Public Art Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact: Tonia Macneil, (415) 252-2551 or tonia.macneil@sfgov.org
Website: www.sfartscommission.org/pubartcollection
Photos available on request.

Noe Valley Natives, six steel sculptures by California artist Troy Corliss. Photos by the artist.

Luis R. Cancel, Director of Cultural Affairs for the San Francisco Arts Commission, is pleased to announce the completion of its newest public artwork, Noe Valley Natives, six steel sculptures by California artist Troy Corliss, now installed at the Upper Noe Recreation Center in San Francisco.

The artwork will be introduced to the public at the center’s Re-opening Celebration on Saturday, September 6, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Upper Noe Recreation Center, 299 Sanchez at Day Street.

The Artwork

Rising from the top of six of the center’s gateposts, stainless steel and glass plant forms represent the coastal dune and coastal prairie plant communities that once dominated this region of San Francisco.  Troy Corliss searched the nearby hillsides, photographed and drew four tiny plants to be transformed into the freestanding sculptures.  Each sculpture is a careful study of a unique organism.  Speaking of his method, Corliss says, “My intent in crafting this work is to emphasize plant diversity through the material handling and the sculptural design of the steel and glass forms.”

The flora represented, and their locations are:

• 30th Street mid-block gate: SAN FRANCISCO WALL FLOWER “ERYSIMUM FRANCISCANUM”
• Day Street, West gate: YELLOW VERBENA “ABRONIA LATIFOLIA”
• Day Street, East gate:  BEACH SAGE  “ARTEMISIA PYCNOCEPHALA”
• Children’s Play area: COAST BUCKWHEAT “ERLOGONUM LATIFOLIA”

The Artist

Troy Corliss creates organic forms designed to interact with the human environment.  He works intuitively, bringing a fascination with natural processes and an explorer’s sensibility to the direct handling of materials.  In 1993, Corliss graduated from the studio art program at the University of California at Davis, where he studied figure drawing and sculpture.  Since then he has completed more than 16 works of public art for private institutions and public agencies in California, Nevada, Ohio and Colorado. In the last six years, Corliss has been artist–in-residence at the Center for Land-Based Learning in Winters, California, the Tahoe Environmental Research Center, and the John Muir Institute of the Environment at UC Davis.

The San Francisco Arts Commission

Established by charter in 1932, the San Francisco Arts Commission is the City agency that champions the arts in San Francisco. Led by the belief that a creative cultural environment is essential to the City’s well-being, the Arts Commission programs permeate all aspects of City life from the murals and monuments under the care of the Civic Art Collection to the dance and theater productions funded by Cultural Equity Grants, to the new generation of teen poets cultivated by the WritersCorps program.

The Arts Commission’s Public Art Program was established by City ordinance in 1969, as one of the first of its kind in the country. The Public Art Program seeks to promote a diverse and stimulating cultural environment to enrich the lives of the City’s residents, visitors and employees. The program encourages the creative interaction of artists, designers, City staff, officials and community members during the design of City projects in order to develop public art that is specific to the site and meaningful to the community.