Two new shows open this Saturday at San Francisco's First Amendment Gallery, Fly Traps, a solo exhibit by San Francisco-based illustrator and painter Aubrey Learner, and BUZZ, a solo exhibition by Oakland-based painter Kyle Dunn. Inspired by natural science and the macabre, Learner’s work aims to dissect the anxiety of the human animal by focusing in on the scientific anatomy of what makes a creature live. The works exhibited in BUZZ delve into the complexities of human perception, and how individual lines can be repeated in ways that can both synchronize and disrupt a pattern.
Fly Traps
As a student of both Biology and Fine Art, Learner has found a way to merge the logical eye of science and the existential curiosity of artmaking. In her latest body of work, she applies this technique to the many ways humans can be analyzed and viewed. In the time of social media, this near microscopic degree of scrutinization puts humans in a spotlight unlike any before. Through her work she explores the dichotomies between disorder and control, beauty and ugliness, and ultimately, life into decay. The contrast between these themes, when viewed from the perspective of humans as animals, shows the subjects in their unavoidable dilemma of being both tame and wild.
Buzz
Although op art has existed for decades, it warrants continuous reexamination in the information age. Dunn scrutinizes perception by incorporating digital elements and recreating them in the archaic medium of painting. By allowing messier and more chaotic compositions appear in the work, he aims to disrupt the orderly nature of graphic art and trade that cleanliness to show his personal artistic hand. His obsession with repetitive linework allows him to manipulate lines near-microscopically through interweaving, overlapping, and distortion. He continually explores the general concept of a line while allowing the full image to communicate on its own.
