LYFE GRAPHIX
Curated by Gregory Rick
Quinn Girard
Tajo McBurnie
Connor O’Neill
Allegra Samp
Acclaimed artist, Gregory Rick, highlights four emerging artists who represent a continuation, as well as a new generation, of Bay Area Mission School and Funk traditions.
July 20 - Sept. 7
Artists’ reception: Sat., July 27th 5-8pm
QUINN GIRARD, Dasher, 2024, cardboard, paper mache, acrylic, epoxy clay wire, 60” x 36” x 72”
LYFE GRAPHIX
BY GREGORY RICK
When asked if I would be interested in curating a show at The Fourth Wall gallery, I immediately had an idea of which artists I would like to feature. I remembered my own feelings of anxiety and excitement around materials and experimentation that were so pervasive in undergrad at the California College of the Arts (CCA) circa 2016 through 2018.
Our cohort was indeed special, the end of an era, witnessing the rapid disbandment and relocation of the Oakland Campus. The Oakland Campus was a living history, renowned from those before, charged from all the work, the experimentation, the failure, the success, the happy accidents, the problems. Embracing it all, bringing meaning into material and repurposing things towards the goal of making art seemed like a continuation and a conclusion.
I’ve watched each of the artists included in this exhibition as they developed post CCA, and have found their pursuits fascinating and inspiring, as well as familiar. I see these artists as a contemporary extension of the Mission School, and even more so of Bay Area Funk. The artists in the show are a continuation of Bay Area painting and art making— a new generation, with the same concerns. The Funk Movement was about the attitude of the artist more than anything else, and by nature evaded categorization. Theirs was a reaction to the seriousness of West Coast abstraction and figuration schools. They brought a spirit of play and levity, creating work that confronted existential questions, & notions of purity.
The artists showcased in Lyfe Graphix are very much individuals tormented by a certain restlessness and skepticism, loosely united but in individual lanes. They have styles and stories of their own, but they are all pushing their practices towards something that seems less about rebellion or being seen but rather asking what it means to make work at the cusp of the end. They are poking fun at a gilded art world and a mad world. They are disgusted with historical myth and lost in the labyrinth of conflicting narratives. These artists are holding up a mirror attempting to bring the apocalypse to the art world, laughing the whole way. HA HA HA
QUINN GIRARD, Shell Company, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 36” x 36”
CONNOR O’NEILL, Self Portrait (60them), 2024, mixed media on canvas, 37” x 25.5”
ALLEGRA SAMP, Steve-O & Knoxville, 2002 2023, freehand machine embroidery on canvas, 13” x 13”
TAJO McBURNIE, Slow Pour Kettle 2024, plaster, oil stick, oil pastel, house paint on canvas, 12” x 16”
GREGORY RICK, Draft Week, 2024, mixed media on canvas, 40” x 60”
Quinn Girard (b. 1998) is an emerging painter and sculptor from the San Francisco Bay Area. He earned his BFA in painting and drawing from California College of the Arts in 2020, and currently lives and works in Oakland, California.
“The pieces in Lyfe Graphix explore and depict gig economy workers, or “Doordashers” in specific. I’m interested in the way these new forms of labor act as a microcosm of many changing aspects of society; relationships between humans and algorithms, big data, class struggle, and the mediation of the phone between one’s relationship to the world.” Quinn Girard
Tajo McBurnie (b. 1997) is an artist, decorative painter & plasterer based in Oakland, California. He received a BFA from CCA in 2019.
“I am driven by a desire for re-enchantment, a fidelity to sensitivity, and the contradictions which arise from this pursuit. The ability of art to act as a vehicle of struggle, of meaning beyond the individual continues to be a mystery to me. Its limitations are many, and a painting is oily, fickle & prone to shape shifting. I am interested in the ways painting has been defeated and leveraged in service of power, and what responsibilities this engenders. The preamble to making a mark is surrender, to the comprises and rationalizations which have imbued painting with an anointed status. I seek to sift through debris, in hopes of glancing an energy which cannot be co-opted, of locating a kernel of resistance that remains buried. I am also interested in apples, bananas, eggs, cores, & coils.” Tajo McBurnie
Connor O’Neill (b.1997) lives in Santa Cruz, California. He received a BFA in painting/drawing from CCA in 2019. He is a graphic designer, fine artist, AM surfer, business owner, and time traveler.
“Artmaking is a key fundamental to a healthy life and a huge privilege. I don’t take it for granted. i want my paintings to be very accessible to the public whether my work is figurative or abstract. Color is my preferred language so I want to communicate visually across the globe. Breaking down barriers with the intent to inspire creativity one step closer to pure bliss.” Connor O’Neill
Allegra Samp (b.1995) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, CA. She holds a 2019 Textiles BFA from California College of the Arts. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she takes great inspiration from her surroundings and the pop culture of her childhood.
“I live in my head. My work is an extension of the constant obsessive behavior, overplayed, and overstored memories of my brain. Childhood emblems, favored locations, and the intertwined, winding, flat roads of Los Angeles; my birth place and current residence. My thoughts are always juxtaposed, something to combat with; pop-culture and my personal sentimentality, blue collar versus the wealth of the city, femininity of thread versus the masculinity of painting. What’s that statistic about how much of your life is spent in a car if you live in LA?” Allegra Samp
Gregory Rick (b. 1981) grew up in South Minneapolis, Minnesota. He received his BFA from California College of the Arts in 2019 and graduated from Stanford University with an MFA in Art Practice in 2022. Developing a historical imagination and fondness for drawing stories, Rick collapses history while confronting personal trauma. His works exist as reflections of his personal experience, while in dialogue with the wider world. Rick has received the Tournesol Award, Artadia Award, SECA award, Nathan Oliviera fellowship, Dedalus MFA Fellowship, the Jack K. and Gertrude Murphy Award, the Yamaguchi print making award and has exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States. He is represented by Jenkins Johnson Gallery in New York.
