Introducing the Stuck at Home Series—our way of bringing a little Creative Growth into your life during our closure. Each post features a different Creative Growth artist, along with insight into their process and anecdotes from the Studio. A few framed works by that artist will be available for purchase in our online shop and include free shipping, because everyone could use more Creative Growth love right now. All sales directly support the artist and our programs. Stay tuned as we continue to share more work from our artists.
Aurie has been working at Creative Growth since 1997. Her sophisticated and delicately rendered watercolor and ink compositions create a fantasy world of 18th-century dandyism, neo-Victorian decorum, psychedelia, glam rock sex, anthropomorphic food, and punk fetishism. Exploring themes of sexuality, fashion, violence, and forbidden foods, Aurie’s work is always a little abrasive, a little enigmatic, and endlessly fascinating. Aurie’s work has been shown at White Columns and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in New York and the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland, among others.
Juan plays out his devotion to female forms and their undergarments in a variety of media—painting, printmaking, ceramics, and wood. His interest in the subject isn’t sensational. Instead, the garments become profound and multifaceted vessels for feminine energy. His renditions are bright, full of expression, and always pay tribute to his homeland of Mexico. Studio Instructor Veronica Rojas on Juan’s most recent assemblage pieces: “He is sort of an alchemist—pouring different materials onto his paintings, mixing media and adding found objects like beads, fabric, lace, panties, bras. He transforms all these objects from their practical use into a magical talisman surrounded by his favorite flowers, butterflies, bugs, and planets."
The recognition of Susan’s work in the contemporary art world is amplified by her natural charisma. She is a powerful and positive force in the Creative Growth Studio, working in every media and participating in many partnerships, including Anthropologie, Target, and the Tune-Yards. Susan can be found at the center of every party and her response to success: “Oh man, I’m just living the best life.” In contrast to her exuberant personality, Susan approaches her signature drawings with a methodical and meditative focus. Often beginning with a loose hand-drawn grid, she meticulously fills in each shape with fine lines that when complete, resemble faintly moving curtains. Susan primarily works with black ink, but at times will make very astute and intuitive choices to add color to her compositions - an impulse she describes as “just going with the flow.” Susan’s drawings have been exhibited internationally and are highly sought after by collectors.
Susan is also a prolific short filmmaker—writing, directing, and often performing in works she creates in Creative Growth’s Digital Media Lab. In "Questions", Janow sits silently facing the camera as we hear her voiceover asking a series of mundane and poignant questions. Over the course of 10 minutes, this piece becomes as meditative as her signature curtain drawings.
Jordan creates kaleidoscopic paintings that reveal vibrant interpretations of the world. Abstract in form, Jordan often attributes very specific titles to his works, like “Freaky Woman” or “Different Shades.” He also decodes and pays homage to abstract masters like Miro and Kandinsky as part of his practice. Jordan’s work demands steady exploration, during which biomorphic forms, new geometries, and recognizable elements emerge. Perhaps Creative Growth’s greatest cinephile, many Studio staff reported that Jordan correctly predicted all of this year’s Oscar winners!
Alice transforms found photographs using paint markers to enhance or obscure her subjects—an approach reminiscent of Baldessari’s work. With a reductive eye, Alice forces us to rely on the periphery for contextual clues and meaning by both orienting the viewer and suggesting abstraction. Above, Alice worked with an entire flip book of Valentino Garavani, working at his desk. The result is a baffling exploration of color and composition as she progressively covers his face and surrounds—the ‘unraveling’’ of a man, one could say.
John creates drawings that synthesize his memories of a family farm in Mississippi with his modern life in Oakland. His fascination with tools and trucks has informed his oeuvre since 1987, when he first came to Creative Growth. John’s work both describes their function and subverts practicality through his outrageous animal mash-ups, oversized Leatherman tools, and mysterious text: fish become knives, alligators become saws, John becomes a Nokia phone, a multitool is splayed open to show grinning sharks. His wry and practical sense of humor is evident in all of his compositions, translating utilitarian imagery into his graphic and animated aesthetic.
Ray has developed his own graffiti pop symbolism to construct ironic narratives about vengeful bunnies and teddy bear ninjas alongside abstract compositions that incorporate masks, eight balls, arrows, and smiley faces. His comic book pieces are sometimes autobiographical, reimagining himself as a vigilante who is hellbent on correcting injustice. This sense of morality translates outside of Ray’s artistic identity, and he is widely known as a kind and empathetic member of Creative Growth’s community. Choosing to work independently in the breakroom instead of a class, Ray has developed a series of witticisms with everyone that passes by—“Would I give Kathleen four rats?”; “Would I steal Ellie’s hopes and dreams?”; “Would I take Sarah’s iPhone and put superglue in the charger?” Read Ray’s illuminating interview in the Ace Reader from 2019.
Tony constructs armatures of wood and recycled materials that he then wraps in layers of yarn and thread until the structure is nearly concealed. Tony works with high energy and intention—never pausing to consider his next move, just following his own intuition. Despite comparison to Creative Growth artist Judith Scott, Tony’s process and finished work is entirely different from Scott’s (whom he never met), demonstrated by their smooth texture, limited palettes, and geometrically-driven configurations. Like his sculptures, his works on paper begin with a drawn figure that he obscures with frenzied mark making and sweeping gestures that cover his workspace and reach beyond the paper’s edge. Watching Tony work is like an athletic or performative feat—his practice is grounded by the use of his body as a tool for expression.
After emigrating to the US from Afghanistan in 2012, Latefa quickly established her art practice at Creative Growth. Despite the language barrier (Latefa speaks Farsi), she is a fierce advocate for herself in the studio. Latefa’s tenacity is demonstrated in her bold portrait paintings that are inspired by a plethora of source material. Her strong graphic outlines and fluid brush work fill her figures with dynamic expression and presence. Latefa’s work has been featured at Outsider Art Fairs in Paris and New York, D’Dessin in Paris, Good Luck Gallery in Los Angeles, and is included in Hannah Rieger's permanent Art Brut Collection. Latefa’s artwork is also on the cover of Creative Growth’s Magazine #3.
Donald has been an artist at Creative Growth since 1986. The evolution of his work takes an interesting trajectory, wherein his recent work revisits some of his early impulses. Donald’s work began with dense abstract and cross-hatched fields of black lines or brush strokes that obliterated the paper and hid any trace of underlying image. Over time, Donald slowly uncovered the faces and forms buried in the darkness. His work then became populated by multiple figures that were autonomous or overlapping, and whose relationships became both dependent and independent of each other. Donald’s recent work maintains the foundation of these anonymous figures, but has returned to abstraction with late-career artist’s skill. Donald’s work has been exhibited internationally and is included in major private and institutional collections.
Ying Ge was born in Guangdong, China and came to Creative Growth in 2010 with a strong aptitude for drawing and painting. Whether she works from fashion magazines or her imagination, Ying Ge creates enigmatic portraits rendered in simple lines, and suffused with watercolor. Recently, Ying Ge has been combining paint and embroidery on fabric to bring dimensionality to her signature style. Ying Ge’s work has been shown at Fraenkel Gallery and Anglim Gilbert Gallery in San Francisco, Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York, and several art fairs.
Joseph creates abstract paintings that radiate with energy. Blending an impressive array of colors with gestural and drip elements, Joseph has created his own expressive visual language. Moments of tension and release are apparent in his painting process, by combining sweeping brush strokes with layers of graphic lines.
Rosena makes work that is largely influenced by memories of her life growing up on a farm in Louisiana. A master storyteller, her vignettes depict daily activities, illustrated with rich interactions that often include speech bubbles to bring the narrative to life. Much of her work transposes human social commentary onto animal subjects. Both humorous and cutting, her anthropomorphized characters play out the harmonious and contentious dynamics of family, romance, and community. With an aesthetic nod to Southern folk art, Rosena’s paintings are deeply rooted in personal history and African American culture.
Terri has been an artist at Creative Growth for 27 years. Terri’s early work consisted primarily of albino animals and people–an interest she developed while attending camp with other legally blind people. Using rich applications of pastel, her work on paper plays with the lack of pigment in the figures and the vibrant saturation of colors that surround them. Terri’s recent practice has shifted almost exclusively to digital work, using an iPad to alter photographs and create AR architecture. There is a through-line from her earlier work to the digital “makeovers” of historical figures, celebrities, and rock stars that imbue her subjects with bold new meanings. Terri often carries “friends” with her (life sized mat board cutouts) to Creative Growth on BART from her house, to which she attaches her digital portraits.
One of our longest attending artists, William has been working at Creative Growth since 1977. His precise, ordered ink drawings spin personal narratives in the form of repeated patterns and dense blocks of text. William’s uncanny ability to recall events and dates from his life and the world around him is evident on the page through his long and poetic narratives. Upon close reflection of the sheer volume of William’s oeuvre, each piece is wholly distinct in it’s content and detail. While his palette is limited, his repeated marks create extraordinary visual textures with neatly drawn stippling, thin and tidy lines, and complex pattern-making. William also expresses a strong moral code through lists of items or actions that are unacceptable – ‘NO MORE CALENDARS; NO SWIMMING; NO MORE NAKED.’
