Meet the artists behind the worlds you know from film and television. Passion Projects SF: The Artist Behind the Effect brings personal paintings, drawings and photography by six artists with deep roots in visual effects to 111 Minna Gallery. Discover what their imaginations create when the work is their own.
This exhibition shares its opening night with Randy Gaul’s Inner Workings, where an Industrial Light & Magic veteran reveals the worlds he creates beyond the screen.
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Hundred Acre Wood 17 | Christopher Robin Reads the Odyssey of Homer to All His Dear Friends
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Six artists. Six personal worlds.
Meet the artists
You may know the worlds they helped bring to the screen. Here is a first look at the art they make for themselves, and the people behind it.
Jiri Jacknowitz
More than two decades at Industrial Light & Magic inform Jiri Jacknowitz’s eye for unexpected imagery. Jiri explores surreal forms in intimate watercolors that invite a slower, closer look. Read bio
Joe Ceballos
Joe Ceballos creates convincing environments for film and television, with credits including Rogue One and Andor. His oil paintings move between realism and abstraction, letting recognizable figures emerge from expressive passages of color. Read bio
Leigh Barbier
A model maker and digital painter whose screen work spans Doctor Strange and Solo: A Star Wars Story, Leigh Barbier gives emotion form through paintings, drawings and sculpture. Her bold characters turn everyday encounters into imaginative visual stories. Read bio
See more of what caught your eye.Explore the full exhibition
The Artist Behind the Effect
Two creative lives, one artist: fine art by visual effects artists behind the films and television you love.
A convincing creature, a believable world, a moment of perfectly judged light: behind the spectacle of film and television are artists who know how to make an image feel alive. Passion Projects SF brings their independent art into view. At 111 Minna Gallery, Joel Aron, Leigh Barbier, John Bell, Joe Ceballos, Jiri Jacknowitz and Kim Smith share paintings, drawings and photographs that reveal the breadth of their interests beyond the screen.
Their careers connect this exhibition to Industrial Light & Magic, Lucasfilm Animation and productions including Star Wars, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park and Rogue One. The work in the gallery offers a different encounter with that experience. Botanical structures become imagined environments. City life is distilled into light and movement. Portraits shift between realism and abstraction, while intimate watercolors and layered maps make room for unfamiliar worlds.
Founded by Katharine Baird, Passion Projects SF is a nomadic gallery, retail shop and community space dedicated to the personal art of visual effects and post-production professionals. The exhibition opens and runs alongside Randy Gaul’s Inner Workings, bringing two distinct shows into conversation at 111 Minna Gallery. Together, they offer an opportunity for the Bay Area’s art and film communities, students and curious visitors to discover the individual imaginations behind a collaborative industry.
Learn more at passionprojects.art.
PPSF is a fiscally sponsored project of SOMArts Cultural Center.
