Merritt Wallace Featured | Sonic Futures | San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art

February 1, 2017

March 18 - June 11, 2017

Through sound art, music, and video, Sonic Futures aims to envision new possibilities for the future. The show counters our current political arena: where there is a desire to prevent access to space and to create borders and boundaries, artists in the show propose innovative ways to navigate our world, and hypothetically, other worlds and galaxies. Through remixing and reinterpreting history, considering access and privilege, and questioning our current forms of communication, artists in Sonic Futures present alternatives to our current status quo. Featuring video and drawings by Creative Growth artist Merritt Wallace, in addition to Sofia Cordova, INVASORIX, Jeepneys, Laura Hyunjhee Kim, Keith Lafuente, and Jenifer Wofford.

Public Program: "Talking Art: Sonic Futures," Sunday May 7, 2017, 3-4PM at San Jose ICA

For more information, visit here.

Merritt Wallace, Untitled, 2013, Work on paper, 15 x 22 inches

Creative Growth + Esqueleto | Oakland, CA

February 1, 2017

This Spring, the Oakland Esqueleto shop welcomes Creative Growth to the gallery with “Common Treasures,” a project realized over the course of several collaborative workshops led by Esqueleto in the CG studio. The show will feature large-scale assemblage wall hangings that combine ceramic, textile, and painted elements to riff on the theme of “the necklace.” “Common Treasures” will also showcase papier-mâché sculptures by Maureen Clay and watercolor and ink compositions by Aurie Ramirez. All proceeds from the show will benefit Creative Growth. Opened in 2011, Esqueleto is a jewelry shop and gallery owned by designer Lauren Wolf. They make their own collection of fine jewelry in their Temescal studio space, and also feature the work of 30+ independent jewelers, alongside artwork and art objects, in their Oakland and Los Angeles storefronts. Esqueleto's gallery shows rotate on a bi-monthly basis.

Exhibition runs April 7 - May 31, 2017 Reception Friday, April 7, 5:30pm - 8pm

For more information, visit shopesqueleto.com

Aurie Ramirez, Untitled, 2015, Watercolor and ink on paper, 22.5" x 11"

Maureen Clay, Rocks, 2016, Papier-mâché and acrylic

Maureen Clay, Untitled, 2016, Papier-mâché and acrylic, 7" x 7" x 5"

William Tyler Featured | Storytellers | LAND Gallery | Brooklyn, NY

February 1, 2017

March 2 - April 19, 2017 Storytellers is a selection of works by artists who reimagine and reinvent the essential practice of telling stories through visual art. Each work represents aspects of a complex personal narrative, glimpses into alternate realities created with diverse materials and processes — Miranda Delgai’s reflection of Navajo tradition and identity through weaving, Billy White’s multivalent hand-built ceramics, or the effortless humor of Michael Pellew’s pop culture inspired drawings. The narratives these artists construct are not only imaginative inventions, but broader representations of their experiences and highly original perspectives. Curated by Tim Ortiz and Andreana Donahue, this group exhibition includes five LAND artists, as well as intellectually disabled artists maintaining contemporary practices at progressive art studios throughout the country.

Participating artists: Nicole Appel, Carlo Daleo, Miranda Delgai, Knicoma Frederick, Garrol Gayden, Kenya Hanley, Sara Malpass, Larry Pearsall, Michael Pellew, Hugo Rocha, William Tyler, Billy White

Curated by Andreana Donahue and Tim Ortiz

Andreana Donahue and Tim Ortiz are the co-founders of Disparate Minds, an ongoing interdisciplinary project discussing the work of marginalized self-taught artists in an art historical and contemporary context. Through their research, writing, lectures, and curatorial projects, Donahue and Ortiz share insight informed by extensive experience in this field as practicing artists, artist facilitators, and dedicated disability rights advocates.

The opening reception on Thursday, March 2, 6–8pm, is free and open to the public.

For more information about this exhibition contact Sophia Cosmadopoulos, LAND Coordinator at scosmadopoulos@leaguecenter.org.

John Hiltunen | Good Luck Gallery | Los Angeles

February 1, 2017

April 8 - May 21, 2017 In John Hiltunen’s anthropomorphic paper collages, the conventional dynamic between man and beast is rearranged with spellbinding results. The affected posturing of fashion models is combined with the purely instinctual behavior of animals in unpredictable, amusing and provocative ways:

A smug-looking cat struts in designer jeans; a tiny bespectacled rabbit head disappears into the body of a rail-thin model wearing a luxurious coat; a muscular dog-headed tennis player gazes lovingly into the human-featured shaggy dog that lies cradled in his arms, against the setting of an ocean sunset. Like most of the idyllic nature scenes that serve as the backdrops of Hiltunen’s collages, it is turned sideways, adding to the beguilingly off-kilter charm.

Direct and intense, the stunning reversals and inversions of these images reflect the care dedicated to their creation. Taken from fashion catalogs and travel magazines, Hiltunen invests substantial time arranging the components, laying them out on a table and considering the various options before achieving exactly the right effect.

A Kentuckian by birth, John Hiltunen currently resides in Fremont, California and attends the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland - a world-renowned art studio that serves artists with mental and developmental disabilities. He has exhibited at White Columns and the Rachel Uffner Gallery in New York and his work has been shown at a number of contemporary art fairs. The Good Luck Gallery is delighted to be presenting his first solo show in Los Angeles.

The Good Luck Gallery 945 Chung King Road, Los Angeles, Ca 90012 www.thegoodluckgallery.com - 213-625-0935 - WED-SUN 12-6PM For further inquiries contact: Paige Wery - paige@thegoodluckgallery.com - cell: 323-243-0658

Aurie Ramirez Featured | Known/Unknown | Museum of Sex | New York

February 1, 2017

January 19 - September 16, 2017

Featuring over 100 rarely seen works, Known/Unknown: Private Obsessions and Hidden Desire in Outsider Art considers how outsider, self-taught, and folk artists have creatively operated within common social boundaries, rigid ideologies and moral predicaments and illustrates the scope of sexual and erotic subject matter within this still widely overlooked field of visual art.

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Featured artists include: Aurie Ramirez, Edwin Lawson, Eugene von Bruenchenhein, Gil Batle, Henry Darger, Johann Garber, Johann Korec, Marilena Pelosi, Miroslav Tichý, Morton Bartlett, Robert Anderson, Royal Robertson, S. F. Cody, Steve Ashby, and Thornton Dial.

For more information, please visit the Museum of Sex website, here: www.museumofsex.com.

Museum of Sex 233 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10016 212.689.6337

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Outsider Art Fair, New York

January 16, 2017

January 19 - 22, 2017
Booth #46

Creative Growth Art Center is proud to be representing the following artists at this year's Outsider Art Fair in New York: Susan Janow, John Martin, Dan Miller, Donald Mitchell, Carrie Oyama, Tony Pedemonte, William Scott, Monica Valentine, Alice Wong, and Ying Ge Zhou.

Hours: Thursday, January 19th: Early access 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm; Vernissage 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm Friday, January 20th: 11:00 am - 8:00 pm Saturday, January 21st: 11:00 am - 8:00 pm Sunday, January 22nd: 11:00 am - 6:00 pm

Metropolitan Pavilion 125 West 18th Street New York, NY 10011

Contact Information +1 212 337 3338 info@outsiderartfair.com outsiderartfair.com

Creative Growth Director, Tom di Maria, will be a panelist during OAF Talks at the New Museum, January 18th, 6:30-8:30pm