Tanja Geis: Circulate
November 10, 2022 - January 23, 2023
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 10 from 6:30 -8:30PM
201 Guerrero Street, San Francisco
Gallery Hours: By Appointment Only
re.riddle is pleased to present, Tanja Geis: Circulate, a solo exhibition of work by multidisciplinary artist Tanja Geis from November 10, 2022 to January 23, 2023. This exhibition is presented in collaboration with guest curator Sara Wessen Chang. The opening reception is on Thursday, November 10 from 6:30 - 8:30 PM at 201 Guerrero Street in San Francisco.
STATEMENT
Leading by example, Tanja Geis teaches us to revere the ocean and its boundless creativity. In her artistic practice of drawing, printmaking, film, and photography, she investigates the patterns, shapes, and structures emergent from the sea. She asks, how does a wave behave? What are its visual, sensual, and audible characteristics? And furthermore, what role do we play within the marine ecosystem at large? What marks do we leave upon the coasts and oceans?
Frequenting the San Francisco Bay Area’s shorelines, Geis gathers found objects—some manmade, others remnants of non-human lives lived. These objects become her subject matter and often her medium. The print series Surface Tension systematizes the mark of certain flotsam with circular surfaces, including a syringe and a tampon applicator, into a grid. The repetition of marks create rhythmic undulations, mimicking the churning of the ocean and the patterns of waves left upon the sand.
Within her oeuvre, there is a subversive current of concern for the erasure or extinction of certain species, such as abalone, seabirds, and bull kelp. In her newest series of drawings, Geis presents the abalone shell, amidst a black background in a minimalist, near-spiritual gesture. Its traces and scars reflect the history and hardship of the abalone’s life; its elliptical shape and patterning—resembling that of the human brain—remind us we share the same origins and vulnerabilities.
~ Sara Wessen Chang, Guest Curator
PROGRAMMING
In Conversation: Tanja Geis x Sara Wessen Chang
Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 6:00pm
201 Guerrero Street, San Francisco
re.riddle presents, In Conversation: Tanja Geis x Sara Wessen Chang, an artist and curator talk in conjunction with Circulate, solo exhibition by Tanja Geis in San Francisco.
Curator, writer and art historian Sara Wessen Chang speaks with contemporary artist Tanja Geis about her interdisciplinary practice, human behavior and ecology, and themes of circularity. Please join us!
ARTWORKS
About
Tanja Geis makes research-based paintings, drawings, sculptures and videos that invite intimacy with human-disturbed edge ecosystems through queering, drawing close to and staying with the impacts of humans on the liveliness of non-humans. Geis holds an M.F.A. in Art Practice from University of California Berkeley, an M.R.M. in Marine Management from the University of Akureyri, Iceland, and a B.A. in Fine Art from Yale University. Her work has been exhibited at the Berkeley Art Museum, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, and galleries in Iceland, Scotland, England, Hong Kong and Japan. She has taught at University of California Berkeley. Geis' awards include a Graduate Fellowship and Affiliate Artist Fellowships at the Headlands Center for the Arts, a Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Award from The San Francisco Foundation, and a Graduate Arts Grant from the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts. She has been an artist-in-residence at Djerassi Resident Artist Program, the Blue Mountain Center and Kala Art Institute. Geis was born in Hong Kong and lives in Berkeley, CA.
Sara Wessen Chang is a curator, writer, and art historian. Following her graduate studies at The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, she curated and organized numerous exhibitions at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and McEvoy Foundation for the Arts. Select exhibitions include Paul Klee and Anni Albers (2019), David Park and His Circle: The Drawing Sessions (2020), Contemporary Optics: Olafur Eliasson, Teresita Fernández, and Anish Kapoor (2021), and Image Gardeners (2022). She has contributed writing to numerous publications, including Once Upon a Time in America (Wallraf Richartz Museum, 2018), David Park: A Retrospective (SFMOMA, 2020), and Joan Brown (SFMOMA, forthcoming 2022). Sara was born in San Francisco and lives in Mill Valley, CA.