Gay Outlaw (born 1959) is an

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artist working in sculpture, photography and printmaking. She is known for her "rigorous and unexpected explorations of material". She is based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California.

Early life and education

Gay Outlaw was born in 1959 in

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to Arthur R. and Dorothy (Smith) Outlaw. She received her BA in French from the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

in 1981. She studied pastry from 1981 until 1982 at the École de Cuisine La Varenne, a cooking school in Paris. After Paris, she moved to New York and took classes at the

International Center for Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP), at 79 Essex Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, consists of a museum for photography and visual culture and a school offering an array of educational courses and programming. ...

between 1987-1988.

Work

Outlaw's early work was made of perishable items such as pastry and caramels. In 1995, she created a 34-foot-long wall of fruitcake bricks and installed it at

Yerba Buena Gardens Yerba Buena Gardens is the name for two blocks of public parks located between Third and Fourth, Mission and Folsom Streets in downtown San Francisco, California. The first block bordered by Mission and Howard Streets was opened on October 11, 19 ...

in San Francisco. She embraces the transformations that occur with these time sensitive mediums, challenging people's expectations of sculpture being stable. Outlaw's recent work includes assemblages with her photographs and cast glass sculptures she calls "puddles". When asked the meaning of her work, Outlaw said, "The message is no message. I call it formal free association". Outlaw continually explores duality in her work, for example, interior and exterior, or solids and voids. One of her notable pieces, ''Black Hose Mountain'', is a huge sculpture consisting of black hoses filled with plaster. Outlaw is represented by Gallery Anglim Gilbert in San Francisco.

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

1990 – The Friends of Photography at the Ansel Adams Center, San Francisco, California 1996 – “New Pictures and Sculpture,” Refusalon, San Francisco, CA and Littlejohn Contemporary Art, New York, New York 1998 – SFMoMA's

SECA Art Award The SECA Art Award is a contemporary art award program that has been organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) and supported by its auxiliary SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art) since 1967 to honor San Franc ...

Exhibition,

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

, San Francisco, California 2003 – “New Work by Gay Outlaw,” University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, Virginia 2004 – “Impermeable,”

Gallery Paule Anglim Anglim Trimble Gallery, formerly Gallery Paule Anglim, and Anglim Gilbert Gallery, is a contemporary commercial art gallery which is located at Minnesota Street Project, 1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco, California The gallery was founded by P ...

, San Francisco, California 2005 – “Three-legged Inversions,”

Mills College Art Museum Mills College Art Museum is a museum and art gallery in Oakland, California. The originally all-girls' school Mills College was founded by Susan and Cyrus Mills, who were both interested in art and history. Susan's sister Jane Tolman was an ar ...

, Oakland, California 2007–2008 – “Gay Outlaw: Recent Work,” Gatehouse Gallery, di Rosa Preserve, Napa, California 2009 – “Gay Outlaw: New Sculpture,”

, San Francisco, California 2011 – “Gay Outlaw: The Velocity of Ideas,” Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento, California 2012 – "New Work,

, San Francisco, California. 2014 – "Home",

, San Francisco, California. 2016–2017 – "Mutable Object",

Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art :''see also the ''Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art'', Washington State University, Pullman, Washington Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) is an art museum located on the campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. The original building ...

at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

, Eugene, Oregon

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Outlaw, Gay 1959 births Living people 21st-century American sculptors American contemporary artists American women sculptors Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area Sculptors from California University of Virginia alumni 21st-century American women artists