Image: Mickey Hart
Poster Design: S. Mouse / Je Noodle
Published at Haight Street Art Center
The Haight Street Art Center has announced the opening of a new gallery featuring work by visual artist and Grammy-award-winning percussionist and member of the Grateful Dead, Mickey Hart. Entitled Mickey Hart: Art at the Edge of Magic, the exhibition will put 100 paintings and prints on display from July 24 to September 21 at the San Francisco gallery, and serves as the artist’s first show in the region. An opening reception will occur on July 31, from 4 to 9 p.m., on Thursday, July 31, the night prior to Dead & Company’s sold-out concerts at Golden Gate Park.
Art at the Edge of Magic represents Hart’s most significant showing to date. The extensive collection presents the artist’s visual conjuring of rhythm and beats fueled by expressive brush strokes, precise pours of paint, and exposure to gravity, centrifugal forces, and intense gamma-wave vibrations through the use of a Meyer Sound subwoofer, which transmits the tones of the Beam to cause vibrations that transfer through the surface and into the slowly drying paint, generating the final product in real time.
“I love the flow of things, to be in the moment, to experience magic,” said Hart. “When I paint, I can feel the vibration, I can see it in the colors. It’s vibrational expressionism. This mix is exotic and profound in a vibratory and sensual way. I use musical instruments to create and power the paintings out of the vibrations that are formed. When I approach a canvas, it is just like I approach my drums in performance, with an open mind. Life is really all about the rhythm of things. As in my paintings, and as in my music, as in life.”
The forthcoming exhibition features large-scale paintings mounted on the walls and illuminated from behind, as well as pieces on plexiglass that utilize pigments sensitive to the backlight, creating a picture window-like effect. “Just like the Grateful Dead’s music transcends the surface level of rock and roll, my art serves as a vessel for raising consciousness, striving to create a slightly better world,” Hart added.
“We could not be more excited to showcase the work of Mickey Hart,” said Kelly Harris, Executive Director of the Haight Street Art Center. “We have always gravitated to art that transforms and transports viewers. Hart’s entire musical career has been devoted to doing just that, while his art of the past several decades has expanded this ethos into the visual realm.”
Speaking to the onset of his visually creative passion, Hart told Relix in a 2023 interview: “One day, I picked it up and started painting. I just started moving with the brush and I loved it. I had never worked in the visual domain, but I found myself loving the process of painting. It was a lot of fun, and since I knew nothing, I could do everything. [Laughs.] I wasn’t boxed in. I didn’t have a specific style, so it was like starting over. In music, after you first start, there’s an excitement when you find something that you love and is fun. You can’t stop.”
The exhibition will be free to all visitors. In addition to Hart’s work, the exhibit will also provide attendees a chance to purchase a limited-edition show poster, a collaboration between Mickey Hart, Je Noodle, and celebrated poster artist Stanley Mouse.
For more information about the Haight Street Art Center, its exhibitions, events, and programs, please visit http://www.haightstreetart.org. Admission is free.
Content shared from relix.com.