Artist Yumiko Kayukawa. Photo by Fumiko Yarita.

The Japanese artist now based in Seattle, Yumiko Kayukawa, opens her solo show Madness (full press release here) in the Shooting Gallery this Saturday, June 8th from 7 – 11 PM. At the center of her candy colored, Manga-style compositions there is often a strong female subject. This recurring character is usually surrounded by animals, both tame and wild, that interact with her in a radiant, fantasy world. Often cute, though always aesthetically beautiful, these pieces unfold hypnotically into the artist’s visual narratives.

Last year, Kayukawa was interviewed by Eyestrane in this post, where she discusses her upbringing in Hokkaido, Japan, her artistic process and inspiration, as well as the role of Japanese mythology in her work.

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Madness, New Works by Yumiko Kayukawa
Opening Reception – Saturday, June 8, 7-11 pm
On View Through June 29, 2025
@ Shooting Gallery (shootinggallerysf.com)
886 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94109

See images and read excerpts from the interview after the jump. Read more »

Artist Aaron Nagel in front of his work. Photo from Arrestedmotion.com.

Aaron Nagel paints hyper-realist portraits with strong, Baroque contrasts in light and color. His solo show Bastion is opening in the SG Project Space this Saturday, June 8th from 7 – 11 PM. A true Renaissance Man, Nagel is both an accomplished artist and lead guitarist for the band Desa. Mostly choosing the female form as his subject, Nagel’s paintings subvert traditional Catholic iconography with unapologetic nudity and a modern aesthetic. In our interview with Nagel, we learned that the artist’s nudes are intended to be more figurative than erotic, and that he manipulates the lighting with photographic techniques to achieve those dramatic effects.

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Bastion, New Works by Aaron Nagel
Opening Reception – June 8, 2025, 7-11 pm
On View Through June 29, 2025
@ Shooting Gallery Project Space (shootinggallerysf.com/project-space)
886 Geary Street, San Francisco CA 94109

To read the full interview and catch a glimpse of Nagel’s latest work, follow the jump. Read more »

The website SuperSonic Electronic posted photos in this feature from our past shows with artist Aaron Nagel. He will be opening a new solo exhibition, Bastion, in the SG Project Space on Saturday, June 8th from 7 – 11 PM. Nagel’s oeuvre comprises of nude portraiture, with modern looking models, who are wearing a variety of textured materials from pearls, thick body paint, and powder. These oil paintings are rendered through traditional layering and glazes, and many themes hearken to Catholic iconography.

Bastion, New Works by Aaron Nagel
Opening Reception – June 8, 2025, 7-11 pm
On View Through June 29, 2025
@ Shooting Gallery Project Space (shootinggallerysf.com/project-space)
886 Geary Street, San Francisco CA 94109

Follow the jump to review Nagel’s past works. Read more »

The artist Aaron Nagel. Photo courtesy of Mr. Four Fingers.

The Mr. Four Fingers website picked up this feature on the hyperreal paintings of Aaron Nagel, whose solo show Bastion will be exhibiting in the Shooting Gallery Project Space on June 8th. The author D2G explains that painting in oil is “one of those mediums that you have to spend a long time layering up with heaps of finesse (I guess this goes for a lot of art out there). [Nagel's] execution is amazing and the poses are great. It also helps that all his models are incredibly good looking.”

The artist is inspired by 15th and 16th century European painting, which utilizes dramatic lighting, religious subject matter, and countless layers of paint for a luminous effect. Nagel has shown with the Shooting Gallery twice before, in 2025′s A Thin Line and 2025′s Marks.

Bastion, New Works by Aaron Nagel
Opening Reception – June 8, 2025, 7-11 pm
On View Through June 29, 2025
@ Shooting Gallery Project Space (shootinggallerysf.com/project-space)
886 Geary Street, San Francisco CA 94109

View more photos from Aaron Nagel’s website of his works-in-process, after the jump. Read more »

Adriana Scott from Chaos Mag just posted this interview with our upcoming artist Aaron Nagel, whose show Bastion will open in the SG Project Space on June 8th. A self-taught painter and autodidact of art history, his personal interest in 16th and 17th century painting greatly informs his hyper-realist style. The interview covers his artistic influences, which range from living artists such Kim Cogan and Jeremy Mann, to Catholic iconography: “I gravitate toward religious art. Sixteenth and 17th century are my favorites because of the culture of the time. [Artists] were paid to paint religious paintings, endorsed by the church or made by zealots. I’m really not religious at all. In a way, I’m repurposing the imagery. For me, the closest thing to a godlike figure would be women. I’m kind of taking that imagery and using that for my own means.”

Bastion, New Works by Aaron Nagel
Opening Reception – June 8, 2025, 7-11 pm
On View Through June 29, 2025
@ Shooting Gallery Project Space (shootinggallerysf.com/project-space)
886 Geary Street, San Francisco CA 94109

Follow the jump for photos and excerpts from the interview with Chaos Mag. Read more »

Van Arno, “Marie Antoinette” Oil on Canvas, 48×36″ 2025

Van Arno is an intrepid contemporary painter with a firm foundation in the classics – even if you can’t detect all of his historical references, the artist’s paintings are still refreshingly avant-garde. His solo show Tame Nor Sane is on view at the SG Project Space through June 1st. Having coined the term uber-mannerist, the academic postures of Van Arno’s well-molded figures also depict rubbery contortions and a plastic pliancy. In our exclusive interview, we get an inside look into Van Arno’s fixation with the female form, his latest venture in street art, and reworking the ‘genre’ painting.

Tame Nor Sane
On View Through June 01, 2025
@ Shooting Gallery Project Space
886 Geary
San Francisco, CA

Follow the jump for the full interview. Read more »

For Immediate Release:
Contact Shooting Gallery – Justin Giarla
Justin@shootinggallerysf.com

Shooting Gallery Project Space Presents:

Bastion, New Works by Aaron Nagel

The Shooting Gallery Project Space is pleased to present Bastion by Bay Area artist Aaron Nagel. The opening reception will be held on Saturday, June 8, 2025 from 7-11pm and will be on display, free and open to the public, through June 29, 2025.

Known for his masterful figurative paintings, Nagel’s latest creations continue in the same vein of the smaller portrait-style work he introduced in last year’s solo show at Shooting Gallery, A Thin Line. The arrows of his earlier work are brought back as well, and their inclusion calls upon the heavy symbolism of Catholicism, replacing typical saints with luminous women in various stages of undress. Nagel’s lush renderings invert the traditions of classical oil painting, while still maintaining a reverence for the medium and its history. Sensuality, divinity, and vulnerability are balanced against each other in compositions of beautifully captured light and shadow.

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Aaron Nagel was born in 1980 in San Francisco, CA. He is a figurative oil painter who resides in Oakland, CA. Having received no formal training, he exhibits an earnest admiration for classical oil painting techniques and traditions, and is in constant pursuit of the most vivid renderings of the female form. Often in unconventional positions, the figures are frequently juxtaposed against carefully hand lettered type, marked with glossy black paint, or encircled with halos of line and light.

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Mary Iverson, “Flip” (east installation view), 2025, inkjet print on adhesive vinyl. Image courtesy of the artist.

In April, artist Mary Iverson unveiled her solo show Tangle in the SG Project Space, which featured her classic container grids over naturalistic landscapes. She has also been transferring her signature style into larger, public works such as on an actual shipping container she painted in Singapore. The website New American Paintings just added this post about Iverson’s latest mural. Her recent work is in her hometown Seattle at the Cornish College of the Arts Alumni Gallery, where she executed a series of panels based on an animation comprised of 24 stills. She pasted these inkjet prints with an adhesive vinyl along a corridor below an underpass. Erin Langner describes Iverson’s series, entitled Flip, as “Inhabiting the filthy walls that wind below Seattle’s soon to be defunct viaduct, [it] stands out as the rare piece of public art that integrates into its surroundings without compromising the artist’s sensibility. The passage of time made the installation even more at home, now fully weathered to the wall and absorbing the abrasions of daily outdoor living.”

View more photos from Flip, and the original short animation, after the jump. Read more »

Yumiko Kayukawa in her studio with adorable pup.

On June 8, Yumiko Kayukawa returns for her eighth solo show at the Shooting Gallery: Madness (full press release here.) Her work bridges contemporary American pop culture with traditional Japanese motifs, where each painting is rife with references and humorous anecdotes. She sent us some detail shots of her upcoming work giving us a look at her precisely formed lines and expressive linework. Kayukawa’s oeuvre expresses a love of nature, with vibrant animal characters, and a recurring, self-possessed female protagonist. 

Madness, New Works by Yumiko Kayukawa
Opening Reception – Saturday, June 8, 7-11 pm
On View Through June 29, 2025
@ Shooting Gallery (shootinggallerysf.com)
886 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94109

Follow the jump for exclusive detail shots and follow her blog here for additional updates.

Read more »

Burden, “The Holy Batman” Oil on Canvas, 95×146″ Framed

Juxtapoz reported on Robert X. Burden‘s solo show Toy Box, now showing in the Shooting Gallery until June 1, in this post. It includes a time lapse film of the artist painting his epic 8 x 11 ft portrait of a Transformer, entitled The Autobot, which took over 8 months to complete. The show features 16 oil paintings, though not all are as epic in scale – Burden also displayed a series of more moderately sized works at about 16 x 33″ each. These contain taxidermied animal parts that correlate to each superhero’s/villain’s identity.

Learn more about the artist from our exclusive interview here.

Follow the jump to view more of Burden’s work. Read more »