Bay Area Walls: Craig Calderwood, Omen Studies @ SFMOMA

Drawing on historical research, personal narratives, and pop cultural references, San Francisco-based artist Craig Calderwood has developed a distinctly bold yet intricate vernacular of patterns and symbols derived from private languages long used by queer and trans people for safety. In their mural commission at SFMOMA, Calderwood reflects upon the shifting landscape of the city’s Mission District from the perspective of an unruly but beautiful oleander plant. This iconic fixture in the neighborhood was replaced by a nearly bare sapling, symbolizing the gradual removal of queer spaces and the Mission’s vibrancy, which have been shaped by urban “beautification” and increased surveillance. The artist celebrates their community’s resilience by featuring an abundance of flowers, fruits, and figures exchanging gestures of care and support in the mural’s center. They invite us to witness beauty and loss, but more importantly, to process change together — and potentially push against it.

Bay Area Walls

SFMOMA presents a series of commissions and other site-responsive wall projects by local artists that actively engage with pressing issues of our time. Many of 2020’s inaugural projects delved into the consequences of a year of social isolation and unrest, polarizing news, racial injustice, economic crises, all against a backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now ongoing, the program is designed to support local artists who are keenly attuned to our community and current moment.