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A Group Show Including the Art of Aaron Wilder

May 15-June 12, 2021

Arc Gallery & Studios

1246 Folsom Street

San Francisco, CA 94103

In 2020, the word, “home” took on great significance as a place of shelter from the corona virus pandemic. Members of families scattered all over the globe came home to seek safety and comfort. The home became a place of refuge and a trap, a place to protect loved ones and a place that incubated and spread the deadly virus within its walls. Those who shared tight living spaces with roommates found themselves having to adjust to confined spaces, annoying lifestyle differences and lack of privacy. Those living alone had to cope with isolation, loneliness, and boredom. The concept of “home” as a manifestation of a private place in a world of public places has been turned upside down by COVID-19, which has squeezed public places into the home via technology like Zoom.

What does “home” mean to you? Is it a structure that provides shelter and safety? How has “shelter in place” affected you? Is “home” like a prison, a place you long to escape from or a welcoming respite from a busy social life? Is it a place of chaos, where you juggle home schooling, housework, and work-at-home schedules? Have you been unable to get home due to travel restrictions, illness, or work? What does it mean to be "homeless" during these times? Has being at home gifted you the time to get to know your family members better, to enjoy the simple domesticity of cooking, cleaning, gardening? On a broader perspective, does it bring to mind a place filled with memories, a place where you were born or grew up? What memories or senses remind you of home - old family photos, heirlooms or keepsakes, recipes that remind you of your mother or grandmother, the temperature or climate of a place, the sounds of birdsong, traffic or voices? Included artists have been invited to define “home” as they wish, with or without COVID-19's influence. 

Work from Aaron Wilder's Neither Sand nor Rock project is included in the exhibition. Neither Sand nor Rock is a series of sequential photography collages that are neither linear nor cyclical, but represent a meditation on the psychological, imaginative, and physical gaps between childhood and adulthood. Each piece mixes collages of toy building blocks at various stages of completeness or incompleteness as either Mommy's house or Daddy's house. The psyches and personalities of children are built upon the foundations of the priorities and insecurities of their parents. These priorities and insecurities are a tangled web of subjective feelings and reactions of notions of identity vis-à-vis religion, socio-economic status, gender, and countless other forces. Neither Sand nor Rock is a series focusing on the construction and deconstruction of personhood and the expectations of intersecting (and at times clashing) belief systems.

Arc supports the making of quality art in all media, provides a nurturing environment for artists to create their work, builds a community of artists to encourage exploration of art, provides resources for the professional development of visual artists, and promotes appreciation of the visual arts in the city of San Francisco.