Terry Hoff | Sofie Ramos | Joey Enos
Terry Hoff • Big Rush
Sofie Ramos • Forcing It
Joey Enos • Double-Coating
Saturday March 7th • 6 - 9pm
Terry Hoff
Big Rush
As the Bay Area has morphed from its quieter days as a countercultural capital of California, into a bustling economic powerhouse central to the global economy, the pace of life in and around the Bay has sped to an almost unsustainable fervor as all those living in the area desperately try to hold on. Yet 30 minutes down the rugged coast, longtime Bay Area-based artist Terry Hoff has insulated himself from the frenetic noise, crafting exploratory and intricately composed abstract paintings, as the waves crash offshore.
From the sleepy coastal enclave of Half Moon Bay, veteran painter Terry Hoff indulges in a painting practice firmly rooted in the moment. Sumptuous fades of colors, careen over highly textured surfaces, soft sprays of pigment are contrasted by razor sharp taped edges, redirecting our focus from the noise of the outside world into the complexities, harmonies and dissonances of the painted planes unfolding before us. The occasional shaped panel, provides another break in expectation, as the convention of square and rectangular substrates are turned on their head in favor of surfaces whose rounded profiles better echo the contorting forms and fields of color that resonate through these paintings.
Boldly breaking from the anxious rat race of the city, the paintings within Terry Hoff’s exhibition Big Rush chart an inventive course through a sublime field of abstraction all the artist’s own.
Sofie Ramos
Forcing It
Wedged between walls, in an often overlooked corner of the gallery, Sofie Ramos has created a tangled pile of altered household objects, each precariously balanced and covered in so many layers of saturated house paint that the objects themselves start to lose resolution–utilitarian functions softening as formal qualities are accentuated. Ramos’ latest exhibition Forcing It continues the artist’s exploration of accumulation, material culture and their correlations with mental health.
In an era of Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, the sparse Apple aesthetic and resurgent mid- century minimalism, sterile surroundings have been equated with spiritual purity, mental fortitude and moral superiority. Cleanliness is next to godliness as the 17th century puritanical refrain goes. Yet Ramos’ exhibition pushes against our ordering impulses, instead using disorder as not only a generative force but a compositional tool. Positing the pile as perhaps the ultimate postmodern form, Ramos revels in piling up, recombining, and re-imagining a range of found materials as an exploration of not only coping with one’s own messes but thriving, all the while functioning through the ever expanding mess of the surrounding world.
Joey Enos
Double-Coating
Playing on the term double coding–an architectural phrase that germinated amidst the 1980s as postmodern architects sought to create buildings that could appeal to the popular culture of the time while also garnering critical approval from experts in the field– Enos creates extravagant sculptural environments that share in a kind of dual-meaning, guided by the residue of fine art aesthetics yet with the stain of mid century and late capitalism pop culture.
Enos’ works are draped in contrasts, primarily using MDF particle board covered in layers of clay body, house paint and spray paint to conjure unexpected combinations of objects and textures that are imbued with a levity and pathos that far exceeds such humble beginnings. The works in Double-Coating continue the artists exploration of a diverse melding of styles, from Hanna Barbera and Looney Tunes animations to Bay Area Funk and the unpretentious sculptures of the Emeryville Mudflats. Enos will display a mixture of weighty floor sitting structures, works on paper and wall-mounting sculptures, collapsing what little space remains between sculpture and painting.