Phil Spitler & Liz Hickok

Liz Hickok
San Francisco-based artist, Liz Hickok, works in an innovative creative style, mixing low and high tech to create immersive artworks that bring viewers into a whimsical and wondrous space. Using playful materials and intersecting photography, sculpture, video, and installation, Hickok makes art that intermingles science and nature. Her most recent projects use augmented reality and other interactive technologies, inviting her spectators to take a more personal approach to her art, and closing the gap between artist and viewer.
Hickok exhibits nationally and internationally; her work is included in such collections as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Blue Shield of California, and Mills College Art Museum. Hickok’s series, Fugitive Topography: Cityscapes in Jell-O, attracted widespread media attention, receiving coverage in The New York Times, a feature on CBS's The Early Show, and NPR.
Hickok has developed photomurals for Facebook and Google’s San Francisco offices, as well as for UCSF and Sutter Hospitals. In 2019, she created a site-specific installation for the Surreal Sublime exhibition at the San Jose ICA, and had a large solo exhibition at the Longview Museum of Fine Arts in Longview, TX. In 2020, she was part of the Center of Photographic Art in Carmel’s 8x10 Fundraising Exhibition. She currently has an outdoor photomural on display in Palo Alto, CA which integrates three-dimensional layers of augmented reality video and sound. Liz’s most recent project was an interactive large-scale video projection for Palo Alto’s Code:ART2 festival in October 2021. In 2022, she will have a solo show at Chung Namont Gallery in Noe Valley, San Francisco.

www.lizhickok.com

“Inflorescence”

Inflorescence is an illuminated, interactive mural by Liz Hickok and Phil Spitler, it consists of larger-than-life native wildflowers, glowing and illuminating after dark. The artist duo merged their talents to connect the public to the healing and inspiring natural forces found right in our backyards.
Hickok distorted her photographs of local wildflowers, resulting in surreal images that reflect on our current (un)reality. Spitler added a layer of augmented reality, which brings the flowers to life as they appear to dance and grow in three-dimensional space.
As the sun goes down, colored light radiates from behind the artwork in beautifully choreographed sequences. Vibrant, ethereal flowers are projected onto the surroundings, slowly rotating on the ground and the walls.

Phil Spitler is a creative technology artist. He has over 30 years experience as a motion graphics and visual effects artist. Phil's work combines both art and technology, using software and computer controlled tools to make both on-screen and physical art. By day, Phil is a partner at Bonfire Labs, a boutique content creation company in San Francisco whose clients include Google, Facebook, Apple, Salesforce and many other tech companies in the Bay Area. By night, Phil is an artist specializing in illuminated sculpture and CNC fabrication.
Phil’s work has been experienced in such places as:
City of Los Altos (Arts Los Altos permanent collection as well as a 12 month public installation)
Wonderspaces Immersive Arts (San Diego, Phoenix, Philadelphia)
The Autumn Lights Festival (Oakland)
Friends & Family (Saratoga Springs)
Burning Man (Black Rock Desert)
The Midway (San Francisco)
Space 151 Gallery (San Francisco)
DZINE Gallery (San Francisco)
Zero 1 Biennial (San Jose)
SomArts (San Francisco)
The Regency Ballroom (San Francisco)

www.philspitler.com and