Hope to see you on Saturday. We're hanging the show today, and it's bonkers... To be added to the preview going out today, email: info(at)ffdg.net

As the group show The Diamond Sea approaches the opening this Saturday, Oct 13th (6-9pm) @FFDG in San Francisco, we wanted to introduce, or in most cases "reintroduce" you to the artists who will be participating.

France based artist working on pop-surreal illustrations. Nicolas Le Borgne aka Odo usually works with watercolor, pen & ink or acrylic.

Bayonne in France, I'm 28, I am autodidacted in art, and a license on visual communication school five years ago. www.odora.blogspot.com

An idea global, a lot of details, a lot of characters inside the character, simple media like watercolor, ballpoint pen... and a surreal result of that.

Everything, life, movie, contemporary art, music, lowbrow scene, street art, friends...

In my brain.

Short essay chronicling this year's San Francisco Folsom Street Fair, one of the City's most interesting and eclectic events. Series is a mix of portraiture and candid scenes. All images were snapped with a Ricoh GRD III, a small, pocket-sized compact camera released in 2009 that I recently swooped off eBay for $370 delivered. Though I already owned the film version of this camera (Ricoh GR1s) and love it, this was my first time really shooting with the GRD III. I'm really diggin the "Snap" feature Ricoh offers, where with the push of a button you can preset the focus for various distances: 1m, 1.5m, 2.5m, 5m and Infinity, which is ideal for shooting fast on the street.

Any other Ricoh shooters on here? If not, what cameras are you shooting with on the street: digital, film, mobile?

As the group show The Diamond Sea approaches the opening this Saturday, Oct 13th (6-9pm) @FFDG in San Francisco, we wanted to introduce, or in most cases "reintroduce" you to the artists who will be participating.

Born in 1988, Winnie Truong lives and works in Toronto and is a recent graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design's drawing and painting program. Winnie is the recipient of numerous awards, including W.O. Forsythe award, the 401 Richmond Career Launcher prize and the BMO 1st! Art Award for Ontario, which was shown at Mocca last fall. This past year Truong has shown in New York at Mulherin Pollard Projects and was also featured at VOLTA , NY. She is in the collection of The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas

Toronto, 24, BFA, www.winnietruong.com

I am very excited to be a part of The Diamond Sea and among such an amazing artist roster! I am also very, very excited for my solo show Double Twist. It opens the same night as The Diamond Sea, at Galerie Trois Points in Montreal, Quebec!

I'd like to go on a very long road trip across up, down and across North America in a super luxury RV with wifi and unlimited bandwidth.

These days it's usually drinking tea, responding to neglected emails and watching an entire season Top Chef in one sitting.

Copenhagen -- Henrik Haven emailed over some pics from Todd James (born in New York, 1969) current show at V1 in Copenhagen. The show is broken down in two parts. Today Fecal Face will feature one part, the Vandal's Bedroom which first premiered as part of the Art In The Streets exhibition at the MOCA in Los Angeles.

The changing installation, mimics a teenage graffiti vandals bedroom and working headquarter, with hundreds of rough sketches pinned roughly to the walls, pop culture references, slogans, appropriated cartoon characters and art supplies. The piece is an homage to the environment Todd James grew up with and in part informed his later practice.

Photos: Henrik Haven

As the group show The Diamond Sea approaches the opening this Saturday, Oct 13th (6-9pm) @FFDG in San Francisco, we wanted to introduce, or in most cases "reintroduce" you to the artists who will be participating.

Meredith Dittmar lives and works in Portland, OR. Her last solo show was in Mexico City @Fifty24MX featuring some of her recent clay sculptures. Besides working on her intricately beautiful clay sculptures, Meredith also works in animation and design.

Portland OR, 38, Umass CompSci/Sociology, http://www.corporatepig.com

I know Im supposed to be good at this question but it never seems to go well. I usually say something along the lines of "relief-like sculpture in polymer clay mounted in shadowboxes"

Visualizations of maths and science, Integral theory, Non-dual teachers, everywhere I have been and everything I have seen

It’s a boring answer but I like it all - same Now, different scenery!

Mornings are my best time and music changes with my mood and the kind of work Im doing. If theres a lot of repetition Ill listen to nerdy talks

I research, collect images and words, then let it marinate a bit. Next I mix the clay palate and begin making small parts inspired by my research until I have a decent library of assets to pull from. From there I settle in and start making larger pieces. I like to do all the sculpting first for all the pieces I'm going to make, then move on to painting the backgrounds and prepping the pieces to be mounted. My husband makes all my shadow boxes. The final step is to glue them and clean them and seal them up.

What a journey this has been! Me and my girlfriend had such a good time in Grottaglie, Italy at this years Fame Festival. Tasty food, good coffee, great people, lots of sunshine and last but not least, we saw a bunch of excellent public art pieces in the streets of the town. We spent many days walking around the whole town to find most of the pieces, just like a treasure hunt.

Anyway, here's a photo documentation of some of the new murals in this neck of the woods which are all from 2012 (I think?). The excellent lineup included artists like Erica Il Cane, Vhils, Interesni Kazki, Conor Harrington, Cyop & Kaf, Momo, Lucy McLauchlan, Bastardilla, Moneyless, Boris Hoppek and the local artist Giorgio Di Palma, who creates beautiful handmade ceramic objects like the telephone/phonebooth in this album.

Words & photos: Henrik Haven

Erica Il Cane

Conor Harrington

The Diamond Sea
A group show
Oct 13 - Nov 10, 2012
Opening reception: Saturday, Oct 13th, 6–9 pm

San Francisco, CA -- FFDG is pleased to present the substantial fall showcase “The Diamond Sea” featuring small-scaled works from a diverse selection of established, mid-career, and emerging artists living and working in the United States and abroad. Artists include Brett Amory, Shawn Barber, Michelle Blade, Clayton Brothers, Curiot, Jeff Depner, Meredith Dittmar, Jeremy Fish, Jay Howell, Mel Kadel, Hiro Kurata, Nicolas LeBorgne, Russell Leng, Alexis Mackenzie, Travis Millard, Ralph Pugay, Winnie Truong, and Mathew Zefeldt. An opening reception shall be held on Saturday, Oct 13th (6-9pm). Beer and wine will be served.

"The Diamond Sea" is a collection of works from well-known internationally acclaimed artists and also features works from artists whose careers are developing on the international stage as recognition of their work spreads. "The Diamond Sea" will give viewers an opportunity to view and purchase a wide selection of smaller works in multiple mediums from this dynamic collection of focused talent.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Ryan De La Hoz, who made this lovely Hamburger shirt, is set to open a solo show Welcome To Your Doom, consisting of 24 pieces including drawings, cut paper, textiles, and sculpture works, at Four Barrel coffee this Thursday, Oct 4th (6-9pm). 375 Valencia St @15th

Ryan was in the group show 11.11.11 which opened almost a year ago. So happy to be in our permanent space now but kinda miss those great dotted walls.

Brain Fold, 11 x 14, Ink on Cut Paper on Archival Print

Untitled, 11 x 14, Cut Paper on archival print

UK vinyl toy production house Dudebox have been working closely with Ron and have several products in the pipeline. The first will debut at this year's New York Comic Con under the title "KING MONSTER". Ron will be signing at the Dudebox booth #2915 on Saturday, October 13th from 1PM - 2PM. The video interviews give an insight into Ron's approach to his work, how he forms ideas and what inspires him to create.

GROTTAGLIE, ITALY -- I spent some time with the Italian artist Erica Il Cane while he worked on this beautiful mural at this years Fame Festival. It was a real pleasure to meet Erica and a great experience to follow he's excellent work in Grottaglie. Here's some action shots and photos of the completed piece.

Words and pics: Henrik Haven

Shaun Roberts emailed over some images of Brett Amory as he prepares to open the solo show Twenty-Four In San Francisco at Sandra Lee Gallery. Amory continues his "Waiting Series". Opening Reception: Thursday, October 4th 5:30-7:30pm.

Twenty-Four In San Francisco, is an ambitious project capturing both the permanent and ephemeral intricacies of 24 chosen locations around the city of San Francisco in California. These locations include such historically significant destinations as the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre, one of the country's oldest and most notorious adult entertainment venues, Portsmouth Square, a Yerba Buena park established in the early 1800s, and the Mission San Francisco de Asis, one of San Francisco's oldest surviving structures, among 21 other unique locals, each assigned one hour of the day and documented during that time by the artist.

A few examples of Tiffany Bozic's paintings as seen in her new book "Drawn by Instinct" published through Gingko Press.

A book signing will be held in SF at FFDG this Saturday, Oct 6th (5-7pm). ~details

ORDER YOUR SIGNED COPY ONLINE

Tiffany Bozic Book Signing
Sat, Oct 6th (5-7pm)
@FFDG, San Francisco
2277 Mission St @19th
RSVP on Facebook

We've just added 11 Jay Howell original works on paper to our online shop. Sizes from 9" x 11" to a beautiful 19" x 24". Click here to browse them all.

Bicycle Club, by Jay Howell, 11" x 14", ink on paper, unframed - buy

F.C.R., by Jay Howell, 12" x 9", ink on paper, unframed - buy

Homage to Todd B, by Jay Howell, 9" x 12", ink on paper, unframed - buy

A Beautiful Women, by Jay Howell, 19" x 24", ink on paper, unframed - buy

http://shop.fecalface.com/artist/jay-howell

MI JU, a native Korean and recent Pratt MFA grad, whose solo show Landscape and Being ran at FFDG back in 2010 opens GAIA at NYC's Freight and Volume tonight, Thursday ~show details.

Haha. Zoltron emailed over a little recent street art he finished. As he wrote us, he couldn't resist turning this bush and utility box into an homage to Jimi Hendrix. Too good.

Sharon Bach of Oakland emailed over this great collage the other day. We like.

San Francisco based Alec Huxley emailed over some recent works, some of which are currentely up at Fabric 8 through next Tuesday as part of their juried show. A couple more will be in the new show at Wonderland on 24th that opens tonight, Friday - also featuring Henry Lewis, Robert Bowen, Lee Roswell, Ursula Young and others.

The one with the haz-mat suits is the first in a series that he's doing inspired by Asian monster movies, mutant toys and SF locales.

Ben Giles emailed over a few collages. We like.