Don’t miss an exciting exhibit of artworks by Bay Area artists Leo Bersamina and David Huffman now on view at Anglim Gilbert Gallery through August 20th. Their mixed-media paintings, with a floor sculpture by each artist, reveals their complementary explorations in abstraction with blending of figurative elements; and subject matter that explore history, memory, and cultural symbols.

Over the past few years and several bodies of work, David Huffman has engaged with ideas of space exploration through the figure of the astronaut, the basketball, and sometimes with crystal meth. He has utilized these for the connotation of their imagery, and has them in repetitious use as both a formal motif and as a way to abstract the figurative elements of the picture. Imbuing it with somewhat opposing elements, namely fantasy and real social justice issues in regard to cultural/racial identity, creates depth. A vivid colorist, Huffman freely blends techniques associated with landscape and depiction of depth with pure pattern.

Leo Bersamina works in painting, photography, and sculpture, sometimes incorporating several disciplines within one work. With a strong sense of materiality, he brings found stones and sticks into his sculptural and wall installations, using their volume and elemental presence to address the most basic formal properties of his art. “I look for patterns we create through our living: relationships with forces of nature, and models created through encounters with other people, experiences, travel, shelter, struggle, habit, and with our own genetic makeup,” says Bersamina. Making keen use of his own life experiences, his works are layered with memory, markers of ethnic identity and spirituality.

 

Recent works by Leo Bersamina and David Huffman will be on view at Anglim Gilbert Gallery, 1275 Minnesota St, San Francisco through August 20.