Returning after a full-stop for five years due to the pandemic, the annual Startup Art Fair sets ablaze one of the area’s finest events for viewing and purchasing the artwork of contemporary independent artists. With 60 artists selected from hundreds of entries from Bay Area, California and United States artists, Startup Director Ray Beldner said pent-up demand and the fair’s unique setting is causing a groundswell of interest from both artists and art lovers.
“The art world has been in a slump for the last two years, with people holding their breath until after the elections,” Beldner said. “For two campaign years, it was stressful for everyone. Now that we have the government we supposedly voted for, it’s even more stressful. We need art more than ever. People have been asking for years when I’d start it up again. Between 2015 and 2020, we held annual fairs in four cities. This year I hardly had to advertise, which was typical—but not typical was the speed at which the rooms filled.”
The three-day fair, April 18-20, transforms the boutique Hotel Del Sol and its grounds in San Francisco into an art experience featuring intimate exhibitions with artists thoughtfully paired and presented in rooms. Other areas within the property, including a central outdoor courtyard, offer installations, sculptures, music performances, panel talks, and endless opportunities for spontaneous gatherings and conversations. Startup has coordinated with five nonprofit partners, whose presence supports and expands the resources and options available for making and collecting art.
“Most fairs are run by galleries or single organizations,” Beldner said. “When you go to booth fairs, you walk down aisles until something manages to catch your eye. In a hotel fair, you go into each room. There’s not the distraction of someone across the aisle talking or standing in the way. There’s courtyard music, performances, food and beverages; so it’s activating, integrated, fun.”
Beldner said that the most notable thing about the artwork this year, beyond its diverse mediums which include painting, print, mixed-media, sculpture and performance-based art, is rich storytelling.
“Even in abstract pieces, there’s a ‘See me, I see you’ story. In all the work, there’s a tightness of ideas and execution,” he said. “We’ve all seen technically strong/weak concept art and strong idea/poorly executed art. The artwork curated this year was universally high quality on both levels, and the emphasis is on connecting through story. When you buy a piece of art you’re also buying a piece of that artist’s life.”
Danville-based artist John Osgood’s story began in the Pacific Northwest, specifically Seattle, where he lived before moving to the East Bay eight years ago. His representational and abstract works include paintings, large-scale murals and illustrations that most often draw from nature or urban environments. Realistic birds, flowers and abstract forms resembling fragmented buildings, ships or cars feature intensely vibrant color and crisp edges frequently rendered through leaving visible black underlying layers of paint. Making his work more accessible are Osgood’s commitment to public art and fine art prints.
“I like being part of the art world here,” Osgood said. “I have a sliding scale for prints—not everyone can afford an original painting—and the pricing for murals varies.”
When he began painting outdoor murals and was allowed to “go big,” Osgood felt for the first time he was “making a dent on the world.” He painted a 44-foot-tall-by-20-foot-wide mural on the side of a building.
“Someone mentioned he went up on the hills and from 20 blocks away, he could see my mural,” Osgood said. “I realized the mural was changing the landscape. Whenever I do public art, one thing I like best is talking to people in the community and filling them in on what I’m doing. They begin to take ownership of the art. It belongs to them, once I’m done.”
Osgood participated in Startup three times prior to the pandemic. “It’s not a gallery wall with artwork. There’s a different vibe in a three-story hotel with a pool, music going on, palm trees waving in the wind and artists on-site in rooms,” he said.
Among other works, Osgood will showcase “Defense Mechanism,” an 18-inch-tall-by-36-inch-wide painting on wood panel that might be seen as an abstract car, helmet or insect.
“I was watching football while painting it,” he said. “As I worked, it reminded me of an exoskeleton, like a beetle. It made me think that people and insects shelter themselves from all kinds of things. That’s OK. Because with people, not everybody has to know everything about you. And some insects shelter themselves to avoid being eaten by something larger.”
Another work, “Directional Intent,” depicts a bird gazing to its left with purpose. “Birds have to seek and find food to survive,” Osgood said, “but they also jam around and fly for fun, so I paint their stories and those stories connect to mine as an artist and to all of our human stories.”
Artist Joy Broom works from her home in Martinez, creating mixed-media paintings distinguishable by collaging and layering symbolic images, archival materials from her family’s history, and natural elements such as seeds, branches, insects and wood. Her “Memory; Rings,” has pencil drawings on plywood, letter strips, nails and wire under the patina of a protective, purified beeswax skin. Another of her works, “Candelabra, DNA,” fuses cardboard cutouts, ancestral letters and envelopes, antique British glass laboratory slides, red thread resembling blood lines, and Broom’s hair in specimen bottles.
“Biology came first into my work, but history is important because it’s from my family,” Broom said. “I inherited bins of paper materials from my grandmother, mother. I didn’t feel precious about it, so I was able to cut and tear it. It’s my DNA in those bottles. Using the personal materials in an oblique way, I’m still communicating with my mother and grandmother.”
Connecting to audiences universally with her art, and directly with visitors and other artists at the fair, Broom appreciates sharing conversations about identity, memory and individual histories.
“My stories are rooted in small-town America and become universal because everywhere, people live in community with others,” Broom said. “Biology and family histories are powerful forces. I can’t help but want to communicate both.”
