Hunter's Point Shipyard artist Marina Berlin with her life-size, wire mesh sculpture "Trust, 2020."

3 Artists to Meet at Hunters Point Shipyard Open Studios

25 April 2023

Spring has reached a fever pitch and so has our annual yearning to revamp, refresh, and get out of the house.

Just in time, the Hunters Point Shipyard Artists are throwing open their studio doors this weekend. It's our annual opportunity to meet local talents and scoop up new artworks to adorn our freshly repainted walls.

The Open Studios Preview Exhibit is already under way, showing one work from every participating artist, around 120 of them, both online and onsite in the Shipyard Gallery. Get a sneak peek and round up your game plan. Studios will be open Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 6pm. Find more information and get free tickets at shipyardartists.com.

Below, find three local artists we're excited to mingle with this season.

"Breathe."

"I like to make representational art, strip it down to its pure form, and imbue it with emotion," says Marina Berlin, a Soviet-born immigrant and former makeup artist turned painter who ultimately and unexpectedly found her true medium: chicken wire ("It cuts you. I have no fingerprints left.")
"I work in industrial wire mesh because it’s such a simple, utilitarian medium, but it’s so expressive at the same time. It’s usually hidden under the structure, but I want to bring it to the surface so that my work can have a transparency about it, literally and figuratively."
Her pieces reflect on a wide range of topics, from wildlife conservation to women's rights.
// Visit Marina Berlin at Hunter's Point Shipyard Artists Studios, Building 101, Studio 1405; shipyardartists.com/artist/marina-berlin.
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"Rhino."

Created for the David Rio Chai Bar in San Francisco, Berlin says this rhino "is one of my favorite pieces. David Rio has been committed to animal welfare and conservation by supporting local and regional initiatives for over a decade, saving animals all over the world."
// Visit Marina Berlin at Hunter's Point Shipyard Artists Studios, Building 101, Studio 1405; shipyardartists.com/artist/marina-berlin.
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"Love and Loss."

"The physical heart is tangible, like our love for the ones that are here. Yet, the shadow is just as important: the love we feel for ones no longer with us. We can’t touch them, but they are in our hearts."
// Visit Marina Berlin at Hunter's Point Shipyard Artists Studios, Building 101, Studio 1405; shipyardartists.com/artist/marina-berlin.
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The artist Howard Hersh.

“I’m attracted by geometric forms and thought I was going to be an architect,” says Santa Fe to San Francisco transplant Howard Hersh, whose sometimes bright, somewhat trippy, and always architectural wall sculptures are made of bass and birch wood custom-milled at a shop in the Bayview.
// Visit Howard Hersh at Hunters Point Shipyard Artists Open Studios in Building 117, Studio 3103; shipyardartists.com/artist/howard-hersh.
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"Extended Migration."

"When asked how long an artwork took to complete, I tell the inquirer my age," says Hersh, citing artist Chuck Close's famous quote: "Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us get up and go to work." One of his current series, Skin Deep, has been a constant iteration since 2013.
Visit Howard Hersh at Hunters Point Shipyard Artists Open Studios in Building 117, Studio 3103; shipyardartists.com/artist/howard-hersh.
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Howard Hersh's Hunters Point studio.

"Studios: We fill them up, and then we empty them out."
Visit Howard Hersh at Hunters Point Shipyard Artists Open Studios in Building 117, Studio 3103; shipyardartists.com/artist/howard-hersh.
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Artist Stephen Namara, photographed for 7x7 in Hunters Point studio in 2014.

An African immigrant from Kenya, Stephen Namara, who's been living and working in SF since the late '80s among such local luminaries as Diebenkorn and Thiebaud, is aware that most people, before meeting him in person, assume he is Japanese rather than Black. It's thanks to that last name but also to a minimalism in his paintings that could almost be called zen; this style applies, whether he's painting a self-portrait or a Thiebaud-esque still life. "It definitely adds an ironic and complicated layer to the situation when it comes to being a Black man in America,” Namara says.
// Visit Stephen Namara at Hunters Point Shipyard Artists Studios in Building 101, Studio 1510; shipyardartists.com/artist/stephen-namara.
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"The Weight of Paint, Version 1," 2023.

"I believe my work is better understood through looking at it than through anything I might write or say. It is my aspiration to create work that might linger on afterwards as an enigmatic moment for the viewer.”
// Visit Stephen Namara at Hunters Point Shipyard Artists Studios in Building 101, Studio 1510; shipyardartists.com/artist/stephen-namara.
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"SIP."

Working at Hunters Point Shipyard since 1985, Namara has exhibited in more than 50 solo exhibitions and 70 group shows at such prestigious galleries as Haines, Andra Norris, and Dolby Chadwick.
// Visit Stephen Namara at Hunters Point Shipyard Artists Studios in Building 101, Studio 1510; shipyardartists.com/artist/stephen-namara.// Visit Stephen Namara at Hunters Point Shipyard Artists Studios in Building 101, Studio 1510; shipyardartists.com/artist/stephen-namara.
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"Slammer," 2023.

"Drawing is fundamental to everything I do as an artist, it is a process through which I explore and develop ideas."
// Visit Stephen Namara at Hunters Point Shipyard Artists Studios in Building 101, Studio 1510; shipyardartists.com/artist/stephen-namara.
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