Media Contact: Danielle Grant | A&O PR
Mirus Gallery Presents:
Allison Renshaw
Better than Candy
Better than Candy, Acrylic, ink, collage, oil, spray paint on panel, 22.5 x 30 in. 2012.
Opening Reception: March 9, 2013 | 6pm -10pm
Exhibition Dates: March 9 - April 6, 2013
Mirus Gallery | 540 Howard Street | San Francisco, CA
SAN FRANCISCO, February 20, 2013 – Mirus Gallery is pleased to announce its fourth exhibition and first solo show, Better than Candy by Southern California-based artist, Allison Renshaw. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition in Northern California and will highlight her body of work from 2009 to the present with approximately 20 mixed media works and drawings. The opening reception for Better than Candy will be held on March 9 from 6pm – 10pm. The exhibition will be on view through April 6, 2013.
I am interested in how fragments acknowledge ambiguities and open the work to a variety of interpretations.
-Allison Renshaw
In Better than Candy, Allison Renshaw presents a selected body of work marked by themes of convergence, both in material and style. Renshaw’s artworks are a dizzying confluence of mediums and imagery so various they provoke the viewer into a prolonged exchange as the eye roams the canvas piece-by-piece, element-by-element. While the multiplicity of shape, color and pattern is undeniable, there is also an internal rhythm to these works that evoke the controlled chaos of jazz and experimental music. Not surprisingly, critics have compared Renshaw’s work to Wassily Kandinsky’s “abstract music paintings” while also noting the influence of Pop art and Surrealism.
The integration of multiple styles and perspectives is acknowledged by the artist as a kind of metaphor for the intricacies of a globalized, modern life.
Currently, I am attracted to how different “histories” of painting can co-exist in a single image: hard-edge, Abstract Expressionism, figurative and street art. . .I am really interested in how different cultures collide and how this reflects our current environment. My work is formed of particles of the urban landscape and our everyday culture.
Drawn to seemingly disparate primary sources of imagery from fashion and surfer magazines to maps and found posters, Renshaw imbues the complex topography of her canvases with recognizable, everyday objects. Just when the viewer thinks he is taking in a work of utter abstraction, a watch or tube of lipstick materializes. The juxtaposition of the familiar and the fantastical are hallmarks of Renshaw’s work. It is in the collision of these binaries that the internal systems of her work reveals itself and the delicious balance of saturated color, intricate patterns, unique shapes, meticulous line and depth of surface deliver the viewer with a satisfyingly visceral experience. It is quite possibly, better than candy.
Allison Renshaw (b. Orange County) lives and works in Encinitas, California. The artist received a BA degree in economics from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. She earned her MFA degree from Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. Recent exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Oceanside Museum of Art and Sierra Nevada College where she was a visiting artist and speaker. Renshaw is an associate faculty member at MiraCosta College in Cardiff, California.
Mirus Gallery is a dynamic exhibition space established by entrepreneur, Paul Hemming. The gallery features a program of contemporary artwork by emerging and mid-career artists in both solo and thematically organized group shows. Mirus Gallery will highlight work that emphasizes skill and process and aims to engage viewers on a sentient, emotional and evocative level.
In 2013, the initiation of an artist-in-residency program will pursue the gallery’s values of community and collaboration by providing a live-in/on-site studio space for artists to make and exhibit work in a supportive environment, conducive to creativity.
Gallery Hours
Tuesday – Saturday 10-6
Location
540 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA
94105
Gallery Contact
monica@mirusgallery.com
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