Artist David Aaron Smith’s portrait show will feature all new work made in San Francisco, of San Francisco in Gardenville Station’s inaugural art residency. The work, painted on canvases build from scavenged city material, will be created September 26th - October 4th, culminating in a three-day show October 4-6, called “Re-Placed.” The portraits will be both physical and digital, and will tell the stories of San Franciscans struggling to find their place within the City’s shifting landscape.
David Aaron Smith is most known for his sprawling reclaimed sculptural labyrinth in Death Valley National Park titled: Villa Anita (Villa Anita DV). Continuing with his themes of making work exclusively from reclaimed material, the artist will spend his residency building assemblage canvases from scavenged materials that are direct byproducts of San Francisco’s social displacement. For these canvases, he’s arranged a diverse group of people to sit for portraits, from community activists to city workers and those fighting to continue calling San Francisco home. Each canvas will show a different aspect of the growing problem of displacement in San Francisco.
The physical portraits will be accompanied by video installations by Robin Malo of the subjects talking about their current situations in the San Francisco they know and love and what they wish from The City and its leadership.
The show draws attention to how we all are byproducts of a consumer society. The artist hopes to re-place the humanity hidden in the shadows of a skyrocketing housing market to the forefront of the city's consciousness.
