The George Adams Gallery is pleased to announce a preview of Ambrosia Salad, Bad Panacea and Other Works at Minnesota Street Project, an exhibition of Craig Calderwood’s newest work opening at the New York gallery in November.
Calderwood’s tapestries and drawings explore queer identity and life by drawing on personal narratives and the coded languages of underground communities to create stories that are both amusing and poignant. As a predominantly self-taught artist, Calderwood utilizes materials that often relate to their own childhood experiences. By combining elements drawn from the details of their life and fantastical musings, Calderwood crafts opaque visual narratives. Their work is underpinned by complex patterning and symbolism, serving as a mode of coded communication typically employed by marginalized communities. The preview, which will be on view in room 107 from September 27 to 30, will feature a selection of paintings and works on paper dating from 2021 to 2023.
Calderwood’s work made its debut at the gallery in New York in Shapeshifters, an exhibition of four artists from the Bay Area in 2021. In 2022, they were honored as the Eureka Fellowship Grantee, and served as the Art+Process+Ideas (API) artist in residence at Mills College, Oakland, where their work was exhibited at the Mills College Art Museum. In the past year, Calderwood was featured in Figure Telling at the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art in Napa and Fight and Flight at the Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco. Their work will be exhibited in Bay Area Now later this fall at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Calderwood was selected by the San Francisco Arts Commission to create artwork for the three-story atrium of the Harvey Milk Terminal at the San Francisco International Airport, and their mural is set to be unveiled in 2024. Currently, Calderwood is an artist in residence at Recology, San Francisco.
Craig Calderwood was born in 1987 in Bakersville, CA, and raised in California’s San Joaquin Valley. From a young age, Calderwood found drawing to be an outlet and tool for self-expression, which later led to their interest in pursuing art. After taking classes at Fresno City College, they relocated to San Francisco, CA in 2011, where they currently live and work.
The preview for Ambrosia Salad, Bad Panacea and Other Works will be on view at Minnesota Street Project on September 27 through 30, and it will open in New York at 38 Walker Street on November 3 through December 23.