Giving Life to the Community
Artists
Stephen Galloway:
Stephen Galloway is a Bay area artist who works primarily with photo based media. His central focus is imaging and imagining nature. His works include mural sized, high resolution images of natural materials, as well as installations that incorporate landscape imagery into architecture. His work has been exhibited at venues nationally, including the San Jose Museum. Most recently, Mr. Galloway has completed Groundings, a body of work editioned by Magnolia Editions of Oakland, and Mr. Kent's Waking Dream, an installation at the Christinerose / Josee Bienvenu Gallery in New York. Mr. Galloway is the Assistant Professor of Photography at Sonoma State University.
Redwood Heart, designed for Hearts in SF, is dedicated to the trees that provide so much inspiration to those of us living in Northern California. Because of their dominant role in so vital an ecosystem, the trees are a bellweather species; their health provides indications of the health of our natural environment. They have also served as building blocks of California, both its structures and its economy. Redwood Heart reinserts these trees into our cityscape and our consciousness. The top portion of Redwood Heart pays tribute to the lush experience that the redwood forest provides. The undersides of the sculpture reveal in excruciating detail the beauty and chaos of the forest litter, the part we generally ignore. While allowing for the grandeur of the forest, the work also challenges us to really see and be moved by a miniscule part of nature, materials we are standing on when looking up.
