Visiting Creatives
We are humbled and thrilled to be joined by an extraordinary group of artists, curators, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and creative practitioners—people we admire deeply.
These visits are about generosity and transparency: not just what they make, but how they make it, how they sustain themselves, and how they’ve navigated the challenges every artist faces. A visiting artist might spend an afternoon in conversation with our emerging residents, lead a public demonstration, screen a film, or read from a work-in-progress. Always, the emphasis is on demystifying the often-hidden pathways to a creative life.
This is art-making as a living, breathing conversation, and we’re grateful to be part of it together.
Follow us on Instagram for updates on upcoming visits and events beginning Fall 2026.
Rebekah Krell
Rebekah Krell is a dedicated public servant with deep expertise in the fiscal and administrative operations of San Francisco’s cultural landscape. She is best known for her long-standing leadership at the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC), where she served as Deputy Director and Chief Financial Officer. In early 2020, Krell stepped into the role of Acting Director of Cultural Affairs, guiding the agency through the initial, critical stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and managing the city’s investments in the arts during a period of global crisis. Currently, Krell serves as a designee for the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office on the State Legislation Committee. Her career is marked by a commitment to municipal transparency and the sustainable funding of community-driven art. A specialist in government finance and policy, she has been a key architect in stabilizing the Bay Area’s creative economy and ensuring the arts remain central to the city’s civic identity.
Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson is an acclaimed American science fiction author, best known for his Mars Trilogy. A multiple award winner—including Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards—The New Yorker recognizes him as “one of the greatest living science-fiction writers.” His work has profoundly shaped contemporary science fiction literature.
Andy Rappaport
Andy Rappaport is a San Francisco-based artist, philanthropist, and venture capitalist. He is the co-founder of the Minnesota Street Project (MSP), an innovative arts complex in the Dogpatch district that provides sustainable spaces for galleries and artists. While known for his career in technology and finance, Rappaport maintains a deep creative practice as a photographer, composer, and guitarist with a nearly 50-year history in music and sound.Since 2017, he has collaborated with artist Deborah Oropallo on large-scale video works and installations, including RECKONING and UPRISING. His collaborative work is held in permanent collections at SFMOMA, the Nevada Museum of Art, and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).
Steve Zavattero
Steve Zavattero is a San Francisco-based gallerist and curator with over two decades of experience in the contemporary art market. He is most widely recognized for co-directing Marx & Zavattero (formerly Heather Marx Gallery), which served as a premier platform for emerging and mid-career artists in the Bay Area for over 13 years. Under his leadership, the gallery became known for its rigorous program and significant presence at international art fairs like Pulse Miami. Zavattero has played a pivotal role in shaping the careers of numerous regional artists. Following the gallery’s transition to an advisory model, he has continued to leverage his expertise in gallery operations, estate management, and collection building. An alumnus of San Francisco State University, he remains a dedicated advocate for the city’s evolving visual arts landscape.
Michael Bartalos
Michael Bartalos is a San Francisco-based visual artist working in print, video, and sculpture. His multidisciplinary practice includes collaborations with Xerox PARC and the San Francisco Center for the Book, with works held in the collections of MoMA and the Getty Research Institute. Supported by a National Science Foundation grant, his ongoing project, “The Long View,” addresses polar science and sustainability in Antarctica. An alumnus of Pratt Institute (BFA) and Stanford (MFA), Bartalos serves as Co-Director of ArtMadeHere.org and is the first Affiliate Artist of the California Academy of Sciences.
Em Kettner
Em Kettner is a Richmond, CA-based artist and writer. Recent solo shows include exhibitions at François Ghebaly Gallery, Chapter NY, and HARPY. Her work appears in major collections including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and has been featured in Artforum, Art in America, and Paris Review. She’s represented by François Ghebaly Gallery.
Isaac Vazquez Avila
Isaac Vazquez Avila, born in Mexico City, is a San Francisco-based painter and sculptor. He holds a BA in Latino/a Studies from SFSU and an MFA from UC Berkeley (2016). Avila runs Avila Mio Studio, creating murals and custom installations. His work has been exhibited at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Guerrero Gallery, and other venues.
Susan Miller
As a curator and producer, Susan has developed exhibitions, catalogs, and programs for McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco; The Exploratorium, San Francisco; The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; New Langton Arts, San Francisco; Oakland Museum of California; and The Wexner Art Center, Ohio; among other organizations. She has conceived and executed artist surveys of the work of Daniel Clowes, Tony Labat, Jim Pomeroy, and others. Her time in higher-education has been programmatic; building interdisciplinary research centers and cultural events for both students and faculty. These days, she organizes arts and cultural archives for acquisition by libraries and museums. Her current archive project is with Fort Apache (1985-2004), a Boston recording studio known for its adventurous indie-rock output.
Frank Smigiel
Frank Smigiel is a visual arts curator, educator, and writer serving as Director of Arts Programming & Partnerships at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco. Formerly an Associate Curator at the SFMOMA, he has collaborated with diverse artists and focuses on theater/time-based art intersections, artist commerce, and queer histories.
Julie Chang
Julie Chang is a San Francisco-based contemporary artist with an MFA from Stanford University (2007) and degrees from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the San Francisco Art Institute, the San Jose Museum of Art, and galleries in Washington DC and Istanbul. She’s represented by Hosfelt Gallery.
Ben Venom
Ben Venom holds an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute (2007). His work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Levi Strauss Museum (Germany), the National Folk Museum of Korea, and the Taubman Museum of Art. He has been featured by NPR, CBS Sunday Morning, and Playboy. Recent residencies include MASS MoCA and the de Young Museum, and he is Studio Manager of The Space Program SF.
Brenda Tucker
Brenda Tucker is a San Francisco-based cultural strategist and the Director of Arts Marketing at the San Francisco Travel Association. With over two decades of experience in the Bay Area, she is a central figure in promoting the city’s vibrant creative ecosystem to a global audience. Tucker led the advocacy for Proposition E, securing a dedicated hotel tax fund for local arts, and developed the Illuminate SF Light Art Trail, a self-guided itinerary showcasing over 60 public installations.A former marketing lead for KQED and California College of the Arts, Tucker’s background spans the Smithsonian and Chronicle Books. An avid year-round outdoor swimmer, she continues to bridge the gap between tourism and the arts, ensuring San Francisco remains a premiere destination for cultural exploration and social engagement.
Megan Prelinger
Megan Prelinger is a San Francisco-based cultural historian, archivist, and the co-founder of the Prelinger Library. An alumna of Reed College, she designed the library’s unique, geography-based organizational system to encourage “browsing-based discovery.” Her work focuses on “ephemeral literature”—discarded maps, trade journals, and pamphlets—to uncover overlooked narratives in American history.An acclaimed author, her books include Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race and Inside the Machine. Beyond the stacks, Prelinger is a dedicated naturalist who leads birding walks for San Francisco Nature Education and has served as a wildlife rehabilitator and oil spill responder.
Claire Astrow
Claire Astrow is an artist originally from Los Angeles, now residing in San Francisco. She received her BA in Art Practice from University of California, Berkeley. From 2020-21 she held a screenprinting fellowship at Kala Art Institute. From 2017-18 she was awarded the Blau-Gold Fellowship at Root Division. She has shown work at HIT Gallery, Soft Times, Mini Mart, Crisis Club, and Root Division.
Christopher Duncan
Christopher Robin Duncan is an Oakland-based multidisciplinary artist who uses sun, moon, time, and tides as creative prompts. His sun exposure works involve draping fabrics over objects for six months to a year, creating images between painting and photography. His sonic compositions feature harmonica, tuning forks, and field recordings, while recent ceramic work includes instruments and functional pieces.
Leah Rosenberg
Leah Rosenberg works across artistic media to spark new experiences of color. Using painting, installation, printmaking, sculpture, performance, and video she invites viewers to consider how color can be perceived both multi-sensorially and multi-dimensionally. By creating such enriched encounters, her work strives to deepen our understanding of the emotional and psychological impact of color in everyday life.
Trevor Paglen
Trevor Paglen is an American artist, geographer, and author whose work makes visible the invisible infrastructures of the digital age. His multidisciplinary practice—spanning photography, sculpture, and satellite engineering—investigates state secrecy, government surveillance, and the hidden physical architectures of the internet. By documenting classified military sites and undersea cables, Paglen challenges our understanding of power and perception in a hyper-connected world.
Janet Bishop
Janet Bishop is Chief Curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Over her 30 year career at the institution, she has served as curator for exhibitions including Matisse/Diebenkorn (2016–17), The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant Garde (2011–12), and the critically acclaimed Ruth Asawa: Retrospective (2025). Bishop holds a BA in art history and psychology from Cornell University and an MA in art history from Columbia University.
Catherine Clark
Catharine Clark is the founder and director of Catharine Clark Gallery, a San Francisco contemporary art gallery established in 1991. Known for building lasting artist relationships, she has expanded the gallery with initiatives like EXiT bookstore and BOXBLUR performance program. A San Francisco native with professional dance background, her art passion began through family exposure.
Deborah Munk
As Manager of Sustainability Education Programs at Recology, Deborah Munk has supported Bay Area artists for 25 years through the Artist in Residence and Educational Tour Programs. She has expanded the AIR Program across the western region and developed educational tours engaging thousands annually, fostering creativity and conservation.
Sandy Phillips
Sandra “Sandy” Phillips is the Curator Emerita of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), where she served as the primary architect of the museum’s world-renowned photography department for nearly 30 years. Joining in 1987 and becoming Senior Curator in 1999, Phillips transformed the collection by adding over 11,000 works and organizing nearly 200 exhibitions. She is celebrated for her expansive view of the medium, curating landmark shows such as Crossing the Frontier, Police Pictures, and Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera Since 1870. A scholar of vernacular and documentary photography, Phillips holds a PhD from the City University of New York. Her leadership was instrumental in the 2016 opening of the Pritzker Center for Photography, the largest exhibition space for the medium in any American art museum.
David Peters
David Peters is an independent design consultant dedicated to projects that champion the free knowledge movement. He has directed key initiatives for the Wikimedia Foundation, Creative Commons, and Wiki Education. Previously, in leadership roles at MetaDesign and Two Twelve Associates, he guided innovation for clients like the Ocean Conservancy and Barclays Bank. A graduate of NSCAD University, Peters has taught at Yale and RISD. He is also widely recognized for his DesignFilms project, which explores the history of film through a design lens, presenting insights at international festivals and conferences worldwide.
Andrew Sean Greer
Andrew Sean Greer is an American novelist and short story writer who received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel Less. Author of six works of fiction including The Story of a Marriage and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, he has taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and been an NEA Fellow and National Book Award judge.
Chinzalée Sonami
Chinzalée Sonami runs PALA, a ceramics practice based in her hometown of Oakland. Named “PALA” (Tibetan for “father”) after her late Tibetan potter father, she views her work as a time wormhole where father and daughter occupy the same creative space through clay, continuing his artistic legacy.
Lena Wolff
Lena Wolff is a San Francisco Bay Area artist, craftswoman, and democracy activist whose work spans folk art, minimalism, and political expression through drawing, sculpture, and public projects. She founded Art for Democracy in 2017, creating national voter participation campaigns. Her work is collected by major institutions including the SFMOMA and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
Steve Thompson
Steve Thompson, raised in rural Southern California, has worked in fabrication since age 8, learning welding and metalwork from his grandfather. After studying physics and philosophy at UC Irvine, he designed dwellings on a West Marin farm and founded Stochastic Labs’ fabrication shop. He has worked with numerous artists, designers, and institutions to realize meaningful concepts. He built and now runs Peak Design’s prototyping lab.
Amanda Uhle
Amanda Uhle is Executive Director and Publisher of McSweeney’s, The Believer, and Illustoria, an art and storytelling magazine for young readers. She co-founded The International Congress of Youth Voices with Dave Eggers and co-edits the I, Witness series. Previously, Uhle was executive director of 826michigan for over 11 years. Her writing appears in The Washington Post, Politico, and Newsweek. Her memoir, Destroy This House, is published by Simon & Schuster.
Spike Jonze
Spike Jonze is the versatile filmmaker behind the acclaimed films Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Where the Wild Things Are. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Her, which he also directed. As a producer, his credits include Michel Gondry’s Human Nature and Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York. He is also one of the creators and producers of the Jackass TV show and films, and is a member of the Advisory Board of 826LA.
Alexandra Kostoulas
Alexandra Kostoulas is an award-winning writer, editor, and the founder of the San Francisco Creative Writing Institute. A Greek-American author based in San Francisco, she is renowned for her expertise in “Method Writing,” a technique she learned from her mentor Jack Grapes. Through her workshops, she specializes in helping writers unblock their creativity and access their “Deep Voice.”
Perry Meigs
Perry Meigs is a Bay Area-based visual artist whose work reimagines mapping as a tool for tracking movement and cataloging memory. Utilizing drawing, painting, and digital data like Strava-tracking, she transforms architectural floor plans and daily commutes into layered visual records of time and place. Her practice investigates how technology and physical navigation shape our identity. An alumna of RISD (BFA) and CalArts (MFA), Meigs has been a resident at Skowhegan and the Cubberley Artist Studio Program. Her innovative work has been featured in The New York Times and exhibited at venues including BAMPFA and the San Jose ICA.
James Gouldthorpe
James Gouldthorpe is a San Francisco-based visual artist and a key technical professional at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). As a senior preparator for over 25 years, Gouldthorpe plays a vital role in the physical realization of major exhibitions, specializing in the complex installation, handling, and conservation-minded display of contemporary masterpieces. Beyond his technical role, he is a prolific artist known for his evocative project, COVID Artifacts. Created in his Richmond studio using watercolor, gouache, and ink, the series captures the “heartbreaking and absurd” essence of the pandemic. From frontline heroes to charged objects like toilet paper and Goya beans, Gouldthorpe’s postcard-sized vignettes distill a year of upheaval. His work was featured in the 2021 exhibition Close to Home: Creativity in Crisis, marking a surreal transition from museum staff to featured artist.
Kevin Smokler
Kevin Smokler is an acclaimed author, filmmaker, and cultural critic based in San Francisco. He is the author of several influential books, including Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to 80s Teen Movies and the essay collection Practical Classics. His writing frequently explores the intersection of nostalgia, cinema, and the enduring power of popular culture, with contributions appearing in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Salon.As a filmmaker, Smokler co-directed the feature documentary Vinyl Nation, which chronicles the vibrant resurgence of record culture in the digital age. A sought-after public speaker and moderator, he consistently champions the importance of storytelling and physical media in a rapidly evolving artistic landscape.
Rick Prelinger
Rick Prelinger is a San Francisco-based archivist, filmmaker, and educator renowned for preserving “ephemeral films”—advertising, educational, and amateur footage. In 1982, he founded the Prelinger Archives, a massive collection later acquired by the Library of Congress. He also co-founded the Prelinger Library, an experimental research collection in SoMa.A Professor Emeritus at UC Santa Cruz and board member of the Internet Archive, Prelinger is best known for his annual Lost Landscapes of San Francisco screenings. In December 2025, he premiered the 20th edition of this participatory urban history project, continuing his mission to bridge archival preservation with public memory.
Jessica Silverman
Jessica Silverman founded her internationally renowned contemporary art gallery in 2008. With an MA in Curatorial Practice from the California College of the Arts, she has a history of building artist careers and curating renowned private collections. Her gallery artists’ works have been acquired by major museums, including the MOMA, the Tate, and the SFMOMA.
Efe Godze
Gözde Efe is a San Francisco-based documentary filmmaker, photographer, and journalist whose work explores the intersections of displacement, identity, and the human connection to landscape. Originally from Turkey, she has built a diverse career in international media and independent production. Efe is particularly recognized for her documentary film The Moment, and her evocative short film Trains and People, which has been featured in international festivals including the Thessaloniki/Greece Short Film Festival.
Bernie Lubell
Since the early 1980’s Lubell’s installations have been shown in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Florida, China and Europe. “Etiology of Innocence“, “A Theory of Entanglement” and other large scale installations were featured at FACT, Liverpool, UK and v2 in Rotterdam, NL. in 2009, and “Party of the First Part” in Paris, France in 2012. Awards include a Guggenheim Artists Fellowship in 2011, an Adolph & Esther Gottlieb artists grant in 2009, a Pollack Krasner Foundation Grant in 2002 and an Award of Distinction for Interactive Art from Ars Electronica in 2007.
Jonathan Carver Moore
Jonathan Carver Moore is San Francisco’s only openly gay Black male-owned contemporary art gallery, specializing in emerging and established BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and women artists. Committed to amplifying underrepresented voices through a Black queer lens, the gallery champions community accessibility, welcoming novice and avid collectors alike while celebrating diversity throughout the art world.
Jen de los Reyes
Jen de los Reyes, born in Winnipeg, was shaped by the mid-90s Riot grrrl and DIY music scene. As a show organizer, zine creator, and band member, she developed foundational skills that inform her current creative practice. Her graduate work at University of Regina helped her recognize organizing as integral to her artistic work.
PJ Johnston
PJ Johnston is the former Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Commission and was president of the San Francisco Arts Commission for nine years. He has served on boards of various nonprofit organizations focused on arts and advocacy for women and African-Americans, and is currently a board member of the African American Arts & Culture Complex.
Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Ingrid Rojas Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her memoir, The Man Who Could Move Clouds, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award. Her debut novel, Fruit of the Drunken Tree, won the California Book Award silver medal in First Fiction. She is a Visiting Writer at Saint Mary’s College and lives in California.
Michael Arcega
Michael Arcega is a San Francisco-based interdisciplinary artist and educator whose work uses sculpture and installation to investigate power dynamics, language, and the “insider-outsider” experience. Born in Manila, his practice often employs humor and wordplay to critique historical and sociopolitical narratives. Notable projects include his Nacirema series and the recent public installation When We Weave Waves (2024–2025) at YBCA. A Professor at San Francisco State University, Arcega leads the Sculpture and Expanded Practice area. An alumnus of SFAI (BFA) and Stanford (MFA), he is a recipient of Guggenheim and Rainin Arts fellowships.
Chris Ware
Chris Ware is a writer, artist, and author of the books Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, Building Stories, and Rusty Brown. His work has been exhibited at the Hammer Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2021, Ware received the Grand Prix de la Ville d’Angoulême and a solo retrospective of his work was presented at the Centre Pompidou in 2022.
Lisa Brown
Lisa Brown is a New York Times bestselling illustrator, writer, and cartoonist. Her picture books include The Airport Book, The Hospital Book, Mummy Cat, and The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming. She’s created graphic novels like The Phantom Twin and teaches at the California College of the Arts while chairing 826 Valencia’s board.
Joyce Grimm
Joyce Grimm was Chief Curator at Adobe’s Festival of the Impossible and Director of Triple Base Gallery. She currently uses her contemporary art training in the field of Education and Creative Engagement. Grimm reinvents interactive exhibition making that showcases thought-provoking artworks with cutting-edge technology, including virtual and augmented reality experiences and sensory-enhancing art installations. She pushes the boundaries of a traditional gallery experience by always creating space for public interaction.
Claudia Schmuckli
Claudia Schmuckli is Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. She has curated over 20 exhibitions and installations, including Lee Mingwei: Rituals of Care (2024), Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence (2023), Judy Chicago: A Retrospective (2021), and Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI (2020). She also curated Isaac Julien: I Dream a World, the artist’s first US retrospective.
Doug Hall
Doug Hall is a San Francisco-based media artist and photographer whose work explores the intersections of power, architecture, and the “technological sublime.” A pioneer in video art, he gained prominence in the 1970s with the collective T.R. Uthco, co-creating the seminal Kennedy assassination reenactment, The Eternal Frame, with Ant Farm. His landmark installation, The Terrible Uncertainty of the Thing Described (1987), notably features a functioning Tesla coil. A Professor Emeritus at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), Hall has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and NEA. His works are held in permanent collections at SFMOMA, MoMA, and the Tate Modern. In 2024, he published his memoir, This Is Doug Hall.
Amy Berk
Amy is an artist and art educator who taught at the San Francisco Art Institute from 2006-2022, serving as Chair for the Contemporary Practice program from 2011 to 2013. She continues to direct the award-winning City Studio program which engages underserved youth in their own neighborhoods through sequenced art classes that are both rigorous and joyous. She has shown her work nationally and internationally, was one of the founders of the web journal stretcher.org and the artist group TWCDC.com. She received an MFA from SFAI and a BA in Studio Art and English from Wesleyan University. She currently leads Education at 500 Capp Street and works with Chris Treggiari creating opportunities for youth to explore artmaking and citizenship in the public sphere. She remains committed to giving teens (and adults) a much-needed voice, a safe place in which to speak and helping them find the proper tools to do so.
Janis Cooke Newman
Janis Cooke Newman is a San Francisco-based author, educator, and a driving force in the Bay Area literary scene. She is the founder of Lit Camp, a juried writers’ conference held at the Esalen Institute, and Page Street, a beloved co-working space and community hub for writers in San Francisco. Her acclaimed works include the historical novels Mary: Mrs. A. Lincoln—a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize—and A Master Plan for Rescue. She also authored the moving memoir The Russian Word for Snow. Formerly a longtime member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, Newman integrates her Zen Buddhist practice into her teaching, leading mindfulness and writing workshops at the San Francisco Zen Center and Esalen.
Chip Lord
Chip Lord is a San Francisco-based media artist and a founding partner of the radical architecture and art collective Ant Farm (1968–1978). He is best known for iconic works that critique American consumerism and car culture, including the public sculpture Cadillac Ranch and the legendary performance Media Burn. His multidisciplinary practice spans video, photography, and installation, often exploring themes of mobility and the “technological sublime”. A Professor Emeritus at UC Santa Cruz, Lord has been a vital figure in the Bay Area arts community for decades. In July 2025, he celebrated the 50th anniversary of Media Burn with a special program at the David Ireland House. His work is held in permanent collections at MoMA, SFMOMA, and the Tate Modern, continuing to influence the intersection of media theory and environmentalism through recent projects like his Underwater series.
Jane Ganahl
Jane Ganahl is a Bay Area journalist, author, event producer, teacher, and animal activist. In 1999, she co-founded the Litquake literary festival, now the West Coast’s largest, with Jack Boulware. During nearly four decades with Hearst newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, she penned the popular “Single Minded” column. She authored the memoir Naked on the Page and edited the anthology Single Woman of a Certain Age.
Liz Hernández
Liz Hernández creates art through painting, sculpture, and textiles, blending storytelling with material experimentation. She reinterprets Mexican craft traditions like embroidery and repujado into her own visual language. Her work has been exhibited worldwide, at venues in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Mexico City. Her work is in the permanent collections of the SFMOMA, the de Young Museum, and KADIST.
Cheryl Derricotte
Cheryl Derricotte is a visual artist and sculptor. Her favorite medium is glass, and she also creates works on paper and textiles. Originally from Washington, DC, she lives and makes art in San Francisco, CA. Her art has been featured in The New York Times, the Guardian, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, KQED, MerciSF and the San Francisco Business Times.
Michelle Mansour
Michelle Mansour is an Egyptian-American artist, educator, and curator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has been exhibited at venues including The de Young Museum and the SFMOMA Artists Gallery. She holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and has participated in residencies at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program and internationally.
Jill Manton
Jill Manton is a nationally recognized public art leader with entrepreneurial skills and renowned curatorial expertise. A former San Francisco Arts Commission Director of Programs and Public Art, Manton authored the $50 million Treasure Island Arts Master Plan and established the San Francisco Public Art Trust. She has raised over $72.5M for art initiatives and received the Rockefeller Foundation Grant.
Nemo Gould
Nemo Gould is an Oakland-based sculptor celebrated for his intricate kinetic creatures and “robots” crafted from salvaged materials. A self-described “Chairman of the Hoard,” Gould transforms consumer detritus—from vacuum cleaners to decommissioned bomber fuel tanks—into whimsical, interactive figures that evoke the wonder of mid-century science fiction.An alumnus of the Kansas City Art Institute (BFA) and UC Berkeley (MFA), his work is featured in permanent collections at Google and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. In 2025, his solo exhibition Friend or Faux and his Supreme WOW Award win at the World of WearableArt competition further cemented his status as a leading voice in found-object art.
Ari Salomon
Ari Salomon is a San Francisco-based interdisciplinary artist working across photography, sculpture, and installation. His practice transforms photographs into physical forms through material processes that engage time, erosion, and elemental forces. Recent projects include Burn Line, which converts images into charcoal “Pyrotypes”, and 6 Feet Apart, a typology of pandemic-era spatial markers. An alumnus of UC Santa Cruz who studied under Victor Burgin, Salomon has exhibited locally as well as internationally in Kyoto, Pingyao, and Sydney. He maintains a parallel practice as a graphic designer and WordPress developer.
Woody De Othello
Woody De Othello, based in Oakland, California, transforms everyday objects—clocks, phones, fans—into clay and bronze vessels of psychic significance, drawing from African nkisi traditions. His sculptures and two-dimensional works create surrealistic distortions of scale and time, making the familiar uncanny and illegible. He is represented by Jessica Silverman and Karma.
Nicholas Price
Nicholas Price works as the Master Printer at Magnolia Editions in Oakland, California. An alum of the San Francisco Art Institute, he also served as a Studio Artist at Root Division (2012-2014) before returning in 2016 to pilot Root Division’s Alumni Studio Artist Program.
Annice Jacoby
Annice Jacoby is recognized for innovative work in public art, literature, and visual arts. Highlights include Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo (Abrams), Cultural Encounters for the de Young Museum, and City of Poets for the San Francisco Public Library. Her work expands art in public life, employing poetry, theater, and media to examine critical issues.
Verda Alexander
Verda Alexander is a Nicaragua-born, San Francisco-based designer, climate activist, and artist. As Editor-at-Large at Metropolis Magazine and co-founder of Studio O+A, she’s spent 30 years redefining workplaces. She co-hosts the climate podcast Break Some Dishes and champions creative solutions that challenge conventional design wisdom.
Marshall Reese
Marshall Reese is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist who has spent over forty years investigating the impact of technology on politics and visual culture. Since the mid-1980s, he has collaborated with Nora Ligorano as LigoranoReese, creating works that range from fiber-optic data tapestries to the celebrated Melted Away ice sculptures.Beyond his partnership with Ligorano, Reese is well known for his decades-long collaboration with Antoni Muntadas on Political Advertisement, a video history of presidential campaign spots updated every four years since 1984. An alumnus of Pomona College, his work is held in permanent collections at MoMA, SFMOMA, and the Whitney Museum.
Scott Minneman
Scott Minneman is a San Francisco-based technologist and designer who specializes in physical interactive devices for public spaces. Blending engineering with narrative, he creates immersive experiences for science centers and museums worldwide. After fifteen years at the think-tank Xerox PARC, where he focused on collaborative systems and social innovation, he co-founded Onomy Labs, a “make-tank” for hands-on interactives. A Stanford PhD and MIT alumnus, Minneman is a Full Professor at the California College of the Arts (CCA). His work, including the Cinema Snowglobe (with JD Beltran), continues to redefine how people engage with technology in communal environments.
Jack Ohman
Ohman has been the editorial cartoonist and Deputy California Opinion Editor of The Sacramento Bee since 2013. He worked at The Oregonian from 1983-2012, the Detroit Free Press from 1982-1983, and The Columbus Dispatch from 1981-1982. He has been syndicated by Tribune Content Agency for 200 newspapers. Jack Ohman is the 2016 winner of the Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist in 2012. In addition, he’s won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Overseas Press Club award, the Society of Professional Journalists Award, the National Headliner Award, the Scripps Howard Award, the 2013 finalist for Herblock Award, and Second Place in the 1970 Scotts Seed Company art contest, for which he won a $25 U.S. Savings Bond. He is the author of ten books, and four, inexplicably, are about fly fishing. He is married with six children, and, wow, is he proud of them all. He used to work at newspapers. With ink.
Valerie Imus
Valerie Imus is a curator, writer, and artist with an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The Co-Director and Artistic Director at Southern Exposure since 2011, she has curated numerous projects including Over the Wall and New New Games. She collaborates with The Citizens Laboratory and OPENrestaurant.
John Roloff
John Roloff is a San Francisco-based artist renowned for large-scale sculptures and site-specific installations exploring the intersection of geology, ecology, and architecture. A pioneer in “earth-based” conceptualism, he is best known for his kiln-fired kiln sites—monolithic ships and structures fired in situ. A Professor Emeritus at SFAI, Roloff’s works are held in the Smithsonian and SFMOMA. His recent climate-focused practice, such as the Land-Sea and Global Climate series (2024–2026), investigates deep-time perspectives on rising sea levels and environmental transformation. By merging artistic vision with scientific inquiry, Roloff continues to challenge our perception of the Earth’s fragile, shifting systems.
Erin O’Toole
As the Curator and Head of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), Erin O’Toole oversees one of the world’s most significant photography collections. Since joining the museum in 2007, she has curated landmark exhibitions including Anthony Hernandez, April Dawn Alison, and Kinship: Photography and Connection.O’Toole is known for her commitment to expanding the photographic canon, often championing overlooked artists and exploring the medium’s relationship with social history. She holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Arizona and has significantly shaped SFMOMA’s acquisitions and research within the Pritzker Center for Photography.
Candace Huey
Candace Huey is an interdisciplinary curator and art historian who founded re.riddle, an experimental contemporary art gallery. She has worked for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Bonhams auction house, and various Bay Area galleries. With degrees from The Courtauld and UC Berkeley, she serves on the SECA Council at SFMOMA and the Northern California ArtTable Leadership Committee.
Rob Saunders
Rob Saunders, a letter arts collector for over 40 years, founded The Letterform Archive to share his private collection with the public. Since opening in February 2015, the Archive offers hands-on access to a curated collection of over 100,000 items spanning lettering, typography, calligraphy, and graphic design across thousands of years of history. It has since welcomed over 20,000 guests from more than 30 countries.
Camille Utterback
Camille Utterback is an acclaimed Bay Area media artist and a pioneer in motion-tracking and interactive installation. Her work explores the relationship between the human body and digital space, transforming movement into evolving visual abstractions. She is best known for her Text Rain installation and External Measures series, which bridge traditional painting and computational logic. A 2009 MacArthur Fellow, Utterback’s work has been exhibited at the Whitney and the Getty Center. Currently an Associate Professor at Stanford University, she continues to develop large-scale public commissions, such as Precarious (2025) and Vital Flux (2026).
Cari Borja
Cari Borja approaches her work like an anthropologist, exploring cultural production through fashion, film, and food. With a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, she has designed clothing collections, hosted 94 salon dinners, and created immersive installations. She’s currently working on gathering-focused books and serves as creative director for various organizations.
Becky Alexander
Becky Alexander is a prominent librarian and archivist dedicated to preserving the history of the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI). Following the school’s closure in 2022, she co-founded the SFAI Legacy Foundation + Archive alongside longtime colleague Jeff Gunderson to ensure its 150-year cultural record remains accessible. She serves as a primary archivist, managing a collection that includes historical photographs, institutional records, and rare student work dating back to 1871. She recently co-curated and provided archival materials for the exhibition People Make This Place: SFAI Stories at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Her research includes SFAI’s history in the 1920s and 30s, specifically highlighting the contributions of diverse student and faculty backgrounds, such as artists of Asian descent.
Tom Decaigny
Tom DeCaigny is a Program Officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, managing a diverse performing arts portfolio focused on Bay Area artists, youth, and advocacy. A seasoned leader with over 20 years of experience, he recently served as Executive Director of Create CA, championing statewide arts education. Previously, as Director of Cultural Affairs for the San Francisco Arts Commission, DeCaigny oversaw a $42 million budget under Mayor London Breed. From founding arts schools for justice-involved youth to leading the Performing Arts Workshop, his career centers on social equity and creative expression. He holds a B.A. from Macalester College.
Shawn Harris
Shawn Harris is an award-winning author and illustrator. His debut, Have You Ever Seen A Flower, received a Caldecott Honor. He illustrated the Newbery Medal-winning The Eyes and the Impossible and won the Bull-Bransom Award for A Polar Bear in the Snow.
Barry McGee
Barry McGee, a San Francisco Art Institute graduate, emerged from the Mission School movement and street art culture as “Twist.” His work addresses social issues through various personas, featuring his signature droopy-eyed male figure representing empathy for the homeless. Using geometric patterns, found objects, and the “cluster method,” McGee creates art examining public versus private space while advocating for marginalized communities.
Daniel Handler
Daniel Handler is a celebrated American author, musician, and screenwriter best known by his pen name, Lemony Snicket. A San Francisco native, Handler rose to global fame with the 13-volume children’s series A Series of Unfortunate Events, which has sold over 70 million copies and inspired both a feature film and a Peabody Award-winning Netflix adaptation.Under his own name, Handler has authored several acclaimed novels for adults and young adults, including The Basic Eight, Why We Broke Up, and Bottle Grove. His work often blends dark humor with a deep appreciation for the “essential strangeness” of literature. Beyond the page, he is an accomplished accordionist and has collaborated with the San Francisco Symphony and artist Maira Kalman on various multidisciplinary projects. He remains a prominent fixture in the Bay Area arts community, where he lives with his wife, illustrator Lisa Brown.
Thi Bui
Thi Bui is a Vietnamese-American graphic memoirist who fled Vietnam in 1978 as a refugee. Her acclaimed debut The Best We Could Do won numerous awards and made Bill Gates’ top five books. She’s also a Caldecott Honor winner for illustrating A Different Pond and is currently working on graphic nonfiction about immigration detention.
Tabitha Soren
After a career as a reporter, Soren studied art and photography at Stanford University. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and other publications. Her photographs have been exhibited worldwide and are in permanent collections including the Getty Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the High Museum. She authored the monographs Surface Tension (2021) and Fantasy Life (2017).
Dorka Keehn
Dorka Keehn is an artist and curator known for achieving groundbreaking public artworks, including leading the fundraising for The Bay Lights on San Francisco Bay Bridge. A former San Francisco Arts Commissioner, she co-founded Sites Unseen, activating underused alleys with arts programming. She serves on multiple boards of art organizations, and has created award-winning public artworks with collaborator Brian Goggin.
Mark Dion
Mark Dion is an internationally recognized artist who studied at Hartford Art School (BFA 1986), School of Visual Arts, and Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program. He holds honorary doctorates from University of Hartford (2002) and Wagner Free Institute (2015), plus an Honorary Fellowship from Falmouth University (2014).
Adrian Tomine
Adrian Tomine is a bestselling author, screenwriter, and The New Yorker cover artist. His award-winning graphic novels include Summer Blonde, Shortcomings, and Killing and Dying, which was named one of NPR’s Best Books of the Year. In 2023, Shortcomings was adapted to film by director Randall Park, from a screenplay by Tomine. His short stories were also adapted into the 2021 French film Paris, 13th District.
Asha Kilgallen McGee
Asha Kilgallen McGee is a curator and communications coordinator based in the North Bay. She earned her BA in Art History from UC Santa Barbara in 2023, exploring how contemporary art holds memory, builds community, and speaks across disciplines. Inspired by her Bay Area roots, she collaborates with emerging and established artists.
Meg Shiffler
Meg Shiffler is a Bay Area–based curator, writer, and arts leader. In 2025, she launched Cities of Glass, a ten-year independent curatorial initiative commissioning site-specific works worldwide. She is the inaugural Director of Artist Space Trust, the nation’s first Community Land Trust for artists. She has worked for the SF Arts Commission (SF), New Museum and Andrea Rosen Gallery (NYC) and co-founded Consolidated Works (Seattle).
Amy Kisch
Amy Kisch is a social impact strategist and curator who founded Art+Action, Collect For Change™, and AKArt Advisory. She leverages art to inspire action and deepen public discussions around collective responsibility. A 2020 YBCA 100 Honoree with an Masters in Social Work, she previously ran Sotheby’s global VIP program and holds a BA from Columbia University.
Natasha Boas
Dr. Natasha Boas is a French-American transnational independent curator, scholar, and writer based in San Francisco and Paris. Over 30 years, she has contributed groundbreaking exhibitions and scholarship for notable museums while teaching curatorial practice. She approaches curating as storytelling, linking under-represented artists within a broader, more inclusive art history narrative.
Kristin Farr
Kristin Farr is an artist and has served as a curator, journalist and producer for KQED, Juxtapoz Magazine and Facebook’s original artist-in-residence program. She has created public art installations locally and internationally, and founded the Emmy-winning educational film series, KQED Art School.
Maira Kalman
Maira Kalman has written and illustrated over 30 books for adults and children. She has been a frequent contributor to The New York Times and The New Yorker, and has created textiles for Isaac Mizrahi and Kate Spade and sets for Mark Morris. Her art has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, and she is represented by Mary Ryan Gallery.
Lynne Baer
Lynne Baer is an independent art advisor with over 25 years of experience in public art. She has worked with cities, affordable housing projects, and private foundations including the Packard Foundation. Lynne advised the UCSF Medical Center on its permanent art selection and has lectured nationally on art investing and public art.
Deborah Rappaport
Deborah Rappaport, (along with Andrew Rappaport) is the co-founder of the Rappaport Family Foundation, and Skyline Public Works that funds a variety of non-profit organizations and some commercial ventures too. One of the commercial ventures they sponsor is Huffington Post. They also fund the Participatory Culture Foundation, an open-source video-based browser developer. The Rappaport’s founded the Minnesota Street Project (MSP) in 2016, a dual for-profit/foundation model art space with gallery space, event space, and subsidized artist studios. Additionally they invested in both restaurants connected to the MSP complex, the shuttered Daniel Patterson “Alta MSP” and the replacement Heena Patel’s “Besharam”. In 2021, the Rappaport’s helped fund the opening of the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF).
Sunra Thompson
Sunra Thompson is a designer and the art director of the McSweeney’s Quarterly. Under his helm, the McSweeney’s Quarterly has been a finalist for multiple National Magazine Awards in Design, as well as for the Best Illustrated Cover. He lives in Berkeley, California.
Stefan Sagmeister
Stefan Sagmeister is an Austrian-born graphic designer and typographer celebrated for his unorthodox, provocative, and deeply personal approach to visual communication. Based in New York City, he first gained international acclaim for his iconic album cover designs for legendary artists like The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, and Talking Heads, earning him two Grammy Awards. Beyond commercial work, Sagmeister is known for his experimental “sabbaticals” and large-scale conceptual exhibitions, such as “The Happy Show” and “Beauty.” A two-time AIGA Medalist, his work often blends handcrafted typography with data and psychology, consistently challenging the boundaries between art and design.
yétúndé olágbajú
yétúndé ọlágbajú is a Nigerian/Gullah-Geeche research-based artist, creative producer, and cultural strategist based in California. Their work explores the question: “What must we reckon with as we build a future, together?” Through sonic, sculptural, and collaborative practices, ọlágbajú examines interdependence and transformation within Black diaspora experiences, untangling possibilities emerging from collective reckonings.
Glen Helfand
Glen Helfand is a writer, critic, and curator. His writing about art, culture, and design have appeared in Artforum, Aperture, The Guardian, Photograph, SFMOMA Open Space, W, and many other publications and exhibition catalogs. Glen has organized exhibitions for the de Young Museum, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Pasadena Museum of California Art, the San Francisco Art Institute, the Mills College Art Museum, Art Toronto, and numerous alternative and commercial galleries. In his work he explores art’s role within popular culture, conceptual strategies, emotional capacity, and California as location. Born in Los Angeles, he currently lives in Oakland, CA.
Jeff Chang
Jeff Chang is a writer, host, and cultural organizer specializing in culture, politics, arts, and music. His latest book Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America debuted in September 2025. He hosts the Signal Award-winning podcast Edge of Reason and Notes From the Edge.
Tammy Fortin
Tammy Fortin is a writer and musician who has worked at 4 art museums, incorporating visual culture into her writing. She established a writing residency at the Broad Art Museum in 2012 and has written for various publications. She recently finished a novel and plays guitar in the band Excuses for Skipping.
Bridget Quinn
Bridget Quinn is author of She Votes: How U.S. Women Won Suffrage, and What Happened Next (Amazon Best History 2020) and award-winning Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (Amazon Best Art 2017, translated into four languages). NPR praised its “spunky attitudinal, SMART writing.” Her current book is Portrait of a Woman: Art, Rivalry & Revolution in the Life of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard.
Sarah Vowell
Sarah Vowell is the author of seven nonfiction books, including Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, Unfamiliar Fishes, The Wordy Shipmates, and Assassination Vacation. She was a contributing editor for This American Life from 1996 to 2008 and has worked for The New York Times, Salon, Time, Spin, and GQ.
Robyn O’Neil
Robyn O’Neil is a Washington State-based artist whose work has appeared in over fifty museums worldwide and the 2004 Whitney Biennial. She has been awarded grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation and Artadia, created the award-winning film WE, THE MASSES, hosts the podcast ME READING STUFF. She is represented by Susan Inglett Gallery, Inman Gallery, and Western Exhibitions.
Heather Marx
Heather Marx is a San Francisco-based art advisor and curator with over 25 years of experience in the contemporary art world. For over a decade, she co-directed the influential Marx & Zavattero gallery (formerly Heather Marx Gallery), a cornerstone of the city’s cutting-edge art scene. In 2013, she launched Heather Marx Art Advisory (HMxAA), providing strategic guidance for private and corporate collections nationwide.A member of the Association of Professional Art Advisors (APAA), Marx has curated over 150 exhibitions. Her recent projects, including the 2024–2025 public commissions at Elco Yards, continue to champion the intersection of visual culture and urban development.
Rigo 23
Rigo 23 is a Portuguese-born visual artist and sculptor. He is known in the San Francisco community for having painted a number of large, graphic “sign” murals including: One Tree next to the U.S. Route 101 on-ramp at 10th and Bryant Street, Innercity Home on a large public housing structure, Sky/Ground on a tall abandoned building at 3rd and Mission Street, and Extinct over a Shell gas station. Rigo earned his BFA degree from the San Francisco Art Institute, and an MFA degree from Stanford University.
Scott Kildall
Scott Kildall is a San Francisco-based new media artist who transforms complex systems—from internet infrastructure to fungal behavior—into tangible experiences. Blending data visualization and performance, he pioneered digital projects like Tweets in Space and the 2024 sonification work, Infrared Reflections. A former SETI Institute and Autodesk Pier 9 fellow, Kildall’s practice incorporates 3D printing and custom electronics. In 2025–2026, his Sounding the Invisible series used soil sensors to create environmental symphonies. An educator at USF and Gray Area, he remains a central figure in the Bay Area’s art and technology community.
Shannon Jackson
Shannon Jackson is the Cyrus and Michelle Hadidi Professor of the Arts & Humanities, Department Chair of History of Art, and former Associate Vice Chancellor for the Arts + Design at UC Berkeley. She also recently assumed leadership of the Environmental Arts & Humanities Initiative and is co-Principal Investigator of “A Counter Imaginary in Authoritarian Times.” Jackson’s research focuses on two overlapping domains: collaborations across visual, performing, and media art forms; and the role of the arts in social institutions and in social change. Her most recent books are Back Stages: Essays Across Art, Performance, and the Social, and The Human Condition: Media Art from the Kramlich Collection.
Greg Flood
Greg Flood is a San Francisco-based gallerist, curator, and art critic with over two decades of experience in the Bay Area arts community. He currently serves as the Director of Paul Thiebaud Gallery, where he oversees a roster ranging from Modern Masters to emerging contemporary artists. Previously, he spent over eight years at Brian Gross Fine Art, rising to Associate Director while managing the estates of pivotal figures like Leo Valledor and Carlos Villa. An alumnus of Sonoma State University, Flood’s multidisciplinary background as a photographer and sculptor informs his curatorial approach. He is a respected voice in art criticism, having authored hundreds of reviews for Examiner.com and Beautiful Decay, documenting the evolution of the regional art scene.
Ellen Oh
Ellen Oh is a creative producer and arts administrator with 25 years of experience across diverse organizations, and is the Director of Interdisciplinary Arts Program at Stanford University. She catalyzes programs, curates teams, and demonstrates the arts’ transformative impact. Ellen serves on the advisory boards of Root Division and the Headlands Center for the Arts while raising two creative daughters.
Chris Johanson
Chris Johanson is a Los Angeles and Portland-based artist and key figure in San Francisco’s Mission School post-punk movement. His diverse practice encompasses painting, drawing, sculpture, design, and music, exploring spirituality, sociology, and environmental themes through conceptually open works that encourage contemplation of everyday life experiences.
Maria Jenson
Maria Jenson is Creative and Executive Director of SOMArts, advancing innovative strategies to sustain creative communities. She has deepened the organization’s commitment to racial equity through groundbreaking exhibitions and expanded public programs. A Getty Foundation Executive Leadership Institute graduate, she previously worked at SFMOMA and founded ArtPadSF.
Jennifer Morla
Jennifer Morla founded Morla Design in 1984, creating acclaimed branding, retail environments, and motion graphics. She has been awarded graphic design’s highest honors: the AIGA Medal and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Award. Her work appears in the permanent collections of the MOMA, the LACMA, and the Smithsonian, with the SFMOMA acquiring over 50 pieces for its permanent collection.
Tucker Nichols
Tucker Nichols is a Northern California-based artist working in painting, drawing, sculpture, mail art, books, and installations. His work has been featured at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Denver Art Museum, and internationally. His drawings have appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times. Recent books include Flowers for Things I Don’t Know How to Say (2024) and Mostly Everything (2025).
Claudia Altman-Siegel
Claudia Altman-Siegel founded Altman Siegel in 2009, focusing on internationally recognized, museum-level artists who contribute to cultural dialogue. The San Francisco gallery presents significant Bay Area artists while introducing international artists to the city. The program emphasizes young and emerging artists, complemented by historical exhibitions that provide depth and context.
Amy Kurzweil
Amy Kurzweil is a cartoonist and the author of two graphic memoirs: Flying Couch and Artificial: A Love Story, which was named a Best Book of 2023 by NPR, The New Yorker, and Kirkus. Her writing, comics and cartoons have also been published in The Verge, The New York Times Book Review, The Believer, and many other publications. Artificial: A Love Story, follows the life of her father and her grandfather, another survivor of the Holocaust.
Christo Oropeza
San Francisco native Christo Oropeza is a “cultural worker” encompassing roles as artist, curator, gallerist, producer, and museum staffer. Recent projects include murals at the SFMOMA, Facebook’s Artist in Residence program, and multiple gallery exhibitions. He co-founded Incline Gallery, was named to the YBCA 100, and established the San Pancho Art Collective.
Maria Guzmán Capron
Maria A. Guzmán Capron creates vibrant textile works exploring cultural hybridity and non-binary identity. Born in Milan to Colombian-Peruvian parents, later moving to Texas, the artist examines assimilation and visibility through multilayered fabric constructions. Their practice manifests the competing cultural influences that shape us, highlighting our multiple, sometimes conflicting identities.
David Shrigley
British artist David Shrigley is known for distinctive drawings and satirical commentary on everyday life. His deadpan humor captures overheard conversations and compulsive observations. Working across sculpture, installation, animation, and music, he seeks wider audiences beyond galleries through publications and collaborations.
Lawrence Rinder
Lawrence Rinder directed the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive from 2008-20. Previously, he was Founding Director of the Wattis Institute, Dean at the California College of the Arts, and Curator of Contemporary Art at the Whitney Museum. He also writes art criticism, poetry, drama, and fiction.
Boots Riley
Boots Riley is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, rapper, and communist activist. He is the lead vocalist of The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club. He made his feature-film directorial debut with Sorry to Bother You, which he also wrote. In 2023, the television show I’m a Virgo premiered, which he wrote and directed. Riley is teaming with NEON for I Love Boosters, his latest film, which will star Keke Palmer and Demi Moore.
Enrique Chagoya
Drawing from his experiences living on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border in the late 70’s, and also in Europe in the late 90’s, Enrique Chagoya juxtaposes secular, popular, and religious symbols in order to address the ongoing cultural clash between the United States, Latin America and the world as well. He uses familiar pop icons to create deceptively friendly points of entry for the discussion of complex issues. Through these seemingly harmless characters Chagoya examines the recurring subject of colonialism and oppression that continues to riddle contemporary American foreign policy.
Ted Russell
Ted Russell led arts strategy at the Kenneth Rainin Foundation and served as a Senior Program Officer at the James Irvine Foundation (2005-16). He holds a BA from Yale and an MBA from UCLA Anderson. He’s a Nasher Haemisegger Fellow at SMU DataArts and served as board chair of Grantmakers in the Arts (2020-21).
Mel Day
Mel Day is a Bay Area interdisciplinary artist and educator at San Jose State University, renowned for collaborative video and performance projects. Her work explores vulnerability and community, often using the human voice as a primary medium. She is most widely recognized for the Wall of Song, a global participatory project inviting collective singing during social crises. Exhibited at Grace Cathedral and the San Jose Museum of Art, Day’s research-driven practice fosters empathy and healing. Through her ongoing Resonant Bodies initiative (2025–2026), she remains a vital figure in social practice, bridging fine art with civic participation.
Rhonda Rubenstein
Rhonda Rubinstein is a San Francisco-based creative director and designer currently leading visual identity at the California Academy of Sciences. With a career rooted in editorial excellence, she previously served as the award-winning Art Director for Esquire and Mother Jones. At the Academy, she oversees all aspects of the museum’s brand, from immersive exhibit graphics to digital communications, making complex science accessible through compelling design. Rubinstein is also the co-founder of the BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition and author of Wonders: Spectacular Moments in Nature Photography. Her work consistently bridges the gap between art, environmental advocacy, and storytelling.
Rudolf Frieling
Rudolf Frieling, the SFMOMA’s Emeritus Curator of Media Arts (2006-25) organized major exhibitions including The Art of Participation (2008), Bruce Conner: It’s All True (2016), the retrospective Nam June Paik (2021), and What Matters (2023-24). He has served as faculty at the California College of the Arts and the San Francisco Art Institute.
Jeff Gunderson
A widely recognized figure in the West Coast art scene, this Jeff Gunderson has served as the Librarian and Archivist at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) since 1981. He is a historian of California photography and the San Francisco art scene, frequently lecturing on artists like Joan Brown and the history of LGBTQ art in the Bay Area. Following the closure of SFAI’s physical campus, he has been instrumental in preserving the institution’s archives and keeping its legacy alive through walking tours and digital archives. He is an avid open-water swimmer in San Francisco’s Aquatic Park and was once honored with a hero award for rescuing a fellow swimmer.
Kara Maria
Kara Maria is a San Francisco-based visual artist whose vibrant paintings, prints, and public art confront climate change and biodiversity loss. By juxtaposing meticulous miniature portraits of endangered species with kinetic, swirling abstractions, she celebrates life’s exuberance while highlighting the fragility of our planet. An alumna of UC Berkeley (BA/MFA), Maria has received the Artadia Grant and the Eisner Prize. Her work is held in prestigious collections, including the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. A former resident at the de Young Museum and Recology, she remains a powerful voice in contemporary environmental art.
Tanya Zimbardo
Tanya Zimbardo is a San Francisco-based curator and writer. Over the past decade, she has organized exhibitions and screenings for a range of Bay Area nonprofit organizations including di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, Mills College Art Museum, San Francisco Cinematheque, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Slash.
Ted Gioia
Ted Gioia is a San Francisco-based writer and arts leader serving as Program & Development Director at Arion Press. His essays have appeared in The New Republic, New York Magazine, and VQR. His debut fiction will be published by First Bite Press in 2025, and he’s currently writing a novel.
Heidi Rabben
Heidi Rabben is a San Francisco-based curator and writer currently serving as Senior Curator at The Contemporary Jewish Museum (The CJM). Since joining the institution in 2018, she has spearheaded major exhibitions including the west coast survey of Mika Rottenberg, the archival retrospective Levi Strauss: A History of American Style, and the California Jewish Open. Her practice focuses on international contemporary video, performance, and socially engaged art, often exploring themes of identity, memory, and environmental kinship.An alumna of UC Berkeley (BA) and California College of the Arts (MA), Rabben has previously held leadership roles at KADIST and the San Francisco Art Book Fair. A dedicated educator and researcher, she has taught at CCA and contributed widely to publications like Art Practical and Afterimage, consistently championing the role of art in navigating complex national and global conversations.
Julie Casemore
Julie Casemore is a gallerist and curator who founded Casemore Gallery in San Francisco in 2015, specializing in contemporary photographic practices. Located within Minnesota Street Project, the gallery represents established artists like Larry Sultan’s Estate and emerging West Coast photographers. She previously worked at Stephen Wirtz Gallery and exhibits at major international art fairs.
Renny Pritikin
Renny Pritikin is a San Francisco Bay Area curator, art writer, and poet. He has served as Chief Curator at New Langton Arts, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Nelson Gallery at UC Davis, and the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Pritikin has authored five poetry books and a memoir.
Steve Seid
Steve Seid is an esteemed film and video curator who served for twenty-five years at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). During his tenure, he organized over 1,000 programs, championing experimental media, underground “outsider” cinema, and forgotten video art. A vital figure in preserving Bay Area media history, he co-edited the definitive volume Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area and led the restoration of significant works like Steven Arnold’s Luminous Procuress.An author and educator, Seid’s recent books include Media Burn: Ant Farm and the Making of an Image (2020). He has taught at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) and UC Berkeley, consistently exploring the intersection of media theory and countercultural expression.
Zully Adler
Solomon “Zully” Adler is a curator and Oxford doctoral candidate studying the artist Martin Wong. Adler’s projects focus on alternative California practices from the late twentieth century, and he has curated exhibitions at the SFMOMA, Vernon Gardens, Los Angeles, and Arcadia Missa, London. He’s received myriad awards, including the Watson Fellowship, the Marshall Scholarship (University of Cambridge), and the Clarendon Scholarship (Oxford). He runs the Goaty Tapes music label.
Griff Williams
Griff Williams is an American painter, publisher, art instructor, filmmaker, and gallerist who owns Gallery 16. His paintings have been exhibited worldwide at major museums including San Diego Museum of Art, Orange County Museum of Art, and San Jose Museum of Art, with reviews in Art in America and Frieze.
Victoria Heilweil
Victoria Heilweil is a San Francisco-based contemporary artist, curator, and educator whose work transforms the mundane into the poetic. Specializing in photography and installation, she explores the beauty of the everyday through a lens of psychological depth and domestic observation. Her work has been exhibited at prestigious venues including the De Young Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art.
Lee Friedman
Lee Friedman is a San Francisco-based designer and photographer with over 25 years of experience. He began his career in New York and Paris, assisting icons Steven Meisel and Mario Testino, before transitioning into multidisciplinary design. He has served as Creative Director for Dwell and Everywhere, earning accolades from the AIGA. A dedicated mentor, Friedman has taught at SFAI, CCA, and SFSU. His practice, Lee Friedman Studio, focuses on branding and publication design for clients like Oracle and Stanford University Press, balancing technical precision with a photographer’s eye to explore visual language and memory.
Sarah Thornton
Sarah Thornton is a sociologist who writes about art, design and people. Author of four critically acclaimed books including international bestseller Seven Days in the Art World, she’s known as “the Jane Goodall of the art world.” Her latest book Tits Up explores mammary glands’ universal truths and cultural meanings.
Rebecca Solnit
Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than 20 books on feminism, western and urban history, social change, hope, and catastrophe. Her acclaimed works include Men Explain Things to Me, Hope in the Dark, Orwell’s Roses, and A Paradise Built in Hell. A product of California public education, she writes regularly for The Guardian, serves on the board of Oil Change International, and launched the climate project, Not Too Late (nottoolateclimate.com).
Abby Chen
Asian Art Museum Curator Abby Chen received the 2024 NAEA AACIG Distinguished Art Educator Award. Her experimental approach explores intersectionalities of race, sexuality, gender, nation, migration, and technology in the United States and Asia. Her award-winning exhibitions have helped reshape the narrative of contemporary Asian art, including After Hope: Videos of Resistance, Chanel Miller: I was I am I will be, Kongkee: Warring States Cyberpunk, and Into View: Bernice Bing.
Nora Ligorano
Nora Ligorano is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, celebrated for her four-decade collaboration with Marshall Reese as LigoranoReese. Their work investigates the impact of technology on society through unusual materials, ranging from fiber-optic data tapestries to massive ice sculptures. She is widely recognized for the Melted Away series—temporary public monuments of words like Democracy and The Future that physically disintegrate to highlight political and environmental fragility. Represented by Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, Ligorano’s recent work includes Vanishing Finish (2025–2026), a series of cyanotypes documenting endangered species, and Borrowed Time, clocks that tick down alongside real-time climate disasters. Her work is held in permanent collections at SFMOMA, MoMA, and the Whitney Museum.
Inga Bard
Inga Bard is a Ukrainian-American artist and nonprofit founder based in San Francisco. Her work explores misinformation, surveillance capitalism, and public narratives, employing beauty to insist on hope and optimism. She co-founded multiple initiatives including the SHACK15 Art Prize and Art Bae magazine, directing over $1M to Bay Area artists.
Mike Lai
Mike Lai is a distinguished San Francisco-based artist and senior mountmaker at the de Young Museum. For decades, he has been an essential behind-the-scenes force in the museum world, blending engineering with aesthetics to secure and display invaluable cultural artifacts. His expertise in custom metal fabrication and structural design ensures that fragile antiquities and contemporary masterpieces are presented with invisible support and maximum safety.
Paul Henderson
Paul Henderson is a fourth-generation San Franciscan art curator, collector, and cultural strategist from Bayview-Hunter’s Point. He serves on boards of the California African American Museum and ArtLikeMe, advancing equity-focused cultural initiatives. His Henderson Art Collection intentionally introduces audiences to emerging artists while challenging cultural stereotypes and expanding arts representation.
Marcel Dzama
Drawing from folk vernacular and art-historical influences, Marcel Dzama’s work visualizes childhood fantasies and otherworldly fairy tales. His works are held in major collections including the MOMA, the Guggenheim, the Centre Pompidou, and the Tate. Since 1998, Dzama has been represented by David Zwirner, exhibiting widely internationally.
Heather Holt
Heather Holt is an Associate Director with ODC, a groundbreaking contemporary arts institution, which delivers its mission through a world class dance company, an innovative presenting theater and digital platform, and a dance school for movers of all ages and abilities. For decades, Holt has served as a passionate advocate for arts and artists in San Francisco and the Bay Area, with deep experience in nonprofit management, curating, fundraising, events and hospitality.
Johanna Jackson
Johanna Jackson is a multidisciplinary artist creating sculptural and functional objects like vessels and household items that transcend utility to become profound art. Recent exhibitions include Gallery 12.26, Dallas, and Tennis Elbow, New York. She collaborates with Chris Johanson on furniture and lives between Portland and Topanga Canyon.
Stephanie Fine Sasse
Stephanie Fine Sasse combines neuroscience, education, and design. With a Harvard background in neuroscience and psychology, she developed “I Am a Scientist,” reaching over a million students. She co-authored Science Not Silence (MIT Press) and organized the March for Science, mobilizing over a million worldwide. At The Plenary, Co., she builds immersive exhibitions and interactive salons integrating science, art, and community to inspire civic engagement.
Catherine Wagner
Catherine Wagner is a conceptual artist working in sculpture, installation and photography who has received the Rome Prize, the Guggenheim Fellowship, NEA Fellowships, and the Ferguson Award. Time Magazine named her one of the Fine Arts Innovators of the Year, and her work is in the collections of the MOMA, the Whitney Museum, the LACMA, and the SFMOMA. She is Emeritus Professor of Studio Art at Mills College at Northeastern University.
Liz Hickok
San Francisco artist Liz Hickok creates immersive artworks blending low and high technology through photography, sculpture, video, and installation. Using playful materials, she intermingles science and nature in whimsical spaces. Her recent projects incorporate augmented reality and interactive technologies, fostering personal connections and bridging the gap between artist and viewer.
Kal Spelletich
For 25 years, Kal Spelletich has explored the human-machine interface, reconnecting people with intense experiences through technology. His interactive work has at times required participants to operate dangerous machinery, probing boundaries between fear, control, and exhilaration. Exhibited at San Francisco’s de Young Museum, the SFMOMA, the Exploratorium, the YBCA, and internationally, his work is represented by Catharine Clark Gallery.
Demetri Broxton
Demetri Broxton is a Bay Area artist, independent curator, and Executive Director of Root Division in San Francisco. Born in Oakland, he holds a BFA from UC Berkeley and MA from San Francisco State. His internationally exhibited work is in collections including the de Young Museum and the Crocker Art Museum.
Judy Walgren
Judith Walgren is an Academy Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, editor, and educator currently serving as a professor at Foothill College. With a career spanning decades, Walgren is renowned for her profound commitment to visual storytelling and social justice. She notably led the photography department at the San Francisco Chronicle and has contributed to prestigious publications such as The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News. At Foothill, she mentors the next generation of visual communicators, emphasizing the intersection of ethics, technology, and narrative. Walgren continues to be a leading voice in documenting the human condition through a lens of empathy and rigorous journalistic integrity.
Christine Duval
Christine Duval is a visionary art curator with over 20 years of experience creating groundbreaking contemporary exhibitions. Specializing in multimedia and digital works, she has organized more than 100 exhibitions across Europe and the US. The former Executive Director of LIMN ART GALLERY and Senior Curator at DEPICT, she champions technology-driven art.
Sadie Barnette
Sadie Barnette was born in Oakland and holds degrees from CalArts and UC San Diego. She has presented solo exhibitions at the SFMOMA, the Walker Art Center, the ICA Los Angeles, and The Kitchen NYC. Her work is in many permanent collections, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum.
Dr. Scott D. Sampson
Scott D. Sampson is a Canadian-American paleontologist and science communicator, and the Executive Director of the California Academy of Sciences. Previously Vice President of Research & Collections and Chief Curator at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, he’s also known for hosting the PBS Kids show Dinosaur Train.