VACANCY
NATHANIEL J.BICE
DOUGLAS FLORES
EMILY FROMM
SUZE RILEY
SAMUEL RYDE
MIKE SANCHEZ
JO STRANGE
A Group Art Show at San Francisco Gallery
888 Marin St. San Francisco, CA
10-31 October 2024
OPENING RECEPTION
10th October, 6.30 - 9.30pm
MEET THE PHOTOGRAPHERS
17th October, 6.30 - 9.30pm
Gallery open by appointment
To book an appointment or for sales enquiries, contact elliott@themidwaySF.com
NATHANIEL J.BICE
(he/him)
San Francisco, CA
Nathaniel J. Bice is a painter, scale model builder and block print maker. He moved to San Francisco for a fellowship with American Conservatory Theater in 2018, working as a scenic painter and designer, before shifting to focus on his work in visual arts.
Bice’s plein air gouache paintings explore and celebrate the natural and built environments of the Bay Area through simplification, light, and atmosphere. He has shown in galleries in the Bay Area and beyond.
DOUGLAS FLORES
(he/him)
San Fernando Valley, CA
Douglas Flores’s documentary photography tells stories through the empty spaces he discovers, filled with small details, rich colors, and remnants of human life.
Flores was diagnosed with cancer at a young age, which inspired him to start photographing the world around him. After 5 long years, he finally won his battle with cancer.
Since then, he has been photographing Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, working on Early Years, a documentation of his early childhood that captures the bittersweetness of growing up.
EMILY FROMM
(she/they)
Bay Area, CA
Emily Fromm’s contemporary urban landscapes combine nostalgic cartoon aesthetics with traditional sign painting techniques, often in series or vignettes at large scale.
She employs a variety of mediums to construct narrative images that tell stories of local histories, celebrate diverse communities, and speak to the unique memories of each viewer.
Fromm has exhibited locally & internationally, and has created installations for clients including SFO Airport, The San Francisco Arts Commission, SF Muni and Google Inc.
SUZE RILEY
(she/her)
San Francisco, CA
Suze Riley’s papercut collages explore themes of faded nostalgia. She has always been drawn to old signage, dated architecture and interiors, and the people, history and stories connected to those spaces.
Minimal yet detailed, her art reflects fragile beauty and disappearing memories from the British seaside, American road trips, cafes, holiday resorts and amusement parks.
She also creates art installations and works as a live portrait artist at events, with recent clients including Notion, The Ferry Building and Altitude Summit.
SAMUEL RYDE
(he/him)
London, UK
Samuel Ryde is a London-based photographer with a passion for noticing the unnoticed objects and architecture of everyday human life.
Through his lens, remarkable characters emerge from unremarkable spaces - hand dryers in washrooms, telephone boxes on street corners, derelict buildings layered with old signs and new graffiti - all of them telling accidental stories and remnants of moments shared by other people in another place and time.
Ryde’s debut book, Hand Dryers, was published in 2020. His work has been featured by The New York Times, Guardian and BBC.
MIKE SANCHEZ
(he/him)
San Francisco, CA
Mike Sanchez’s contemporary art focuses on period-based objects, structures, and places. Through the use of digital and analog photography, sculpture, and mixed media techniques, he builds environments and objects that exist at the intersection of fantasy and historical documentation.
Mike’s work merges nostalgia for vintage technology with pop iconology, surrealism, and whimsy. The images and objects he creates transport the viewer to a place or time that feels both somehow familiar and wholly unreal.
Each piece invites the viewer to explore a little deeper and find their own connection to the past, present, and future.
JO STRANGE
(she/her)
Winchester, UK
Jo Strange is a UK-based artist and jewelry designer, working with wood, Perspex and vintage Formica.
Whilst road-tripping in the US across a number of years she became fascinated by old roadside signage - the playful shapes, scale and charming use of language and type.
Strange captures a picture postcard-like quality in her work, a little otherworldly but also familiar and nostalgic. These wall sculptures for VACANCY developed from drawings of imaginary signs with elements from her travel photos mixed in.