Free 2026 Art Week Opening: Kinetic Sculpture Show “Abiogenesis” at SF’s Heron Arts

Image courtesy of artists.

Heron Arts is pleased to announce Abiogenesis, a duo exhibition featuring Philip Beesley and Casey Curran. The opening reception for Abiogenesis is Saturday,  November 14th, 2026 from 6-9pm. It is free and open to the public  and will be part of San Francisco Art Week. The exhibition will be on view to the public until January 24th, by appointment only.

Abiogenesis brings together the work of Philip Beesley and Casey Curran around an elusive phenomenon: the emergence of life from inert matter. Their work assembles unmistakably artificial elements that, in their cellular forms and gentle movement, begin to suggest life. Lacework becomes membrane. Scaffolds of repeating cells become skeletons of organisms. Glowing, shimmering light evokes the pulses of nature. Mechanical gestures appear to breathe, bloom, and reach into the world.

Intimations of life within Beesley’s and Curran’s sculptures suggest that living form can emerge from the matter of the earth. Beesley and Curran probe this threshold through myth, science, and sensitive sculptural expression.

Artist Bios

Philip Beesley is a Canadian artist whose sculptures explore the threshold between inert matter and living form. At the heart of his work are glowing, pulsing, precious structures composed of innumerable finely crafted elements. Classically trained in fine art and architecture, he creates immersive installations of lace-like scaffolds and suspended membranes, inviting intimate encounters with light, texture, and gentle movement.

Beesley represented Canada at the 2010 Venice Biennale of Architecture with Hylozoic Ground and returned in 2021 with Grove. His work has been exhibited at major museums worldwide, including the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Korea’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Recent permanent installations include Meander in Cambridge, Ontario, and Aria at TU Delft in the Netherlands. His longstanding collaboration with haute couture designer Iris van Herpen spans some fifteen collections.

Bringing sculpture into dialogue with science and engineering, Beesley pursues a beauty inseparable from uncertainty: the smallest tremor can animate an entire field, drawing viewers into its constantly changing, delicately poised balance. His pioneering work in living architecture has helped shape the field of responsive environments. He directs the Living Architecture Systems Group and holds the distinction of University Professor at the University of Waterloo. His individual and collaborative achievements have been recognized with the Prix de Rome in Architecture, two Governor General’s Awards in Architecture, and the ACADIA Design Excellence Award.

Casey Curran received his BFA in painting and sculpture from Cornish College of the arts in 2006.  Curran became a key collaborator in the internationally recognized performance art group Saint Genet in 2008 developing interactive sets which have been exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in NY, The Kunsthalle Museum in Krems, Austria, the Luminato Festival in Toronto, Canada, and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle. In 2010 and 2013 Curran was awarded the NY Sculpture Space residency and in 2010 and 2014 the Artist Trust GAP grant. In 2018 Curran was awarded an artist in residence grant at Amazon HQ where he focused on a body of work to be exhibited at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft in 2019, MadArt studios in 2021, and Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in 2025. Curran has exhibited work at the Bellevue Art Museum, The Whatcom Art Museum, The Children’s Art Museum in NY, Liljevalchs Museum in Stockholm, Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and Paris Fashion Week collaborating with the world renowned designer Iris Van Herpen. His fashion collaborations with Iris Van Herpen and Robert Wun have been featured at the Met Gala in 2022, 2024, 2026 bringing his unique kinetic flair to one of the most prestigious fashion nights in the world. Curran continues to pursue his soft mechanical work exploring themes of time, cycles of nature, and the psychological implications of a world in constant flux.

Artist Statements

Philip Beesley

I work to construct radiance through hovering canopies, shimmering membranes and tangled thickets. I am drawn to the possibility that the matter surrounding us might reach back towards us. Delicate elements gather into an intimate presence, evoking a gentle, hungry soil capable of growth and fertility. Encrustations of glass spheres glisten like dew, suggesting worlds within worlds. Yet tenderness also carries barbs and thorns, an unsettling emotional clutching. I follow this exchange between attraction and apprehension, where apparently inert material begins to seem capable of sensing, desiring and caring.

The suspended and wall-mounted sculptures in this new body of work draw from the form-language of my recent immersive installations, offering close encounters with individual objects. In some works, gently pulsing light responds to touch. Thin sheets and filaments are cut, formed and interwoven, pursuing an economy of material. Collaborations with artists, craftspeople, engineers and scientists open possibilities for experiment and growth. This exchange continues in work co-created and shared with Casey Curran. I tune materials close to the limits of their ability to hold their form, seeking a poise in which precarity remains palpable and unresolved. I think of this as an unapologetic fragility: a commitment to remain involved, attentive and open to encounters with others. I want these works to make our mutual dependence tangible. The desire for sanctuary remains entwined with the risk of exposure. These works invite us to imagine what it might mean to be received and cared for by our surroundings.

Casey Curran

I find myself drawn to the foundation of things, to the root of their cause and the long cycle of their existence. It’s a fascination with structures laying between the very vast and the very small. A desire to see a system writ into the nature of things, defining every surface, every thought and idea. A simple piece of humanity laying somewhere between stars and bones, summoning the great and small triumphs of our innumerable endeavors.

Focusing primarily in sculpture, but not limited to any specific medium, I create kinetic environments with an internal logic and history often propelled by a simple hand crank. I invite the viewer to become a part of the work through participation, animating a tableau of flora and fauna that bloom or flutter to life when activated. When conceiving my pieces I center on a hidden narrative and assign visual elements that align with the concept of the piece, often utilizing ornate structures and simple construction methods to further highlight my interests in Nature, foundation and form. When creating my work I look for patterns in the environments around me, trying to tease out symmetry in their ecosystems. I look for how innovation shapes itself into our ever expanding systems of complexity and knowledge. I create work that attempts to straddle the concepts of chaos, pattern, and emergence. These are the pillars I search for, the thoughtful hands that hold my metaphors.

Heron Arts

Heron Arts was founded in 2013 by Mark Slee, an active member of San Francisco’s creative community, organizing events since the mid-2000s. He is joined in 2015 by director Tova Lobatz, who is pursuing ambitious programming that encompasses installations and experiential, interactive environments, alongside traditional gallery exhibitions. Collectively they hope to provide San Francisco with a fresh outlook on contemporary beauty in the arts.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.