Menagerie: Artists Look at Animals

Saturday, 19 August 2006 08:03

San Francisco, CA - The Museum of Craft and Folk Art presents Menagerie: Artists Look at Animals, an exhibition that focuses on contemporary representations of animals created by artists from throughout North America, from the far north through Mexico.  Curated by Susan Tselos, Menagerie: Artists Look at Animals includes more than fifty works drawn primarily from local collections and Bay Area artists.  The exhibition will be on view at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art through 22 October, 2006.

Animal imagery continually delights, intrigues, and inspires us. Animals are loving and faithful companions, and present themselves as beings that merit our respect and affection.  Artists throughout the world have responded to the presence of animals in our lives by depicting them in poses that capture their essence, whether in nature, at work, or at play.  This exhibition presents a wide variety of visions of animals at their most expressive.

Menagerie: Artists Look at Animals presents contemporary animal art by craft and folk artists, and artists influenced by folk art, who work in a variety of materials—wood, clay, glass, fiber, metal, and found objects—using techniques that include stitching, painting, carving, sculpting, and welding.

Artists represented include John Abduljaami, Patrick Amiot, Clayton Bailey, Jim Bauer, Mark Bulwinkle, Roy DeForest, Gary Dinnen, Richard Feese, Ken Kalman, Lisa Kokin, Susan Peterson, Gugger Petter, Sheila Tuffanelli, and others.  Artworks from outside the Bay Area include scrap-wood animals by two of the Naugler brothers, folk artists from Nova Scotia; the wood carvings of the Archuleta family of New Mexico; works by Inuit artists of Canada and Alaska, for whom animals form an integral part of their mythology; sheep and other animal figures of the Navajo (Dine); and animal sculptures by folk artists of Mexico.