after Albers

Alex Paik @alexpaik

Alex Paik is an artist, writer, and community builder based in Los Angeles. He serves on the Steering Committee at GYOPO, a collective of diasporic Korean cultural producers and arts professionals. He is Founder and former Network Director of Tiger Strikes Asteroid, a non-profit network of artist-run spaces, and currently serves as an Advisory Steering Committee Member.

Statement: My site-responsive installations use repeated geometric units made from folded, hand-colored strips of paper to create temporary formations. Influenced by various lifelong interests — from my early days as a computer science major, to my love of the repeated patterns in Philip Glass’s piano music or the structure of Bach, to my work founding and building a multi-nodal artist-run organization — these installations reflect my interest in how structures can be built up through small, relational interactions. Through their emphasis on negative space, which visually takes up the majority of these installations, they make the invisible monumental and perceptually felt through the use of reflected color. My work is labor intensive and intentionally handmade. Drawing from my experience as the primary parent and as an Asian American man, my work can be seen as a reflection on the (in)visibility and legibility of labor. My martial arts teacher emphasizes adaptability and how one’s personal martial arts system must constantly be re-evaluated and re-imagined. Using a similar ethos, my wall installations are endlessly reconfigurable, never a static, permanent structure but rather a dynamic, constantly shifting series of relationships. These installations are adaptable and unstable, insisting that there is always potential to imagine and build new structures, identities, and relationships.

Barry Beach @barrybeachartwork

Barry’s journey making sculpture began with working in wood and has included myriad media. His interests in environmental concerns and topography merged during his MFA, and his work since has reflected both. His work has been exhibited in New York at Atlantic Gallery, Viridian Gallery, Site Brooklyn, Warner Contemporary Gallery, and Artpoetica. He regularly exhibits at galleries across California, including the TAG Gallery in Los Angeles, Root Division in San Francisco, Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, the Museum of Sonoma County, the Crocker-Kingsley Art Competition in Roseville, the Petaluma Art Center, and the Sausalito Center for the Arts. He has an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute and a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. He lives and works in San Rafael, California.

Statement: My work is an exploration of liberation—the slow, deliberate process of carving out autonomy from a history of repression. Growing up in a fundamentalist environment in East Tennessee, my early life was defined by silence and the weight of unmet expectations. I first found sanctuary in the mountain landscapes of North Carolina. The evolution of my sculptural practice began as a visceral response to the "immobilization" I felt during early parenthood. Initially, I used bound coils of rope and twine to manifest the overwhelming weight of responsibility. These ordered, repetitive forms were a literal binding of my life and my art. My process has shifted from containment to release since 2014. Through stacking, gluing, laminating, and carving, I engage in a physical dialogue with my materials, allowing myself the prerogative to subtract and rearrange until forms emerge. This labor-intensive evolution—honed through my time at the San Francisco Art Institute, the Rhode Island School of Design, and self-reliance—serves as a mirror of my own journey. By liberating forms from dense materials, I reclaim control over my narrative, transforming feelings of being bound into a practice of discovery and change.

Bernadette Jiyong Frank @jiyong.a.r.t

Born into a Korean family in Tokyo, raised in the United States, and having lived in Germany for many years, Bernadette Jiyong Frank is a San Francisco Bay Area–based artist working across painting, photography, and public art. Through translucent layers of oil paint and precise geometric processes, she explores perception, light, and the shifting relationship between structure and instability, creating atmospheric works that change with light and the viewer's movement. Frank has presented solo exhibitions at Dolby Chadwick Gallery and Triangle Gallery in San Francisco, Galerie Beate Berndt in Augsburg, the Carnegie Institution for Science, and the Bait Al Salmaniya Cultural Center in Bahrain. Her work has also been exhibited at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts, and Southern Exposure. She has completed public art commissions for the San Francisco Arts Commission and the Waterfront Public Art Project in Whangārei. Her work is included in the collections of the Crocker Art Museum, the Triton Museum of Art, and the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, and has been featured in *New American Paintings* (#103 and #121). Frank is represented by Dolby Chadwick Gallery and IdeelArt.

Brian Caraway

Brian was born in 1975 in Loma Linda, California. He lived and worked in Oakland, California. He got his MFA from Mills College and BA in Painting and Printmaking at San Francisco State University. His last solo exhibition was in 2024 called Universal Interdependence, or Alternative Sideshow, Kala Art Institute. He won the Herringer Prize in 2009 and the Nell-Sinton Grant in 2008.

Statement: I often think of my work as analogous to music and mathematics – like these ‘languages,’ my work takes the form of a nonverbal expression that is both inspired and supported by naturally occurring patterns and rhythmic phenomena. I am not sure that my paintings are really meant to be understood on a cerebral level; my emphasis is more on sensation. In keeping with this approach, my practice comprises both an extreme sense of visual discipline – it is “hard-edged” abstraction, after all, and every stroke and proportion needs to be perfect for me to feel a painting is finished – and simultaneously, a sense of fun and light-heartedness. Like Lee “Scratch” Perry blowing smoke into the reel-to-reel recorder while composing his epic dub reggae tracks, I want some of the freewheeling pleasure I take in making each work to come through in its final state

Carlota Rodriguez

Carlota Rodriguez (b. 1987) is a Bay Area artist who joined NIAD Art Center in 2016. Her vividly colored paintings and drawings draw on the history of geometric abstraction as well as recent formalism. Rodriguez's work has been featured in a solo exhibition in NIAD's Main Gallery in 2018, as well as in group shows at Chico Art Center, KALA, the OMCA, and Marin MOCA. Recently, several of her paintings were translated into a public mural at the LifeLong Medical Center in San Rafael, California.

Statement: When I’m working the colors come to me naturally and I just go with the flow.

Chad Hasegawa @chadhasegawa

I am born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. I moved to San Francisco in the year 2000. I moved here to be a part of San Francisco's counter cultures, particularly in the Mission School, graffiti, and skateboarding. I learned how to paint at City College San Francisco but I also attended the Academy of Art University where I received a BFA in Advertising. I worked for some of the top advertising agencies like Venables Bell & Partners and Goodby Silverstein & Partners. After leaving advertising, I started to gain an interest in art in 2009. With the help of The Luggage Store Gallery, I went from painting murals on the street to painting canvases indoors for both nonprofit and commercial galleries. The art I am making today is heavily influenced by Keith Haring, Franz Kline, Alex Katz, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, and Margaret Kilgallen. My colors are my own, influenced from my childhood of going to the beaches in Honolulu.

Statement: I am an Abstract painter based in San Francisco. My paintings are a repetitive puzzle of flattening shapes to create a unified form. I work to create a rhythm to direct the viewer's attention. When a shape breaks the pattern it becomes a focal point. I use color theory as a main theme and a tool to support my intention to transmit and produce tension, feeling, ideas and emotions in the work. I make this type of work purely for the freedom of not being bound by representational reason or a story to convey, with no visual rules. This type of expression is powerful and attention seeking. My precision adds a certain freedom for the viewer too, to experience the work and to add their own story with no disruption. These emotional color forms are made to be bold and eliminate visual chaos to bring Minimalism to one's life.

Elaine Nguyen @elainetnguyen

Howard Hersh @howardhersh

Howard Hersh is a third generation artist who has maintained a professional studio practice for 40 years. Hersh has worked in a variety of mediums; drawing, printmaking, installation, painting in encaustic, oil, and acrylic, and lately, woodwork that have transformed the paintings into wall sculpture. With over 70 solo exhibitions and 250 group shows, his works are in museum collections across the country, including Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth Texas, Tucson Museum of Art, Bernard Zuckerman Museum of Art, Atlanta, Ga, and others. During his early years in the studio, Hersh was very influenced by Asian aesthetics and printmaking practices, leading to many commissions in Japan, Indonesia, and China. Hersh began his career in Santa Fe in 1984, then relocated back to his native California in 1998. Currently living in San Francisco, he has had a studio at the Hunters Point Shipyard for nineteen years. In 2024, Hersh will have a mid-career retrospective at Cal State Stanislaus.

Statement: As a full-time studio artist for over 40 years, I think of my work in the context of an ongoing thread of creativity. Similar to diary entries, the one consistent element in my work is me. Through incremental changes in my thinking, my focus, and the mechanics of the craft itself, the work has evolved organically. I subscribe to the famous Chuck Close quote; "Inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up and get to work". One could say that the foundation of my practice is philosophical; that is, I believe oneness and the inter-connectivity of all things as my baseline. I have strived to portray this belief by using imagery that is commonly not associated with each other, like organic and geometric, to illustrate the connectivity. For the last 10 or so years, my focus has shifted to the differences between painting and sculpture. After all, paintings are pictures of things, while sculptures are things. Yet, true to my core beliefs, I've endeavored to blend the two. In the beginning, I utilized exposed framework in the paintings to blur the distinctions. Lately, I've added illusionistic techniques to the physicality of the constructed works.

J Rivera Pansa @j_pansa

Janay Futch

Keira Kotler @kkotler

Kristina Lewis @kris_lewis_

Owen Caraway

Sarah Hotchkiss @sahotchkiss

Scott Malbaurn @ScottMalbaurn

Malbaurn received his BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art in 2001 and MFA from Pratt Institute in 2004. His work has been exhibited internationally and nationally with solo exhibitions at Truckenbrod Gallery (Corvallis, OR) Central Utah Arts Center (Salt Lake City, UT) Janet Kurnatowski (Brooklyn, NY) Group exhibitions at Real Tinsel (Milwaukee, WI) Museum of Sonoma County (Santa Rosa, CA) Oregon Contemporary (Portland, OR) The Noyes Museum (Absecon, NJ) White Walls Gallery (San Francisco, CA) Kunsthalle Beacon(KuBe) (Beacon, NY) David Richard Gallery (Santa Fe, NM) Rogue Art Space (New York, NY) Kunsthalle Galapagos (Brooklyn, NY) Denise Bibro (New York, NY) Platform (New York, NY) Envoy Enterprises (New York, NY) New Bedford Museum of Art (New Bedford, MA) The H. Lewis Gallery (Baltimore, MD) among others. Select publications include The Brooklyn Rail, dArt International Magazine, NY Arts Magazine, WagMag, ArtCritical.com, and The Standard Times. Since 2001 Malbaurn is also known for his curatorial practice with projects at The Schneider Museum of Art (Ashland, OR) Platform (New York, NY) Hunter College (New York, NY) Janet Kurnatowski (Brooklyn, NY) Landing Space (Brooklyn, NY) and H. Lewis Gallery (Baltimore, MD) Malbaurn has taught Fine Arts at Pratt Institute and Southern Oregon University. He has given talks, critiques, and conducted workshops at schools such as the School of the Visual Arts (New York, NY) Yale University (New Haven, CT) Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY) Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) (New York, NY) School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) (Chicago, IL) and Cornell University (Ithaca, NY). Malbaurn currently serves as the Executive Director of the Schneider Museum of Art (Ashland, OR)

Statement: I am an abstract geometric artist working with synthetic water-based media such as silica, urethane, and acrylic resin, combined with pigments to formulate my own paint. My process involves methodical layering and crosshatching on canvas or linen stretched over panel. Each surface is meticulously primed and wet-sanded to achieve an ultra-smooth finish—never utilizing spray applications. Between layers, I lightly sand and apply contrasting or complementary underpaintings to each color, altering the way light interacts with the surface and enhancing visual depth. Craft and expression are central to my practice. I remain deeply aware of the evolving boundaries within contemporary art, shaped by artists, curators, and critics alike. I've come to understand the importance of both action and reaction, and the necessity of following a path shaped by one’s own experience, intuition, and reflection. This approach ensures my work is both deeply personal and in dialogue with artistic traditions and current visual culture. For me, geometry and color function as a universal language—color as light, and geometry as a form that transcends age, race, and spoken word. My aim is to reinterpret and challenge the familiar, introducing subtle discord through deliberate compositional and chromatic choices. This intentional disruption prevents the work from becoming passive or predictable. I seek a tension between the contrived and the arbitrary, resulting in compositions that range from poetic to dynamic—some offering clarity, others inviting mystery. My studio practice is vital to both my creative output and my way of life. It’s a space where imagination and invention converge. Working in abstraction sharpens my awareness, deepens my sense of observation, and makes time feel purposeful. In an era defined by global upheaval, political unrest, and digital saturation, I see hands-on, material-based practice as a form of resistance—an antidote to the attention economy and a conduit for introspection. My hope is that viewers engage with the work on their own terms, finding resonance in its material presence and visual language.

Steuart Pittman @steuartpittman

Steuart Pittman (b. 1985, Chicago) lives in Richmond, CA. He earned his MFA from Mills College in 2009. He has presented exhibitions and performances at Traywick Contemporary, Berkeley, Regards, Chicago, IL, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL, Will Brown, San Francisco, and Cumberland Gallery, Nashville, among others. He is a co-founder and director of Pacific Saw Works, a nomadic curatorial project.

Statement: I make paintings of familiar forms with meticulous precision. They develop slowly and decisively, though they are directly informed by my drawings, quick improvisations that I make in sketchbooks. I think of my painting practice as a spiritual pursuit, and my current paintings reflect my most recent musings. I believe that we experience beauty through fleeting moments at unexpected times and places, and ultimately my paintings strive toward that intangible phenomenon. As the world has become increasingly tense and unpredictable, my work has taken on a more subdued tone, and I see my painting practice as a vehicle moving away from chaos and toward a place of formal and personal nirvana. When I decide to turn a drawing into a painting, I refine the composition and then build a unique panel or canvas support, taking into account the specific materials that will constitute the ground of the finished object. The color relationships between the painted forms and their ground is a key point of focus for me, and I aim to establish compelling and unanticipated color scenarios in everything I make. I build exquisite frames for my paintings and their nuanced coloring and profiles have become a focal point of my practice.

Von Coffin @coffin1001

Von Coffin (b 1983) lives in Redmond, Washington with their wife and two young children. Coffin received their MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University (2016) and BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2008). They run Coffin Farm, an experimental sculpture park on their family’s farm.

Statement: Coffin’s technique in both painting and sculpture builds up layers of transparent paint to create depth and affect. Their work combines lived experiences working in food service and fabrication with studies in painting- both Formalists at the University of Washington and Imagists at the Art Institute of Chicago. They are interested in analogous materials found in food and construction such as insulation foam and bread. Color works as both symbol and signifier, triggering nostalgia through specific imitations of candy and other material.

Mel Prest @mel_prest_k

Mel Prest is an American abstract artist whose work is focused on color and perceptual visual relationships. Her work has been exhibited internationally including: The Drawing Center, New York; The Weatherspoon Museum of Art, Durham; IS Projects, Leiden; Saturation Point, London; Nakaochiai Gallery, Tokyo. Prest’s first solo museum show: Mel Prest: The Golden Hour, was held at the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, Oregon and featured a catalogue essay by John Yau. Prest has been awarded residencies at The MH deYoung Museum; The Ragdale Foundation; The Sam and Adele Golden Artist Foundation; Willapa Bay AIR; The Wassaic Project; and Vermont Studio Center. Her work is held in collections at Apple; The Berkeley Art Museum; The Crocker Museum of Art; Google; Kaiser Permanente; Marin General Hospital; The Mills College Art Museum, The Schneider Museum of Art; among others. She is represented by Galleri Urbane, Dallas, TX and K.Imperial Fine Art, San Francisco, CA. Prest received her BFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design and MFA from Mills College in Oakland. Mel is an advisory board member of Root Division, a non-profit arts organization in San Francisco and served as a board member from 2012-2014. Prest served on the advisory board of The Art Monastery Project, Calvi della Umbria and Labro, Italy from 2007-2010 and on the artist advisory board of Trestle Gallery in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York from 2012-2021. As an independent curator, Prest has organized shows from Amsterdam to Zagreb. She is a founding member of Transmitter, a collaborative curatorial gallery initiative in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Mel Prest lives and works in San Francisco, CA.

Statement: Informed by the interplay of color phenomena in nature – mirages, iridescence, the diffusion of light at the golden hour before sunset and twilight – I paint works that explore color theory and invite an embodied response. Color transmits sensations that are subjective and synesthetic, conjuring a taste, a touch, a scent, a rhythm. I use fluorescent, metallic, or phosphorescent paint and mica that flickers, glows or is shadowed in changing light conditions to create a dynamic encounter in and with my work. With a limited number of colors composed as a dense series of unruled and overlapping lines, the works appear as a handwoven mesh vibrating above the surface of the canvas; a soft geometry of shifting space.