Donald & Era Farnsworth at Peters Projects opens Sept. 8

Donald & Era Farnsworth - Deer Deity, 2017
cotton Jacquard tapestry, 88 1/2 x 49 inches
Please join us at Peters Projects in Santa Fe, NM for the opening of "I Forget I'm Human," an exhibition of new work by Donald and Era Farnsworth on view from September 8 through November 4, 2017. An opening reception with the artists will be held Friday, September 8th from 5-7 pm.

Donald & Era Farnsworth - Extinction, 2017
mixed media on linen canvas, 63 x 40 inches
In "I Forget I’m Human," the Farnsworths address the relationship between humanity and the environment, investigating how myth and science have shaped human values from ancient times to the present day. Nearly all of the compositions in "I Forget I’m Human" include multiple layers of both hand-painted and digitally generated elements, creating a palimpsest-like effect that echoes the layers, patinas, and weathered wabi-sabi of works that have survived from ancient times while also incorporating contemporary digital processes. A selection of the works included in the show can be viewed online at Peters Projects' website.

Donald & Era Farnsworth - Bulwark, 2017
mixed media on linen canvas, 70 x 46 inches
The exhibition includes tapestries which use a medium older than oil on canvas – weaving, albeit updated by 19th-century Jacquard and 21st-century digital color matching technologies. Meanwhile, the Farnsworths' Art Notes series ‘recycles’ and re-imagines one dollar bill notes, re-envisioning the “Almighty Dollar” as a site wherein to celebrate heroes of creativity and conservation and to light-heartedly castigate polluters and oligarchs. A series of works depicting therianthropic (animal-human hybrid) deities harkens back to those appearing in the earliest surviving human artworks while also incorporating elements from Buddhist, Hindu, Judeo-Christian, Islamic and Jungian iconographies.

Donald & Era Farnsworth - Aulos Echo, 2017
mixed media, 42 x 31 inches
From ancient gods with the heads of animals to living, breathing endangered species; from the capitalistic fever for accumulated wealth to precious natural resources like clean air and water, what we value is evident in the symbolic and visual output of our species: our myths and sacred images. In "I Forget I’m Human," the Farnsworths trace this output, offering a glimpse of the hubris of humanity matched with an optimistic appeal for spiritual and ecological balance.

Donald & Era Farnsworth - In the Moonlight (I Forget I'm Human), 2017
cotton Jacquard tapestry with acrylic paint, 96 1/2 x 64 1/2 inches
For inquiries, please contact Eileen Braziel, Director of Peters Projects at eileen@petersprojects.com or (505)954-5801.

Kiki Smith at Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, Rome through Nov. 26

Installation view of tapestries Fortune (2014) and Guide (2013), published by Magnolia Editions, with other works by Kiki Smith;
courtesy Galleria Lorcan O'Neill
A special exhibition by Kiki Smith and Betty Woodman is on view at Galleria Lorcan O’Neill in Rome through November 26, 2016.

Betty Woodman and Kiki Smith; courtesy Galleria Lorcan O'Neill
Friends for decades and showing together for the first time, Smith and Woodman's double solo show includes tapestry, sculpture, ceramics, painting, and drawing.

Installation view of work by Kiki Smith; courtesy Galleria Lorcan O'Neill
Galleria Lorcan O’Neill is located at Vicolo Dei Catinari, 3, 00186 Roma, Italy; for more information please visit the Galleria Lorcan O'Neill website.

More art by Kiki Smith from Magnolia Editions

SCGI Awards Exhibition at Worth Ryder Gallery

Donald and Era Farnsworth with their collaborative 2004 tapestry Dharmakaya in Tokyo in 2008.
Dharmakaya is included in the Awards Exhibition at Worth Ryder Gallery, opening this Wednesday, March 19th.
The Southern Graphics Council International conference is right around the corner! The SCGI is hosting its 42nd annual conference, Bridges: Spanning Tradition, Innovation, and Activism, in the San Francisco Bay Area this year; it will be the first West Coast conference in the organization’s history.

The SGCI will present a variety of awards to distinguished print artists and UC Berkeley Continuing Lecturer Randy Hussong has organized an exhibition at the university's Worth Ryder Art Gallery for the recipients of these awards, including the Innovation award winner, Magnolia director Donald Farnsworth.

The Grand Opening Reception for this exhibition is this Wednesday, March 19th from 4 to 7 pm.

Rather than exhibiting only his own work, Farnsworth has chosen to highlight a variety of projects published by Magnolia Editions in the last thirty years. The show will include works representing a host of proprietary and unorthodox processes by a veritable who's-who of Bay Area artists including Joan Brown, Enrique Chagoya, Hung Liu, Ray Saunders, Squeak Carnwath, Bruce Conner, and Rupert Garcia, plus a collaborative print by William Wiley, Robert Hudson, and Richard Shaw; recent tapestries by Chuck Close and Kiki Smith round out the exhibition.

Kiki Smith - Cathedral, 2013
Jacquard tapestry - 113 x 75 in. Edition of 10
The gallery will also host a special Memorial Retrospective Exhibition for UC Berkeley Department of Art Practice Professor Emeritus George Miyasaki (1935 – 2013).

Additionally, work will be exhibited by award winners Juan Fuentes and Sylvia Solochek Walters, and by Professor Emeritus Richard Shaw, whose award is in the appropriately titled Breaking The Mold category. There will also be installations by Ehren Tool -- a ceramicist who Magnolia blog readers may recall from the Combat Paper Project -- as well as the UC Berkeley Advanced Printmaking Class.

If you can't make the Grand Opening Reception on Wednesday, March 19th, there will be a special Conference Tour event on Friday, March 28th from 10 to 5 pm.

For more information on the show and associated events, please visit the Exhibition's home page.