unpredictable shapes and colors create conversations, inviting viewers to come closer, soften their gaze, release expectations. Through a variety of materials, these artworks attain a color energy using vibrant hues and textures. Optical vibrations and textures rumble as deeper looking opens to a clearing.” Read More …
NIAD Online Exhibition // “DESIRE, DESIRE,” selected by Diego Leclery
About the exhibition Being brought up in a culture oriented towards consumption, self-gratification, and self-fulfillment, one learns not only what to desire but how to desire, where to situate one’s desire in relation to the self, all desire’s dimensions. The goal of this hegemonic cultural project is to eventually make one lose the sense of self beyond that desire, and be left with nothing but desire. “What I want” and “who I am” become one, and the cultural program, determining what these desires are, can control our sense of ourselves. There are many ways of dealing with this predicament, from Read More …
NIAD Online Exhibition // “Auctionauts”
Auctions are unpredictable animals: they can get noisy, tense, wildly out of control. Add a dash of pandemic and a helping of Zoom, and you never quite know what you’re going to get. Lucky for you, there is a small grouping of highly collectible artworks from last weekend’s event that refused to be tamed by the auction format. These newly untethered works are collected in Auctionauts, and we’re making them available in a “buy it now” arrangement. (Endless thanks to the donating artists!) Browse at your leisure (no bidding necessary), but don’t wait too long—when they’re gone, they’re gone. Artists Read More …
NIAD Windows Exhibition // “6×6 x 6×6” organized by NIAD’s Exhibitions Team
About the exhibition Around about January, while the new year is still fresh, little square canvases start slowly piling up around the 23rd Street Studio like gorgeous stalagmites. Just before the stacks reach a tipping point, NIAD’s Exhibitions Team swoops in to arrange them in a tidy grid in the NIAD Windows. Each square – be it painting, photo, fiber, ceramic, sculpture, drawing – measures 6 inches by 6 inches. There is room for 48 of them in the Windows, but there’s nearly a hundred more, waiting to be hand-picked and shipped off to their forever homes to ultimately rest on the Read More …
NIAD Windows Exhibition // “Menagerie on 23rd Street” selected by Prajakti Jayavant
About the exhibition The exhibition windows of NIAD on 23rd street are wildly overstuffed this holiday season. Amongst a backdrop of drawings that are doodled and dotted emerge a collection of creatures that are striped and spotted. This menagerie includes an assortment of tickles and roars from the furriest felines to amphibians galore. At daybreak, dapper penguins appear as mischievous musketeers, parading their way through showers of shapes. Marsupials, with pocketfuls of petunias, patiently postpone their leaping while snails slowly scribe a chalk hopscotch design. By midday, squirrels engage in patterns of play by using their tails as paintbrushes to carry Read More …
NIAD Holiday Gift Guide #5, collected by Dawline-Jane Oni-Eseleh
About the collection Gift-giving can be so tricky! It can be hard to know if someone has an item already, if it will be useful, or if it’s something that maybe you like instead of the recipient. When I choose a gift for someone, I try to focus on their interests or recent big events in their life – did they just move into a new home? Are they always dressed to the nines? Do they love sending videos about cute animals? I curated this shopping guide with those friends in mind, so whether you are buying a gift for your new Read More …
NIAD Holiday Gift Guide #4: “SISTER SISTER” collected by Amanda and Sarah Eicher
About “SISTER SISTER” Some people think we look alike; others think our voices sound the same, and still others mistake us for each other – but do we have the same taste? We definitely swapped clothes, jewelry, sneakers, and a few items we argued over as tiny pups in the world.In this selection, I tried to choose for my sister a few of the things I think she might have borrowed from my childhood bedroom – or that I’d want to borrow from hers. (Unsurprisingly, we chose a few of the same items the first time around!) As the younger sibling, I Read More …
NIAD Windows Exhibition: “Con Los Animales Estamos Conectados,” selected by Christo Oropeza
About the exhibition: I recently became a dog father of a small two-month-old puppy. Over the months after his arrival, I have learned so much about myself through him: patience, being present in the moment, not holding people in time and space, and unconditional love. I had no idea that this was the relationship that would be built between him and I, and it has rocked-my-socks off because of how much of a connection has and continues to develop. Having worked with NIAD artists at SFMOMA’s Mini Mural Festival in the Summer of 2021, I was excited to do an Read More …
Online Exhibition: Ravel, organized by Danny Volk
About the exhibition Ravel is an exhibition of two and three dimensional work that attracts with loose references leaving the mind to give up meaning in the pursuit of possibility. Recommended listening to accompany the viewing of the exhibition: Maurice Ravel’s Boléro. About the organizer Danny Volk received a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art from the University of Chicago (Chicago, IL) and a Bachelor of Arts in Theater Studies from Kent State University (Kent, OH). His recent exhibitions, screenings and performances include Mrs. Lincoln, What Did You Think of the Play at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (Milwaukee, WI), The News Gallery at SPACES (Cleveland, OH), The Read More …
Online Exhibition: Every Sing, selected by Jesse Malmed
About the exhibition Every SingSome SingAny SingThis Sing Or what we might call singinging, both to and away from alongongs. This online exhibition brings together a series of works from some of the artists at NIAD that harmonize with singing things, through fan culture, instrument studies, exploded gig posters from a pole on the studio table, scores and how songs move. About the selector Jesse Malmed is an artist and curator working in video, performance, text, occasional objects and their gaps and laps over and under.
Online Exhibition: Serotonin Ping, selected by Zoë Taleporos
About the exhibition Serotonin Ping is a collection of images that aspire to elicit feelings of well-being, stability, and happiness. Pets, food, inside jokes, oddities, simple statements – these are the things that cheer me up. Hopefully this show makes someone else crack a smile. About the selector Zoë Taleporos is a curator, arts administrator, and writer based in Oakland. She currently works as a Public Art Project Manager at the San Francisco Arts Commission where she is involved in commissioning a wide range of artworks for public spaces.
Online Exhibition: Perfect Memory, selected by Justin Clifford Rhody
About the exhibition “Our relationship with reality and life is that same relationship that exists between the satellite image and the actual earth.” – Luigi Ghirri “Our engagement with the picture, our questioning of it, shapes and defines the ways we draw meanings from it. Pictures tell stories only to the extent that we ask them to; and as our questions change, those stories do as well.” – Martha A. Sandweiss About the selector Justin Clifford Rhody is an artist working in photography, filmmaking and sound. He currently lives in New Mexico with his partner and frequent collaborator Abigail Read More …
Online Exhibition: Group Chat, selected by Kate Rhoades & Katy Kondo
About the exhibition Since we’re curating this show as a duo, we were drawn to work that deals with collaboration and togetherness. In the last year as we’ve been isolated from our larger communities, we have also been deeply entangled with the few people in our bubble. In this exhibition we present works that were produced through collaboration with those long gone, like Karen May’s Untitled which responds to Man Ray’s Larmes (Tears). We also included works considering groups, like the stoic duck couple in Danny Thach’s Untitled. With our social spheres out of whack, these artists have given us new ways to think about being Read More …
Online Exhibition: Forest Of Fantasy, selected by Bessie Kunath
About the exhibition This collection of objects and images meanders through the enchanted woods on a gothic quest steered by good and evil forces. The trees seem to come to life and the ground beneath is wrought with ancient Druidic wisdom. Go forth and may your travels be prosperous, meaningful and enlightening. About the selector Bessie Kunath (b. 1981, Orange, CA) is an artist and curator who lives in Cleveland, Ohio where she currently works as a nurse at the Cleveland Clinic. She has formerly worked at Creativity Explored in San Francisco and at ECF Art Centers in Los Angeles, CA. Read More …
Online Exhibition: Words And Feeling, selected by Nicole Shaffer
About the exhibition When going through the NIAD archives, I was struck by a number of works that pair text with image in ways that shift language and illustration from a familiar, functional use to something more expansive. I access a similar experience of forming unexpected and generative correlations when I observe my sensations through movement. For this online series, I selected works that opened up my thinking about language and sensory experience. About the selector Nicole is a current MFA candidate at San Francisco State University and has exhibited in Bay Area spaces such as Southern Exposure, Wolfman Books, Read More …