Third Fridays | Ways to Kill the Night

Beyond Beyond returns to 302 Folsom for The East Cut Third Fridays Series with 'Ways to Kill the Night', a two-person show featuring sculptures by Chris Lux and paintings by Sarah Thibault. Join us for the opening reception on Friday, February 16th, from 6-9 PM. Third Fridays transforms vacant retail space into valuable free community space. Two Third Fridays events in October and November of 2017 attracted over 1000 participants. To give your ideas or contribute to a future Third Fridays project please email [email protected] // ABOUT THE SHOW // It's late but sleep evades you. The more you grasp for rest, the more your body resists, and you're plagued by that endless string of epiphanies, anxieties and delusions that constitute a rough night. Through their work, Chris Lux and Sarah Thibault pay tribute to these restless hours and to the devices we turn to for comfort.  Known for his erotic and historically referential paintings, Chris Lux departs from the canvas with a series of luminous sculptures that reflect the artist's growing interest in functional art objects. Lux adheres pieces of colored glass to ceramic bases, creating organic forms that resemble drip castles, nests and hives. In addition to electric lightbulbs, some of the sculptures include multiple lit candles, a playful - even desperate - defense against the encroaching darkness. Placed throughout the exhibition space, these lamps act as beacons, animated by redundant, delicate flames.Peopled with slouching bodies and glowing screens, Sarah Thibault's new series of oil paintings offer intimate studies of women and their devices at night. In Netflix Stretches, a woman sits with a laptop cradled between her legs, the light from the screen coloring her flesh a cold, iridescent blue. In Still Life With Netflix, we only see the folded legs of a lonely subject - our view, like hers, is entirely focused on the computer screen at the base of her bed.  Do these dimly-lit hunks of metal offer welcome distraction from the dark or are they increasingly to blame for these agonizing, sleepless nights? An anxiety underlies both Lux's and Thibault's work that suggests a discomfort with technology's sway over us. But the visual equivalence that Thibault draws between the light of the moon and the light of the iPhone cautions any reductive judgments - whether it's in the sky or in the palm of our hands, we're always going to be searching for an illuminated face, always reaching for the light.// ABOUT THE ARTISTS // Chris Lux is a painter and sculptor who lives and works in San Francisco. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Jupiter Woods, London; Stussy, Tokyo; Oakland Museum, Oakland, California; Muddguts, New York; Popular Workshop, San Francisco; and Jancar Jones, Los Angeles.Sarah Thibault is an artist living and working in San Francisco. Thibault has exhibited her work at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, Interface Gallery, City Limits, HILDE Gallery and ART in Embassies. Her paintings have been featured in The Huffington Post, San Francisco Magazine, SFAQ, The Examiner and 7x7. Thibault is a Co Director of The Painting Salon, a nomadic lecture series featuring monthly artist talks in the Bay Area. She holds an MFA from the California College of the Arts, a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BA from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. // ABOUT BEYOND BEYOND //Beyond Beyond is an itinerant curatorial collective based in Downtown San Francisco. We invade vacant retail spaces to showcase the work of local artists and performers through regular pop-up events. Beyond Beyond is generously supported by the East Cut Community Benefit District. // IMAGE CREDIT // Sarah Thibault, Netflix Still Life, oil on canvas, 5'x4', 2017