This year’s SECA Art Award exhibition showcases four Bay Area artists whose innovative works, while diverse in form and subject matter, reflect overlapping affinities. Mauricio Ancalmo combines various found mechanical instruments in a film-based installation to form a structural dialogue that is both poetically and philosophically inspired. Colter Jacobsen’s meticulous drawings, watercolors, and installations often incorporate found ephemera to explore reflection and longing. Ruth Laskey employs weaving, using a traditional floor loom, to expand on the painterly tradition of geometric abstraction. And Kamau Amu Patton synthesizes works in a range of media to investigate the interzone of sound, materiality, and perceptual experience. Established to recognize Bay Area artists of exceptional promise and talent with an exhibition, accompanying catalogue, and cash prize, the biennial award is administered by SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art), an SFMOMA art interest group celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2011.
