San Francisco’s Baer Ridgway Exhibitions is currently presenting Tell Everyone That You’re Smiling, new works by Seattle-based artist Tyler Cufley. This marks the artist’s second solo exhibition with Baer Ridgway, following his exhibition last year titled Ready Set Go! Tell Everyone That You’re Smiling features a mix of the artist’s new works including sculpture, painting, photography. While the work seems to be firmly rooted in formalism, with a closer look the viewer is able to decipher political ideas as well. The press release states, “Cufley addresses the role of revolution and radicalism for both aesthetics and politics by creating works that perform color field painting or geometric abstraction and are juxtaposed with meaningful subjects from America’s political history. An important conflation between modernist aesthetics and radical politics is now a central trope for Cufley’s practice.”

The artist was born in San Francisco and received his M.F.A from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003. Since graduation, Cufley has exhibited with Howard House in Seattle, Three Walls Gallery in Chicago and Acuna Hansen Gallery in Los Angeles, among several others.