August 4 – September 29, 2018
Curated by Renee Baldocchi
I remember when Adrian Arias created La Madre, which inspired this beautiful new series called Dream Escapes. At the time, La Madre was the beginning of an idea that was birthed while making art alongside his daughter Anais, who is a force of talent in her own right. They spent an afternoon together creating art at FridaCalico’s Art House and Garden located in Marin, and La Madre was born.
It thrills me to see that, two years later, the seed piece La Madre has inspired many gorgeous paintings and works on paper, and that it continues to germinate more musings and visions for Adrian’s Dream Escapes series. He is prolific, and new works continue to sprout out of him!
The pieces are actually quite small considering the magnitude of depth and immersive quality of each work, and I’m very excited to see what they will look like when they are grouped together at the Red Poppy Art House.
Adrian will also show studies to give us a sense of his process and how his vision evolves.
I have a sense Dream Escapes will continue to permeate for a long time, and I look forward to seeing what happens next.
Renee M. Baldocchi
Baldocchi Projects
Curator/Producer/Artist
OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, August 4 @ 6:33pm
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Adrian Arias is a prize-winning multidisciplinary visual poet, curator, and cultural promoter, working and living in the Bay Area since 2000. He has participated in international individual and collective exhibitions, showing his visual art and poetry in Japan, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Canada, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Peru, and the U.S. In 2001, he was invited to the Venice Biennale, Bunker of Poetry, and in 1997 to the Ibero-American Biennale of Peru.
From 2001 to 2017, Arias served as Multimedia Director at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. He is one of the founders and creators of the Mission Arts & Performance Project (MAPP) and ILLUSION show, a one-day happening event (MCCLA, de Young Museum, SOMArts).
ARTIST STATEMENT
This new series of small format paintings is dedicated to Arias’ dreams. The exhibition reflects a state of life that is very important to his creative process. The dreams, from which the exhibition feeds itself, are transmitted in a visual way. Arias’ work is born in the surreal and is based on the idea of landscapes and natural scenes where the rocks, the sea, the mountains, and the flowers come alive with colors from his dreams. Dream Escapes is curated by Renee Baldocchi and dedicated to René Yañez.
Renee Baldocchi, a third generation San Franciscan of Italian and Mexican heritage, is an artist, artist advocate, creative liaison, event producer, and curator of artist events and installations. In 2018, she co-presented René Yañez’s solo exhibition Into the Fade at the Luggage Store Gallery and served on the host committee of SOMArts Spring Fundraiser, Demasiado, which celebrated the life and work of Yañez (9/19/42-5/29/18). Baldocchi worked as a guest curator for the Spring 2018 Marin Open Studios, celebrating its 25-year anniversary, and is currently working with interdisciplinary artist Adrian Arias for his solo exhibition at the Red Poppy Art House. She is also planning fall events with Gregangelo’s Velocity Arts & Entertainment.
Baldocchi is the former Director of Public Programs at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and is the creator of Friday Nights at the de Young. She directed many community-driven programs during her tenure, including Friday Nights at the de Young, the de Young’s Artist-in-Residence program, the Artist Fellows commission program, as well as produced concert, film, dance, theater, and poetry series bridging institutional art perspectives with local communities. Her work at the museums was deeply rooted in community and was awarded many grants. Baldocchi has served on many art advisory committees in the SF Bay Area, including the Red Poppy Art House, and has received awards from the city and county of San Francisco’s Mayor’s office for her outstanding work as a community advocate in the arts. Her recently launched Baldocchi Projects is a grant recipient of Pazala Foundation and is a new member of Intersection for the Arts’ incubation program.