From Oakland Grit to Chinatown Glam: Bay Area Artists Shine at SF Art Fair | KQED

This year’s focus is on the culture of the East Bay, with a special curation from Oakland’s community-centered pt.2 Gallery. In the gallery’s sprawling exhibit, curator Brock Brake will present works by fine arts studio Magnolia Editions, the Mission School’s Alicia McCarthy and Squeak Carnwath, as well as emerging Oakland-based artists, such as Yameng Lee Thorp and Soleé Darrell.

“There’s something special in the water,” Brake said of the East Bay’s art scene.

Brake said he grew up in Marysville, Ohio, “in a trailer park.” As a teenager, he was introduced to the Bay Area through skateboarding spreads and videos in Thrasher magazine.

“A lot of people come here to grow and find themselves a little bit more,” Brake said. “Oakland’s a really unique space and it fosters a lot of individuals who have a meaningful way of expressing themselves.”

East Bay artists were featured alongside standouts from San Francisco, including Jessica Silverman, who runs a renowned gallery in Chinatown. Her booth, titled “Beloved Community,” highlights primarily Bay Area artists, including Woody De Othello, Chelsea Ryoko Wong and others.

“If you decide to be here, it’s because you love it,” Silverman said. “When artists stay here, that kind of commitment to the city is felt, and reverberates through the community.”

At the center of the “Beloved Community” booth, a surrealist rendering of Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway” bouquet — along with a symbolic, six-eyed silver moth — captivated Erin Zhao, a Mission Bay resident.

“I feel so much mystery,” Zhao said, admiring the painting by Mission School artist Claire Rojas, who lived and practiced in the Bay Area for many years.

Silverman credited recent investment in San Francisco’s art scene to Mayor Daniel Lurie, who she described as an arts patron and collector.