Collection: Force Fields And Atmospheres, Selected By Matthew Pawlowski (online exhibition)

About the exhibition

Viewing creative works which capture your attention, dissolve the boundaries of art and life, and encircle the viewer completely in the artists world, is an important part of my experience as a member of the viewing audience.  The works in the online exhibit, “Force Fields and Atmospheres” share the ability to provide a patient art viewer the opportunity to become enveloped into an artist’s imagination and interpretive world view.

Each NIAD artist included here has created works that upon inspection, surround the viewer, creating a visual interaction that ignites a sympathetic awareness of tactility.  A viewer may feel able to breath in the air of these works, attempting to sense what they might feel like or how they might respond if one was to  step into their borders.

I like the idea of representing atmospheres that are inviting. I long for force fields that maintain safe spaces of feeling and consideration.   These works take me there.

About the selector

San Francisco-based artist, Matthew Pawlowski’s art works reflect on the Bay Area gay experience. Pawlowski is interested in the conflict between acceptance and “otherness.” He focuses on an ethereal intersection where gay culture and a larger California mind set meet.

Pawlowski moved to San Francisco in 1996 and opened ESP Gallery, one of a small number of alternative exhibition spaces supporting artists of the  Mission School, located near the corner of Valencia and 14^th Streets.  ESP championed and exhibited emerging California artists. Pawlowski was the curator for thematic group exhibitions such as Prettytown: Queer Americana in San Francisco, (2000), Time Zero: Artists and Polaroids (1997), and Erotic: Unsolicited Works from the Tom of Finland Archive (1999).  In 2014, Pawlowski co-curated an exhibit by Creativity Explored artist, Yukari Sakura, a collaborative effort between Creativity Explored and the San Francisco SPCA. He has recently spent time with NIAD artists, visiting and drawing with them during their studio practice.