Book Release and Artist Signing Party: Thursday, January 24, 6-8pm
Varnish Fine Art gallery releases its first publication Creatures of Saintly Disguise: Jennybird Alcantara with an artist signing party on Thursday January 24th from 6pm to 8pm. This 48-page, limited edition of 1000 full color catalog was produced in honor of Jennybird Alcantara’s June 9-July 28, 2012 solo exhibition at Varnish Fine Art in San Francisco. Selected works by Jennybird Alcantara are on exhibit during this event.
“Jennybird Alcantara’s latest series, Creatures of Saintly Disguise, contains a galaxy of symbols that coalesce into playful, mystical works. Painting with her signature palette, Jennybird creates minutely detailed works filled with symbolism, drawing the viewer deeply into a world both strange and beautiful as seen through the prism of myth, fable and fantasy.”- Excerpt from “Creatures of Saintly Disguise: Jennybird Alcantara”
A raffle ticket accompanies each book purchase at this event for a chance to win one of three original drawings by Jennybird Alcantara.
“Jennybird Alcantara’s world is like nothing you’ve ever seen. The attribution of human characteristics to animals or nonliving things has existed in literature and film for hundreds of years, but Alcantara carries the contemporary creative torch for anthropomorphism.” - Inked Magazine
This art show catalog brings closer the minute details and intricate stories wrought by the artist’s brush. In her work, Jennybird Alcantara uses the symbolism of duality to explore the connection of life and death and the veil in between, as well as the relationship between the beauty and cruelness of nature—human, animal, the natural world. Casting large-eyed women, both dainty and strong, in the role of avatars, Jennybird speaks to us of Universal experiences from her unique point of view. Our own rights of passage and deeply personal journeys are channeled through her brush, channeling insight into our own pasts, presents and (possible) futures.
Creatures of Saintly Disguise: Jennybird Alcantara is available for purchase via the gallery EMPORIUM. This book is distributed through LAST GASP.
About Jennybird Alcantara Bay Area based painter Jennybird Alcantara is best known for minutely detailed oil paintings filled with a symbolism that draws the viewer deeply into a world both strange and beautiful. At its core her work has a dreamlike narrative that emanates from a central figure, encouraging us to contemplate the complex interconnectedness of opposites as seen through the prism of myth, fable and fantasy. She received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her artwork has been exhibited broadly in the US and Europe and has been published in the Hi Fructose Box Edition Set, Ideafixa Greatest Hits, The Age of Feminine Drawing, several small publications as well as Hi Fructose, Juxtapoz, Raw Vision and Art Doll Quarterly magazines. Jennybird Alcantara is represented in the USA by Varnish Fine Art.
About Varnish Fine Art Jen Rogers and Kerri Stephens believe that Art makes the world a better place. Since founding Varnish Fine Art in 2003, the gallery has become known for showing provocative and skillfully executed contemporary artwork. True to its original mission, Varnish Fine Art continues to be a lively and vital part of the Yerba Buena Arts District in downtown San Francisco.
About LAST GASP Last Gasp is one of the largest and oldest publishers, purveyors and distributors of underground books and comics in the world. Since it’s founding in 1970 by Ron Turner, they have published, distributed and in some cases brought to light, some of the most respected and talented artists working today, R. Crumb, Mark Ryden, and Robert Williams among them. They focus on publishing 'lowbrow' and 'pop surrealist' artists, as well as graphic novels and pop culture titles and distribute all sorts of weird 'n' wonderful subversive literature, graphic novels, tattoo, and art books, supplying them to bookstores and art galleries on six continents. Their offices are located in the Mission district of San Francisco.
