far out gallery

Anne Marguerite Herbst at Far Out Gallery, San Francisco

Far Out Gallery in the Sunset district of San Francisco is currently hosting a solo exhibition of works by Anne Herbst, and we were on hand to see it and cover it on CatSynth TV.

Of course, the cat-imagery particularly caught my eye, but there are many layers beyond that. Even in the cats, one can see some of the other elements that permeate Herbst’s art, including undulating lines and traces of her body that are used both as textures and bounding elements.

There are also the frequent connections to her personal history in the inclusion of faces and hints of other people. The connection to blood comes up both in the use of color, imagery, and the context of a couple of the paintings. It features in a self portrait as well as a piece for her father’s 90th birthday, both of which are featured in the video.

Anne Herbst

Herbst took the personal history to a new level for this exhibition by re-imagining childhood drawings with her current artistic style and practice.

We see the lines, shapes, and character of her current work brought to the original cat figure from the drawing. One can also notice the blood-like elements and color in this piece.

Creatures of all sorts abound throughout. In addition to the cats, the turtle seems to be a recurring animal, and was featured prominently in the work we most associated with the exhibition title “Ripples.”

Far Out Gallery has been a great discovery for us, a place connecting us more deeply to that sometimes remote western edge of San Francisco. We are happy to have been there for both Anne Herbst’s show and Kasper Rodenborn’s earlier this season. We hope to see more in the future.

Kasper Rodenborn, Art for the Naked Eye. Far Out Gallery, San Francisco

Today we look back at last weekend’s opening of Art for the Naked Eye at Far Out Gallery in San Francisco. The show covers twenty years of work by local artist Kasper Rodenborn.

You can see and hear a bit about Rodenborn’s art in his own words in our most recent CatSynth TV episode.

Rodenborn’s work falls into several periods and categories. First, there are the more traditional paintings, with surrealist quality that particularly reminds us of Yves Tanguy.

Kasper Rodenborn. Installation View
[Installation view]

Many of the works feature wildstyle, an homage to Rodenborn’s early days as an underground graffiti artist. But he combines this with other elements, including some that project out of the canvas in the sculptural realm, as in the Rauchenberg-esque elements in Aside from Concrete Existence displayed below.

Aside from Concrete Existence
[Kasper Rodenborn, Aside from Concrete Existence. This piece will be hanging in CatSynth HQ after the show!]

Over time, we observe his work to move in the direction of collage and ultimately assemblages, as in these intricate pieces.

Kasper Rodenborn Collage and Assemblage

The most recent works are a return to flat surfaces. But these flat pieces have depth and motion, as they respond to changing light colors. They were displayed illuminated by rotating-color LED bulbs.

Light-moving painting

It was a strong exhibition, we are glad to have attended. And Far Out Gallery was an excellent discovery in the Sunset District of San Francisco – we expect to be back for future shows.