I’ll Be Your Mirror

Turn of the Wheel by Scott Hewicker, 2023

Scott Hewicker was grateful to be included this past Summer in an incredible survey of queer artists curated by patrick burton. I'll Be Your Mirror was included in Hyperallergic's Top Exhibitions of 2024 end of year list!

Strugglebussin' by Scott Hewicker, 2023

When I’ll Be Your Mirror, the second edition of the Mighty Real/Queer Detroit biennial, opened this past summer, the fact that it existed was cause to celebrate.

When I was going to college in Detroit, many years ago, it was a different, dangerous environment. As it turned out, the biennial was filled with impressive works by local and national artists. In particular, Wayne State University’s Elaine L. Jacob Gallery presented a deftly curated selection in a range of media.

Probably one of the country’s more under-sung university galleries, it’s played host to several shows over the years that would have garnered more attention in a higher-profile city. This was one such show. Among a number of standout works, a small, understated painting by Hugh Steers still lingers in my mind. —Natalie Haddad

Hyperallergic Top Exhibitions of 2024. I'll Be Your Mirror: Reflections of the Contemporary Queer

New Mexico residency at The Beach

The Beach, an arts and literature residency space in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Cliff Hengst and Scott Hewicker were invited by artist Karla Milosevich and writer Bett Williams to spend time making art in a vintage midcentury house in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The works they created were exhibited as part of the Sounds and Visions show in The Beach gallery. 

Artists in residency Scott Hewicker and Cliff Hengst working on pieces for the Sounds and Visions exhibit

Cliff Hengst and Scott Hewicker made dozens of drawings and watercolor paintings inspired by the environment of their trip and displayed them all over the main rooms of the house emphasizing the brilliant details of this special building.

Cliff and Scott also performed on stage in Karla Milosevich's restaging of "Love Will Build a Bridge,” a poet's theater play that Karla co-wrote with Kevin Killian in 2003.

Live performance of Love Will Build A Bridge, featuring Scott Hewicker (far right)

Flyer for "Love Can Build a Bridge” live performance of the play at The Beach on October 10, 2024

Flyer for the Sounds and Visions exhibition at The Beach in Santa Fe, New Mexico in October 2024

Live from the Uncanny

An Evening of Performance, Video, Readings and Sound

Gallery 16
501 3rd Street, San Francisco

Friday, February 23 2024 from 7pm - 9pm

Live from the uncanny is an improvisational ensemble featuring members of The Color Organist (Scott Hewicker, Wayne Smith and David Van der Voort). They host an evening of performance, video, readings, and sound inspired by the ideas of The Uncanny, or the subtle horror of the familiar made unfamiliar.

The Uncanny occurs at the veil where our sense of security dissolves into an obscure uncertainty. It pokes holes in the boundaries of what might be understood as the real and reveals subconscious fears of what might actually be happening. It lies in the perpetual detachment felt when the reality of our situation consistently fails to live up to expected promises. Perhaps, we fear realizing these expectations may have become the lies we perpetuate to ignore necessary change.

As in film and in literature, The Uncanny is best examined through the lens of the Surreal. On this evening, The Color Organist will offer a phantasmagoric glimpse through the veil in order to share through voices (bodied and disembodied) our common fears and misgivings, and find a path out of the darkness towards something... less dark.

Participants include: Rebeca Bollinger with Gus Tomizuka and Patricio Coronado, Alice Shaw, Rumi Koshino, Yedda Morrison, Steven Seidenberg, Ebtihal Shedid, Rod Roland, Colter Jacobsen, Pam Martin, Tommi West, and Cliff Hengst.

Gallery 16 exhibition: The Mystery of the Mystery was the backdrop. Slow Oblivion by Scott Hewicker is seen in the background.

Mystery Of The Mystery

January 19 - February 23, 2024

501 Third St. San Francisco, CA 94107

Gallery 16 is pleased to present The Mystery Of The Mystery, a new group exhibition by Rebeca Bollinger, Scott Hewicker, and Wayne Smith. These three artists have been involved in the Bay Area art and music communities over the past 30 years. Each having rich generative practices in a wide array of mediums, forms, and styles.

The exhibition takes its title from an early country song by Dolly Parton that advocates for faith in unknowingness over the worry of uncertainty. The Mystery Of The Mystery features new drawings, paintings, and sculptures that foreground the intuitive, perceptual, and material processes that influence each artist's relationship with the elusive ambiguity of meaning.

The title is also a loose directive for each artist’s individualistic approach to their work. Whether it be through mark and pattern making, layered material exploration, and/or following openly prescribed compositional systems, the artists nd a creative freedom through ponderous curiosity, observant attention, and generous allowance. The works in the show are the results of deep engagement: one that guides and highlights the hand of each artist as they navigate their own particular practice, but also one that reveals secretive conversations between them.

Contemplation becoming realization. Visit The Mystery of the Mystery Gallery page to see more art.

Pete’s Cafe SFAI in the 90’s

January 10 – February 16, 2020

Reception on Saturday, January 11th from 6-10pm

The Great Highway Gallery is excited to present Pete’s Cafe – SFAI in the 90s. The group exhibition will being featuring works by the invited artists who attended or worked at the San Francisco Art Institute in the 90s. Patricia Kavanaugh will be recreating the Pete’s Timeline that she and Tanesha Jemison displayed on the back wall of the cafe in 1997. Andytown Coffee Roastery and Seven Stills & Hard Frescoes Tap Room that are on either side of the gallery will be participating and creating Pete’s Cafe experiences inside their establishments.

Recoflection by Scott Hewicker, 2020. Great Highway San Francisco presents Pete’s Cafe, SFAI in the 90s

Pete’s Cafe

In the 90s I worked as the night manager at Pete’s Cafe situated on the roof of the San Francisco Art Institute on Chestnut Street. I met Pete working at Hayes Street Grill. He asked if I would work the night manager shift for him. I thought it would be fun and it had benefits. Pete created an environment that encouraged an appreciation of cooking, jazz, biting humor and all out human study. The staff beyond Pete, myself and another day manager (Ted Szczepanski) was the students. I have greatly enjoyed watching these students who worked in the cafe and others that attended SFAI during the 90’s go on to do such great things. The exhibition gives attention not only to the space Pete created but to the community that it helped foster.

Read a review of Pete’s Cafe by Sam Whiting | DateBook, SF Chronicle: January 8, 2020

Golden Prisn

Golden Prisn is a two-person exhibition from longtime partners Cliff Hengst and Scott Hewicker. This will be the San Francisco-based artists’ fourth showing with the gallery. Cliff and Scott have been important fixtures in the San Francisco arts scene for 25 years.

During the artists three decades as residents of San Francisco’s Mission District, they have witnessed significant change. For Golden Prisn, the artist's marry the word “prism” with the concept of the Gilded Cage or “Golden Jail.”

Describing a situation as paradoxically valuable and trapping, the Golden Jail limits the inhabitant, making any alternative to the current situation comparatively worse. The introduction of the Prism into the exhibition’s title promotes an uplifting opportunity to re-interpret the often-told tale of San Francisco’s gentrification through the unifying element of color. White light contains the full spectrum of colors, though only visible through a prism.

In the sense that color does not belong to anyone, Hengst and Hewicker draw inspiration from the ostentatious nature of the everyday world around them. They respond by making works that are largely made from humble materials, their work emphasizes a human touch. It revels in the beauty of the handmade and empathizes a solidarity with the downtrodden and discarded.

Hewicker adds, "In some ways we are stuck in an uncertain and unstable place, but it creates this urgency that propels us to make work while we still can."

Hengst's found cardboard paintings and text pieces and Hewicker's brightly saturated abstract paintings and prints, the artists will expand their work into sculptural installation, ceramics and a wall mural. In doing so, the artists seek to activate the gallery space into a charged and inviting color environment, beckoning a creative community to celebrate resilience despite constant waves of change endured by artists in San Francisco.

On Thursday, November 17th, Scott Hewicker invited local luminaries in the art and poetry scenes, including Kevin Killian, Linda Geary, and Laurie Reid, for An Evening With The Color Organist—poetry readings and performance inspired by color, accompanied by a trio of electric organists led by Hewicker.

See the interactive program for Golden Prisn, a show featuring art by Scott Hewicker and Cliff Hengst.

Gallery 16 opening night for Golden Prisn exhibit featuring works by Scott Hewicker and Cliff Hengst

Karla’s Living Room

Karla's Living Room is based on a scene cultivated in a Capp Street residence in the Mission District of San Francisco, California in the early 2010s. The art show was curated by Kal Spelletich, Thomas Moller, and Matt Bernstein.

This exhibition of artwork was inspired by shared experiences of a group of friends in San Francisco, California in a creative environment known as Karla’s Living Room.

As San Francisco’s cultural landscape continues to evolve at a seemingly dizzying pace, a community of artists whose roots stretch back to the 1970s and beyond still thrives. The roots extend through time and came together in a living room on Capp Street, in Karla’s Living Room.

A community of artists whose roots stretch back to the 1970s and beyond still thrives.

From conceptualism to robotics, performance, punk and politics, this show has a deep foundation in San Francisco practices. There are observations on being a Left Coast artist, the Western landscape, and what it means to be making art here in these times.

The exhibit is playful and difficult, with interactive works, video, painting, performance, sculpture and photography installed throughout the venue.

While self–identifying as San Francisco and Bay Area artists, this group remains involved with the international art world. Against all odds, this scene is still thriving and continues to engage with the next wave of change in San Francisco.

Karla’s Living Room exhibition is displayed at the SF Battery, July 8 - September 26, 2014

Collection Rotation

Collection Rotation: Each month SFMOMA asks a local guest to organize lists, groupings, or ‘exhibitions’ from our permanent collection, to be presented on the Open Space blog. For the first installment, SFMOMA invited two long-time Bay Area artists, Scott Hewicker and Cliff Hengst, who are also musicians, record collectors, and DJs, to select their favorite works and pair them with song clips, a permanent-collection “playlist”, for our first ever Collection Rotation. It’s fantastic! 

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Scott Hewicker’s notes: Amazing how a seemingly fun and easy assignment can quickly turn daunting. Since Cliff and I are both artists, record collectors and DJs, we were asked to create a playlist of songs to go along with pieces we like in the SFMOMA collection; a sort of meta-curation of sound and image if you will, or a visually suggested DJ set. Interesting idea, but where on earth to begin? We quickly realized the extensiveness of both the museum’s holdings and our own massively unorganized record collection required some intense focus.

Starting with separate trips to the 2nd and 3rd floors, we really took a good look at the permanent collection. This was the best part, because many times over the years we’ve rushed through those floors, just to see what’s new at the end (If that’s not what membership is for, you tell me). But now, task at hand, we both saw the collection with new eyes. Adding some works we found in the online archives, we each took note of our favorite pieces, which were many. Paintings and photographs were the easiest to pair with the songs and since that’s mainly what we do as artists, we stuck to those, limiting the playlist to no more than 15 choices. Not everything we wanted to include spoke to us on a musical level right away. Some never did. But a few choices came together instantly (Terry Riley with Ellsworth Kelly; Chris Johanson and Flipper), and some came after a deal of thought (Adrian Piper and Eddie Harris). Unfortunately, some choices we couldn’t use.

With respect to both song and artwork, we wanted the pairings to broaden rather than narrow the qualities of each work, but also offer an open interpretation in how each work is viewed and heard together. Yet we didn’t want to play it too safe either (what fun is that?). In the end, we were both pleased to discover how the group of artworks and set of songs played off each other on their own as an engaging mini-show or a late-night DJ set. Atmospheric, raw and beautiful.

Scott Hewicker and Cliff Hengst are artists and musicians who live and work in San Francisco.

Scott’s work has been shown at Jack Hanley Gallery, Gallery 16, University Art Museum Berkeley, YBCA, ICA Philadelphia, Deitch Projects and Galleri Christina Wilson in Denmark. He plays guitar and keyboards for the bands Troll, The Alps, and Aero-Mic’d.

Cliff’s work has been shown at Ratio 3, New Langton Arts, YBCA, Gallery 16, Galleri Uta Pardun in Cologne. He is currently collaborating with curator Lawrence Rinder on an exhibition at Fluent-Collaborative in Austin, Texas, opening June 15. He plays drums and keyboards for the bands Troll and Aero-Mic’d.

Scott and Cliff released a book filled with psychedelic illustrations titled Good Times: Bad Trips.

The Universe, Jack Hanley Gallery

The Universe at Jack Hanley Gallery: 389 Valencia - 395 Valencia St, San Francisco, California. (Formerly located at 41 Grant St, San Francisco, California).

Featuring works by Chris Johanson and Scott Hewicker.

Gallery is open Tuesday - Saturday from 11am-6pm. Exhibition ran July 8 – August 5, 1995.

Notes from our previous exhibition at Jack Hanley Gallery:

A Holiday Benefit Show 

Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco

Opening Reception: Saturday, December 17, 6-9pm. Gallery hours through January 28, 1995.

Works by Harrell Fletcher, Scott Hewicker, Xylor Jane, Chris Johanson, Ed Loftus, Acia McCarthy, Sean McFarland, Keegan McHargue, and others.