Tenderloin Texture:

Carved Histories in Urban Form

Artworks by Tan Sirinumas & Rik Lee Leipold

On view in the TLM Gallery 12/5/24 - 2/1/25

Tenderloin-based artists Tan Sirinumas and Rik Lee Leipold share new, collaborative works that depict some of the neighborhood’s most iconic locales. 

Tenderloin Texture: Carved Histories in Urban Form is a visual homage to the neighborhood’s architectural past and present, as well as a tactile experience that invites you to explore the TL’s built environment through touch. The show features new, collaborative works by Tan Sirinumas and Rik Lee Leipold, two Tenderloin-based artists with deep experience making innovative public art in the neighborhood, and longstanding ties to the Hospitality House Community Arts Program (CAP). Both artists are passionate about uplifting the Tenderloin and are masters at evoking beauty in unlikely, overlooked spaces. 

Tan Sirinumas is originally from Thailand, but his artistic journey began in San Francisco making architecture-inspired paper collage designs at CAP, evolving into a practice that spans painting, ceramics, and printmaking. Several Sirinumas’ richly detailed, realist yet soulful illustrations of famous Tenderloin buildings were featured on SFMTA traffic control signal boxes and city trash cans as part of the 2017 Art Wraps for the Heart of the Tenderloin project. Sirinumas currently works as an educator at the Hospitality House Community Arts Program, using his art as a tool for empowerment and helping to instill strength and self-expression in low-income artists.

Rik Lee Leipold is a designer and fabricator with a specialty in facilitating public art. Leipold’s personal practice draws on his experience using plastics and resin, and includes a multi-year project of commemorating queer spaces in the TL by filling potholes with resin and found objects in small but evocative acts of reverse urban archaeology: “fixing” holes in the sidewalks and streets through bearing witness to the past. TLM was proud to present Leipold’s solo show Trolls & Potholes in 2021.

For this show at the Tenderloin Museum, Sirinumas and Leipold developed a collaborative practice to create new work that celebrates some of the TL’s most iconic locales. They describe their process as similar to a conversation: Leipold would use a CNC machine to create a 3D rendering of TL street scenes–the textured “canvas”--and Sirinumas would detail and paint the pieces in his unique style. In addition to the collaborative wood panel & acrylic pieces, Sirinumas and Leipold share behind the scenes documentation of their process.

Related Public Programming:

12/5/24 Opening Reception in concert with the SF First Thursday Art Walk!

12/13/24 Murals of the Tenderloin Walking Tour both artists join TLM staff for a mural tour that highlights some of their work as well as murals featured in the street scenes depicted in Tenderloin Texture !

Learn more about Tan Sirinumas at https://www.tancreations.com/

Learn more about Rik Lee Leipold at https://www.rikleipold.com/