Eight bridges connect the San Francisco Bay, so it is an apt name for a gallery platform that brings the Bay Area art world together.

Our mission is to maintain a vibrant gallery scene, despite restrictions on travel, celebrations and other larger gatherings. We want to support our artists by informing and entertaining curators, collectors and critics with potent online exhibitions of their work.

On the first Thursday of every month, we will launch 8 shows of artists relevant to the Bay Area. They may be working in this place, long considered an epicenter of change, or deeply engaged in the conversations the Bay Area holds dear, whether it’s related to technology, the environment, social justice or sexual identity, to name a few. In addition, each month will highlight the crucial work of a Bay Area non-profit arts organization.

Founding Committee

Claudia Altman-Siegel, Kelly Huang, Sophia Kinell, Micki Meng, Daphne Palmer, Ratio 3, Sarah Wendell Sherrill, Jessica Silverman, and Elizabeth Sullivan

Ambassador Committee

Sayre Batton & Maja Thomas, Joachim & Nancy Bechtle, Matt Bernstein, Sabrina Buell, Wayee Chu & Ethan Beard, Natasha Boas, Douglas Durkin, Carla Emil, Matt & Jessica Farron, Lauren Ford, Ali Gass, Stanlee Gatti, Brook Hartzell & Tad Freese, Pamela & David Hornik, Katie & Matt Paige, Putter Pence, Becca Prowda & Daniel Lurie, Deborah Rappaport, Komal Shah & Gaurav Garg, Laura Sweeney, The Battery, Robin Wright, Sonya Yu & Zack Lara

Sponsors

Lobus, The Space Program

Johansson Projects
MIGUEL ARAZABE | RACHELLE BUSSIÈRES | CRAIG DORETY | MATTHEW F FISHER | ALEXANDER KORI GIRARD | KRISTINA LEWIS | BLAISE ROSENTHAL
COMMUNITY GARDEN

At a time when it feels like the light is finally breaking through the darkness, Community Garden — a group exhibition of seven artists — cultivates an abundance of connections. Using a variety of methods, the artists achieve a naturalism that aesthetically binds their work together into a single gesture, allowing us glimpses and sensations of the open spaces where we once walked freely, and will soon return.

Community Garden features: Miguel Arzabe, Rachelle Bussières, Craig Dorety, Matthew F Fisher, Alexander Kori Girard, Kristina Lewis, Blaise Rosenthal is open for in-person visits at Johansson Projects.

Miguel Arzabe
Study for Calculus
2020
Woven acrylic on Yupo
24″ x 23″

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Miguel Arzabe
Study for Calculus
2020
Woven acrylic on Yupo
24″ x 23″

Born in the US to parents who immigrated from Bolivia, Miguel Arzabe’s work is informed by his heritage as well as his initial foray into professional life as an engineer. Drawing on these disparate identities, the artist utilizes media from contemporary resources and applies them to his grand works inspired by traditional Andean weaving. Miguel reclaims discarded work from other artists, collects out dated art related paper ephemera, and political posters, and produces raw materials using, among other things, acrylic paint, yupo paper, and inkjet printed onto canvas. This robust range of media combined with his mastery over materials allows Arzabe to achieve dynamic woven abstractions. These works are rich with color, the dramatic physical presence of their undulating fields referencing nature and identity while spanning out through culture and composition across space and time.

Blaise Rosenthal
The Great Beyond
Pastel, charcoal, earth pigments and acrylic on canvas
66 x 88 inches

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Blaise Rosenthal
The Great Beyond
Pastel, charcoal, earth pigments and acrylic on canvas
66 x 88 inches

Meticulous and monumental, Blaise Rosenthal’s paintings command a formal vernacular derived from invention, isolation and yearning. Given time, the subtleties redolent in Rosenthal’s monochromatic works provide discoveries similar to those realized by viewing majestic environments, such as the artist’s childhood home at the foot of the Sierra Nevada. Also on view are several recent works that stray, delightfully, into an approach that is at the same time playful and refined. Using sewing, these works, titled ‘Composites’, employ contrast to achieve a whole that is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

Rachelle Bussières
Paper Orb (by day and night), 2021
Exposures on two gelatin silver papers
20 x 24 inches each

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Rachelle Bussières
Paper Orb (by day and night), 2021
Exposures on two gelatin silver papers
20 x 24 inches each

Rachelle Bussières fuses her background in sculpture, photography, and material research, into the lumen printmaking process by which she creates her photograms. These geometric abstractions and their luscious palette are a function of light, time, and manipulation. To define the composition of each work, throughout her process Bussières maneuvers household objects such as lamp shades, curtains and boards over her support, while regulating exposure to both natural sunlight and the artificial light she releases from flash equipment, lightbulbs and her space’s preexisting ceiling fixtures. Rachelle’s recent works, created as a new resident in the World Trade Center’s Silver Arts Project, reflect the artist’s relocation, as she has successfully captured the light of her new environment while producing pictures that offer a new range of forms and gestures.

Alexander Kori Girard
Meeting About Equity, 2020
Acrylic gouache on canvas
72 x 48 inches

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Alexander Kori Girard
Meeting About Equity, 2020
Acrylic gouache on canvas
72 x 48 inches

Guided by his early childhood impressions of folk art from his legendary grandfather of the same name, Alexander Kori Girard works in a range of mediums including acrylic paint, collage and watercolor. Using an all-over composition reminiscent of textile design and the New York school of the mid-20th century, Girard densely populates his surfaces by placing petroglyphic figures and ancient nature into a hazily defined field of activity. The results of this process are paintings that contain rich landscapes of interconnectedness. In these spaces viewers are set free to navigate and insert their own narratives within works that hum with a spiritual vibration that travels across history and space.
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