The Sam Francis Gallery Presents:

2022-2023 Upper and Middle School End-of-the-Year Exhibitions and the inaugural FilmRoads International Student Film Festival

Middle School Exhibition

On view: May 11-18, 2023 // Reception Thurs., May 11, 2:20-3 p.m.

Upper School Exhibition

On view May 24-June 2, 2023 // Reception Wed., May 24, 3:00-4 p.m. //Musical performance by a selection of the Crossroads Jazz “A” band during the reception

SANTA MONICA, CALIF. (April 26, 2023)—Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences presents Upper and Middle School end-of-the-year exhibitions. The artwork spans mediums such as drawing, painting, filmmaking, photography, ceramics, graphic design, digital art and animation and studio art. The Upper School Exhibition will feature the inaugural FilmRoads International Film Festival. FilmRoads brings high school students from around the world together to celebrate the language of film through bi-annual online programming and panels. Our goal is to give young filmmakers a formal place for their films to be viewed and explored. FilmRoads International Student Festival gives the opportunity for students to learn from one another and have critical discussions on cinema culture and the language of film.

The receptions do not require an RSVP. During normal gallery hours, please make a reservation in advance by clicking here. Visitors must check in with security. 

The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

The 2023 Crossroads Advanced Studies Visual Arts Thesis Exhibition

Exhibition One: March 15-April 12, 2023

Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 15, 4-6 p.m.

Exhibition Two: April 19-May 3, 2023

Opening Reception: Wednesday, April 19, 4-6 p.m.

CAS #1: Olivia Amann, Phil Bader, Yann Carrillo, Ryan Celmer, Cade Cohen, Levi Gilbert-Adler, Tara Green, Cole Hoegl, Daniel James, Nate Kindler, Meazi Light-Orr, Madeline Livingston, Jonah Mannheim, Katie McAdams, Harper Murray-Nelson, Ruby Offer, Charley Ordeshook, Tyler Rahimian, Jonah Reinis, Julitta Scheel, Luc Surprenant, Oliver Tannenbaum, Zion Watt, Yaqin Wharton-Ali, Liv Wiener

CAS #2: Elijah Ayers-Davis, Paige Brindle, Zoie Brogdon, Miguel Carrasco, Jamison Dean, Gabriella Ebrahimi, Jordana Goldstein, Hugo Guckert, Joshua Hananel, Sofia Herrera, Kate Jang, Lucas Markle, Maddie Milam, Teagan O'Day, Landon Plummer, Ruby Port, Claire Rappaport, Skye Rawles, Ximena Rojas, Navid Rouzroch, Lily Shaw, Stephanie Ventura, Caspar von Alvensleben, Ansel Waisler, Maya Walley, Caden Weinhouse

The Crossroads School Visual Arts Department is proud to present the 2023 CAS (Crossroads Advanced Studies) Visual Arts Exhibition. Students in CAS Ceramics, Graphic Design, Photography and Studio Art each created an independent body of work. These exhibitions reflect each student’s creativity, personal vision and engagement in the process of being an artist.

No need to RSVP for the receptions. Receptions are open to the Crossroads community.

RSVP to visit during gallery hours. RSVP HERE

The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

CHROMESTHESIA: SOAKING IN COLOR

A student-organized exhibition.

Exhibition: Feb. 15-March 10, 2023

Opening Reception: Wednesday, Feb. 15 // 4-6 p.m.

Artists: Adam Beris, Rochelle Botello, Tim Bradley, Brittany Mojo, and Brooke Sauer

Curatorial Students: Yann Carrillo ‘23, Kate Jang ‘23, Helena Klein ‘23, Ruby Port ‘23

“Chromesthesia: Soaking in Color” is a student-organized exhibition of works by artists who contextualize color dictated by the subconscious as our minds create connections between the seen and felt. Blue is often connoted with sadness, red with anger—however, one color could certainly manifest several different emotions. “Chromesthesia: Soaking in Color” explores this phenomenon.

Brooke Sauer delicately weaves the natural world into her work. Driven by her passion for botany and the outdoors, Sauer often incorporates pressed plants, acquired when hiking, into her brilliant blue cyanotypes. The image of a small bird landing on an inviting hand in Every Day a Song confirms Sauer’s practice of creating “intimate moments…[where] nature surrounds us, it is also within us.”

Photographs from Tim Bradley’s California Dwelling series capture neighborhoods from 1978 to 1981. Untitled (Illuminated doorbell) brings on nostalgia through vignettes of a fleeting and familiar California, rich with yellow and saturated skies. Bradley brings the seemingly every day into a theatrical plane. On the other hand, Adam Beris’ paintings “celebrate and challenge traditional relationships between object, subject, foreground and background.” Blue Yodel demonstrates Beris’ use of color, organized in gridded glyphs informed by language and the pervasive influence of social media. In his recent ‘grass paintings,’ Domino and Referee, Beris draws from an existentially observational sense of place and takes a playful approach to materials. Each work, thick and layered, made by applying paint directly from the tube, represents a small patch of a recreated neighborhood park “riddled with ephemera left behind from parties, playdates and picnics.”

Down and Dirty and Day Dreamer, two sculptures by Rochelle Botello, confront the complex and contradictory nature of life. Through boldly colored structures constructed of paper, wood, and tape, Botello explores themes of stability and instability; fragility and strength; and chaos and control. Botello draws upon the absurd to visualize sensations of wonder and play, aiming to engage with ideas of existence. Brittany Mojo’s Heartburn installation is “an accumulation of soaked and saturated vessels where physical weight and labor become a dense, emotional place.” The red vessels appear to embody a visceral conviction, holding space that visually pulsates.

Ultimately, “Chromesthesia: Soaking in Color” allows visitors to pull unique meaning from each work, while invoking an orchestrated spatiotemporal synesthetic journey throughout the gallery.

The reception does not require an RSVP. During normal gallery hours, please make a reservation in advance by clicking here. Visitors must check in with security.

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The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

Going All Out!

Featuring artwork by Middle School Visual Arts students

Exhibition: January 12-February 1, 2023

Opening Reception: Thursday, January 12, 2:20-3 p.m. The reception will feature a performance by the Eighth Grade Jazz Collective

SANTA MONICA, CALIF. (January 2, 2023)—The Crossroads Middle School Visual Art Department is excited to present the student-themed exhibition “Going All Out!” In this exhibition, Middle School students in ceramics, graphic design & animation, studio art, video production and photography created artworks that play with scale and scope in both extreme and subtle ways. These boundary-pushing works consider the notion of standards and challenge the everyday norm. Works may appear larger than life, require viewers to pause and shift their attention, or maximize space and materials.

The reception does not require an RSVP. During normal gallery hours, please make a reservation in advance by clicking here. Visitors must check in with security.

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The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

An Upper School Student Exhibition: Hidden Treasures

Exhibition: Nov. 30-Dec. 14, 2022

Opening Reception: Wednesday, Nov. 30, 3-5 p.m.

SANTA MONICA, CALIF. (November 28, 2022)—

The Crossroads Upper School Visual Art Department is excited to present the student-themed exhibition Hidden Treasures. In this exhibition, Upper School Level 3 students in ceramics, graphic design & animation, studio art, and photography create artworks that explore the idea of hidden treasure and how to convey this idea in visual art. Each work in this exhibition challenges the viewer to examine it closely, since it is not entirely what it may seem upon first glance. Hidden Treasures explores the way in which we view and experience the world around us, bringing attention to what goes unseen in our everyday lives. This exhibition encourages the viewer to slow down, examine and take a closer because you will most definitely be surprised at what you find.

The reception does not require an RSVP. During normal gallery hours, please make a reservation in advance by clicking here. Visitors must check in with security.

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The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

Surface Tension

Exhibition: October 19-November 10, 2022

Opening Reception: Wednesday, October 19, 4-6 p.m.

Curated by: Susan Arena and Elyse Jung-Vrymoed

Participants: Susan Arena P’19, P’22, Fritz Chesnut P’22, Natalie Cox, Joe Davidson P’22, P’24, Yvette Gellis, Mercedes Gertz, Jenny Hager, Elyse Jung-Vrymoed ’06, Robin Mitchell, Rob Reynolds

SANTA MONICA, CALIF. (October 6, 2022)— "I do not forget that my voice is but one voice, my experience a mere drop in the sea…a subjective confession." – C.G. Jung

Artists have many ways of talking about that which we cannot only see, but can feel: a fuchsia-colored leaf, a frozen iceberg, the closed eyelids of a child. These images refer us to the world, but they also invite us to look inward to the unseen world. We talk about going deeper, scratching the surface and plumbing the depths. All of these phrases contain an awareness of surface tension—the challenge of breaking through the veneer of the seen to what lurks beneath.

The artists in this show use traditional mediums of painting and sculpture in different ways—some work in abstraction or suggestive imagery and others use imagery as a conceptual means. But there is a commonality, a sense that the visual surface and the plasticity of the space are important as artifacts plumbed from the depths, used to signify a sense of the unseen.

The reception does not require an RSVP. During normal gallery hours, please make a reservation in advance by clicking here. Visitors must check in with security.

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The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

The 2022-2023 Visual Arts Faculty Exhibition

Exhibition: September 7-October 7, 2022

Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 7, 3:30-5:30 p.m.

 The first exhibition of the ’22-’23 school year features artworks made by the members of Crossroads School K-12 Visual Art Department. Each teacher has their own art practice, and each brings a creative voice to the department. Every day, Crossroads’ teaching artists bring their extensive knowledge, experience, and passion from their practice into the classroom.

Featuring artwork by Crossroads teaching artists:

Susan Arena, Melissa Bouwman, Janice Gomez, Monica Hannush, Molly Hansen, Akemi Maruki, Vincent Ramos, Jesse Robinson, Leslie Rosdol, Vernon Salyers, Carly Steward

Participating Artists

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The Sam Francis Gallery Presents:

2022 Upper and Middle School End-of-the-Year Exhibitions

Upper School Exhibition

On view May 9-17 // Reception Wed., May 11, 2:30-4 p.m.

Middle School Exhibition

On view May 26-June 3 // Reception Thurs., May 26, 2:20-3 p.m.

SANTA MONICA, CALIF. (May 4, 2022)—Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences presents Upper and Middle School End-of-the-Year Exhibitions. The artwork spans mediums such as drawing, painting, photography, ceramics, graphic design, studio art, digital art and animation. The exhibitions will be housed in the Sam Francis Gallery within the Peter Boxenbaum Arts and Education Centre on the Crossroads campus. One of Crossroads School’s five founding commitments is to the arts, which are considered an essential part of every student’s education.

Reservations are not required for receptions, which are open to the Crossroads community. Visitors must check in with security, provide proof of vaccination and booster and remain masked indoors. Viewings by appointment only. RSVP to sfgtix@xrds.org.

The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

The 2022 Crossroads Advanced Studies Visual Arts Thesis Exhibition

Exhibition One: March 9-23, 2022 // Reception: Wednesday, March 9, 4-6 p.m.

Exhibition Two: March 30-April 27, 2022 // Reception: Wednesday, March 30, 4-6 p.m.

CAS #1: Birdie Blaugrund, Henri Camposano, Caleb Choi, Kidist Rose Diamond, Majorca Espinosa, Julia Gerolmo-Feeney Rose Gleiberman, Ona Gordonson, Julian Greenhut, Khush Grewal, Luke Hirshberg, Sydney Holden, Liv Kaplan, Jesse Leyva, Jack Lizotte, Yare Martinez, Dylan McFarland, Khalfani Coney, Sammy Neustadt, Stella Oman, JaVaughn Rodriguez, Coco Russell, Haley Summers, Abby Waisler, Jenna Wilson, Hannah Zeiger

CAS #2: Lexi Aloni, Curtis Boozer, Delilah Cappellano, Thea Davidson, Kidist Rose Diamond, Amarize Finley, Siddharth Ganapathy, Jason Hananel, Natsumi Hayashi, Ashley Hunt, Arya Jandaghi, Samuel Jones, Lucy Kahan, Daisy Kohner, Aly Lucio, Shanti Marshall, Emma Nia, Yeats Novak, Sara Offer, Emma Perea, Kai Preminger, Emma Raff, Max Ratner, Anabelle Sebbag, Renée Story, Dyana Ventura, Loulou Worthe

The Crossroads School Visual Arts Department is proud to present the 2022 Crossroads Advanced Studies Visual Arts Thesis Exhibition. Each student enrolled in CAS Photography, Ceramics, Graphic Design & Animation and Studio Art created an independent body of work. This exhibition reflects each student’s creativity, personal vision and engagement in the process of being an artist.

No need to RSVP for the receptions. Receptions are open to the Crossroads community.

RSVP to visit during gallery hours. sfgtix@xrds.org. Visitors must check in with security and provide proof of vaccination. All visitors must remain masked indoors.

The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

Linked Up With What Holds: Works by Middle School Visual Arts Students

Exhibition: Feb. 3-17, 2022

The Crossroads Middle School Visual Arts Department is excited to present the student-themed exhibition Linked Up With What Holds. In this exhibition, Middle School students enrolled in Video Productions, Digital Art & Animation, Studio Art, Ceramics and Photography created artworks that explore the idea of community.

Students investigated how and why community connections are made and their impact on shaping who the students are now and perhaps informing who they will become. Linked Up With What Holds explores how students visually express and share where they belong.

The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

Impressions: Works by Upper School Visual Arts Students

Exhibition: Dec. 6-17, 2021

Opening Reception: Wednesday, Dec. 8, 3-4 p.m. (Click HERE for visitor protocol)

The Crossroads Upper School Visual Art Department is excited to present the student-themed exhibition Impressions. In this exhibition, Upper School Level 2 and 3 students in ceramics, graphic design & animation, studio art and photography create artworks that explore the idea of visual artifice. Each work in this exhibition challenges the viewer to examine it closely, since it is not entirely what it may seem upon first glance. Impressions explores the way in which we view and experience the world around us, bringing attention to the visual articulation of fiction versus reality. Works in the exhibition invite visitors to get lost in these altered realities.

The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

After the Smoke Has Cleared: Constructing Community through Chaos

Artists: ISABEL AVILA, MARIA DE LOS ANGELES, DIANA-SOFIA ESTRADA, STEPHANIE GUERRERO, PATRICIA VALENCIA

Guest Curator: VINCENT RAMOS

Exhibition: Oct. 27-Nov. 18, 2021 (Click HERE for visitor protocol)

In 2017, Crossroads Visual Arts faculty member, Vincent Ramos organized an exhibition entitled Neighborhood Watch for Woodbury University’s Nan Rae Gallery. The show looked at various ways that artists considered the idea of community within their practice at that moment in time and specifically through a Chicanx/Latinx lens. It opened the day of the first Women’s March and the day after the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump. Four years later, Ramos is reconsidering this concept, from the aftermath of that initial period to everything that has occurred since.

After the Smoke Has Cleared: Constructing Community through Chaos includes the work of Isabel Avila, Maria De Los Angeles, Diana-Sofia Estrada, Stephanie Guerrero, and Patricia Valencia. Through their individual work, these artists have continually examined larger notions of community via archives, history, personal experience, language, performance, research, and site-specificity. The work within the show will highlight these numerous directions through the mediums of photography, painting, drawing, and film/video to promote a cross-disciplinary dialogue between the five artists, their respective work, and the larger community of Crossroads.

About Vincent Ramos:

Vincent Ramos (b.1973, Santa Monica, CA) received his BFA from Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA (2002) and his MFA from The California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA (2007). Exhibitions include A Universal History of Infamy, LACMA, Los Angeles (2017); The Parable of Arable Land, If I Had a Hammer, The Wilhelm Scream, Conduit, Dallas (2015); Plum Pudding Peanut Island (Gilligan’s Squaw Fire Island II), Elephant, Los Angeles (2013), In the Good Name of the Company, See Me Gallery, New York (2013); and Made in L.A. 2012, Hammer Museum and LAXART, Los Angeles (2012). Awards include the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship (2019); Friends of Contemporary Art Mid-Career Fellowship (2015); Legacy Artist-in-Residence Fellowship, 18th Street Arts Center (2011); and the California Community Foundation Emerging Artist Fellowship (2010). His most recent installation debuted in early 2020 at Frieze LA at Paramount Studios.

The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

Glance Back, Forge Forward: A Selection of Crossroads Purchase Awards

Exhibition: Sept. 8-Oct. 16, 2021

Featuring new works by alumni award recipients:

Natalie Arnoldi ’08, Connor Gewirtz ’17, Max Hertz ’15, Lizzy Tommey ’18

Past awardees: Eric Akashi ‘06, Briana Alden ’11, Natalie Arnoldi ‘08, Emmanuel Briceño ’03, Connor Gewirtz ‘17, Anya Grewal ’16, Sydney Helmer ‘20, Max Hertz ’15, Seth Iezman ‘04, Caroline Kanner ’13, Gabriella Lucio ‘21, Madeleine Merchant ’12, Emma Mondry ‘14, Claire Morton ’10, Charlotte Perebinossoff ‘02, Cami Starkman ’05, Lizzy Tommey ‘18, Derrick Tong ’19, and Isaiah Yehros ‘09

Glance Back, Forge Forward is part of the Sam Francis Gallery Alumni Biennial series. Each academic year, beginning in 2002, one student has been chosen as the recipient for the Purchase Award with artwork selected from the Crossroads Advanced Studies (CAS) Visual Arts exhibition. Glance Back, Forge Forward is a selection of works by our alumni over the years. The exhibition also features new works by alumni who have received the award: Natalie Arnoldi, Connor Gewirtz, Max Hertz and Lizzy Tommey.

Natalie Arnoldi’s work explores the fine line between abstract and figurative painting and the psychological effects of ambiguous representation. Arnoldi makes large-scale oil paintings depicting a myriad of subjects, often with an environmental narrative. Currently pursuing a doctoral degree in marine ecology at Stanford University and holding bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the same institution, Arnoldi has pursued careers in both art and science since 2009. She has found synergy in painting and science—two endeavors that might appear at odds. Instead, each has given her a unique and enriched perspective into the other.

Connor Gewirtz is a painter and printmaker. His current series started as narratively abstract works. Along the process, Gewirtz learned more about his family tree, which steered his works into a mishmash of personal history. Much of his work today is a reflection on this family tree and rethinks the traditional definition of family.

Max Hertz’s work focuses on a collective contented memory or the past through an examination of the forms and languages related to childhood and notions of home. Educational toys, construction and their shared practice of assembly serve as backdrops for this exploration. The sculptural objects and Hertz’s continued practice of making looks to mimic the repetition toward change of and observed in both architecture and the act of play.

Lizzy Tommey’s current series, Earthen Self Portraits, takes on the perspective of the earth,

essentially imaging itself through the form of a clay pinhole camera. Bringing together photographic and ceramic practices, Tommey explores the sharedness between clay and the phenomenon of a pinhole as natural occurrences.

The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

The 2021 Crossroads Visual Arts Instagram Exhibition

MAY 17-21: Upper School 

May 24-28: Middle School

JUNE 1-4: 5th Grade works from the Elementary School

Visual Arts faculty will feature work by 5th graders in the Elementary School, Middle School, and Upper School Visual Arts students on the gallery’s Instagram account. The artwork spans mediums such as drawing, painting, photography, ceramics, graphic design, filmmaking, digital art & animation, studio art. Daily virtual visits are encouraged!

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The Sam Francis Gallery Presents:

Growing Pains: corporate overextension 

An Online Exhibition:

February 17, 2021

Featuring works by artists Yrneh Gabon Brown, Liz Glynn, Tommy Hilding, Sam Keller, Glen Rubsamen, Michael Vahrenwald and Erik Winkowski.

Student Organized by Parker Benfield, Leo Bloom, Thea Davidson, Katy DiLeo, Sky Morgen, Ruby Port, Jack Slavin, Ava Stoughton, August Sunseri, Caroline Tannenbaum and Nina Yankovic.

SANTA MONICA, CA—The Sam Francis Gallery announces the exhibition Growing Pains: corporate overextension, on view Feb. 17. Organized by the Crossroads students participating in the Art Gallery Curatorial Project, the exhibition features artists whose works target instances of “corporate overextension”—the all-encompassing term for moments when economic endeavors are taken too far, breaking the point where we are comfortable with the rapid growth of our society and economy.

Legend and Reflex by Tommy Hilding depicts a world of anonymous concrete cities, misanthropic social structures and nature tainted with human interference.

Glen Rubsamen’s paintings Holly, Exxon Valdez, and Deepwater Horizon reflect the white elephants of landscape painting and the collective memory of human tragedy.

Liz Glynn sculpted Unfinished Business within her Emotional Capital Series to explore the cross between material and affective realities as they play out in and on the human body as well as the economy. Michael Vahrenwald captures artificial light shining down on perfectly cut grass outside well-known corporations; these photographs reflect the journey of something so natural, the grass, becoming hyper-managed by the businesses they reside beside.

Yrneh Gabon Brown’s work from his collection Memba Mi Tell Yu highlights the drastic effects climate change has had on our world.

Using branded objects, Sam Keller creates playful sculptures representing the faults of mass producing. The repetition of symbols in the digital sketchbook entries of Erik Winkowski mirror general trends of overproduction and expansion. His animations evolve throughout their duration and are immortalized in a continuous state of production.

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The Sam Francis Gallery to Host Artist Residency Project: 
April Banks 

Justice & Joy

Virtual Residency: Jan. 26-Feb. 3, 2021 

Drive-by Video Installation: Monday, Feb. 15, 7-9 p.m. 

Watch video here. Scroll down for student work.

SANTA MONICA, CA—The Sam Francis Gallery at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences announces a virtual artist residency project with April Banks entitled Justice & Joy, running Jan. 26 through Feb. 3, 2021. During Banks’ residency, students will be invited to critically examine historical photos of Black life in Santa Monica and use their creativity to imagine more of the story beyond what is seen in pictures. They will then create a fictional history through hands-on or digital manipulation and photo captions. Students’ work will be part of a video installation on the Main Street side of the Civic Auditorium in February; the Crossroads community and all passersby will have the opportunity to view the projected work from their cars on Monday, Feb. 15, 7-9 p.m. Documentation of the student work will also be entered into the Santa Monica Cultural Affairs’ 2070 time capsule at the end of February. 

April Banks’ art sits between photography, installation, writing and collaborative experiments. Her recent projects time travel through historical archives and memories, questioning what we think we know of the past and how it informs our cultural positioning systems. Her social practice focuses on community engagement that seeks to amplify and preserve lesser-known stories. 

Banks’ work with Crossroads students will explore the history of the natural spaces and leisure activities among Black communities in Santa Monica. Today, we may take nature and leisure for granted, but they have not always been safe spaces for everyone. During the Jim Crow Era, beach areas were a hostile place for African Americans and people of color. Santa Monica’s beach known as “The Inkwell,” officially renamed to Bay Street Beach in 2020, was a location where Black Santa Monicans and other people of color were allowed to gather to enjoy the water and relax with family and friends with minimal racial harassment. 

African Americans came from the Santa Monica Belmar Triangle—nestled between Pico Boulevard and Main and Fourth Streets—the Pico Community and greater Los Angeles to visit the beach. Nick Gabaldon, the first documented Black and Latino surfer, was a Santa Monica High School student and hung out regularly there. Unfortunately, in the 1950s, the land was taken away by eminent domain to make way for the city’s new Civic Auditorium. This largely forgotten period in history will inspire Crossroads students’ work with Banks. 

The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

Highlights from Middle School Visual Arts

JANUARY 7, 2020

An Online Exhibition

Highlights of works in progress, process, and completed projects while remote but connected from Middle School visual arts students in Studio Art, Ceramics, Photography, Film Productions, and Graphic Design & Animation.

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The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

Upper School Visual Arts Students: Level 3

december 9, 2020

An Online Exhibition

For this exhibition, Level 3 visual arts students in Studio Art, Ceramics, Photography, and Graphic Design & Animation responded to the question: How do you visualize the word repair or something that needs to be fixed?

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The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

We’re Beginning, we began, we’ve begun

Exhibition: Sept. 9-Oct. 14, 2020

An Online Exhibition

We’re Beginning, we began, we’ve begun features artworks created by members of Crossroads School’s K-12 Visual Art Department. With each teaching artist having an established artmaking practice, their process and experience has become a foundation on which they teach. As we open the school year remotely, the Visual Arts faculty at Crossroads continue to explore various methods to approach teaching students in virtual spaces while expanding their own creative processes. Every day, these artists bring with them their extensive knowledge, experience and passion from their practice into the spaces they share with students.

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Participating Artists

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The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

The 2020 Crossroads Visual Arts Instagram Exhibition

MAY 18-23: Upper School

May 25-29: Middle School

June 1-5: Elementary School

Visual Arts faculty will feature work by Elementary School, Middle School, and Upper School Visual Arts students on the gallery’s Instagram account. The artwork spans mediums such as sculpture, drawing, painting, photography, ceramics, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, studio art and multimedia arts. Daily virtual visits are encouraged!

check out our instagram (scroll back)

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The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

2020 Crossroads Advanced Studies Visual Art Exhibition

Santa Monica, CA—The Crossroads School Visual Art Department is proud to present the 2020 CAS (Crossroads Advanced Studies) Visual Art Exhibitions. The students in CAS Ceramics, Graphic Design, Photography, Sculpture and Studio Art each created an independent body of work. These exhibitions reflect each student’s creativity, personal vision and engagement in the process of being an artist.

Victor Aguilar, Cole Bardin, Ella Brindle, Nina Cappellano, Kaia Chau, Alana Cotwright, Skylar Darwen, Isabella di Rienzo, Lauren Elson, Elijah Ezralow, Lucien Frank, Esther Fuentes, Lily Ghodsi, Lola Hakim, Zane Hankin , Sydney Hayes, Sydney Helmer, Michael James, Jasmin Jean-Louis , Ariana Kalili , Stella Koondel, Charlie Kopp, Yetlanezi Martinez , Dexter Mayo, Kai McAliley, Kadin Mesriani , Oliver Opie , Isabella Pearce, Liv Reinis, Aislinn Russell, Anthilia Sklavenitis, Alden Smathers, Courtney Thomas, Huck Triggs, Matt Walley 

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The Sam Francis Gallery Presents: nothing’s going on here.

Exhibition: Feb. 19-March 13, 2020

Reception: Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2020 // 4-6 p.m.

SANTA MONICA, CA—The Sam Francis Gallery announces the exhibition nothing’s going on here., on view Feb. 19-March 13, 2020. Organized by Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences curatorial students Kai McAliley and Davis Norma Ouriel, nothing’s going on here. is a multimedia exhibition featuring degrees of  the “uncanny valley,” as defined by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori, through works by Tiffany Trenda, Vincent Ubags, Anthony Lepore, Leegan Koo and Jacob Yanes. Through this exhibition, the students aim to showcase digital, physical and live forms supporting Mori’s theory—from the passionately un-lifelike to the formidably real—each piece striking a profound relationship with the viewer’s spectrum of affinity.

The artists on view each explore the idea of the uncanny valley—described by Mori as “the proposed relation between the human likeness of an entity and the perceiver’s affinity for it.” Tiffany Trenda’s automaton-guise will appear in both performance and print through the works Body Code and Urban Devotion. In Junkfood is alive, high Kick and Inflated muscleman, Vincent Ubags explores the relationship between the body, technology and the natural world differently; he chooses to exploit the human form in animation. The Dada-flavored-futurism favored by nothing’s going on here. continues in Anthony Lepore’s photographic series Performance Anxiety, where the artist manifests illusory alternate dimensions. Leegan Koo’s paintings Searching and Whale WAtching disrupt any remaining sense of normalcy, as mass media becomes reality. Finally, sculptor Jacob Yanes roots the viewer into simple disquiet with Little Child, somewhat assuring them that, in fact, nothing’s going on here.

Gallery Address:

Sam Francis Gallery

Peter Boxenbaum Arts Education Centre

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences

1714 21st St.

Santa Monica, CA 90404

Gallery Hours:

Monday-Friday

10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Contact:

samfrancisgallery@xrds.org

xrds.org/samfrancisgallery

About Crossroads School

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences is a K-12, coed college preparatory school in Santa Monica, California. Crossroads was founded upon five basic commitments: to academic excellence; to the arts; to the greater community; to the development of a student population of social, economic, and racial diversity; and to the development of each student’s physical well-being and full human potential. One in four students receives financial assistance. The School is highly acclaimed for its programs and is a leader in public/private educational partnerships.

Artist Residency Project: Audrey Chan

An Illustrated Vocabulary of Tenderness

Residency: January. 27-February Feb. 5, 2020

Reception: February Feb. 5, // 4-6 p.m.

SANTA MONICA, CA—Los Angeles-based artist, writer and educator Audrey Chan, whose research-based projects articulate political and cultural identities through allegory and the feminist principle of the “personal is political,” will be the artist-in-residence at Crossroads School’s Sam Francis Gallery this winter. During her residency, Chan will develop the first installment of An Illustrated Vocabulary of Tenderness, a series of gouache paintings on paper about family storytelling and learning languages.

The works will reference language flash cards—specifically the Chinese-English flash cards Chan would study as a child—and feature images and vocabulary rooted in her Chinese and Jamaican American family lore. The project is a continuation of work about the role of the allegorical and the power of images and language in the construction of identity. Chan will open up her practice to visiting classes, inviting students to create identity flashcards of their own.

Audrey Chan earned a bachelor's degree with honors from Swarthmore College and a master of fine arts degree from California Institute of the Arts. Chan’s solo and collaborative work has been exhibited at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design, Chinese American Museum, Parc Saint Léger, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and other venues in the U.S. and abroad. She is a recipient of grants from the California Community Foundation and Center for Cultural Innovation. She was previously an artist-in-residence at the École des Beaux-arts de Nantes in France. Chan’s writing has been published in Afterall Journal, East of Borneo, the Getty Iris and she co-edits SABOTEURS zine. Her projects have been featured in Artforum Critics’ Picks, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post and LA Weekly and on NPR and KPCC. From 2007 to 2016, she worked in the field of museum education at the New Museum, MoMA and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Chan was commissioned by LA Metro to create a large-scale public artwork for the future Little Tokyo/Arts District station, opening in 2022. She is currently a visiting artist faculty member at California Institute of the Arts. audreychan.net

The Sam Francis Gallery at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents Works in Process, Sustainability: Works by Middle School Students

Exhibition: Jan. 9-17, 2020  

Reception: Jan. 9 // 2:20- 3 p.m.

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences presents Works in Process, Sustainability: Works by Middle School Students. Crossroads Middle School art students and faculty muse on how the studio, gallery and museum environments can also be a laboratory of sustainable practices. “Works in Process, Sustainability” encourages students to consider art in terms of ecological making. There are a range of approaches exhibited; some projects engage in advocacy and some explore the material economies of art-making and production by focusing on: the art materials market, products and their packaging, upcycling and sustainable local sourcing of materials. Students from Studio Art, 7th Grade EOE, Multi-media, Ceramics, and Video Production are featured in the exhibition.

The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

Wearables: Works by Upper School Visual Art Students

Exhibition: December 4 -13, 2019

Reception: December 4, 3-5 p.m.

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences presents Wearables: Works by Upper School Visual Art Students. Studio Art, Sculpture, Ceramics and Photography students created works inspired by the notion of wearing, interacting with and sometimes transforming into the piece itself. Examples of these explorations in Wearables are Hats of Resistance from Studio Art; the This Is Not a Selfie series where Photography students generate a character using their own bodies as subjects; incorporated self-portraits drawn by Studio Art students and composited into images of art historical paintings; and a display of wearable ceramic pieces that will be worn during the opening reception of the exhibition. “What can’t be worn? When do we wear? Why do wear? Should this be worn? How do we wear? Where do we wear?”

When Grief Strikes: a new era featuring Thirst by Chad Person

 The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

When Grief Strikes: a new era featuring Thirst by Chad Person

 Exhibition: October 23-November 15, 2019

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences presents When Grief Strikes: a new era featuring Thirst by Chad Person. It is 2019 and there is a sense of urgency. Instead of writing to their leaders, youth are in their faces demanding change in order to preserve the planet. Students have come together in droves, insisting that adults become accountable as they draw a line in the sand in hopes to protect their future.

In 2010, Chad Person debuted Thirst, a 15-foot inflatable sculpture of the once-iconic ExxonMobil Pegasus lying down and gasping for breath in a show titled Surviving the End of Your World.

“Today, collective humanity is aware and indeed occupied by the reality of scarce global oil supplies,” Person says in his artist statement. “Foreshadowing this situation, Pegasus, the former Mobil Gasoline logo, has been retired from its role as color guard to one of the world’s most profitable corporations. Once everywhere, resource and icon alike are now vanishing, and we are forced to move on.

“The mythical Pegasus was a poignant archetype for the Mobil Petroleum logo. Born of pure good and selflessness, Pegasus sprang from a patch of earth where the wicked blood of Medusa had spilled and mixed with the soil.”

 Nine years since its inception, Thirst continues to be relevant. The once-triumphant symbol of the industrial revolution is recast as a weak and dying icon, one that has succumbed to effects of climate and has been toppled by a new generation that demands radical change.       

 Chad Person received his MFA in Photography from the University of New Mexico. His work is included in the public collections of The West Collection (PA), Frederick R. Weisman Foundation Collection (CA) and The University of New Mexico Art Museum (NM). He has had solo exhibitions in Albuquerque, Marfa and River Falls, and been featured in PULSE Miami Contemporary Art Fair.

The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

Kaleidoscope: moments in time

First installment of Alumni Biennial Series features works by Shingo Francis ’88

Exhibition: September 4-October 12, 2019

Reception: Wednesday, September 11 // 4-6 p.m.

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences is delighted to present the first installment of the Alumni Biennial Series in the Sam Francis Gallery. Since the founding of the School, Crossroads has fostered and supported students in their creative pursuits. As the community expands its roster of artists, the biennial acts as an extension, connecting generations of alumni with students.

In Kaleidoscope: moments in time, which features works by Crossroads alumnus Shingo Francis ’88, the artist delves into his deep archive of work. Shingo shares, “I would like the students and the audience, but especially the students, to see the gradual and not so straight trajectory of an artist’s practice. We usually see an exhibition with finished works that are intended to produce a thought-out or worked-out process of an expression, idea or concept within the object or image. That’s fine and expected when you are presenting for the public as a specific series of work or concept, but such exhibitions can have a veneer or ‘finished’ quality that may create distance. As a student, or someone emerging into the field, it can be intimidating and hard to understand because all the steps of the act are back in the studio or wherever the process occurred.”

Kaleidoscope: moments in time includes a collection of work offered up to viewers in a salon style-esque format. Shingo’s journals from various years are placed both open and closed, disclosing select thoughts and insight into the artist’s practice. The gallery holds the works as a time capsule, jumping from student work to Francis’ most recent work, Subtle Impressions (2019), a large-scale interference painting. Shingo says, “I would like to reveal the footsteps of the process to the students so they can see and experience the meandering nature of art making and/or at least how I have done it. I think it is important for the students and viewers to see it wasn’t a straight shot, exposing the various shapes and forms we incrementally explore to find a way we can express what we want to say.”

 The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

The Visual Arts Middle and Upper School Exhibitions

UPPER SCHOOL

Exhibition: May 1-9, 2019

Opening reception: Wednesday, May 1 // 2-4 p.m.

MIDDLE SCHOOL

Exhibition: May 16-29, 2019

Opening reception: Thursday, May 16 // 2:20-3 p.m.

These exhibitions will feature work by Middle School and Upper School Visual Art students. The artwork spans mediums such as sculpture, drawing, painting, photography, ceramics, graphic design, filmmaking, studio art and multimedia arts. These exhibitions are not to be missed! 

The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

 Crossroads Advanced Studies Visual Art Thesis Shows

The Crossroads School Visual Art Department is proud to present the 2019 CAS Thesis Art Exhibit. The students in CAS (Crossroads Advanced Studies) Photography, Ceramics, Graphic Design, Studio Art and Sculpture created an independent body of work. This exhibition reflects each student's creativity, personal vision and engagement in the process of being an artist. 

CAS Exhibition #1: March 20 – April 11, 2019

Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 20, 4-6 p.m.

 Nina Baratelli

Jenna Cosgrove

Elan Fahimian

Charlotte Kanner

Kate Kenny

Serra Kook

Mara Levy

Violet Murray

Adrienne Ramos

Sarah Reid

Kate Salke

Leila Schoenholz

Katie Shapiro

Elijah Solow-Ohashi

Leila Tiedemann

Jack Welch

CAS Exhibition #2: April 17 – April 25, 2019

Opening Reception: Wednesday, April 17, 4-6 p.m.

Emmet Abrams

Brianna Alanis

Azucena Balbuena

Nina Baratelli

Daniela Contreras

Samuel Cooper

Soah Franklin

Chloe Green

Sarah Huang

Thevi Jean-Louis

Alexis Jenkins

Kate Kenny

Kennedy Martin

Zoë Royo

Kate Sadoff

Leila Tiedemann 

Derrick Tong

Ava Westlin

The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

Social Icing

Exhibition: Feb. 20-March 15, 2019

Opening Reception: Wednesday, Feb. 20 // 4-6 p.m.

Artists:

Edgar Arceneaux

Phil Anderson Blythe

Shelley Heffler

Malisa Humphrey

Emily Mast

Kenny Scharf

Art Project Curatorial Students:

Nina Baratelli

Kate Kenny

Sarah Reid

The student-curated Social Icing exhibition is a psychologically engaging experience, with loud and lusty arrangements. The displayed works communicate an array of societal issues in their individual aesthetic, while pulling the viewer in with an alluring façade, or “icing.” While each piece is superficially enticing, the underlying meaning is delicate, allowing for a deep connection between the creator and consumer—disguising vegetables as sweets. Each work in Social Icing speaks to the community while rewarding each person’s diligence through the decadence of the work’s glamor.

Phil Anderson Blythe paints and draws the human body as a form of commentary about the inevitability of death regardless of personal looks. In his painting, Lambs, he reflects Women’s Equality Day through two average-bodied women holding hands in solidarity against sexism.  Edgar Arceneaux works with sculpture, installation and drawing, making connections between historical events and modern-day truth. Crystal Paradox uses crystallized sugar as a beautiful contradiction, a geometrically frozen yet organic form growing like roots into the bindings, coating law books and FBI letters as a metaphor for protecting the rights of citizens. The project was inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words. Kenny Scharf uses bold colors and his unique style to connect with the masses, incorporating highbrow and lowbrow, hoping to make his works relatable to everyone. PIKABOOM is dazzling in its magnificent aesthetic. However, the sculpture itself is an atomic mushroom-cloud explosion, calling for attention to both creation and destruction, with a sparkle that makes it hard to look away.

Shelley Heffler uses vinyl posters, maps, old canvas and other materials to create layers of social commentary. “I paint topographies that lead the viewer on a path beyond maps, grids, and lines, into an unknowable geography where surface, strata, and landforms evoke a sense of an imaginary place.” Malisa Humphrey explores patterns and an array of materials in A Guest, A Host, A Ghost to create depth and coat the underlying themes of cultural identity and colonialism. Emily Mast examines the obscurity of language, kinesics and miscommunication in B!RDBRA!N as this piece allows for self-conscious reflections. With more than a spoonful of Social Icing, viewers will get more than the medicine going down. Maybe they’ll be cured somehow.

Sam Francis Gallery to Host Artist Residency Project:

Losang Samten

Residency: January 22-25, Sam Francis Gallery

Reception: Friday, January 25 // 4-6 p.m.

The Venerable Losang Samten, a renowned Tibetan scholar and a former Buddhist monk, will create two mandalas, “The Four Harmonious Friends” at the Elementary School and “Wheel of Life” at the Sam Francis Gallery, for his residency at Crossroads. The Wheel of Life is 2,500 years old and was a gift from Buddha. When Losang Samten brought this gift to the United States, he was the first artist to create this mandala in sand in the United States.

There are many traditional designs of mandalas, each of which contains its own lessons. For any individual design, while the design is repeated, no two mandalas ever look the same. Yet each is the same in concept. The same symbols, characters and designs are used, yet not in a rigid duplication. The mandala reflects back to us information about the nature of the human mind, which has a strong tendency toward the illusion of permanence. The medium of sand, however, reminds the viewer of the ultimate impermanence of this existence as well as of all things. 

All visitors are invited to observe the artist at work in Sam Francis Gallery during his first week to discuss the creative process with Losang and to learn about the meanings of the mandala elements. The development of each mandala will be available to view on the Crossroads website. On Friday, Jan. 25, at the end of his week in the gallery, Losang will perform a dismantling ceremony. Attendees will be invited to take part in the process. The final portion of the dismantling ritual ends by pouring the grains of sand into a body of water.

To view the mandala in progress, click here.

You Have Currency! 

Exhibition: January 9-17

Closing Reception: Thursday, January 17 // 2:20-3 p.m.

Middle School Visual Art students engage in how the art making process gives visual form to values. Is art more than the public byproduct of societal and individual valuation? You Have Currency expresses the various ways students engage in making processes that interrogate forms of currency, branding and consumption/production from different cultural perspectives.

Students will undertake the redesign of currency with 2D and 3D digital and analogue making processes. Objects and images that are permeated by notions of wealth and value will be examined, while alternative cultural intangibles will be rendered manifest as new markers of exchange. Middle School students from Ceramics, Sculpture, Art and Culture, Studio Art, Multimedia and Video Production will be involved in this exciting inquiry.

Freewaves and The Sam Francis Gallery at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Present Dis…Miss

Multimedia, participatory project aims to inspire ongoing dialogue about intersectional feminism and gender

Exhibition: November 26-December 13

Opening Reception: Wednesday, November 28// 4-6 p.m.

Visual artists: April Bey, Boychild, Chan and Mann, Roya Falahi, Alexandra Grant, Micol Hebron, Thinh Nguyen, Ovarian Psycos, and Shizu Saldamando

Video artists: Adebukola Bodunrin, Mail Order Brides (Eliza Barrios, Reanne Estrada and Jenifer Wofford), Gloria Morán, Meena Nanji, and Caress Reeves

Featuring additional artwork by Santa Monica High School and Crossroads School visual arts students

Freewaves’ Dis…Miss exhibition at Sam Francis Gallery will feature work by artists and artist collectives, together comprising a survey of the challenges facing intersectional feminism now. Featured artworks address persistent issues prioritized by the second-wave feminist movement, combined with a third-wave awareness of the intersection of sexism and other forms of oppression based on age, ethnicity, religion or class. Dis…Miss examines how, and to what extent, contemporary feminism will adapt in response to society’s evolving understanding of the complexities of gender identity.

 Dis…Miss will include videos and the public sharing of artist-designed postcards, each posing a provocative question related to identity, such as “Who decided your gender?” and “How can feminism support equality?” Prior to the opening of Dis…Miss at Sam Francis Gallery, these postcards and adjoining questions have been discussed in Crossroads’ Literature and Gender Studies classes. Students’ answers to the postcard questions will be included in the gallery. In addition, student artwork by Crossroads and Santa Monica High School visual arts students will also be on display. They chose postcard images that resonated with them and directly responded to the work through various mediums. Throughout the exhibition, visitors will be encouraged to participate in answering the questions.

 “Showcasing feminist art has always been an important part of Freewaves’ mission,” says Anne Bray, who founded Freewaves in 1989 and serves as its executive director. “And as our understanding of feminism and gender continues to evolve, it’s important to have an ongoing dialogue about how feminist art will change and evolve accordingly.”

 Freewaves’ Dis…Miss initiative ranges from community workshops to panel discussions at locations throughout Los Angeles. Previous presentations were included at Self Help Graphics, Women’s Center for Creative Work, KAOS, Las Fotos, Human Resources, UC Irvine Beall Center for Art + Technology, Cerritos College, Las Fotos Project, Japan America Community Cultural Center, Glendale City College, KAOS Network, Cypress College Art Gallery, Vincent Price Art Museum, USC Annenberg School, Occidental College, California African American Museum, Scripps College and Armory Center for the Arts as well as a current interactive social-media campaign.

About Freewaves A magnet for the media arts, Freewaves is a grassroots yet global arts organization. Freewaves is dedicated to the creative exhibition of the most innovative and culturally relevant independent new media art from around the world. Freewaves facilitates cross-cultural dialogues by inventing dynamic new media exhibition forms at established and unconventional venues in Los Angeles and online.

 Freewaves’ region-wide events have had a strong presence including “SoCal Social,” 14 artists’ conversations about socially engaged art; and “Out the Window,” with artists’ videos placed on 2,000 Los Angeles Metro buses over three years. Recently Freewaves presented “Long Live L.A.,” featuring videos by five L.A. artists at community health clinics. 

For more information, visit: freewaves.org

Exhibition: October 15-November 8, 2018

Opening Reception: Wednesday, Oct. 17 // 4-6 p.m.

Performance and Voice Bath by Odeya Nini // 4:30-5 p.m.

Randi Hokett

Melissa Manfull

Christine Nguyen

Odeya Nini

Jeff Ono

Frequency Response is an investigation of artists’ works that explore beyond the surface of their materials—revealing, unveiling and questioning while inventing new facets of what is possible. Christine Nguyen’s work draws upon the imagery of science, but it is not limited to technologies of the present. It imagines that the depths of the ocean reach into outer space, that through an organic prism, vision can fluctuate between the micro- and macroscopic. New free-standing abstraction studies by Jeff Ono are inspired by hybrid sculptures of organic forms and rigid geometric structure as he explores and contradicts the hubris of the early to mid-century modernist imaginary. Ono’s sculptures are constructed from simple, traditional and industrial materials ranging from paper, cloth, gesso, encaustics and clay to steel and poured concrete, and are displayed in conjunction with low-to-the-ground, handmade stands—a decidedly intimate quality he favors to challenge the typically hierarchical nature and scale of domestic furnishings, the traditional plinth or the monumental modernist gesture in general.  

Melissa Manfull’s new drawings have recently shifted into sculptural forms, mounted on wood with custom footing, embodying a new presence. The work is centered on mineral fragments found at Quartzsite’s rock and mineral shows in Arizona. With a developed sensibility to reinterpret the object using systematic ideas, Manfull’s works takes on both an exploratory and defined path. Similar to Manfull’s “in between” state of drawing and sculpture, Randi Hokett’s finished Crystalworks lie somewhere amid sculpture and painting. They are the result of chemical reactions and layering, and reflect on the explosiveness and upheaval of creation and the visceral nature of growth and change. Hokett’s work can be understood to reference both the geological and human landscapes, and the liminal spaces that allow for change.

A Solo Voice, composed and performed by Odeya Nini, is an investigation of resonance, extended vocal techniques, performance and pure expression, exploring the relationship between mind and body and the various landscapes it can yield. The work is a series of malleable compositions and improvisations that include field recordings and theatrical elements, aiming to dissociate the voice from its traditional attributes and create a new logic of song that is not only heard but seen through movement and action. Nini will perform A Solo Voice during the reception in addition to offering a voice bath to gallery visitors. The voice bath is a meditation. You may bring a yoga mat or cushion and anything else that you need to feel comfortable sitting or lying on for 15 minutes.

*Image: Randi Hokett, Mineral Painting no. 4, 2018, Copper Sulfate and Potassium Ferricyanide

The Sam Francis Gallery at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents
Twice Around the Sun

Exhibition: September 5-October 6, 2018
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 12, 4-6 p.m.

Twice Around the Sun features artworks made by the members of Crossroads School K-12 Visual Art Department. Each teacher has their own art practice, and each brings a creative voice to the department. Every day, Crossroads’ teaching artists bring their extensive knowledge, experience, and passion from their practice into the classroom.

Featuring artwork by Crossroads teaching artists:
Susan Arena
Melissa Bouwman
Janice Gomez
Molly Hansen
Morgan McGlothan
Peter Melville
Rich Mudge
Vincent Ramos
Jesse Robinson
Leslie Rosdol
Vernon Salyers
Carly Steward

The Sam Francis Gallery at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

“Introspection: Stories Beneath the Surface”

Exhibition: Feb. 15 - March 15

Opening Reception: Thursday, Feb. 15 // 4-6 p.m.

Organized by:

Felice Badong, Mia Gleiberman, Wes Mahony, Josh Neidorf, Elijah Solow-Ohashi, Niklas Stahle, Emily Sures, Lizzy Tommey, Lyla Trilling, Desiree Webb, Sarah Zeiger

“Introspection: Stories Beneath the Surface” is a student-curated exploration of meaning beyond superficial value. As humans, we often limit our judgement to what we can see—the face value of an object, a work of art, a person, etc.—and neglect to understand the deeper significance. The underlying goal of “Introspection” is to reveal these hidden meanings and add additional layers to what may have once appeared one-dimensional.

Sculptures from Karen Lee Williams and Maika’i Tubbs shed light on the delicate nature of our ecosystem, while Anna Mayer uses sculpture to represent the complexity of human relationships. Kang Seung Lee’s graphite drawings capture the essence of chaos, and through paintings of people and their personal objects, Amir H. Fallah captures the human spirit. Kelly McLane’s paintings explore the underlying intimacy between nature and man, and Michael Henry Hayden’s paintings force a deeper understanding of facades. Jeremy Blake uses visual vocabularies to illustrate hidden stories, and Dakota Noot’s paintings depict the exploration of self-identity and the portrayal of various states of being. Through sculpture, Macha Suzuki takes his subjects out of their original context to reveal their hidden meaning. Robert Weingarten explores the real history and truth behind people and the scenery that surrounded them.

Heroes and Villains with Artist-in-Residence Matt MacFarland

 Exhibition: Jan. 29-Feb. 8
Closing Reception: Thursday, Feb. 8 // 4-6 p.m.

Contemporary artist and cartoonist Matt MacFarland will work with fourth-graders, Middle School Art & Culture students and Upper School Studio Art students to produce latex masks from plaster molds inspired by Classical, Modern and contemporary portrait paintings. Each mask will be loosely based on the theory of the “archetypical figure” posited by Carl Jung in which universal, mythical characters reside within the collective unconscious of people all over the world.

Each of these projects takes our current political moment as a starting point and, through visual expression, seeks to imagine what new possibilities these traditional forms might hold. 

About Matt MacFarland

Matt MacFarland received his MFA from Otis College of Art in 2003 and has been teaching ever since. He is a contemporary artist and cartoonist whose ongoing graphic narrative “Dark Pants” follows a mysterious pair of pants through Los Angeles as they impact the lives of whomever wears them. MacFarland has also compiled his 14-plus years of teaching experience into a self-published comic, “The Teaching Chronicles.” MacFarland enjoys introducing students to a wide spectrum of art materials and approaches, and he has a fundamental conviction that everyone is able to draw.

MacFarland has long been fascinated by the tension between 2-D and 3-D artwork and enjoys exploring the space between them in his own work. For this project, the artist combines his love for monster masks, portraiture and caricature. With Jung’s 12 archetypes as the springboard and the expert guidance and skills of Crossroads students, the artist will attempt to replicate, in the form of latex masks, famous faces depicted in Classical and contemporary portrait paintings.

His work has been profiled in the Los Angeles Times, Comics Bulletin, Comics Grinder, Artillery and X-TRA art journal. His artwork has been featured at such venues as 356 Mission, the Vincent Price Art Museum, Armory Center for the Arts, and Torrance Art Museum. He has never said no to a free sandwich.

For more information, visit www.mattiemac.com.

For Immediate Release

January 10, 2018

Sam Francis Gallery at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

Monumental: Trophies and Monuments

Exhibition: Jan. 16-25
Closing Reception: Thursday, Jan. 25 // 2:20-3 p.m.

Blind contour drawing by Eamon M.

For the Crossroads Middle School exhibition in Sam Francis Gallery, students reexamine the rich and complex forms of monuments and trophies. They reflect on historic practices of using art to create symbols for the remembrance and reverence of significant people and events. The exhibit provides a forum for students to participate in reflection on social narrratives and related values.

It is in this spirit of possibility and change that we created artworks for this exhibition. Each class approached the concept of the show in a different way. Eighth-grade Studio Art students created mixed-media collages that juxtapose image and text. The eighth-grade Video Production class drew inspiration from the terms “monuments” and “trophies” and created narrative representations of the concepts. The eighth-grade Multimedia Arts class looked closer to home as students pondered the specific qualities that are favored by the Crossroads community and how they may be visualized. The eighth-grade Photography students explored reimagining monuments in place. In seventh-grade Studio Art, students selected people, places and things that they value and then created models for future monuments to them. Seventh-grade Art and Culture students modified photos of historical monuments to create space for new ideas and symbols and made digital sketches of poster art that interrogates the values and practices behind trophies and monuments.

Each of these projects takes our current political moment as a starting point and, through visual expression, seeks to imagine what new possibilities these traditional forms might hold. 

Gallery Address:

Sam Francis Gallery

Peter Boxenbaum Arts Education Centre

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences

1714 21st St.

Santa Monica, CA 90404

Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

 samfrancisgallery@xrds.org

www.xrds.org/samfrancisgallery

(310) 829-7391
 

About Crossroads School

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences is a K-12, coed college preparatory school in Santa Monica, California. Crossroads was founded upon five basic commitments: to academic excellence; to the arts; to the greater community; to the development of a student population of social, economic and racial diversity; and to the development of each student's physical well-being and full human potential. One in four students receives financial assistance. The School is highly acclaimed for its programs and is a leader in public/private educational partnerships.

18th Street Arts Center, Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences, John Adams Middle School and Santa Monica High School Present

Universal Histories: Santa Monica students respond to PST: LA/LA

Reception: Wednesday, Dec. 6 // 4-6 p.m.

Exhibition: Nov. 27-Dec. 15

18th Street Art Center Atrium Gallery and Sam Francis Gallery at Crossroads School

Universal Histories is a collection of Santa Monica student responses to works in A Universal History of Infamy: Virtues of Disparity, a LACMA-curated PST: LA/LA exhibition at 18th Street Arts Center. Students from three local schools—Santa Monica High School, John Adams Middle School and Crossroads School—have developed artworks around themes of identity, migration and censorship.

Many of the works use the codex form to represent their personal histories in dialogue with the works of artists Mariana Castillo Deball, Gala Porras Kim and Carolina Caycedo. Other works appropriate a censored artwork and reimagine it, as Venezuelan artist Angela Bonadies did with “Rompecabezas Street Meeting 1932-2016,” from the Series “David Alfaro Siqueiros, Street Meeting, LA, 1932,” 2017.

Students visited 18th Street with Program Coordinator Betty Marín to learn about the works in the exhibition and develop their own. They also visited the LACMA installments of A Universal History of Infamy.

Crossroads Studio Art students, taught by Vincent Ramos—who has works in LACMA’s PST: LA/LA exhibition—will be sending handmade postcards to 18th Street addressed to “the future,” reflecting on the state of our country today and how they see themselves within it.

Students from John Adams Middle School and Santa Monica High School participated in eight workshops with 18th Street Program Coordinator Betty Marín and local artist Paulina Sahagun to learn about the works in the exhibition and develop their own.

John Adams Middle School teacher Jennifer Joyce remarked on the breadth of authentic art experiences her students participated in: “Students had the great pleasure of visiting professional art galleries, meeting living artists with work on display in major metropolitan museums, and being guided through the process of responding to artwork and creating their own with visiting artists in our art room.”

Santa Monica High School AP Art Teacher Amy Bouse likewise valued the close partnership with 18th Street Arts Center: “Our collaboration with 18th Street brought the PST: LA/LA initiative and a powerful local art institution into our classroom. The process of learning from other artists, understanding cultural contexts and responding with their own creative work asked AP Art students valuable artistic and academic questions. We are grateful for the opportunity to participate in the local art community.”

Works by John Adams Middle School and Santa Monica High School students will be exhibited in the 18th Street Atrium Gallery between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15. Works by Crossroads students will be exhibited at Crossroads’ Sam Francis Gallery and the 18th Street Atrium Gallery. Opening receptions at both sites will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 6. At 5 p.m., visitors at each venue will be led to the other site on a short walking tour through the neighborhood.

A Universal History of Infamy was curated by LACMA and presented in collaboration with 18th Street Arts Center, and is part of the Getty-led PST: LA/LA, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles, taking place from September 2017 through January 2018 at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California. Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.

18th Street Arts Center (across from Crossroads’ Norton Campus)

Atrium Gallery (Blue building)

1639 18th St.

Santa Monica, CA 90404

Hours: Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

communications@18thstreet.org

pstlala-lacma.18thstreet.org/

About 18th Street Arts Center

18th Street Arts Center is one of the top 20 artist residency programs in the US, and the largest in Southern California. Conceived as a radical think tank in the shape of an artist community, 18th Street supports artists from around the globe to imagine, research, and develop significant, meaningful new artworks and share them with the public. We strive to provide artists the space and time to take risks, to foster the ideal environment for artists and the public to directly engage, and to create experiences and partnerships that foster positive social change.

Sam Francis Gallery at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

Chris Kallmyer: All Possible Spaces

Public Reception: Sunday, Nov. 5 // 3-6 p.m.

Exhibition: Oct. 11-Nov. 17

Guest Curator: Aandrea Stang

Artist Chris Kallmyer’s work explores architectural spaces and the things we do to give them meaning. With the exhibition Chris Kallmyer: All Possible Spaces, he further examines structures for human needs such as listening to music, having a focused conversation, eating lots of ramen, or taking a nap.

Working with Crossroads students as an audience as well as collaborators, Kallymer will envision new speculative architecture for spaces that don’t yet exist. Students will explore ideas of ownership, communalism, agency, autonomy, and public space. With his installation Kallmyer will create a Soft Structure in the Sam Francis Gallery that embodies part sculpture and part improvised fort. The project taps into ideas from utopian architecture, to tree houses, to refugees shelters.

In addition to the structure Kallmyer has created 20 flat-pack kits to be distributed to various classes. Students will use the kits to prototype a new architecture to fulfill some specific use of their choosing. As they are completed, the 20 different speculative structures will be displayed in the gallery next to Kallmyer’s real-life realization.

“If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”—Gaston Bachelard

About Aandrea Stang

Stang is an independent educator and curator/producer with a focus on institutional program development, concentrating on contemporary and socially engaged art practices. She serves on the programming committee for the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound (SASSAS) and the exhibition committee for the Armory Center for the Arts.

Gallery Address:

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences

Peter Boxenbaum Arts Education Centre

Sam Francis Gallery

1714 21st St.

Santa Monica, 90404 (310) 829-7391

Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

samfrancisgallery@xrds.org

www.xrds.org/samfrancisgallery

About Crossroads School

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences is a K-12, coed college preparatory school in Santa Monica, California. Crossroads was founded upon five basic commitments: to academic excellence; to the arts; to the greater community; to the development of a student population of social, economic and racial diversity; and to the development of each student's physical well-being and full human potential. One in four students receives financial assistance. The School is highly acclaimed for its programs and is a leader in public/private educational partnerships.

The Herbert Zipper Archives at Twenty: From Z to A

Reception: Wednesday, Sept. 13, 4-6 p.m.

Remarks by Paul F. Cummins

September 5-29, 2017

Guest Curator: Amie A. Mack, Archivist, Herbert Zipper Archives

The photographs, letters, sheet music, artwork and artifacts exhibited will tell the (mostly) untold stories of the family, friends, colleagues, places and events in the lives of Herbert Zipper (1904-1997) and his wife, Trudl Dubsky Zipper (1910-1976). The exhibit will showcase the diverse archival materials, arranged alphabetically by subject, dating from early 20th-century Vienna; 1930s and 1940s England; pre-World War II and Japanese-occupied Manila; the United States from 1946 on; and 1980s Asia.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the passing of Herbert Zipper, a conductor, Holocaust survivor and educator who bequeathed to Crossroads School the historical materials that now comprise the Herbert Zipper Archives. Brought to the School by Crossroads co-founder Paul F. Cummins after Zipper’s death on April 21, 1997, the archive provides a unique opportunity for students to engage in primary-source learning. The archive is open by appointment to researchers and scholars.

The Sam Francis Gallery at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents“Working Title: 10,020,000”

Exhibition: Feb. 15 - March 17

Opening Reception: Wednesday, Feb. 15, 4-6 p.m.

Organized by Curatorial Students: Cody Benfield, Alexandra Block, Ella Flood, Talja Ketchum, Caroline Weiss and Katharine Whitney-Schubb

“Working Title: 10,020,000” explores the Los Angeles region as a muse for six artists. While some artists give us direct reflections of the area, others show us slices of the city through recontextualization of form, objects and imagery. Photographic works from Judy Fiskin and John Humble show a Los Angeles that was—and in many ways, still is—while Katie Shapiro’s photographs present human interventions that try to preserve the now. Kaz Oshiro and Becky Kolsrud reflect on our surroundings through paintings that disorient us by reframing our vision through their work. And Elonda Billera Norris’ site-specific work gives us a peek into a view that is one in 10,020,000.  

2017 Artist in Residence: Kim Schoenstadt

Exhibit opens Jan. 30; closing reception to be held Feb. 9 from 4-6 p.m.

Kim Schoenstadt’s artist residency project in Crossroads School’s Sam Francis Gallery continues her ongoing exploration of drawing by extending the natural “vanishing points” from the individual buildings contained within a “mash-up” drawing. Shoenstadt will work with students to both paint the work directly onto the walls and extend the vanishing points using cord.

Collaborating cross-disciplinarily, math and visual art students will calculate and map the angles of the lines that extend from the drawing and visually appear to cut through walls. Younger participants will physically see the drawing differently and pull the lines per their perspective. Older participants will also bring their knowledge and concerns to the project and pull the lines per their knowledge base.

Green Up! Green Musings

Exhibition:  January 9-19, 2017

Closing reception: January 19, 2:20-3:00PM

Middle School students make visual art that probes notions of environmental justice. The projects range in approach, including explorations into material use as carrying meaning; the use and transformation of symbols; and pictorial narratives.

Topological Skew

Guest Curator: John David O’Brien

The guiding concept for Topological Skew is to exhibit artworks that reference both more formal topographic mapping approaches, as well as a more oblique or skewed usage of interior topological mappings. The premise is that this artwork is done in response to delineating a territory. The specific modes or territorial transcription processes can range from the painstakingly exact to a more abbreviated jotting, from drawing to sculpture to digital, and the artwork is drawn from artists who create images related to mapping, but not in the literal sense.

 Topological Skew features works by Dawn Arrowsmith, Philip Govedare, Lynn Marie Kirby, Luigia Martelloni, John David O’Brien and Christopher Pate.

 The exhibition space has been divided into discrete separate areas, allowing the artists’ works to create conversations about how mapping can mean more than just a literal transcription of what is above or below what we can see on the ground.

Public Opening Reception: Sunday, Oct. 23, 4-6 p.m.

School Reception: Wednesday, Oct. 26, 4-6 p.m.  

Oct. 23-Nov. 18

Crossroads Advanced Studies Art Senior Thesis Shows April 15 - 17 and 21 - 24 2015

Feigned: Real & Not Real Everyday Things was organized by Crossroads students in the Gallery Curators class and includes work by LA artists who examine the relationship between the idea and the object and its tangible form and function. 

In a Mere Full of Rime: a search for photography’s essence

January 15 – February 13, 2015

Opening Reception: Thursday, January 15, 6-8pm

As part of an ongoing investigation into phantom worlds, the Institute of Cultural Inquiry will bring a mobile field station to the Sam Francis Gallery, for a one month collaborative and interactive residency exploring the limits and potentialities of photography.