SERENITY: Radiant
The Serenity series art exhibit at the UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women's Health
San Francisco Women Artists (SFWA), curator for the art exhibitions for the UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women's Health, selects works by SFWA Member Artists throughout the Bay Area. SFWA's artists are creating and exhibiting work that will enhance the healing environment of the Women's Health Center, engaging and uplifting visitors, practitioners and staff. The exhibit changes three times a year and is displayed on five floors of the Women's Health Center. Each of the selected artists display a body of work related to the exhibition themes on their respective floors.
Now in its 16th year, the "Serenity" series continues to provided opportunities for local artists working in all mediums - with a focus on positive, healing and uplifting artwork. Since 2007 more than 180 Bay Area artists have participated in this show.
A presence in the San Francisco art community for over a century, SFWA supports, empowers, and expands the representation of women artists. They continue their commitment to diversity and encourage aspiring artists at all stages of their careers. "With the understanding that wellness is a holistic ideal, we acknowledge the transformative power of art as a core belief of SFWA. Art inspires, produces profound insights, and can serve as a healing force." - San Francisco Women Artists
Barbara McLain
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Barbara McLain is a former UCSF professor of nursing who left her academic career at age 43 to pursue a childhood dream of an artistic life. After studying at the Art Students League of New York, Barbara’s nursing background helped to shape her artistic voice. She felt strongly that her work should somehow be of benefit to those who might experience it. In her new life as a painter back in the Bay area, Barbara also discovered and deeply connected with hospice nursing, Tibetan Buddhism, and her husband Martin, a former professional photographer.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Painting is a way for me to explore the human spirit in its journey toward truth. From my earliest efforts portraying the wounded soul, my work emphasizes figurative expression. This emphasis is a way of connecting with the deepest truth of who we are as humans. My goal is to express this in visual form in a way that invokes strong feelings in the viewer, which then reveals to you something about yourself that you were not previously fully aware of. This moves you toward recognition of your own humanity, from joy and freedom to sadness and compassion, becoming a transformative touchstone.
Deena Smith
BIOGRAPHY
Over the past decade, Deena has been pushed to the edges of her artistic comfort zone, exploring new ways of seeing and interpreting the world around her. Her mother, a professional artist and life-long educator, influenced Deena’s keen sense of observation, to see the subtle complexities of life, relationships, and power dynamics that both hold and hinder. As a professional artist and designer, Deena's work reflects these nuances through the use of saturated colors and blurred, layered lines – with an energetic dose of geometric design. Her art delves into these footholds of the human experience, inviting viewers to consider these themes from a new perspective and to explore the lines between ease and discomfort as a way to regulate into presence.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
These pieces were born of a need to express my emotions and fuel my passion for color during the shelter in place world of the pandemic. My process for making this body of work was hands-on digital creation, either on location on my iPhone or at home on my iPad. I dove deep into the colors and the vibrancy until I became saturated with hues, lines and energy that shifted my energy. They became the linear ghosts and color fields of my emotional rollercoaster that was (and sort of still is) the pandemic. This idea of intense seeking oozes from these works for me. I ran with the idea of making color fields that were minimal yet soaked in shapes of colors that defied words. I found my ghosts in the lines and shapes that no longer haunted or vexed me as this new normal pushed forth. Sit still with these and let your eyes soften into the layers to feel the subtle shifts. Radiance bursts out in all directions both here in these curated works of art – and in my heart – from completing this series.
Chandana Srinath
BIOGRAPHY
Chandana Srinath was born and raised in Bangalore, India. She has a Master’s Degree in Physical Therapy and a Master’s Degree in Health Care Administration from CSU East Bay. Her passions include art and cooking. Chandana loved to draw and paint from a very young age, following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother. She was fascinated with Indian folk art. She gets immense pleasure in creating an art form that is being forgotten and losing its luster. This artistic passion has helped in her personal life as well as in her professional life. Her work has received awards and has been in multiple art shows and galleries.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My curiosity about color and pattern began when I saw my mother use natural materials to create beautiful artwork. My work expresses native folk art from different parts of India. I work on seven different forms of folk art from across India. I showcase nature intertwined with humanity – depicting people, birds, animals, plants, and a way of life. It is characterized by intricate patterns in a bright, vibrant color palette.
Melissa Park
BIOGRAPHY
Melissa Park is an abstract artist based in Alameda, CA. Melissa has been drawn to creativity throughout her life and relishes the opportunity to explore it. She enjoys multiple mediums of self-expression but has found her true passion as a pinter. Painting abstractions has been Melissa’s true artistic calling, as overcoming its boundless challenges has required her to rely on intuition and experience as a guide. She thrives in the white space of creativity and fully embraces the freedom of exploration. Creatively, she pulls from within, and embraces her inner compass to allow the composition to reveal itself.
ARTIST STATEMENT
As an abstract painter, I enjoy pushing the boundaries of composition, color and mark-making. I am always eager to explore new techniques and directions. I paint intuitively. Often a painting starts with a vision of a feeling that I want to express on canvas, while other times I start a painting solely with the intention of releasing some energy or emotion that has been pent up – then I allow the painting to become what it will be. I find the beginning of a painting to be the most exciting part – the idea that a painting is always unique to the artist and has the possibility of becoming anything is exciting to me. It reminds me that as humans we are constantly in a state of renewal as well. Many of these paintings have helped me heal or celebrate an experience in my life and I am grateful to have found the medium to do so.
Instagram: @m.park.art
Tiffany Conway
BIOGRAPHY
Tiffany’s paintings represent a break from generational curses and a doorway to beautiful beginnings. She overcame stereotypes, an absent mother (due to addiction, and began speaking life to herself first. Raised in the Bay Area by her father and stepmother, her creativity grew out of life her experiences. She studied at the Academy of Art University (San Francisco) and the Peralta Colleges (Alameda County) but her college education came to a halt due to life events outside of her control. Yet the setback birthed a purpose that changed the trajectory of Tiffany’s life.
Seeing the beauty and struggle of the human experience was the driving force behind a new declaration: to see and make visual the beauty and struggle of her experiences. Using adversity as a creative mechanism, Tiffany cultivated “Project Get Free, the Coloring Book for Navigating the Diaspora” in 2016. This was a response to song lyrics transformed into a visual journal, and the beginning of her journey toward restoration, finding her voice, and her purpose. These visual conversations became a motivating force to showcase her art in several exhibitions including "Right Here, Right Now Richmond" at the Richmond Art Center and the "Black Brilliance” at Macy's Union Square in San Francisco.
While using color as her primary vehicle in terms of language, her work displays the beauty of others, but what lies behind that initial layer are elements of her personal evolution. Her mission is to heal women through her paintings by portraying them as she sees them – soft and resilient. Tiffany recently won an Artistic Achievement Award for the 2020 exhibition entitled, “The Art of the African Diaspora” at The Richmond Art Center. She continues to stimulate conversations and awakenings through her work.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Art has provided me with the tools to communicate in a way that I was not able to do before. And for that, I am forever grateful for my art practice, which allows me to retreat, restore, and express all that I have learned from moving through the world as an African American woman. Art connects me to the power that lives within me but that I’m not always able to see.