Vessel Gallery

Exhibitor's Artists:

• Nick Dong
  Biography : I am a conceptual metalsmith, mixed-media sculptor and socio-commodity engineer with the intention of creating works to ignite experiential moments. We know there are multiple ways to receive information. I create mixed-media fields to change the relationship of the viewer’s apperception. Art is not an object nor a picture; art is the unique impact created by that object or picture. Participatory conceptualism is antithetical to passive visual experience. My work partakes of both aspects to achieve the unique impact and constructs the particular sentiment or antipathy. Exhibition : Smithsonian's exhibition "40 under 40: Craft Futures
  
  https://vimeo.com/92432102
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdQ--nThkxA
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/40-under-40-craft-futures-at-the-renwick-gallery/2012/07/23/gJQATieL5W_story.html
  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/40-under-40-opens-at-the-renwick-today-4573915/?no-ist
  Detailed Description : Nick Dong (2012) 15'L x 5’W x 10’H One-person-at-a-time light and sound installation, 10,000 handmade porcelain tiles, acrylic mirror tiles, stainless steel mirror tiles, 633 white LEDs, gold, copper, aluminum, vocal by Stephen Carter-Hicks. "En-lightening" reaches beyond comfort in the quest for a quasi-religious experience. The walls are lined from floor to ceiling with handmade convex porcelain tiles, creating an aesthetic that is both sterile and strangely domestic through its resemblance to quilted fabric. It took Dong six months to make all the tiles by hand. All of them he signed personally while repeating a simple Buddhist prayer —a grueling process enacted to distinguish his work from commercial production. This reverent undertone is carried through the Room’s function. The viewer enters the darkened space alone and proceeds down its length to a cushioned stool at the far end. Sitting triggers six hundred LED lights that brighten gradually over the course of a minute until the entire space is illuminated. Simultaneously a low hum within the chamber grows to full volume, saturating the Room aurally as well as visually. The viewer’s (literal) enlightenment is achieved not only through this sensory engagement, but also through total withdrawal from the outside world. To pass through the Room’s modest door is to enter a cathartic vacuum where the burdens of modern life are finally shed.
• Beili Liu
  Biography : Beili Liu is a multidisciplinary artist whose time and process based installations explore subjects of cultural specificity and overlaps, transient or persistent energy, and conflicting and confluent forces. Thread, paper, incense, wood, salt, water, these simple materials and compounds are the vehicles by which Beili Liu hand crafts microcosms of fragility and poignancy. By working on these everyday materials, Liu manipulates their intrinsic and bare qualities to extrapolate much more complex cultural narratives. Janet Koplos reviewed her works as being “materially simple but metaphorically rich” (Art in America Review, April 2009). Beili Liu has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. She has held solo exhibitions at venues such as the Hå Gamle Prestegard, Norwegian National Art and Culture Center, Galerie An Der Pinakothek Der Moderne, Munich, Germany, Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center, Shanghai, Hua Gallery, London, UK, Nordisk Kunst Plattform, Brusand, Norway, the Chinese Culture Foundation, San Francisco, and Buffalo Arts Studio. Liu has been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, the Austin Museum of Art, Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Alexandra Museum of Art, Louisiana, Grand Rapids Museum of Art, Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Granary Gallery, Fiskars, Finland, the Kaunas Biennial—a survey of international contemporary fiber art, hosted by the National Gallery in Lithuania, and Hamburg Art Week, Germany. Liu’s work has received critical reviews from Art in America, Sacchi Review, UK, Helsinki Sanomat News, Finland, Stavanger News, Norway, China Daily, Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, China ArtNow, Fiber Quarterly, Canada, Handelsblatt, Germany, Hamburg Abendblatt, Artillery Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Art Slant Los Angeles, Buffalo News, Detroit Metro Times, and Austin Chronicle, among many others. Liu has received awards and priz Exhibition : Solo Exhibitions
  
  2015 Beili Liu Solo Exhibition, Grace Museum, Abilene, TX (forthcoming)
  2014 Chine, The Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, TX
  Yuan, University of Hawai'i Gallery, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
  2013 Beili Liu: Process Drawings, Courtyard Gallery, University of Texas at Austin
  Amass, University Gallery, Texas State University, San Marcos
  2012 Rise and Fall, HUA Gallery, London, UK
  Beili Liu: “Der rote Raum” , Hamburg Art Week, Emporio Quarter, Hamburg, Germany
  Between Wind and Water, Vessel Gallery, Oakland, CA
  2011 Installationen & Wandarbeiten, Galerie An Der Pinakothek Der Moderne, Munich, Germany
  Recall, Hå Gamle Prestegard, Norwegian National Art and Culture Center, Norway
  Drawn, Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
  Extent, Form/Space Atelier, Seattle
  The Mending Project, Women and Their Work Gallery, Austin TX
  2010 Fray, Asia Unlimited Gallery, Berlin, Germany
  half empty.half full, Site-Specific Installations, Nordisk Kunst Platform Gallery, Brusand, Norway
  One, Another, Buffalo Arts Studio, Buffalo, New York
  2009 Mapping Memories, Beili Liu and Takafumi Ide, (two person exhibition), Castle Gallery, The College of New Rochelle, NY
  In Between, Elisabeth De Brabant Art Center, Shanghai, China
  Bound, d berman Gallery, Austin TX
  Miasma, Three Walls Gallery, Blue Star Contemporary Art Center, San Antonio, TX
  Three Thousand Troubled Threads, Tarryn Teresa Gallery, Los Angeles
  2008 LURE／惑, Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, Curated by Abby Chen
  LURE, Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, Michigan
  2006 Recall (shadow), Gallery One, Ann Arbor, Michigan
  Recall (barn), A site-specific installation, Djerassi Foundation, Woodside, California
  
• William Schwob
  Biography : WILLIAM SCHWOB was born and raised in Mishawaka, a small town in Northern Indiana. He developed an early interest in fine art through his father, a painter. At a young age he was drawn to both music and art. He attended Herron School of Art in Indianapolis in the early 70′s. Schwob spent his life painting, drawing, photographing, sculpting and also working with sound to create sound paintings or sound collages using synthesis of found sounds. His sculptural work covers a broad range of approaches from site specific conceptual pieces that document with a camera to more traditional approaches using clay and wood firing. He began his university studies as a painter but midway though art school he developed a keen interest in conceptual art, earth works and other similar ideas that were coming of age at that time during the early 70′s. It was at this time he began experimenting with site specific works and turned to B&W photography as a means to document his comprehensive installation artworks. While assisting his wife, a ceramics artist, he came to realize his strength of vision could be expressed in clay. Vessel Gallery is proud to support an established artist's foray into a new medium. Exhibition : "Discovering Uncharted Territories" solo show, Vessel Gallery, Oakland, CA Detailed Description : "My most recent work involves wood fired clay, one of the most basic of all materials, combined with a process that matches the medium perfectly and resonates with the subject material of the human form. In my exploration of the human form I expose the anatomy and combine invented architectural structure in a way that suggests both the fragility and strength of the human condition. My interest in wood firing began with my travels to Japan in the early 90′s to the ceramic centers of Bizen and Shigaraki where I first encountered their beautiful ceramic works with their amazing surfaces and patinas of earth colors created by wood firing in large anagama kilns. The process is a collaboration between conscious intent and the unpredictable nature of wood firing. Initially, I model the clay directly, working with its specific characteristics and limitations. Once a form is completed, the clay is allowed to dry and is then bisque fired. I use no glazes on these works. The wood firing takes anywhere from 8 to 12 days and reaches temperatures of 2500 degrees. During this extended firing process the wood ash, minerals and salts, which are not combustible, begin to adhere to the red hot sticky surface of the clay and builds up into an amazing natural patina and finish that is usually more than I could have hoped for and in the process transforms them." — William Schwob
• Cyrus Tilton
  Biography : Cyrus Tilton’s mother and father espoused the values of the back-to-nature movement of the Sixties and when they were first married, set up house in a remote river valley in the wilderness northeast of Anchorage. His father has worked as a commercial fisherman and park engineer. His mother went from tending vegetables in the family truck patch to being a master gardener who has designed gardens for clients. Cyrus remembers being a toddler in a one-room cabin; he remembers his mother fetching water for his bath from the river below the house; he remembers getting a home visit from a bear. The vast expanses of Alaska were always just outside Cryus’s back door, even when the family moved to a house in Chugiak, close to Anchorage. From there, he could still trace with his eye the profile of Mt. Susitna, the great “Sleeping Lady” that dominates the horizon west of Anchorage, and watch the seasons roll through the splendid birch forests of the great north. Since then he’s been searching for elements of The Great Good Place in all the locales where life has taken him. His move to the Bay Area brought him into contact with a postindustrial urban landscape, where he now observes the processes of decay at work in concrete and steel with the same keenness that he watched, back in Alaska, the powerful effects of weathering and erosion on his surroundings. Wherever he goes, he never leaves behind his love of nature and his delight in analyzing the intricate structures of organic forms. Born in 1977, Cyrus has been making art for as long as he can remember. Cyrus was awarded a full tuition scholarship to Art Institute of Seattle and graduated from there in 1998. In 1999 he took the position of Lead Sculptor at Scientific Art Studio in Richmond, California, working closely with the sculptor Ron Holthuysen, SAS’s founder and creative director. Cyrus is now Art Director at SAS. Exhibition : SOLO SHOWS
  Vessel Gallery, Oakland "Periphery: New Works by Cyrus Tilton" 2/14 — 4/12
  Vessel Gallery, Oakland “Absence” 2/13 – 4/13
  Vessel Gallery, Oakland “The Cycle” 10/11 – 11/11
  Vessel Gallery, Oakland “A Place In – Between” 5/10 – 6/10
  Vessel Gallery, Berkeley “Megaphona” 10/08
  
  Group Exhibitions
  Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA
  Pacific Rim Sculptor's Group Show
  Vessel Gallery, Oakland
  "Shades of Summer" 7/14 - 8/14
  Vessel Gallery, Oakland
  "Vessel as the Human Form, Humanity" 11/13 — 12/13
  Vessel Gallery, Oakland
  “Concerns for the Environment” 7/13 – 8/13
  Vessel Gallery, Oakland
  “Landscapes: Near and Afar” 5/13 — 7/13
  Vessel Gallery, Oakland
  “Vessel 8: Charting The Waters” 5/12 – 7/12
  Vessel Gallery, Oakland “Horizons of Promise” 4/12
  Vessel Gallery, Oakland “Portraits” 6/11 – 7/11
  Vessel Gallery, Oakland “Spring Showcase” 5/11 – 6/11
  Vessel Gallery, Berkeley “Vital Sustenance” 2/09 - 3/09
  Go Go Gallery, Philadelphia “Oakland Represents” 4/08-5/08
  LoBot Gallery, Oakland “Virus” 5/06-6/06
  LoBot Gallery, Oakland "One Year Anniversary Show"8/05-9/05
  Auto Gallery, Oakland “Sound and Vision” 7/05-8/05
  21 Grand, Oakland “Secret Show” 1/05
  LoBot Gallery, Oakland "Opening Show" 8/04-9/04
  Art Fairs
  artMRKT, Fort Mason, San Francisco 5/13
  San Francisco Fine Art Fair, San Francisco 5/12
• Cyrus Tilton
  Biography : Cyrus Tilton’s mother and father espoused the values of the back-to-nature movement of the Sixties and when they were first married, set up house in a remote river valley in the wilderness northeast of Anchorage. His father has worked as a commercial fisherman and park engineer. His mother went from tending vegetables in the family truck patch to being a master gardener who has designed gardens for clients. Cyrus remembers being a toddler in a one-room cabin; he remembers his mother fetching water for his bath from the river below the house; he remembers getting a home visit from a bear. The vast expanses of Alaska were always just outside Cryus’s back door, even when the family moved to a house in Chugiak, close to Anchorage. From there, he could still trace with his eye the profile of Mt. Susitna, the great “Sleeping Lady” that dominates the horizon west of Anchorage, and watch the seasons roll through the splendid birch forests of the great north. Since then he’s been searching for elements of The Great Good Place in all the locales where life has taken him. His move to the Bay Area brought him into contact with a postindustrial urban landscape, where he now observes the processes of decay at work in concrete and steel with the same keenness that he watched, back in Alaska, the powerful effects of weathering and erosion on his surroundings. Wherever he goes, he never leaves behind his love of nature and his delight in analyzing the intricate structures of organic forms. Born in 1977, Cyrus has been making art for as long as he can remember. Cyrus was awarded a full tuition scholarship to Art Institute of Seattle and graduated from there in 1998. In 1999 he took the position of Lead Sculptor at Scientific Art Studio in Richmond, California, working closely with the sculptor Ron Holthuysen, SAS’s founder and creative director. Cyrus is now Art Director at SAS.