“The Idea That Nothing Was Something Was In My Thought” DAVID IRELAND

SAN FRANCISCO - March 20, 2015 - PRLog -- The Telegraph Hill Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of San Francisco Bay Area artist David Ireland (1930-2009). “The Idea That Nothing Was Something Was In My Thought” runs from 20 March through 1 May 2015 with an opening reception on Saturday, 21 March 2015 from 3:00 to 6:00 PM.  The show will feature Ireland’s works on paper dating from the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s.

Ireland was one of the key figures in conceptual art in the West Coast. He gained the respect of his peers, steadily rose to prominence, and won critical acclaim worldwide. Ireland pushed the boundaries and broke down the hierarchy in art by blurring the line between life and art. He chose ordinary everyday materials as his tools and manipulated them by experimentation and by improvisation into works of art. He considered the process an integral part of his work and as art itself and valued the process as much as the finished work.

Ireland is best known around the globe for his conceptual and large-scale installation art, sculptures of massive proportions, assemblage of miscellaneous and household objects, and drawings. He was at ease working in both large and small format and worked fluidly between mediums. Ireland’s home in San Francisco at 500 Capp Street is regarded as his masterpiece. His sculptures and drawings are collected by major museums and corporations.

The exhibition features 20 works on paper dating from the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s. Included are landscape pieces made from folded paper as well as plaster works on spiral notebook sheets. There are minimalist print works in a series of inked strings, etchings of ‘DI’ compositions in an exploration of the concept of the artist’s signature, and a suite of gestural enamel works blending meandering lines and his initials as he continued to probe his own concerns regarding the impact of the signature on the artwork and its value.

The show titled “The Idea That Nothing Was Something Was In My Thought” was one of Ireland’s sayings printed on cocktail napkins for the opening reception of his 2004 retrospective exhibition “The Art of David Ireland: The Way Things Are” at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The saying reflects Ireland’s inquisitiveness and captures his views on pushing the envelope, creating something out of nothing, and transforming the idea into a tangible form.

Ireland was born in Bellingham, Washington in 1930. He attended Western Washington State University and received his BFA in Industrial Design and Printmaking from the California College of Arts and Crafts. He studied plastics technology and printmaking at Laney College in Oakland and earned his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.

Ireland's work has been exhibited in major museums including the Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Oakland Museum of California. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Oakland Museum of California, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the University of California Berkeley Art Museum, among others.

  Telegraph Hill Gallery          www.telegraphhillgallery.com

  {TH(e) Gallery} at 491 Greenwich Street San Francisco CA 94133

     Monday to Friday 1:30 PM to 6:30 PM    Saturday by appointment

  For more information please contact info@telegraphhillgallery.com or call 415.767.9794