Join San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) Galleries for “I split the ground, so it would not close over me,” a two-person exhibition featuring the work of two emerging Bay Area artists Kelley Finley and Tricia Rainwater, curated by independent curator Shirin Makaremi.
“I split the ground, so it would not close over me” opens on May 28, 2026 from 6-8 P.M. at the SFAC Main Gallery in the War Memorial Veterans Building and will be on view through August 29, 2026.
In the exhibition, Finley and Rainwater approach survival as both a personal and collective experience. Delving into personal and communal histories, the artists explore what it means to sustain communities and how resilience is an ongoing process.
“I split the ground, so it would not close over me” is part of SFAC Galleries’ new mentorship fellowship program, now in its second year, where two emerging artists work closely with a curator for seven months on their professional development and to create new work for an exhibition in the Main Gallery. Nearly 130 artist applications were submitted when SFAC Galleries launched an open call for artists in July 2025. Kelley Finley and Tricia Rainwater were selected a panel of both SFAC staff and stakeholders in the Bay Area arts community.
We hope to see you on the 28th!
Link in bio for more info
San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) Galleries is thrilled to announce “I split the ground, so it would not close over me,” a two-person exhibition featuring the work of two emerging Bay Area artists Kelley Finley and Tricia Rainwater, curated by independent curator Shirin Makaremi.
“I split the ground, so it would not close over me” opens on May 28, 2026 from 6-8 P.M. at the SFAC Main Gallery in the War Memorial Veterans Building and will be on view through August 29, 2026.
In the exhibition, Finley and Rainwater approach survival as both a personal and collective experience. Delving into personal and communal histories, the artists explore what it means to sustain communities and how resilience is an ongoing process.
“I split the ground, so it would not close over me” is part of SFAC Galleries’ new mentorship fellowship program, now in its second year, where two emerging artists work closely with a curator for seven months on their professional development and to create new work for an exhibition in the Main Gallery. Nearly 130 artist applications were submitted when SFAC Galleries launched an open call for artists in July 2025. Kelley Finley and Tricia Rainwater were selected a panel of both SFAC staff and stakeholders in the Bay Area arts community.
We hope to see you on the 28th!
Link in bio for more info
SFAC Main Gallery is delighted to announce Kelley Finley and Tricia Rainwater as the 2026 Mentorship and Exhibition Fellows!
Over the next 8 months, the two artists will work with mentor and exhibition curator Shirin Makaremi to develop a two-person exhibition opening in the Summer of 2026 in the SFAC Main Gallery. Congratulations to Kelley and Trisha!
Kelley Finley is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is autoethnographic, primarily working in sculpture, textiles, and performance. Finley received her MFA from California College of the Arts and a BFA in Sculpture and a B.S. in Art Education from Kutztown University. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Hong Kong and Italy, and across the US. Recently, she was an Artist in Residence at Recology, SF, and participated in Edge on the Square’s Annual Contemporary Art Event.
Tricia Rainwater is a Choctaw multimedia artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area, with roots in the Central Valley and New Mexico. Her multidisciplinary practice spans self-portraiture, sculpture, large-scale murals, and installation, and her work has been presented at institutions including the Berkeley Center for the Arts, ICA San Francisco, MOCA Toronto, Muz Collective, ICA San Jose, and San Francisco Camerawork, among others. Grounded in themes of identity, loss, and survivance, her work offers a distinctly Choctaw perspective on grief and resilience.
Curator/Mentor Shirin Makaremi is an Iranian American artist and curator based in San Francisco, CA. Makaremi is the former Director of Incline Gallery in San Francisco, where she curated and facilitated exhibitions and programs.
Stay tuned for more info!
Kelley Finley’s “rising in salt, setting in sweet”; at Super Flex! Edge on the Square, Chinatown, SF; September 13, 2025
“This sensory installation features fragrance misters filled with Chinese medicinal herbs, concealed behind reimagined lotus leaves and natural forms made from neon vinyl. The misters activate in response to visitors’ movement, releasing scent as a subtle, ephemeral gesture. The work explores concealment, memory, and the reimagining of Chinese medicinal herbs—not as cures for illness, but as intangible agents of transformation and cultural expression.
The installation draws upon the aesthetics of concealment and revelation. The medicinal herbs themselves become shadow selves of their original form, and reflect on their origination as healing tools passed through generations. The act of hiding the misters behind stylized lotus leaves evokes the duality of public and private identity, of what is visible and what is withheld. The misters hide their source while offering their effects, transforming the environment through sensory subterfuge. The use of scent, a largely invisible and involuntary sense, mirrors the intangible ways that identity, memory, and survival operate within the Asian diaspora. These vapors mark an immaterial sovereignty—one not written in law or language, but inhaled and felt. Here, the herbs are no longer confined to the context of illness or old-world superstition—they flex, shift, and re-present themselves as speculative, ephemeral expressions of cultural agency.”
More on Kelley in comments
Thank you @edgeonthesquare for a few of these images🙏🏽
Video is from the day of set up, walking the pieces across the alleys…
FLEX WITH MEMORY. Kelley Finley creates sculptural containers that venerate diasporic experiences at Edge's SUPER FLEX festival!
About the Artist:
Kelley Finley is an interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, textiles, and performance. Each work begins as a response to what lingers: traces of presence, fragments of the body, repeated gestures, and the persistence of memory. She uses labor, rituals, talismans, and locations to explore mixed identity and embodied experience through segmentation.
These diasporic experiences are venerated within sculptural, anthropomorphic containers, sacred spaces that embrace lineage and mend loss. Utilizing her body in often performative acts during fabrication, they become archives of ephemeral, private performances, reminiscent of her body or family members in various physical positions. Domestic materials like fabric, thread, and medicinal herbs actualize protection, grief, monumentalization, vulnerability, and personal shrines.
Kelley has been exhibited internationally in Hong Kong and Italy, and throughout the U.S. She received her MFA from California College of the Arts and her BFA in Sculpture, B.S. in Art Education from Kutztown University.
Kelley Finley 是跨界別藝術家，其創作橫跨雕塑、紡織和表演的領域。她每一件作品都是對縈繞之物的回應：存在的痕跡、身體的碎片、重複的手勢，以及揮之不去的回憶。她利用勞力、儀式、符咒和場域，以分割的方式探索混雜的身分認同，以及身體經驗的議題。擬人化的雕塑，和擁抱血脈紐帶、彌補缺失的神聖空間，往往是對離散經驗的致敬。創作時，她經常利用自己的身體作出操演性（performative）的行為，成為稍縱即逝而又私人的表演，記錄著她的驅體及其家人各式各樣的身體形態。家用物品例如布料、縫紉線和草藥往往成為保護、哀悼、紀念、脆弱和個人神壇的具體化身。Kelley 的作品曾於國內外展出，包括香港、意大利及美國多處。她是加州藝術學院藝術碩士，同時持有賓夕凡尼亞庫茨敦大學雕塑藝術學士以及藝術教育學士學位。
Instagram: @kyfin
SUPER FLEX
📅 Saturday, September 13, 2025
⏰ 4:00–10:00 PM
📍 SF Chinatown – FREE!
#SUPERFLEX2025 #EdgeOnTheSquare #SFChinatown #ContemporaryArt #BayAreaArts #Chinatown #shadowselves #CommunityFirst #Resistance #memory #diaspora #sculptureart
Reflecting on our collaboration:
guide my hands, so i can see you ✨ @recologyair
Happy & honored to celebrate Recology AIR 35th Anniversary @minnesotastreetproject
Our work will be on view alongside other incredible Recology artists 🖤
Opening reception this Saturday 6-8pm
Show is up until August 30th
@recology@mspfoundation@makaanresidency
Photos 2,3,7 @minoosh_z
Images by Kelley @kyfin & Deena @Deenamachina
This is our last post for the takeover! Thanks so much for tuning in ♻️💚👀
We hope to catch you at our show :
guide my hands, so i can see you May 17, 18 & 21
#RecologyAIRTakeover #MakeArtNotLandfill
Images by Kelley @kyfin & Deena @deenamachina
Part of our favorite process @recology is arranging disparate materials that create new spaces that go between the interior and exterior.
#RecologyAIRTakeover #MakeArtNotLandfill
Kelley @kyfin and Deena @deenamachina here, taking over Recology’s instagram. ♻️ Follow along these next couple of days for a fun ride and view into our process.
We are artists that work with photography, textiles, performance, & sculpture. We graduate from @cacollegeofarts MFA program this spring!
At the dump we’ve been working with the uncertainty of materials to communicate our stories to one another while strengthening our collaboration & friendship.
👷🏻♀️👷🏽♀️
#RecologyAIRTakeover #MakeArtNotLandfill
