Verdantly Still: A Rare Device Employee Show
Rare Device is pleased to announce our annual employee gallery exhibition, Verdantly Still. The show will feature pieces of various mediums from paintings to photography to metal works by the Rare Device staff. Artists include Annie Amundsen, Lauren Brunsvik, Kayla Conyer, Isalina Chow, Giselle Gyalzen, Dave Medal, Sarah Rogers Miller, Erin Rice, Rachel T. Robertson, and Jenn Zipp. Verdantly Still will be on view from Friday, March 9 to Monday, April 23, 2018 with an opening reception on Friday, March 9 from 6-9 pm at Rare Device Flagship, 600 Divisadero Street San Francisco, CA 94117.
Verdantly Still features multi-disciplinary pieces that are inspired by not only the young, verdant, and growing, but also by what that becomes over time: quiet, overgrown, and slowly fading. While not exclusively about them, the show is decidedly influenced by our current fascination with plants.
Each artist, in their own unique mediums, has created pieces that call to mind the mystery, beauty and variety of plants while also touching on the ‘Verdantly Still’ theme.
About the artists:
Annie Amundsen is an artist and designer with a background in painting, printmaking, and landscape architecture. She grew up in rural New England and has lived in the Bay Area since 1995. She designs a letterpress stationery line as Navy Midnight Press. Instagram: @navymidnightpress
LAUREN BRUNSVIK is a horticulturalist and floral designer who has been plantmancing in San Francisco since 2006. She finds inspiration in botanical minutiae and strives to illuminate the beauty in the unseen and overlooked. With a background in conservation biology, Lauren incorporates an educational component into each project in order to cultivate an appreciation for not just an arrangement's aesthetic value, but the millions of years of evolution that delivered each flower to the table.
ISALINA CHOW is a San Francisco-based writer, artist, and occasional musician. She works frequently around the question of place: physical and metaphorical, personal and geographical, and the rhythms or tensions between. Autobiography is built into her work, revealing a constant flux between stasis and reinvention. Her interests lie in new media and the pairing of text and image. Isalina possesses a B.A. in Art with a minor in Film & Digital Media. Instagram: @isa_ina_
Kayla Conyer is a painter and illustrator living and working in San Francisco, CA. Her work shows a deep interest in portraying the private and sometimes uncomfortable aspects of life. With emotion-based pieces touching on topics such as sexuality, feminism, and the fleeting moments we experience behind closed doors, her work produces a visual dialogue into the lives of others. Kayla’s work has been included in exhibitions at Rare Device in San Francisco and California State University in Hayward. Instagram: @kaylaconyer
Giselle Gyalzen is the Buyer and Owner of Rare Device. She is raising her family in San Francisco and has lived and worked there for 21 years. Giselle considers herself an artist in a non-traditional sense. She has a keen eye for design and function and she thrilled that she is able to share this passion and artform to the world through Rare Device. She occasionally dabbles in making things. Instagram: @giselle.gyalzen @raredevice
Dave Medal is a photographer based out of San Francisco. He grew up in Santa Cruz, where he spent most of his time exploring the ocean and coastal redwood forests. He earned his degree from San Jose State where he studied graphic design and photography. His early personal work revolved around documenting the lives of friends playing music, surfing and skating. Dave’s California upbringing shaped his love and use of ambient light while documenting fleeting, yet cherished, moments. He still loves using vintage cameras and traditional film. Instagram: @dmedal
Sarah Rogers Miller is a mixed media artist specializing in metal and jewelry arts. Born and raised in the bay area, Sarah grew up sewing her own clothes and fabricating her own jewelry. Her work is inspired by the juxtaposition of human certainty and rational, with the ambiguity of the natural world; the balance between feminine and masculine, soft and hard, temporal and permanent. Instagram: @ditaboss
ERIN RICE is a San Francisco-based artist working primarily with paper and textiles, but she sometimes dabbles in paint and printmaking. She uses recycled materials to explore our collective history while preserving the resources needed for our future. She is a California native who says “hella” unironically and is perfectly comfortable making eye contact with passersby on city sidewalks. Instagram: @littlebroom
Rachel T Robertson has lived and worked in San Francisco for over 20 years. She is a maker with equal passion for both fine art and craft. In addition to fine art drawings and paintings, she also creates fiber jewelry, knitwear and wall decor in her Mission studio. Instagram: @racheltrobertson
JENN ZIPP is from Honolulu, but has called San Francisco her home since 2004. She’s spent that last 5 years working in art galleries and arts and crafts stores, which has sparked her creativity and has inspired her to make her own “stuff.” She loves making her own greeting cards, doodling, and finding stickers to add to her ever-growing collection. Instagram: @jennzipp