PLEASE NOTE: THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION MAY BE SUBJECT TO CHANGE DUE TO THE COVID-19 VIRUS. GALLERY ROUTE ONE FOLLOWS CURRENTLY RECOMMENDED SAFETY PROTOCOLS FOR SANITIZING, SOCIAL DISTANCING AND THE USE OF FACE MASKS.

GALLERY ROUTE ONE EXHIBITIONS:
Falling Open: On & Off the Page, Book Art and Book-Related Objects
Andrew Romanoff, Life Work
Bernie Schimbke, Tsunami on Paper

Friday, September 18 through Sunday, October 25
Saturday, September 19 Virtual Artist Reception and Artist Talks at 3pm

Exhibitions are viewable online, as well as in person by appointment: www.galleryrouteone.org

Center Gallery
Falling Open: On & Off the Page
Book Art and Book-Related Objects
An exhibition of handmade artists’ books, unbound books in boxes, wall-mounted books, altered books, sculpture, and book-inspired objects. The online opening reception will include live artist interviews and a live video walk-through of the exhibit.

What is the art of the book, this medium that captures the attention of artists and collectors in the contemporary art world? From our first childhood picture books, to a home set of Encyclopedia Britannica, from a pictorial Webster’s dictionary to decades of reading poetry and great literature, the tactile feel of a book has the ability to summon chains of provocative associations within our human experience.

Today, the Bay Area cultivates a deep fascination with books as art, as evidenced through a rich pantheon of annual museum shows and gallery exhibitions, as well as an internationally renowned center for bookmaking in San Francisco. The art of the book offers limitless possibilities to those working in this medium through the blending of form, materials, and content to engage viewers in a way not found in any other genre.

Gallery Route One presents Falling Open: On & Off the Page, Book Art and Book-Related Objects, an exhibition of handmade artists’ books, unbound books in boxes, wall-mounted books, altered books, sculpture, and book-inspired objects. Curator Renée Owen is a bookmaker, artist, award-winning poet, and psychotherapist living in the San Francisco North Bay. With a keen eye and an expansive interpretation that stretches conventional notions of the book, she has created an exhibition that offers elements of visual delight and discovery in a vocabulary that is resonant with myriad layers of meaning.

The themes addressed in the exhibit include today’s most pressing issues: the environment, immigration, social justice and the COVID-19 pandemic. Artist Teddy Milder’s 17-foot wide piece, “Wall Construction,” portrays a palimpsest of papermaking, photography, thread and metal work. Artist Kathleen Edwards’ wildly creative, dense ink drawings vibrate off the pages of her accordion books, while artist Jami Taback’s 7-foot tall, tattered piece, “Bill of Rights,” speaks its own language of destruction. Artists Lyn Dillin and Cheryl Pfeil engage the art of fine letterpress printmaking.

New work also includes Jane Ingram Allen’s hanging metal sculptures, Louise Pryor’s fiber sculpture, Tim Graveson’s architectural relics piece, along with Rachel Laufer’s vivid plant cyanotypes, Sherrie Lovler’s abstract calligraphic paintings, and Linda MacDonald’s sketchbooks. Also exhibited will be unique takes on book art from Rhiannon Alpers, Pamela Blotner, Inez Storer, Mirka Knaster, Renée Owen, Susan Zimmerman, Susan Gross, and Paula Gray, among others.

Project Space
Andrew Romanoff, Life Work
An exhibition to honor Andrew Romanoff’s life-time of artmaking, including a selection of his landscape photographs, recent drawings, photographs of his ancestors, carved wood sculptures, and his much-loved “Shrinky Dinks.”

Gallery Route One is pleased to present Life Work, an exhibition in honor of Andrew Romanoff’s lifetime of artmaking. The show includes a selection of his renowned Shrink Art, landscape photographs, wood sculptures, recent drawings and photographs of his ancestors. London-born Romanoff grew up on the grounds of Windsor Castle, where he lived with his family including his grandmother the Grand Duchess Xenia, who was the sister of Nicholas Romanoff, Russia’s last tsar. His family was given refuge by the British royal family, and after serving in the British Navy during the Second World War, Romanoff eventually made his way to the Marin County village of Inverness in the early 1970s. He is one of the founding members of Gallery Route One and has long contributed to the evolution and life of the gallery.

Having no formal art training, Romanoff has nonetheless worked prolifically from a foundation of intuition and dreams, making vibrant, non-analytical pieces couched in a panoply of humorous narratives. His most significant body of work, his Shrink Art, begins with colored pencil drawings on 8 x 10” thermoplastic sheets that upon being baked, turn glossy and shrink to postcard size. Testimony to the canon of work he’s developed in this medium, Romanoff was given a lifetime supply of these sheets by the manufacturer.

Known for his amusing response to newspaper and magazine articles, his Shrink Art is composed of caricatures, scenes from childhood memories, situations, and political messages, often accompanied by humorous, ironic texts. His wife, painter Inez Storer, says, ”Andrew doesn’t analyze his work, he just paints and takes pictures, drawn to his images by an urge he says he can’t resist.”

Romanoff’s art has been exhibited in numerous venues in the United States over a period of many years. In addition to showing work in Europe, his photographs have been exhibited in St. Petersburg and Siberia, and he also won two awards in a photography competition judged by Imogene Cunningham. Autographed copies of Romanoff’s autobiography, The Boy Who Would Be Tsar, are available for purchase in the gallery.