how to write about art - by Celine Nguyen - personal canon

On a Saturday morning in April, my friend and I hurried through San Francisco’s downtown, into a sharp, slicing wind that pressed the trembling weeds into the sidewalk. We turned from Folsom onto Fremont, from Fremont onto Mission Street, almost walking past the discreet entrance to the MoAD. We hadn’t seen each other for a few months, and we hadn’t really seen any art in the last few months—a particular kind of famished, searching emptiness. From now until September 1, the MoAD has an exhibition of oil pastels by the British artist Rachel Jones. It’s Jones’s first solo museum exhibition in US, but she exhibits regularly in the UK—I first came across Jones’s work at the Hayward Gallery’s “Mixing It Up: Painting Today” in 2021, where her work was shown alongside artists like Lubaina Himid and Oscar Murillo. She also had a solo show at Chisenhale Gallery in 2022 titled say cheeeeese. I didn’t see it, but I’m at peace with this. The Chisenhale space is beautiful, and her works for the sho

On a Saturday morning in April, my friend and I hurried through San Francisco’s downtown, into a sharp, slicing wind that pressed the trembling weeds into the sidewalk. We turned from Folsom onto Fremont, from Fremont onto Mission Street, almost walking past the discreet entrance to the MoAD. We hadn’t seen each other for a few months, and we hadn’t really seen any art in the last few months—a particular kind of famished, searching emptiness. From now until September 1, the MoAD has an exhibition of oil pastels by the British artist Rachel Jones. It’s Jones’s first solo museum exhibition in US