886 Geary Street · San Francisco, CA
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Meryl Pataky

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  • Cellar Door

    July 06 - August 10, 2024

    Shooting Gallery Project Space is pleased to present Cellar Door, by SF-based silversmith, welder and neon artist Meryl Pataky. Join us for the opening reception Saturday, July 6, from 7-11pm. The exhibit will be free and open to the public for viewing through August 10, 2024.

    A multidisciplinary artist, Pataky is inspired by materials which are either elemental or organic and are specifically chosen to represent organic life and its building blocks – the elements created in the universe. For Cellar Door, the artist recreates the elemental symbol of the noble gases: helium (He), neon (Ne), argon (Ar), krypton (Kr) and xenon (Xe) pumping the glass tubes with the material they represent. Every piece for the show is bent by the artist herself; based on a hand-drawn pattern, each bend of the glass is heated separately in a fire from a specialty burner. In reaction to a current, the noble gases create light that emanates from within the tube. 

    Pataky also explores the luminosity that can be achieved with unexpected sources, filling a piece which spells “Give Love” phonetically (playfully titled “The Birds and the Bees”) with honey. With two other pieces of phonetically-sounded signage placed against live roses and a beautifully-crafted, large scale piece, “Inspired by…,” mounted on a living wall in collaboration with David Brenner of Habitat Horticulture, the artist states, “I've always had the desire to juxtapose neon with the outdoors. I wanted to take neon out of its normal environment. The character of neon is subconsciously viewed as an everlasting fixture of our cities' nightlife. In nature, it becomes vulnerable and ephemeral.”

    A 20 x 24 inch print of “Inspired by…” set amidst Sutro Forest will accompany the piece as the first in what will be a series of neon works in the outdoors for print and in the form of street art in San Francisco. 

    Meryl Pataky : Inspired by... (Collaboration with photographer Abby Wilcox)
    Meryl Pataky
    Inspired by... (Collaboration with photographer Abby Wilcox)
    Museum-quality giclée digital print, signed and numbered by artist, 30x20" Edition of 20
    $300
    Click to inquire for details.
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