The Space Between
April Higashi Jewelry + Jenifer Kent Drawings
December 03 - 24, 2016
HOLIDAY PARTY & FUNDRAISER
SATURDAY DECEMBER 03, 5-9 PM
Join us for our Twelfth Annual Holiday Party on Saturday December 3, 5-9pm.
We will show new work by April Higashi and drawings by Jenifer Kent, and share special bites by Tacos Chanti served with unique beer brewed for the occasion by Delcielo Brewing.
Celebrate with us the ideals we cherish most: equality, diversity, empathy, inclusiveness and creativity.
We will be giving our clients the option of a 10% discount or donating 10% to one of the following charities:
Girls, Inc. of Alameda Inspiring minority girls to be strong, smart and bold
Lambda Legal Making the case for equality for LGBT people
EarthJustice Using the power of law to defend our right to a healthy environment
Jenifer Kent will be donating 25% on top of the above to Southern Poverty Law Center & The Sierra Club.
Come spend the evening with us and discuss our world and how we can move ahead, helping others. We’d love to see you.
Stay hopeful.
SHIBUMI GALLERY is pleased to announce The Space Between, a show featuring new jewelry by April Higashi and drawings by Jenifer Kent. Both artists take an organic approach to the creative process which results in works that are fragile and soft, yet strong and bold. Juxtaposed with the speed of modern life, these pieces ask for a stillness when viewing the intricate details, negative space and delicate marks created by the artists.
APRIL HIGASHI's work is inspired by the inexhaustible beauty of the natural world. Her creations are a reflection of nature’s rich color fields, subtle textures and unexpected pairing of assemblages. Renowned for her refined attention to detail, April’s pieces feel both fresh and contemporary yet ancient and timeless. Her work often features organic rose cut and rustic diamonds, precious metals, and exquisite enamels. The Space Between features cast organic matter that she feels only begins to scratch the surface of what is yet to come with her work in the future.
"With my work, I seek to create a simple sense of beauty and leave a timeless imprint for my audience’s reflection.”
April has been working as a contemporary art jeweler, curator and gallery owner in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 20 years. Born and raised in Salt Lake City she was voted in high school "most likely not to live in Utah” and since has made her home in the San Francisco Bay Area with her son Ando. Her diverse career experiences include running her own jewelry company, working with the Susan Cummins Gallery, apprenticing with enamel artist June Schwartz, purchasing for the Paris-based Lilith clothing, art directing for the Jerry Garcia Estate, teaching at California College of the Arts and curating numerous exhibitions.
Through deliberate mark-making that is both minimalist and conceptual JENNIFER KENT examines the mechanisms of time, nature, space, and sound. Using black ink on paper and board she draws lines that coalesce into fields or forms whose twin can often be found in nature. The organic shapes mirror microscopic and cosmic landscapes, zooming in to suggest cellular structures and then out again into hyperspace. Like nature, these drawings are never still. Graceful, volatile, or habitual in turns, she seeks to capture perpetual movement and growth in expertly suspended animation.
While the symmetry of the work would suggest a mechanical approach using rulers and grids each drawing is actually created freehand and evolves organically according to its own cadence. Like fossils, each mark exists as evidence of a distinct and patient process; an incremental accumulation that requires minute attention to detail and leaves little room for error. But she finds peace from the din of modern life in this interactive and meditative process. Surrounded by speed and violence, drawing is her way of slowing down and experiencing things one mark at a time. Jenifer is also influenced by the artistic tradition of minimalist artists such as Sol Lewitt and Agnes Martin as well as the drawings of Van Gogh.
Born in New Jersey in 1971, Jenifer Kent received her BFA from Rutgers University in 1994, and MFA from Mills College in 1999. She currently lives in Northern California and has exhibited in locations there such as the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, The Lab & the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. Recently, Jenifer’s work was selected for inclusion in the West Marin Journal, New American Paintings and the Drawing Discourse Exhibition of Contemporary Drawing at UNC Asheville. She illustrated Thich Nhat Hanh’s Moments of Mindfulness and has been awarded an Artist in Residence at Kala Art Institute and the Lucid Arts Foundation. Her work is in the Alameda County Arts Collection as well as numerous private collections. Jenifer is represented in San Francisco by the Dolby Chadwick Gallery.