Jeremy Fish: O Glorious City
Curator. San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries: City Hall. November 2015 - March 2016
On December 28, 1915, the newly rebuilt San Francisco City Hall welcomed the public through its doors for the first time. One hundred years later, the SFAC Gallery commissioned North Beach resident and internationally renowned artist Jeremy Fish to create 100 new works of art celebrating San Francisco and its most important public space. O Glorious City features both drawings and photographs about San Francisco, with many relating specifically to historic City Hall. As part of his process to create this exceptionally large body of work, Fish became City Hall’s first official artist in residence in the building’s 100-year history.
Fish says, “As San Francisco City Hall celebrates its centenary birthday I want to document 100 things all San Franciscans should love about their city. I love City Hall and feel it is often overlooked as a local architectural treasure.” The title, O Glorious City, comes from a text written by former San Francisco Mayor Edward Robeson Taylor inscribed in the Rotunda of City Hall “San Francisco, O glorious city of our hearts that has been tried and not found wanting, go thou with like spirit to make the future thine.”
During his residency, the artist occupied a small office turned studio, observed day to day activity, spent time with the City Hall historian and attended public meetings. SF City Hall is the seat of local government; it is also a rental venue, polling place and art space. Also housed onsite is a café and a preschool. A publicly accessible mailbox was made available in the Office of Building Management in Room 008 on the Ground Floor of City Hall. Visitors are welcome to leave notes and postcards for Fish during his residency or catch him as he walks around City Hall in his custom-made Artist in Residence vest!
This project also resulted in a book published by Chronicle Books, Inc.
Selected Press
KQED (video)
NBC Bay Area profile by Joe Rosato Jr.
San Francisco Chronicle review by Michelle Robinson
About Jeremy Fish
At first glance, Fish's images seem to be rooted in an alternate world -- a world where gnomes travel via saddled dachshund-back and birds of all nations hatch adorned with the heads and hairstyles of every human stereotype imaginable. The bold, precise outlines give his ideas an immediate impact, but it's the aftertaste that really cuts deep. Everything comes with a story. I have never known Jeremy to create something without a reason for it to exist and an accompanying tale. His pictures are built from the simplest ingredients, ingredients with which the everyman can identify. I've been around the world and met a lot of "artists" who eat, shit, and breathe inside a bubble of self-aggrandizement, armies of yes-men at their sides ready to toot the bugles for every flimsy "breakthrough" they put forth. Jeremy Fish avoids that typecasting by boiling his intentions down to their most elemental forms: he makes pictures, he makes a lot of them, he makes them for himself, he makes them for the people, and he makes them from the heart. I am proud to say that I look up to him. You should too.” –Aesop Rock
With a degree in painting and a focus in screenprinting Jeremy's education and work experience has led to a career as a fine artist, and a commercial illustrator. Finding a balance between exhibiting his work both across the US, and internationally in galleries and museums. While maintaining a presence designing skateboards, t-shirts, vinyl toys, album covers, periodical illustrations, murals, and sneakers. The artwork is mainly about storytelling and communication, told through a library of characters and symbols. With an emphasis on finding a balance with the imagery somewhere between all things cute and creepy. Jeremy is based in North Beach aka little italy, and has lived in San Francisco for the last 20 years.