We're big fans of the next RD Gallery artist. City + Sea, by Liana Krakirian, is a collection of plein air studies depicting places central to life on the west side of San Francisco: coastal bluffs, city parks, and residential hillsides.

Each painting begins outdoors, worked directly on location before being refined in the studio. Together, the works reflect sustained observation of how fog, light, and water shape the landscape.

The paintings capture the quiet awe found along the city’s edges, where the built environment meets the sea.
"These paintings are less about describing a place than capturing the feeling of moving through it: the quality of light along the coastline, the scale of rocks in the water, and the lavender presence of the marine layer.
Plein air painting gives me a reason to slow down and pay attention. Whether it’s a pine tree perched above a steep row of houses or the pearlescent greens and blues Ocean Beach takes on during a foggy day, painting is a way to study the landscape more deeply. Each painting attempts to translate a fleeting moment of awe into something tangible."

Watch our interview here:

Liana Krakirian is a San Francisco–based artist and the founder of Pelican Press, a platform she created to expand her creative practice. An avid surfer and cyclist, she spends much of her time outdoors studying how light moves across water, rock, and the city itself—experiences that inform her paintings.

She’s drawn to California’s landscape and the human instinct to build within it: federal forts tucked into coastal headlands, houses stacked in bright tiers along steep hillsides, and concrete pressing against the wild flora at the city’s edges. Through painting, she explores the meeting point between the natural and built environment.

This is Krakirian’s second exhibition.

City + Sea is in the Rare Device Gallery from April 24th to June 7th, with an opening reception on Friday, April 24th from 6-8pm. Can't make it in? View the show in our online gallery.