Click HERE to shop our full Valentine's Day collection, featuring lovely gifts from artists like Casey Weldon, MC Marquis, PSA Press, and more!
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This past year has been rough, and we here at Recess are taking the time to show some extra love to ourselves and our loved ones. So we've compiled a gift guide of all things sweet, saucy, and a little bit naughty for this Valentine's Day - because we firmly believe that Valentine's Day isn't just for lovers, it's for everyone!
Click HERE to shop our full Valentine's Day collection, featuring lovely gifts from artists like Casey Weldon, MC Marquis, PSA Press, and more!
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Despite the madness of 2020, we are still getting into the holiday spirit here at Recess! And since we're all doing our holiday shopping online this year, we've put together a handy little guide so you can cross everyone off your gift list from the comfort of your own bed.
**Order now to receive before the holidays, and please be aware of COVID-related shipping delays effecting both US and international delivery times**
]]>Despite the madness of 2020, we are still getting into the holiday spirit here at Recess! And since we're all doing our holiday shopping online this year, we've put together a handy little guide so you can cross everyone off your gift list from the comfort of your own bed.
Recess has it all - for stir crazy quarantiners and stressed out work-from-homers, musicians and art aficionados, animal lovers and film buffs, and everyone in between! So tuck yourself in, grab a drink (anything but water), and browse away!
**Order now to receive before the holidays, and please be aware of COVID-related shipping delays effecting both US and international delivery times**
Thank you for all the support throughout this crazy year, and for SHOPPING SMALL this season. Stay safe and happy holidays, with love from all your friends here at Recess!
**Order now to receive before the holidays, and please be aware of COVID-related shipping delays effecting both US and international delivery times**
]]>Recess is thrilled to announce our upcoming product release for Black Friday 2020: enamel pins by Lauren YS!
]]>Recess is thrilled to announce our upcoming product release for Black Friday 2020: enamel pins by Lauren YS!
Lauren's "Snake Tongue Truffle Club" will be available in 3 mind-bending colorways; both "Regular" and "Rainbow" metal variants will be exclusive to Recess, and the "Nocturne" variant will be exclusive to the folks over at Almost Amusing who conceptualized and produced these amazing pins.
AVAILABLE BLACK FRIDAY 2020 @ 1:30 PM PACIFIC, via Recess and Almost Amusing respectively. Sign up for our mailing list to receive the SHOP links as soon as they're live!
Perfect as an oversized statement accessory to spice up your pandemic wardrobe, or big enough to mount in a frame and hang on your wall! Any way you style them, these pins are sure to turn heads, tune in, and drop out.
Stay tuned for more details on our Black Friday drop, and don't forget to sign up for our mailing list to receive the SHOP links as soon as they're live!
]]>Announcing our debut jigsaw puzzle release featuring two new designs by artist Casey Weldon!
Available meow!
]]>We've transformed two of our favorite Weldon paintings into puzzles - "The Birdbrain" and "Catbird Seat". Each puzzle is available separately for $20 each, or as a set of 2 for $35!
- 1000 pieces each
- 20 x 28 in. each, fully assembled
- free folded posters of the puzzle artwork included!
- Recess-exclusive!
- Packaged in a color-coordinated, custom designed box
The perfect family-friendly activity for these long days at home. When you're done - break it down and keep it for another rainy day, or save it in a frame and enjoy it on your walls!
Orders are anticipated to ship within 1-2 weeks., please email info@everybodylovesrecess.com if you have any questions about your order.
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Our May artist Kristina Micotti has been generous enough to make her iconic "UNITED NOT DIVIDED" and "BLACK LIVES MATTER" illustrations available for free download for all your BLM protesting needs! In lieu of payment, please consider donating to NAACP Legal Defense Fund, NAACP, Black Lives Matter, The Bail Project, ACLU, The Marsha P. Johnson Institute, or GLITS Inc. Feel free to repost and share these images, too! Just be sure to tag the artist (@KristinaMicotti) and do not alter the artwork in any way.
You can download and DIY print "United Not Divided" HERE, "Black Lives Matter" HERE, and "Black Trans Lives Matter" HERE.
And remember - this is not just a moment, this is a MOVEMENT! Keep sharing, creating, donating, protesting, voting, educating... keep spreading the love and fighting for what's right! We at Recess, Spoke Art, and Hashimoto Contemporary are committed to honoring BIPOC artists and creators, to keeping this important movement going, and to integrating fundraising efforts into our regular programming - not just now but long-term.
Take care of yourselves and each other! Sending you all love and strength, from your friends here at Recess SF.
And thank you to Kristina for all her hard work on her BLM fundraiser print this month! Her red "Black Panther" print raised over $5,000 for several BLM-related organizations in less than one week. Although this print is currently sold out, keep your eyes peeled for other fundraising products!
]]>As her solo show Pet Store comes to a close, our gallery manager Lyndsie Fox sat down with artist Kristina Micotti to talk about her ideal pets, the Renegade Craft Fair and keeping things loosey goosey... baby. Read on for a sneak peek at the interview, published by Juxtapoz Magazine!
]]>As her solo show Pet Store comes to a close, our gallery manager Lyndsie Fox sat down with artist Kristina Micotti to talk about her ideal pets, the Renegade Craft Fair and keeping things loosey goosey... baby.
Read on for a sneak peek at the interview, published by Juxtapoz Magazine, or click HERE to read the full interview on Juxtapoz.com!
I remember first seeing your work years ago at Renegade Craft in San Francisco, and immediately fell in love with your style! The subjects and their narratives are bright, funny, whimsical, and rendered so playfully loose. How did this particular style develop for you?
It really started at my first Renegade Craft Fair in SF. I had just graduated college and had a portfolio filled with intricate pen drawings and made them into prints to sell. I was worried that my booth would be too empty so I decided to do some quick ink paintings to fill up the space. Little did I know that I would sell all the quick ink paintings that I did the night before and only a fraction of the prints that took me a whole semester to create.
That was when I started to primarily paint with india ink and I started to get recognized for my ink paintings. Over the past 6 years of doing shows, my paintings have really developed into the style I have now. I used to only use black ink but slowly I have allowed myself to use more color in my work. I still like to work last minute and normally don’t create the paintings for the shows until a week before. It allows me to work in the moment, keeping things fresh, and helps me not to overthink it.
This style embodies such childlike freedom—a purity uninhibited by exact form and strict rules. The marks just fall where they fall, and you make something whole and happy out of them no matter what. Are your free-flowing style, subject matter, or funny narratives influenced by your work with children?
Since teaching, I find myself experimenting more with new mediums as well as playing with different colors and patterns. However, I wouldn't contribute my overall style to working with children, since teaching is still relatively new to me.
You tend to work fairly fast and, seemingly, without any revisions. Do you actually create work within that sort of “one-and-done” process, or is there a lot of drafting and re-working behind the scenes that you don’t share?
This is true for my ink paintings! I like to keep those loosey goosey baby. However, when I work with other mediums or designing a new product, I do a sketch on my iPadPro and then play around with different color combinations until I find one I am happy with. That way when I start my painting or doing my final design, I know the colors I’m using and a rough placement of things.
The majority of your work focuses on animals. Why do you gravitate toward animals as subject matter? What are you expressing through them that you can’t express through, say, humans or inanimate objects?
I have always been drawn to animals since I was little. I would always just observe the animals in our yard - I grew up in a farming community where there was a plethora of wild cats, deer, lizards and quails and I was always down to see what bugs were on the sidewalk. I also had a huge affinity towards monkeys and I wanted to be Jane Goodall when I grew up. I was that kid with waaaay too many stuffed animals on their bed and I would wear those stuffed monkey toys (the ones with the velcro on their hands and feet) from the rainforest cafe around my neck as a necklace, like it was normal.
My fascination with animals only grew as I got older and it has really transferred over to my artwork. Animals allow me to be more playful and I get a big kick out of drawing them. I just think they are more fun and entertaining as a subject matter. I mean, wouldn’t you rather see a cat in sunglasses or a frog with a mustache?
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May 9th, 2020 - May 30th, 2020
Recess is pleased to present Pet Store, a solo exhibition by San Francisco Bay Area-based artist Kristina Micotti. In addition to a series of new animal-themed paintings, Pet Store will also include Recess-exclusive sticker packs, hats, and hand-painted tote bags plus various pins and accessories from Micotti’s product line.
Online release begins Thursday, May 14th, 2020. Shop Kristina Micotti's full collection here!
Show on view until May 30th, 2020
For more information, additional images, or exclusive content, please email us at info@everybodylovesrecess.com.
Installation photos by Shaun Roberts.
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Recess is pleased to present Pet Store, a solo exhibition by San Francisco Bay Area-based artist Kristina Micotti. In addition to a series of new animal-themed paintings, Pet Store will also include Recess-exclusive sticker packs, hats, and hand-painted tote bags plus various pins and accessories from Micotti’s product line.
Loosely rendered in her trademark whimsical illustrative style, this collection of animals embodies the utopian pet store dream of the artist’s childhood. To humor Micotti’s constant fascination with animals, her mother would take her to pet stores as a young girl to look at the animals and buy care guides for all the different pets she wanted. The artist reminisces, “Little did I know that those books were all I’d ever be leaving with.”
Instead, Micotti’s mother would buy her animal companions in the forms of “The Littlest Pet Shop” toy sets - a series of children’s toys at peak popularity in the 1990s. Each toy set came with a small plastic pet and random accessory. Micotti remembers loving and caring deeply for all her new “pets” - and their brightly-colored miniature hair brushes, food bowls, and balls of yarn - as if they were, in fact, real.
This new Pet Store series is the artist’s way of finally owning all the animals she ever wanted as a child, inspired by those many trips to the pet stores with her mother and the disappointingly inanimate care guides and toy sets she amassed instead. Drawing on imaginative childlike whimsy and nostalgic “90s kid” aesthetics, Micotti has recreated these childhood experiences in the form of a fun, bright pet store containing a variety of animals - again, each with their own miniature accessories - all waiting for their new owners to take them home. She is offering both herself and her audience the chance to realize the unfulfilled childhood dreams of pet ownership that we have all similarly suffered. Her fanciful new Pet Store collection allows us all the freedom to “adopt” the pet of our wildest (albeit suburban) fantasies - without a mother’s voice of reason to restrict us.
Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, there will be no opening reception for the exhibition, and the gallery will be closed to the public. The exhibition will be on view through the gallery website. An Instagram live walk through of the show is scheduled for Saturday, May 9th at 3pm Pacific on our sister gallery Spoke Art’s Instagram (@Spoke_Art). For more information, additional images, or exclusive content, please email gallery manager Lyndsie Fox at info@everybodylovesrecess.com.
]]>We are thrilled to announce Pet Store, our new solo exhibition by San Jose, CA artist Kristina Micotti!!
Micotti is an illustrator from the San Francisco Bay Area who has turned her doodles into a career in illustration. Her work varies from minimalist to extremely detailed but always maintains a whimsical quality. She won the 2012 AIGA Illustration Award (San Diego Chapter) and the 2013 Print Magazine Hand Drawn Competition. Her clients include San Diego Magazine, Darling Magazine, Piperlime, Schoolhouse Electric & Supply Co., and more! You can find Micotti's work at many local craft and home goods boutiques, as well as at art fairs like West Coast Craft and Renegade Craft.
Please join us for the virtual opening reception of Pet Store on Saturday, May 9th, livestreaming on the Spoke Art instagram page at 3 PM Pacific. The exhibition will be on view May 9th - 30th, 2020.
All originals and Recess-exclusive products will first be available after the virtual opening reception livestream - drop date TBD. We'll be sending out more updates and links to shop via our email newsletter, so be sure to sign up if you haven't done so already!
For more details or to request an advanced collector preview during our presale period, please email info@everybodylovesrecess.com
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We recently sat down with Ferris Plock to talk all things Dogpatch Skateboards - from creating his entire fictional skate company world and producing a solo show during a global pandemic, to weiner dogs and slurpee machines and VHS sponsor me tapes. Read on for a sneak peek at the interview by our gallery manager, Lyndsie Fox, published by Juxtapoz Magazine.
Lyndsie Fox: If your Dogpatch Skateboards company had a real-life storefront, what would the shop look like and who would be working there?
Ferris Plock: It would be a gigantic cartoon dog head with its tongue sticking out and you'd walk in on the tongue. I would make my kids run the shop with all their friends. Probably make Ando from FTC make guest appearances, maybe Matt D from DLX too (two of the best shop managers of all time.)
The sticker sets, shirts, and skate deck for this show are such a fun, funny way to bring this brand to life. When you created your sticker sets you even said, “No fictitious skateboard company would be whole without shop stickers!” What other future products do you envision for the DPS brand?
The essentials are stickers and shirts man... Every shop needs them and has them. However, I would like to make slurpee machines with special dogpatch flavors and I'd definitely want to sell weed and frozen crab out of the back. Also bring back VHS sponsor me tapes?
You even crafted a complete DPS skateboard for this show! Can you tell us what that process was like? Is it a functional, skate-able board, or is it purely decorative?
I did ride it down Lake Street in the Richmond District three times and I definitely stayed puckered the whole time. I worked with my carpenter friend Danny Montoya who runs Butterfly Joint (check them out if you have kids) on some fun shapes. I actually made two boards but, the other one I liked too much and kept it for myself.
The preview shots of the board debuted with the following advertisement: “Dogpatch Skateboards are best known for their signature flagship boards. Each deck is lovingly crafted by our team of experts. Each of our team riders have been painstakingly selected over an extensive and exhaustive four or five minutes.” Who would be your ideal DPS team riders?
Bob Lake, Gou Miyagi, Ben Buzzard and Sammy VonBargen. Team Manager: Jimmy DiMarcellis.
Click HERE to read the full interview on Juxtapoz!
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Recess is thrilled to present Dogpatch Skateboards, a solo exhibition by San Francisco-based artist and longtime gallery friend Ferris Plock. In addition to a series of original paintings on wood panel, Dogpatch Skateboards will also include wooden skate decks, embroideries, and shrinky dinks - as well as a line of Recess-exclusive shirts, sticker sets, and enamel pins.
Online release begins Tuesday April 14th, 2020. Shop our full Ferris Plock collection here!
Show on view until April 25th, 2020
For more information, additional images, or exclusive content, please email us at info@everybodylovesrecess.com.
Installation photos by Shaun Roberts.
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Recess is thrilled to present Dogpatch Skateboards, a solo exhibition by San Francisco-based artist and longtime gallery friend Ferris Plock. In addition to a series of original paintings on wood panel, Dogpatch Skateboards will also include wooden skate decks, embroideries, and shrinky dinks - as well as a line of Recess-exclusive shirts, sticker sets, and enamel pins.
Exacted with Plock’s signature geometric, linear approach, his Dogpatch Skateboards characters are comprised of simple pattern blocks and mismatched, collage-style details. His canine-humanoid skateboarders coast the uncanny valley between a Picasso funhouse of exaggerated, cubism-esque caricatures and a Lascaux dome of Neolithic scratched cave paintings - all with a childlike sensibility of bold contours, vivid pastels, and absurd storylines one could easily find in a Saturday morning Ren & Stimpy cartoon marathon.
This particular body of work is, essentially, the embodiment of a fictional skateboard company by the same name - complete with skate decks, promo products, apparel, merch, sponsored teams, and more! Borne out of mindless doodles and repeated rejections of his comical plea to construct a ramp and screen print boards during his 2019 artist residency at The Space Program in SF's Dogpatch neighborhood, Plock has used his Recess solo exhibition as a way to finally actualize a fully-formed “Dogpatch Skateboards” brand (aptly named after it’s neighborhood of inception.) Simply put, it combines his love of dogs and skateboards - and all with Plock’s funny, light-hearted, juvenile charm. Moreover, it is inspired by and lovingly dedicated to his best dog friend, Koa, “who has gone on to the Happy Ground.”
The exhibition will be on view April 4th - 25th, 2020.
We'll be sending out updates via our email newsletter and social media pages - be sure to stay tuned! For more details or to request an advance collectors preview, please email info@everybodylovesrecess.com
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In preparation for our two-person "Heads Up!" exhibition, we sat down with Matt Ritchie and Miles Ritchie to get the story behind their new portrait work, and how their father-son relationship has allowed them to bounce inspiration off of each other. Read on for a sneak peek at the interview by our gallery manager, Lyndsie Fox...
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In preparation for our two-person "Heads Up!" exhibition, we sat down with Matt Ritchie and Miles Ritchie to get the story behind their new portrait work, and how their father-son relationship has allowed them to bounce inspiration off of each other. Read on for a sneak peek at the interview by our gallery manager, Lyndsie Fox, published by Juxtapoz Magazine...
Lyndsie Fox: You guys have played around with so many different presentations in your previous show themes - encasing small works in compartmentalized displays as a nod to your many collections/collecting habits, using posture/figurative movement in your "slump" series to convey "an exhausted look at exhausted pop", and even forgoing faces/bodies altogether through object personification. Why the head-on, facial portraits for this collection? What messages or character traits are you trying to explore in this format?
Matt Ritchie: Yeah, in our joint Pop Perspective show [at Recess’ sister gallery Spoke Art], I was the one who did the slumped pieces. A kind of exhaustive look on exhausted pop theme. Miles was already on the portrait format at that show. For me, doing the head-on approach along with Miles was an opportunity to meet Miles in the middle and cover the same ground in our own ways. I’ve done a lot of shows and themes in the past couple decades. A lot of concept-heavy themes. This show is pretty linear. This was an opportunity to delve into my life-long passion of comic book collecting. It’s a very specific show!
There are a couple great nods to non comic book characters in this show, for example, Miles' portrait of Gorillaz's "Stuart" and Matt's Kiss x Scooby Doo crossover "Kids." Beyond these two musical works, are there any other "hidden" Easter eggs we can expect to find in Heads Up!?
Miles Ritchie: People who were able to view Heads Up! in person or online likely noticed that my pieces weren’t labeled with their literal names, but rather nicknames or references to their respective IP. Like “Stuart” being the birth name of the character widely known as 2-D from Gorillaz, or “Maggots” being used to refer to David from Lost Boys based on his iconic dialogue from the movie. However, a bigger Easter egg that I snuck in amongst my wooden replicants, was a mystery portrait entitled “Wizzy.” Rather than a pop culture icon, this piece was actually based off of the insanely talented artist (and one of my closest friends) Jonathan Way$hak. Jon hates having his picture taken, but he couldn’t stop me from including him in this show!
That explains it! Everyone’s been trying to crack that “Wizzy” portrait for weeks.
Matt: I added a couple pieces that are of my own creation or co-creation! The Alphanimals are a bunch of characters that I created specifically for Heads Up! All the characters have their own back story, complete with a villain! I have an original Alphanimals painting, plus two pins and a sticker sheet available in the show. The other originals characters in Heads Up! are the Astralnauts, who were co-created by myself and my good friend Alex Pardee for our 2 person show titled Astralnauts at Gallery 1988 in 2016. I love these characters and am very proud of the world I built with Alex. I’ve included an original painting plus a limited-edition print of the Astralnauts in this collection.
Do you have any words of advice for non "comic book nerds" who want to enjoy your work without the same history and connection to the characters you recreate?
Miles: I believe our work can be enjoyed by various demographics regardless of their comic book, or even general pop culture, knowledge. The pieces are bright and engaging - even more so on a technical level when you realize every piece is cut and painted entirely by hand. There’s a lot to enjoy no matter what you’re into!
Matt: At this point superheroes are ubiquitous. Anybody can relate to the content of this show at least on some level. Personally, I painted about 300 individual heads for this show. Hopefully, someone could connect to at least one of them!
Click HERE to read the full interview on Juxtapoz!
]]>Thanks so much to everyone who came out to our opening reception of Heads Up! by Matt Ritchie and Miles Ritchie! Check out some photos from the party below!
If you are not in the SF Bay Area, you can view the entire installation online HERE and shop the full collection online HERE starting Thursday, March 12th.
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Thanks so much to everyone who came out to our opening reception of Heads Up! by Matt Ritchie and Miles Ritchie! We are so excited to host this fantastic father-son duo this month for their newest comic-focused collaborative collection. Heads Up! features a new collection of original paintings on wood and hand-embellished comic books plus limited-edition, Recess-exlusive pins, prints, stickers, and custom masks!
Heads Up! will be on view at our SF gallery through Saturday, March 28th. We are located at 816 Sutter Street, and we are open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am - 6pm. Please stop by to see the full installation and check out our Recess-exclusive Ritchie collectibles!
If you are not in the SF Bay Area, you can view the entire installation online HERE and shop the full collection online HERE starting Thursday, March 12th.
For those of you who couldn't celebrate opening night with us, check out some photos from the party below! (Photos courtesy of Shaun Roberts)
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March 7th, 2020 - March 28th, 2020
Recess is pleased to present Heads Up!, a joint exhibition by father-son duo Matt Ritchie and Miles Ritchie. Heads Up! will feature a new collection of original works as well as painted comic books, pins, prints, stickers, custom masks, and more!
Installation photos by Shaun Roberts.
As father and son, the two share undeniably similar artistic styles as well as a mutual love for comics, film, TV, music, video games, and everything pop. Both in their individual works and in their collaborative ventures, the duo pays homage to a vast range of pop culture subjects - from the 1970s-era Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica of Matt's early years, to the Masters of the Universe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of Miles' childhood, to our modern day CGI-heavy superhero multiverses, and everything in between. Though they are inspired by many of the same pop culture icons, their joint exhibitions offer perspective from two very different generations - while Matt's presentation is steeped in decades of fandom, Miles renders beloved characters with fresh eyes.
Each with his own individual style and personal fandom history, the Ritchies use wood as their common base medium - distilling all their favorite 2-dimensional characters and icons into crisply crafted and invitingly tactile 3-dimensional pieces. Matt often adds heavily layered paints to embody brightly colored graphics and crossover humor, creating a stylistic flatness that seems both an ode to its 2-D inspirations as well as an outright rejection of it. Miles, however, tends to incorporate more natural exposed wood of the relief form itself - allowing light, shadow, grain, and texture to tell a story different than his father's.
As the name suggests, Heads Up! is a collection of the heads of Matt and Miles' fandom favorites. In contrast to their previous explorations of figurative action, posture, environmental context, interactivity, and object representation, this new body of direct facial portraits presents a streamlined overview of the combined Ritchie fandom - allowing the audience to view Heads Up! head-on.
Heads Up! opens Saturday, March 7th with an evening reception from 6pm - 9pm. The exhibition will be on view through March 28th, 2020. The entire collection of original works and limited-edition, Recess-exclusive collectibles will be available online HERE starting Thursday, March 12th.
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We are so excited to announce Heads Up!, our third-ever exhibition with Castro Valley, CA based father and son duo Matt Ritchie and Miles Ritchie!!
Sharing a mutual love for comics, film, TV, music, video games and everything pop, Matt & Miles Ritchie distill their favorite characters and icons into crisply crafted and dimensional pieces. Though they are inspired by many of the same pop culture icons, their joint exhibitions offer perspective from two very different generations. While his Dad’s presentation is steeped in decades of fandom, Miles Ritchie renders beloved characters with fresh eyes. Their two-person show Heads Up! will feature a new collection of original works as well as pins, prints, stickers, custom masks, and more!
Please join us for the opening reception of Heads Up! on Saturday, March 7th, 6pm - 9pm. Both artists will be in attendance. The event is FREE and open to all ages. You can RSVP to the event here!
The exhibition will be on view March 7th - 28th, 2020.
All originals and Recess-exclusive products will first be available in person at the opening reception, then released online the following week. We'll be sending out more updates and links to shop via our email newsletter - be sure to sign up if you haven't done so already!
For more details or to request an advanced collector preview during our presale period, please email info@everybodylovesrecess.com
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Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate the opening of our second ever exhibition: Catchall by Casey Weldon! Check out some photos from our opening night celebrations below.
If you are not in the SF Bay Area, you can shop the full collection online HERE starting Tuesday, February 11th.
]]>Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate the opening of our second ever exhibition: Catchall by Casey Weldon! We are so pleased to welcome our longtime friend Casey back to San Francisco for another installment of his cat-themed work. Catchall includes brand new paintings on panel in his signature dreamscape style, plus a cast of new characters from his ongoing, musically-inspired Love Cats series.
And for our second Recess-exclusive product release, we've turned some of Casey's favorite Love Cats into limited edition prints and sticker sheets - just in time for Valentine's Day! You can browse these new Casey-designed, Recess-exclusives online HERE.
Catchall will be on view at our SF gallery through Saturday, February 29th. We are located at 816 Sutter Street, and we are open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am - 6pm. Please stop by to see the full installation and check out our Recess-exclusive Love Cats product line - perfect for extended Valentine's Day celebrations all month long!
If you are not in the SF Bay Area, you can shop the full collection online HERE starting Tuesday, February 11th.
For those of you who couldn't make it to the opening reception, check out some photos from our celebrations below! (Photos by Christopher Sturm)
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Recess is pleased to present Catchall, a solo exhibition by Seattle-based artist Casey Weldon. In addition to Casey's trademark cat-themed paintings, Catchall will also include never-before-seen, Recess-exclusive prints and sticker sheets from his ongoing Love Cats series.
Rendering light and neon colors with striking, fantastical comprehension, Weldon’s paintings appear uncannily backlit and digitally enhanced. Having spent many formative years in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Weldon’s vivid dreamscapes recall not only the flashy visuals and super-saturated displays throughout Hollywood and the Vegas Strip but also the adoration and adulation of our media-driven consumer culture. His surreal narratives, each distinctively luminous and visually unsettling, offer satirical commentary on our digital age and its exponentially absurd power over our everyday lives - all through imagery of the digital age’s most beloved icon: the cat.
Humanized by culturally sensational “internet cat” characters (represented both directly and figuratively) his works are, essentially, visual puns. They aim to provoke dialogue about grand current issues - war, surveillance, digital consumerism, social interactivity - punctuated by heartwarming cat references to help viewers find familiar comfort in these uncomfortable issues. Weldon’s feline-driven punchlines alleviate the detachment we all feel in our digital age of inescapable voyeurism, media saturation, and immediate consumerism.
In addition to these punny panels, Weldon has also added a new set of characters to his ongoing cast of musically-inspired “Love Cats” - just in time for Valentine’s Day. Despite its name, this series asserts coarse, belligerent messages; while some are soft and sweet (“Something Happens and I’m Head Over Heels” inspired by Tears for Fears, “When You’re Standing Oh So Near, I Kinda Lose My Mind” inspired by The Cars) most others are downright vicious (“I Want Your Soul, I Will Eat Your Soul” inspired by Aphex Twin, “Fuck You, I Won’t Do What You Tell Me” inspired by Rage Against the Machine.) They are screams of anarchy, defiance, and disappointment more than they are tidings of love and affection - both a fun, edgy inversion of stereotypical Hallmark drivel as well as a pointed reflection of contemporary views on love and Valentine’s Day.
Catchall will be marked by an opening reception on Saturday, February 8th and will be on view through February 29th, 2020. For more information, additional images, or exclusive content, please email email us at info@everybodylovesrecess.com.
Shop Casey Weldon's work HERE.
Installation photos by Christopher Sturm.
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Catchall opens Saturday, February 8th with an evening reception from 6pm - 9pm and will be on view through February 29th, 2020
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Recess is thrilled to announce our second show as a new San Francisco gallery: Catchall a solo exhibition by Seattle-based artist Casey Weldon.
As a former San Franciscan, Casey has worked with our sister galleries Spoke Art and Hashimoto Contemporary for many years. We are so excited to bring him back to town under our new Recess program!
Casey has created a brand new body of cat-themed paintings on panel, and has also added a handful of new characters to his ongoing, musically-inspired Love Cats series! Each Love Cat features lyrics from some of the least (or most) romantic songs of all time, from Danzig and Nine Inch Nails to Devo and New Order.
In addition to Casey's original paintings, Catchall will also include never-before-seen Recess-exclusive Love Cats prints and sticker sheets! Be sure to swing by the gallery and pick up some of our brand new Love Cats for all your Valentine's Day celebrations - perfect gifts for all the special folks you love most (or love to hate.)
We will have 3 new digital archival prints (all signed and numbered from an edition of only 200 each!) and 2 different vinyl sticker sheets (15 stickers per sheet) plus print + sticker bundles!
These new Recess-exclusives will first be available in person at the opening reception, then released online the following week. Be sure to sign up for our mailing list to receive updates about the online drop!
Please join us for Catchall opening Saturday, February 8th with an evening reception from 6pm - 9pm. The artist will be in attendance.
The exhibition will be on view through February 29th, 2020.
Recess is open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 10am to 6pm and we can be found at 816 Sutter Street in San Francisco, inside the former Spoke Art gallery space.
For more information and to request an advanced collector's preview of the show, please email email us at info@everybodylovesrecess.com
]]>In preparation for her solo exhibition, we sat down with MC Marquis to talk about her process and the psychology behind "We're All Kinda Fucked Up" - read on for a sneak peek at the interview between MC and our gallery manager, Lyndsie Fox...
]]>In preparation for her solo exhibition, we sat down with MC Marquis to talk about her process and the psychology behind "We're All Kinda Fucked Up" - read on for a sneak peek at the interview between MC and our gallery manager, Lyndsie Fox, recently published by Juxtapoz Magazine...
Lyndsie Fox: A huge focus of your process and intention is in repurposing objects, giving them new life and meaning, making common everyday objects unique, precious, humorous, controversial. Can you speak to the psychology behind this, and how it might relate to contemporary consumerism?
MC Marquis: I truly believe that we cannot base happiness on things we buy. Because once we have it, we'll want something else, and it never ends. Don't get me wrong, buying stuff is fun. I like to be comfortable, I'm ecstatic when I find an amazing $8 dress in my thrift hunts, and I don't preach a minimalist lifestyle, though I really admire people who are able to achieve that. But I really think that it is the time you spend with who is important to you that matters the most. The things you experience, the people you meet, the souvenirs you create; these are what’s good for your soul. So only working with second-hand objects helps me to feel like I am not entirely giving in to the consumer cycle.
There’s always an undercurrent of environmental and consumerist awareness when creating work from existing found objects rather than fabricating brand new objects. Do you ever consider your “creative carbon footprint,” so to speak, as you create? Is environmental awareness something you hope viewers will actively take away from the work?
Totally, this message is really important to me. Again, I firmly believe that we cannot base our happiness on new things we can acquire. So, without being admonitory, I absolutely want my viewers to take away the value of reusing and buying second-hand. I also try to show that old objects are beautiful – they have a soul and a story.
Your last solo show focused a lot on honesty, candor, and self-awareness. It encouraged viewers to participate in the search for truth and meaning – a slow, deliberate process in a contemporary society over-saturated with social media and internalized fragility. Are you continuing these themes in your new We’re All Kinda Fucked Up exhibition?
Yes, a lot of themes from my last solo show will continue in this new one. Communicating, putting our feelings into words, and being honest with our emotions are values at the core of all my work. Ever since my early work in painting, I’ve focused on the idea of putting forward honestly what we all live, without realizing it, so that we feel less alone.
The name of the show itself speaks to the fragility of human nature, especially in our digital age. What is the overall message of We’re All Kinda Fucked Up, and how do you hope viewers will interact with it?
We’re All Kinda Fucked Up means that we are quite contradictory: On the one hand, we think that we are the norm because what is normal for us is the life that we live that evolved from the same way of life before, and so on. So sometimes, we have trouble understanding people who come from another sphere or place. But on the other hand, we also think that we are incredibly special and that we’ve gone through unique, difficult shit that other people won’t get. So often, we don't understand people who don't understand us anyway. But what is important is that in the end, we are all kinda weird, kinda fucked up. No one is perfect, everyone has problems and a story. We all want to love, to be loved, and to have a goal. This title is also linked to the sad state of our planet, and the helplessness and anxiety that we feel facing this uncertain future.
Click HERE to read the full interview on Juxtapoz!
]]>Thank you so much to everyone who came out to celebrate the opening of our inaugural exhibition: We're All Kinda Fucked Up by MC Marquis! We're so excited to kick off our brand new gallery program with this incredible collection of plates, embroideries, and Marquis-designed accessories and home goods.
We're All Kinda Fucked Up will be on view at our new SF gallery space through Saturday, February 1st. We are located at 816 Sutter Street, and we are open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am - 6pm. Please stop by to see the full installation and check out our selection of artist-designed goods and Recess exclusives!
If you are not in the SF Bay Area, you can shop the full collection online HERE this Thursday, January 16th - sign up for our mailing list to receive the link as soon as it's live!
For those of you who couldn't make it to the reception, check out some photos from the party below! (Photos by Christopher Sturm)
]]>January 11th, 2020 - February 1st, 2020
Recess is thrilled to present our inaugural exhibition: We’re All Kinda Fucked Up, a solo exhibition by Canadian artist Marie-Claude Marquis. In addition to her trademark raunchy dinner plates, Marquis’ newest collection will feature framed embroideries, a Recess-exclusive coaster set, and a selection of creative home goods from the artist’s product line Merci Bonsoir.
Through clever (and often hilariously obscene) typographical interventions, MC Marquis gives new life to vintage found objects. With a keen eye for color, aesthetic, and contemporary femininity, she pokes fun at everything from technology and consumerism to religion and sexuality - while reminding viewers to consider the environmental impacts of artistic production and consumption. Considering her own “creative carbon footprint” as a found-object artist, Marquis hopes to inspire others to appreciate "the soul and the story” of old objects still rich with more stories to tell.
Her quippy, irreverent one-liners serve as a criticism of tech-influenced narcissism and voyeurism. The title itself - We’re All Kinda Fucked Up - speaks to the egocentric fragility of human nature and the dishonesty inherent to our digital age. The modern human is a walking contradiction - curating our social media selves to project superficial truths, cherry-picking value systems to qualify every situation, reveling in normalcy while laying claim to a uniqueness completely our own. Our digital landscape has plagued society with a tunnel vision toward curated, superficial perfection. Marquis is here to strip the blinders off, to refocus our attention on candor, communication, and a communal self-awareness: “We have trouble understanding people who come from another sphere or place... So often, we don’t understand people who don’t understand us anyway. But what is important is that, in the end, we’re all kinda weird. No one is perfect, everyone has problems and a story. We all want to love, to be loved, and to have a goal.”
We're All Kinda Fucked Up will be marked by an opening reception on Saturday, January 11th and will be on view through February 1st, 2020. For more information, additional images, or exclusive content, please email email us at info@everybodylovesrecess.com.
Shop Marie-Claude Marquis' work HERE.
Installation photos by Christopher Sturm.
We're All Kinda Fucked Up opens on Saturday, January 11th with an evening reception from 6pm - 9pm, and will be on view through February 1st, 2020
]]>Recess is thrilled to present our inaugural show as a new San Francisco gallery: "We’re All Kinda Fucked Up" a solo exhibition by Canadian artist Marie-Claude Marquis.
In addition to her trademark raunchy dinner plates, MC’s newest collection will feature framed embroideries, a Recess-exclusive custom coaster set, and a selection of creative home goods from her product line Merci Bonsoir.
Please join us for "We’re All Kinda Fucked Up" opening January 11th with an evening reception from 6pm - 8pm. The artist will be in attendance.
The exhibition will be on view through February 1st, 2020.
Recess is open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 10am to 6pm and we can be found at 816 Sutter Street in San Francisco, inside the former Spoke Art gallery space.
For more information please email email us at info@everybodylovesrecess.com
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