This was the first museum exhibition for San Francisco-based artist Jeremy Fish. Fish transformed the upstairs galleries by creating an installation with symbols and characters that he had been developing over the last ten years.

Weathering the Storm was a timely exhibition largely about transformation and rebirth through struggle. Deliberately drawing from the current economic and political events and its impact on us socially and emotionally,Fish’s characters revealed a narrative of evolution through struggle to obtain a more magnificent and resilient place. In this exhibition, Fish created paintings surrounded by hand carved wood frames, as well as three-dimensional figures for the gallery wall installation and wooden sculptures.

Fish’s iconography consists of a fairytale world inhabited by beavers, skulls, and birds which he has developed in part as a response to the influence that popular culture, cartooning, and literature like the Brothers Grimm, has had on him.

Fish, who lives in San Francisco, was born in 1974 in Albany, New York, and has lived and worked in San Francisco for the last 15 years. In 2006, Fish worked with Nike Skateboarding and designed the Air Classic shoe. He has also collaborated with hip-hop artist Aesop Rock for the album The Next Best Thing. Fish works his designs on to t-shirts, skateboards, and vinyl toys, and launched his own clothing company superFishal.

He has had exhibitions at Fifty24SF, San Francisco (2008, 2006); Joshua Liner Gallery, New York (2008); and The Don Milan (2008). His publications include Once Upon a Time, published by Fifty24SF Books (2008); Romantic Delusions, published by Drago Books (2008); and the cover of Juxtapoz magazine (December 2006).

Jeremy Fish: Weathering the Storm was curated by Grace Kook-Anderson, Curator of Exhibitions at Laguna Art Museum.