Alameda artists John Cartan and Jennifer Hoffecker are among the juried artists in the 2023 de Young Open in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Cartan submitted a short digital animation, “Under the City,” playing in the film gallery; Hoffecker’s mixed-media “Little Helpers” is in the museum’s main gallery.
Their works are among the 883 pieces in the triennial show, which runs through January 7, 2024. Alameda County is represented in 209 works, according to de Young Communication Coordinator Anisa Esmail. The San Francisco museum sought works from artists in the nine Bay Area counties—7,766 artists responded.
Cartan’s entry, “Under The City,” is a short (two-minute) animation. Films are not in the Open gallery. Instead, they run sequentially in the media room near the coat check room. It takes about two hours to see all films, each ranging from two to 10 minutes.
Back in the main gallery, art works cover the walls. Hoffecker’s piece, “Little Helpers,” is in the second section of the Open gallery. Hoffecker said her art is meant to reflect universal themes of shared struggle and shared experiences.
“It’s a little portrait of a moment in time for each individual and everybody’s got their own story. And hopefully people can relate to it,” she said.
Through the years
Both Cartan and Hoffecker have been making art for decades. Hoffecker, a former art professor, now creates art full-time in her home studio. Besides the 2023 de Young Open, her current work is on view in the juried Contemporary Art: Folklore, Fakelore, Personal Myths & Narratives show through December 2 at the Bonita Museum in San Diego. She also serves on Alameda’s Public Art Commission.
Cartan has focused on his art since his retirement from Oracle three years ago,. Now he creates generative art on his laptop with NodeBox 3, an open-source visual programing language developed for artists. He posts on Instagram and was in the book “East Bay Artists 2022”. His animations are displayed in the NEORT++ Gallery in Tokyo. His work also was shown as part of Expo Metro collages in Miami, Barcelona, and this December will be on a billboard in New York Times Square.
“I think that art is anything that’s an authentic expression of your unique personhood,” Cartan said. “I’ve had a compulsion to do this from the time I first encountered computers (in the 1970s). One of the first personal computers allowed you to make colored shapes and sounds, and you could cause them to move around on the screen.”
He found that delightful, he said. “So I started making elaborate animations. Once I started doing that more intentionally, I decided to try to connect with the local art scene. So I reached out to some local artists (Wes and Jess Warren), and they invited me to project my animations as part of their Halloween festival.”
Alameda and beyond
The Warrens founded Studio 23 Gallery at 2309 B Encinal Ave. in Alameda, where they host Friday night artist gatherings. They also produce an annual Art Push book of East Bay Artists.
Cartan described his animation: “Under the City plays with different kinds of motion from several of my recent pieces. I then peel back the outer layer to find even more motion in the code underneath. My goal was to provide a glimpse into the frenzy of hidden activity below the surface, which has a beauty all its own.” The de Young Open is Cartan’s first exhibit in a museum.
Hoffecker was active in the Texas art scene for many years, earning a BFA and MFA, teaching at the University of North Texas, and exhibiting her art. She put exhibiting on hold when she moved to California to work in the tech industry.
“I always told myself I’d get back to making art. I retired two years ago. Now I have a 200-square-foot studio at the back of our house. So I decided to make small art and go back to painting and constructing small things that fit in my room. When I was in art school, it was always ‘bigger, bigger, bigger.’ This is kind of the antithesis of that.”
Hoffecker’s work expresses memories of her life experience and struggles. “People don’t have to understand exactly what all the references are, but to kind of find that commonality of where we’re all really the same because we all struggle (with) highs and lows,” she said.
“Little Helpers” is based on her memories of an aunt who escaped an abusive environment to find success in New York as a nightclub singer and model—and was heavily reliant on drugs to mask her pain of life.
“The garters and stockings, cocktails, and things like the sparkly purse were all referencing her life in New York, but she also had memories of her father burning her hands on the stove so she used to wear gloves,” Hoffecker said. The artist painted her aunt’s poodle on one glove as a memory “trying to live this glamorous New York City life.” The glove beneath is burned.
The stockings contain fake Valium and Librium—each created and painted by Hoffecker—the little helpers alluded to in the Roling Stones song, “to help her on her way, get her through her busy day.”
Hoffecker said she wants to exhibit in northern California, but she has not yet found the right venue for contemporary art. Cartan said it isn’t easy to show generative animations locally. “I think there would be opportunity in the Bay Area and maybe even in Alameda to create some kind of a venue to share this particular art form that requires some kind of a digital substrate just for it to be seen.”
See the 2023 de Young Open
The de Young Museum is open Tuesdays through Sundays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.. The de Young Open 2023 is free every Saturday, but requires a timed ticket for entry into the exhibition. On other days, tickets to the de Young are $25 for adults, $22 for age 65 and older, $16 for students with ID, and $5 for youth ages 6 to17. Tickets may be purchased online.
Betsy Brazy is an Alameda resident and spouse to John Cartan.
