EXPAT

EXPAT
Opens 12 May 7-10pm
On view through 4 June
Gallery Hours Sat/Sun 1-6pm
Petra Cortright
Julie Henson
Bailey Hikawa
Greg Ito
Matt Lipps
Peter Wu
Jake Ziemann
R/SF projects is pleased to present EXPAT, a group show of seven Los Angeles-based artists whom previously matriculated or resided in the Bay Area, before migrating to Los Angeles in recent years.
The tale of Bay Area displacement as it pertains to the creative community is not a new one, and the story of San Francisco and Los Angeles as rival cities has been predominantly supplanted by scores of Angeleno transplants thrilled to embrace the more accommodating lifestyle. Easily the toughest pill to swallow is the reality of artists catalyzing displacement in the first place, by settling in affordable regions only to have the windfall of gentrification hand over eviction notices years later. Any cursory internet query on the exodus returns countless articles and symposia addressing the matter, rendering the issue one worth urgent consideration.
With this landscape in mind, however, EXPAT is less of a eulogy to the Bay’s bygone cultural climate and more of a homecoming, highlighting the formidable talent nurtured by the arts institutions of this city, as well as the flourishing arts metropolis Los Angeles is finally credited as—a tale of West Coast prowess, no matter the direction of the tide. Perhaps above all, EXPAT catalyzes a new dialogue between the coastal cities, weaving a sanguine narrative of artistic resilience and underscoring a generation of artists deserving recognition far beyond state lines.
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Petra Cortright’s core practice is the creation and distribution of digital files, whether they be videos, GIFs, or JPEGs, using consumer or corporate software and platforms. She has become renowned for making self-portrait videos that use her computer’s webcam and default effects tools, which she then uploads to YouTube. Cortright’s paintings on aluminum, linen, paper, or acrylic are created in Photoshop using painting software and appropriated images, icons, and marks. The digital files are endlessly modifiable, but at a “decisive moment” they are translated into two-dimensional objects. They become finite, yet their range of motifs and marks, and their disorienting perspectives and dimensions suggest dynamic change. Petra Cortright lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She studied Fine Arts at Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York, NY (2008) and the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2004). Selected exhibitions include: "Electronic Superhighway,” Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2016); The Metabolic Age, MALBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina; "On YouTube. Kunst und Playlists aus 10 Jahren,“ Kunsthaus Langenthal, Switzerland; "Im Inneren der Stadt," Künstlerhaus Bremen, Germany; 1301PE, Los Angeles; City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (both solo, 2017); Carl Kostyál, London, UK (solo, 2016); Depart Foundation, Los Angeles; Foxy Production, New York, NY (both solo, 2015); Société, Berlin, Germany (solo, 2014 and 2016); Frieze Film, Frieze London, UK; 12th Bienniale de Lyon, France (both 2013); and Preteen Gallery, Mexico DF (solo, 2011).
Julie Henson was raised in Charleston, South Carolina. She received an MFA from California College of the Arts in 2011, after receiving a BA from the College of Charleston. Henson has had a solo exhibition with Anat Ebgi in Los Angeles and the Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina. She has also participated in group shows at numerous museums and spaces including the Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, BBQLA, Los Angeles, and the Visual Art Center at the University of Texas, Austin. Henson’s work has been covered in Elephant Magazine, Artforum, and Hyperallergic and was a 2017 nominee for the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Award.
Bailey Hikawa (b.1987) is a multi media artist living and working in Los Angeles, CA. She graduated with a BFA from California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA in 2012. Hikawa creates surreal immersive installations that include paintings, sculptures and architectural interventions to create familiar yet foreign landscapes. Hikawa’s practice includes collaboration with other artists and performers that activate, complicate and transport these surreal spaces through movement, theater, film, audio and alternate reality based storytelling. Selected shows include Important Projects, Oakland, the Di Rosa Preserve, Napa; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Vacancy, Los Angeles; The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara.
Greg Ito (b. 1987, Los Angeles) earned a BFA in painting at the San Francisco Art Institute (2008).  Ito is a co-founder of SFAQ, Ever Gold Gallery, and MOROSO Projects, San Francisco. Recent exhibitions include Soothsayer, Steve Turner, Los Angeles; It Started With A Rose, 315 Gallery, New York; Over and Under, MON CHÉRI, Brussels; Made in San Francisco, Romer Young, San Francisco and After Gruen at SADE, Los Angeles. Upcoming exhibitions include Broken Language, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles; and Lullaby, Andrew Rafacz, Chicago.
Matt Lipps received his MFA from University of California, Irvine in 2004. His works can be found in the collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, CA); The Saatchi Gallery (London, UK); and The Pilara Foundation Collection/Pier 24 (San Francisco).
Peter Wu (b. 1976, Windsor, Ontario) lives and works in Los Angeles. In 2013, he was the recipient of the California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists. Solo exhibitions include Vincent Price Art Museum (Monterey Park, CA), Greene Exhibitions (Los Angeles, CA), Patrick Painter Inc (Santa Monica, CA), Power Galerie (Berlin, Germany), and Tomio Koyama Gallery (Tokyo, Japan). He has participated in group exhibitions at Piasa (Paris, France), Parkhaus im Malkastenpark (Dusseldorf, Germany), the Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University (Orange, CA), the Fellows of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, CA), and the Glendale College Art Gallery (Glendale, CA). He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and his BFA from the University of Windsor.
Jake Ziemann (b. 1986, Des Moines) completed his MFA in 2012 at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and his BFA in 2008 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Ziemann’s work has recently been showcased in Set In Stone, a two-person exhibition at Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles (2016) and a solo exhibition at SOME.TIME.SALON, San Francisco (2015). His work has been featured in group exhibitions throughout the United States including Apollo on Earth, HILDE, Los Angeles (2017); Sexxxitecture, CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions, San Francisco (2015); , Cameo Gallery, Portland (2015); stumble block, TMoro Projects, Santa Clara (2014); All That and a Bag of Chips, Deadspace, New York (2014); and Beauty, Berkeley Art Center Berkeley (2012). Ziemann has completed residencies at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT and the New York Studio Program at AICAD in Brooklyn, NY in 2012 and 2011 respectively. Ziemann lives and works in Los Angeles.