SubRosa would love to feature your art. Prospective artists are invited to submit samples of their work. The large courtyard offers sculptural possibilities. A link to online photographs is preferred. Artists Guidelines can be found here. If you have an upcoming show, also check out our Artist Tips for a Successful Art Opening.
March 2012: "Lore-Tilling" by Ramille Baguio
"I have always felt communicating with others through a compelling visual means has always been more natural and genuine. This is not to say that I am incapable at other forms of expression, I just find that the most engaging way of interacting with the world around me is through the images I create. With my work, I convey my interests, anxieties, and opinions without fear of embarrassment or miscommunication.
Ideas and emotions are represented within my images in allegory, each riddled with hints of morals, hubris, and folly in narrative form. These images act as storytelling with the subject matter for each being pulled from various legends, lore, myths, and tales around the world. Here, I attempt to reignite stories and characters that have withstood time yet recently seem to have become enervated, and re-signify their meanings within the contemporary space that we preside."
"Lore-Tilling" by Ramille Baguio
Ideas and emotions are represented within my images in allegory, each riddled with hints of morals, hubris, and folly in narrative form. These images act as storytelling with the subject matter for each being pulled from various legends, lore, myths, and tales around the world. Here, I attempt to reignite stories and characters that have withstood time yet recently seem to have become enervated, and re-signify their meanings within the contemporary space that we preside."
"Lore-Tilling" by Ramille Baguio
March 2012
Artist's reception Friday March 2, 2012 7:30-9PM
SubRosa, 703 Pacific at Spruce St
Upcoming Artists
April 2012: "Fateful" by Naali Aelfgifu
"I am at this time primarily a watercolor artist. Only one of my paintings is acrylic. My paintings on paper almost always incorporate colored pencil, standard pencil and/or ink. I love how so many accidents or surprises are possible with watercolor. My themes are a reflection of my travels-geographic or other. Many of them are portraits of people I felt were irresistible to paint-who made my very fingers itch. Often this is because of their complex regalia-I am always drawn to intricacy which is obvious in my choice of crafts (beadwork and basketry). And just as often, because some spirit in a person or arrangement of features spoke so concretely as to be irresistable for painting. Many of these portraits are old-this show reflects in fact, an entire decade of painting, and I hardly remember what I was thinking when I painted some of these things. I can say that I feel influenced by the struggle of wild places to stay wild, the wild spirit's brutal, daily struggle against the colonization of the spirit, by other worlds and ancestral memory. The more recent, larger paintings are highly personal and I don't expect people to be able to glean their "meaning". Nor do I think that is necessary but that by quieting the analytical mind, one can just experience the effect on one's spirit. I get told sometimes-"I don't understand your paintings". And I say that analytical understanding is not the only way to understand and appreciate art. So ask me for the story if you feel like you need to-I'll probably tell you, but you can also choose to use your emotions and senses for "understanding."
A note on the framing: Some of my paintings are framed using basketry-in both pine needle and cedar. I am especially drawn to wilderness skills, and basketry seems to be the one that has been drawing me the strongest of late. I can't say why except that intricacy, repetitive deign, teensy tiny stitches, always capture me. I love to teach basketry and other wilderness skills. Let me know if you are interested in a certain subject, because a workshop might be able to be arranged."
"Fateful" by Naali Aelfgifu
April 2012
Artist's reception Friday April 6, 2012 (Time TBA)SubRosa, 703 Pacific at Spruce St
Past Artists
July 2011: Selected Works of Ian Whitaker
Ian is a twenty-two year old humanoid who just can't stop making stuff. The focus of his art is a character named Dirty Maggie-Mae, who wiggled into his work (and consciousness) in January of this year. She is now the protagonist of a story he is writing titled A Lightbulb Blooming. Ian works with pen, pencil, acrylics, pastels and cans on paper, wood and canvas.
Selected Works by Ian Whitaker.
Musical performance by Sam Solo and Ragtail
Musical performance by Sam Solo and Ragtail
July 1st -31st
Artists Reception Friday, July 1st 6-10pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific at Spruce St
June 2011: Subrosa Staff shows their Stuff
|
May 2011: Anywhere but Here/Nowhere Else to Go, Selected works by Maya Weeks
Mustard, eel grass, periwinkle. Aubergine, cerulean, eggshell. A born scavenger, Maya Marie Weeks will make meaning out of anything. Her favored subjects include communication, morals and the natural world. anywhere but here / nowhere else to go is a body of geographically-motivated images. Maya is currently at work on a book called Talking About The Weather.
Anywhere but Here/Nowhere to Go
Selected Works by Maya Weeks. Musical performance by Scott Ferretter and Friends
May 6th-30th
Artists Reception Friday, May 6th 6-10pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific at Spruce St
April 2011: Selected Works by Annelise
Annelise draws and paints pictures, makes prints and takes photographs too.
Her work features lots of ladies and woodland creatures. Artist reception will include art exhibition, appetizers, wine and live musical performances. Selected Works by Annelise
April 1st-30th
Artists Reception Friday, April 1st 6-10pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific at Spruce St
February 2011: Selected Works by Danielle O'Malley
In February, SubRosa features the work of Danielle O'Malley. Join us for the First Friday, opening reception.
Danielle O’Malley utilizes printmaking, sculpture, narrative and installation to bring her audience into her own underground society. She regurgitates miscellaneous childhood memories to create and describe a society of fictional creatures, their morals, and their relationships to themselves and their world. Homeless houses roam wild and lost, female witches sacrifice pop culture, and her creatures sustain themselves through grotesque black magic, and black markets. This society explores ideas of utopias, dystopias, and the fine line between the two. These mutants attempt to find paradise between the cracks of their nightmarish realities, and vice versa. Themes of innocence and childhood attempt to sugarcoat their misery, while at the same time, emphasizing the terrors of their world. This imaginary world ultimately describes her internal and external conflicts, and her reflection on our generation and our environment.
Selected Works by Danielle O'Malley
February 4th-28th
Artists Reception Friday, February 4th 6-8pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific at Spruce St
January 2011: Adaptations of Affection
Selected Works by Hannah Matzner
Miss Matzner's collection is an exploration of the things we put ourselves through for the people we love. It is a visual and lyrical manifestation of the insanity brought about by desire. It attempts to express all phases of a relationship, from that intoxicating honeymoon to the eventual downfall, all the while maintaining a sense of beauty and appreciation for the experiences had. In other words, this show is the capturing of one artist’s joy and sorrow, all expressed with a tinge of nostalgia.
Adaptations of Affection
Selected Works by Hannah Matzner
January 1st-31st
Artists Reception Friday, January 7 6-8pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific at Spruce St
November 2010: The Making of Amerikans
Restlessness defines the American spirit. Speaking to the “improvised character of American experience, historian and former Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin has said, ‘everyone [has] to be prepared to become someone else.”’ Like characters in a Gertrude Stein novel, we are living in the present progressive tense, existing in a continual state of becoming that’s both affirming and altering who we are. Celebrating such indeterminacy, these portraits treat identity as an activity, as something contextually situated, making for a seriously playful meditation on this generation’s selves.
Works Cited
Lapham, Lewis. Hotel America: Scenes in the Lobby of the Fin de Siecle. New York: Verso, 1995. Book.
The Making of Amerikans
Nicky Tiso, Bryan May, Chloe Minervini
November 5th-30th
Artists Reception Friday, November 5th, 6-8pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific at Spruce St
Nicky Tiso
Nicky Tiso was born and raised in Southern California and graduated from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA in June 2010 with a B.A. in Liberal Arts. There, he studied aesthetics and politics primarily through the medium of creative writing. His work has been published in XYZ, and he currently interns with Siglio Press, a new and independent press in Los Angeles dedicated to publishing uncommon works that live at the intersections of art and literature. You may follow his poetic self at nickytiso.blogspot.com.
Bryan May
Bryan May is a California native named after the guitarist of Queen. He’s currently a cat-lover, a late-night guerilla radio DJ, and is a great shoulder to cry on over late night burritos. His work is an intimate and anthemic exploration of West Coast punk/fringe culture from an insider’s perspective. His style is as youthful and exuberant as his subjects; it captures an attitude of resistance in the cross hairs of intoxication, where partying meets protest. Check out his bad website at www.restlesslegs.tk.
Chloe Minervini
Chloe Minervini grew up in Cotati, CA, home of the annual accordion festival. She has an acute love for cats, burritos, and talking about feelings. When she isn’t busy reading the classics, making artisan espresso drinks, playing a wee bit of music or crushing on cuties, she is probably taking pictures that encapsulate her lust for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
September 2010: Justin Angelos
Disaster Information
Flood, tornado, earthquake, job loss, bankruptcy, oil spill, death. Disasters come in all shapes and sizes. We are reminded of this daily.
Culled from abandoned property, roadsides, flea markets, mass media and the debris of passed family members this latest collection of work is a response, escape and even shelter in the wake of life changing events. Attempting to find beauty in discarded objects and breath new life into images long forgotten, a new world emerges from the ruble of the past. Demi-gods, heroes and evil-doers alike inhabit a landscape of shape, color and pattern.When disaster strikes where will you run for shelter?
Disaster Information
The Art of Justin Angelos
September 1st-30th
Artists Reception Friday, 3rd, 5:30-8pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific at Spruce St
Justin Angelos was born in 1971 in Los Angeles, Ca. After spending many years on the road with a job in the tradeshow industry Justin now lives in Santa Cruz, Ca where he is a fulltime stay at home dad and artist.
Life, death, loss and rebirth play a major role in the forming of many of his ideas. Inspired by the current state of our world and the debris man leaves in his wake, Justin’s palette is often made up of found and discarded objects collected in abandoned houses, vacant lots, roadsides and second hand stores. Primitive culture, the animal world and today’s fast paced and disposable society, continue to add fuel to his work.
July 2010: Five Easy Pieces:
Archiving Gabriella Ripley-Phipps
After you die, how will you be remembered? If you were to create an archive, a historical record of your existence, what objects would you choose to be remembered by? What five items would you start with in building your archive?
In 2009, Gabriella asked ten friends to answer these questions by selecting five objects they considered the most important or essential in communicating who they are. The guests were invited to a dinner party, thrown by Gabriella, and the items were used in an interactive performance. Now, Gabriella asks herself the same questions and chooses the first five items of her archive. July 2010, the walls of SubRosa display a simple and incomplete record of Gabriella's life, in five easy pieces. Through these items (Road Kill, Human Hair, Family Relics, Trash, Receipts, Ink Drawings), a complex existence is simplified while the viewer is invited to construct a comprehensible narrative.
SubRosa is honored to offer the work of Gabriella Ripley-Phipps. Please join us for a show and opening reception:
Five Easy Pieces:
Archiving Gabriella Ripley-Phipps
July 2nd - August 30th
Artist Reception Friday, July 2, 5-8pm
SubRosa: A Community Space, 703 Pacific at Spruce St
Our identities are tied to and mediated by the physical objects we keep around ourselves. Objects are bought, worn, used, left on shelves, tacked on walls. Each object says something about us: who we are/were, what we do, even who we want to be. A part of our selves is placed into each object, but we do not get to choose how those parts are represented. Our objects hint about an exchange, a moment, or a relationship in the material world. They evidence a certain time in our lives and point to who we were in that instant. And yet although our objects are entirely specific to each of us, they manage to live beyond us. They invite interpretation; they beg to be aligned cohesively within a narrative that is actually always incomplete. Our selves are created when others look upon our objects and imagine what we are like — our archives are merely guide-posts or suggestions, attempts at self expression in good faith.
June 2010: Petal Power
The Art of Louise Chen
Join us on First Friday when we are excited to offer the work of Louise Chen. Petal Power, Louise Chen’s newest installation of drawings and paintings, evokes rejuvenation, renewal, and refurbishment. From a pile of compost - discarded materials; an apple core, coffee grounds, last night’s pasta - flowers erupt and insist a beautiful contrast between light and dark, between life and death. The ability for nature to renew itself is amazing. Chen’s drawings apply the same attitude towards life and human interactions; transformations, from jealousy to admiration, from break up to break through, from violence to embrace, and our ability to get up tumultuous and steep hills with our own “petal power”.Petal Power
The Art of Louise Chen
June 1st-30th
Artists Reception Friday, June 4th, 5-8pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific at Spruce St
Louise Chen is a Los Angeles based artist currently living in Santa Cruz. Her work has been featured in galleries across the United States, including Giant Robot galleries in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Her artwork is inspired by botanical and scientific drawings, vintage floral patterns, antiques, the universe, animals, and the people and artists that move around her. Her work plays with positive and personal reflections as well as universalities, sometimes conveying adult hardships through childish fantasies.
April 2010: Trenton Rembert
On Friday, April 2, SubRosa will welcome the art of Trenton Rembert to its walls. Trenton’s art is a unique intersection of seemingly opposed elements. The viewer is greeted by gritty and chaotic fields punctuated by enigmatic figures.
This mixture of realism and abstraction creates a contrast that exposes the subjectivity of living, exploring how emotions, fears and beliefs mold the way we perceive the world. Themes such as dreams, weather, death, the seasons, and apocalypse constructed from hair, leaves, trash, and other found objects juxtaposed with painted elements further suggest the question: what is real, what is created?
Trenton calls his process “a mixture of spontaneity and careful planning. I enjoy the discipline of realism and the expressiveness and freedom of gesture. It’s a kind of controlled accident or action-reaction.” His process allows him to accumulate layer after layer of acrylic washes mixed with raw materials, such as dirt or ground plants and wood, to build color and texture. The end product is somewhere between painting and collage.
Trenton’s works create a haunting feeling of loneliness and desperation, but also of magic and wonder. His work is influenced by the landscapes that Trenton has lived in: the Sierras of his childhood, the Santa Cruz redwoods he now calls home. Rather than landscapes, his pieces capture portraits both of the places Trenton has lived and the isolation of modern existence.
Trenton Rembert at SubRosa
April 1st-30th
Artists Reception Friday, April 2, 6-8pm
SubRosa: A Community Space, 703 Pacific at Spruce St
March 2010: Dark Hyphy Mist
The Art of Swampdonkey
In March, please join us as we offer the unusual work of Swampdonkey.
"We don't know much about Swampy other than he/she was raised by a young pack of African wild dogs that escaped from the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans in 1983. Swampy dabbled in southern human cults during the mid 90's until he/she found themselves on a northbound Norfolk Southern junk train headed full speed into the dark hyphy mist."
Dark Hyphy Mist
The Art of Swampdonkey
Opening Reception
Friday March 5th 5pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
The Art of Swampdonkey
Opening Reception
Friday March 5th 5pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
November 2009: Russell Brutsche
- Wigwams by Russell Brutsche
In November, we welcome the acrylic on canvas work of Russell Brutsche to SubRosa's walls. Santa Cruz artist Russell Brutsche loves socio-cultural ironies. Works such as those in his recent show "Unlawful Gatherings" make painfully apt juxtapositions that expose the social injustice of our everyday world.
The Art of Russell Brutsche
Opening Reception
Friday November 6th 5pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
One of his images shows Jesus of Nazareth chasing away very contemporary money changers from the temple, only to be descended upon by a heavily armed SWAT team. Another shows the Nativity taking place in what might be considered a modern-day manger, under the Highway 1 overpass at the San Lorenzo River. Other paintings prominantly feature images of treesits, hobo campfires, and trains.
Brutsche has been painting since early childhood, later studying under Eric Oback, Robert Freimark (student of Henri Matisse) and Sam Richardson, graduating with scholarship honors in 1968. He has been in numerous one-person and group shows throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and in Colorado, Arizona and Japan. Brutsche currently participates each October in Santa Cruz Open Studios, and other shows throughout the year.
"I've been impatient with the art world," said Brutsche. "Artists really have a responsibility to speak out against social injustice. Instead, artists have become small businessmen. I know if I would leave out some of that social commentary, the likelihood would be a lot greater that my work would be hanging over someone's couch."
October 2009: The Santa Cruz Anarchist Doll-Making Collective
The Dark Night of DIY Ragdolls and Monsters
On Friday, October 2nd, at 5pm, SubRosa is excited to introduce the recent work of the Santa Cruz Anarchist Doll-Making Collective. The show entitled The Dark Night of DIY Ragdolls and Monsters features the work of a dozen artists working individually and collaboratively to create homemade and recombined dolls and monsters.
The original Dark Night arose out of a series of Free Skool Santa Cruz workshops on doll- and monster-making. Artists built dolls and monsters by hand out of scraps from their workshops, items gathered at the city dump, and materials scavenged from Bargain Barn. During a series of Dark Nights, artists drank tea, made dolls, and stayed up all night sewing and watching dark doll movies from filmmakers the Brothers Quay, Jan Svankmajer,and Henry Selick.
Peering into the mad workshop of mad doll creators I saw feverish hands working away, some delightfully creepy movie playing on an old tv set, doll parts and needles strewn about the cutting floor, Frankenstein doll creations coming alive!
Historically, dolls are some of the oldest discovered toys, the earliest found in Egyptian tombs dating back to 3000 B.C.E. Dolls depicted humans, animals, and imaginary creatures and have been made of every conceivable material: bisque, celluloid, china, clay, cloth, corn husks, paper, plastic, polymer clay, porcelain, resin, rubber, vinyl, wax, wood, bone, ivory, papier-mâché, and leather.
Join us for an opening show and reception on this Dark Night.
Art Opening: The Dark Night of DIY Ragdolls and Monsters
Friday, October 2nd, at 5pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
Friday, October 2nd, at 5pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
September 2009: Michael Orick and Tom Calderone
Recent Collages
On Friday, September 4th, at 5pm, SubRosa is excited to welcome collage artists Michael Orick and Tom Calderon. Calderon and Orick have been hosting a weekly gathering of artists for more than three years, creating a wide variety of collage art. Each, in distinct stylistic approaches to life and art, will be presenting pieces created at Collage Night, and viewable on the walls of SubRosa and at CollageNight.com.
Orick applies values and guides meanderings with his jaunty approach to dismantling social interaction. His claims of art for art's sake, is couched in a literary tradition of blanched intellectualism mixed with pale understandings of things: things such as color and time, silly similies and woman's underwear. His past is yesterday's now. Orick is gliding gracefully, with limbs akimbo.
Calderon, with his understanding of politics and religion, attempts to create visions of the reality behind the accepted spectacle. His imagery is savage and calm, shockingly beautiful and sadly real, steeped in water like a fine tea, flavored something excellent.
Collage, considered by some the premier postmodern art form, has remained as fresh as local produce, and a clear link to the time before Nike and Coca-Cola. Weilding their exacto-knives and glue sticks, collagenight provacateurs Calderon and Orick, hope to push the agenda of dreamers everywhere.
Art Opening: Michael Orick and Tom Calderone
Friday, September 4th, at 5pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
Friday, September 4th, at 5pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
July 2009: Adriane White
Getaway Sticks and Spaghetti Landscapes
On Friday, August 7th, at 5pm, SubRosa is excited to welcome the art of Adriane White to our walls. These paintings portray her myriad feelings on performance art from weekly performances to burlesque to turn of the century stage set design.
The dozen canvases in this show represent two whimsical series combined. One is of part animals, part humans, who’ve been forced into the show business against their will. The other is of a spaghetti landscape fantasy where meatballs are moons and a lone dancing foot is the star attraction.
Ms. White says, “I have been in the performance arena for a long time whether it be working at a Caberet restaurant, singing in a karaoke competition or performing my own act in a burlesque show. I can’t seem to shake it, I suppose, cause here it is haunting me in paint form. Maybe I just need to get it out of my system.”
Adriane White is a long time lover of the arts and has dabbled in its many avenues. She’s studied dance and music most of her life and has appeared in over twenty theatrical plays and musicals. After receiving her B.A. in studio art, with an emphasis on photography she undertook some commercial work. Following a freak bike accident which left her injured, she turned to painting to occupy her creative energy.
Art Opening: Adriane White
Friday, August 7th, at 5pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
Friday, August 7th, at 5pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
For prints on canvas of these paintings, contact her at HotWaterArt@gmail.com or HotWaterArt.etsy.com.
June -July 2009: Deena Brabant
Beautiful Malaise: Paintings and Sculpture
"I use pictures as a marker of time, to consider our relationships to the past, present, and future, and to find ways to forge an existence within this shifting terrain. My portraits are orientation markers, a way of capturing a moment between where one has been and where one is going. In a transient world where nothing is certain, it is all too easy to wash my hands of the past and present in moments of frustration. In doing so, I would rid myself of the only valuable thing I own: my experiences and memories.
I am fixated on the human form and face, in life and in art: its structure, psyche, and hidden secrets. All of this I envision devoid of environment, as if all my subjects could exist in any given space and time. In a material world, I find that what I cling to most when in search of sincerity are the fleeting emotions of myself and others. My figures are snapshots of these transient emotions, a look to remember when the feeling is gone."
May 2009: The Beehive Collective
Cross Polinations
A swarm is coming! The Beehive Design Collective- a non-profit, volunteer driven, political arts organization based in eastern Maine is SubRosa’s featured artist for May. The group’s mission is to “cross pollinate the grassroots” through the creation of images as an effective medium for deconstructing and educating the public about complex geopolitical issues.
Most interesting is their methodology. The bees create collaborative, hand-illustrated posters of dizzying intricacy which are patchwork “quilts” of personal stories related to them in their travels. Before setting pen to paper, the hive does extensive touring and field research.
Interviewing community members about the effects of globalization on their situation is a crucial component of the collective’s investigative process. “We feel it’s extremely important to gather our information from as close to the source as possible,” an anonymous worker bee says. The topic of each graphic campaign is researched thoroughly, including the specific species of animals and plants conveyed, and the ideas and facts critiqued by many people before the projects are completed.
The posters on display at SubRosa are from the FTAA, Plan Columbia and the Resist the G8 graphics campaigns. Like what you see? Prints are available for $20 each at SubRosa.
March 2009: Benjamin Osen
Workbench Progeny: Objects and Unventions
Benjamin Osen is a craftsman of sculpture and object who injects whimsical possibilities into the ordinary articles of life. Born and raised in Feather River country, Northern California, Osen is an artist interested in histories as they are told by objects. Formally trained as a sculptor, his work praises the unnoticed beauty all around us, while inescapably engaging the world of fine art.
Workbench Progeny exhibits Osen’s ability to create aesthetically beautiful works that remain grounded by their references to function and usefulness. Challenging the function-over-form mentality of DIY and Homebrew culture, he envisions the homemade object as an outlet for artistic refinement. Focusing on the tools of his trade, Osen transforms memories from his background in construction into tangible items that stand as works of their own.
February 2009: Kyle McKinley
Mixed Media Work
SubRosa features the mixed media work of Kyle McKinley. Opening show, 5pm March 6th.
Kyle McKinley's art and activism are focused on community-based appropriate technologies. For the past five years that has taken the form of working in organizations that teach people to maintain their bicycles.
Kyle completed a double major in Sculpture and World Literature at UC Santa Cruz. At that time his artworks were installations that offered embodied equivalents to Post-Structuralist theory.
More recently Kyle's has made 'zines that appropriate the idioms of early twentieth century children's literature to form social commentary. These publications, the art-objects that accompany them, and any future works are rooted in radical collaboration.
December 2008 and January 2009: Ann Alstatt
Recent Prints
SubRosa features the prints of local artist Ann Altstatt.
I think of the art I make as lying at the intersection of science and mysticism. I present personal creation/destruction myths next to studies of trash off the floor of the Bargain Barn — to me they hold a similar, monumental importance.
These images could be seen in some way to be fragments of a whole-- some are jokes, some are dreams, some are portraits of the forgotten or unseen, but all describe something that is just beyond my ability to see or say: the meeting point of the big joy and the big sadness.
November 2008: Charlie and Hunter
Recent Mixed Media Work
SubRosa features the mixed media works of local artists Charlie and Hunter.
