Cinders Gallery Presents

KYLE RANSON and SARA THUSTRA

Shit. Free Art n Good Times

June 4 – July 9th 2011

Opening Reception Saturday June 4th 7-10pm

Kyle Ranson and Sara Thustra have both been making a mark on San Francisco’s underground art world for well over a decade. Uncompromising explosions of color, dizzying patterns, and a strong bond between the spiritual and the political only begin to describe both artists’ prolific bodies of work.

Kyle Ranson’s paintings are lush, dense, and painterly, at times even quite classical in composition. Often referencing biblical-type scenes, there are big bold themes of love, death, the spirit and trying to find an inner peace amidst our chaotic world. The messages are not necessarily overt but they are there, hidden deep within the electric colors. Obsessive mark making fills up the wood panels he paints on, drawing you in closer just as the overgrown plants intertwine the bodies and faces portrayed.

By contrast, Sara’s paintings can be boldly political and in your face. Sara similarly uses bright colors to draw you in to his world, with layers of patterns and recurring imagery of horses, tents, rainbows, ships, and flags. Poetic statements are embedded in some of the work and urge you to ”Fight For Friendship” or “STOP MEN.” Sara’s politics inhabit his art quite naturally, which in the past has lead his work down interesting paths from murals and graffiti to serving free food, exhibiting at City Hall, and selling small paintings for 25 cents out of vending machines he re-purposed. His art activism is community-based but wholly universal, unflinching in its honesty, and inspiring in its realness.

Both Kyle and Sara live and work in San Francisco where they have resided for quite some time. They have been frequent collaborators in the past, working together on murals, exhibitions and epic yearly calendars that are hand silk-screened and sewn. We are excited to present their first show together at Cinders.