Emily Fromm’s solo exhibition currently on display at 111 Minna Gallery, “No Vacancy,” is the painter’s comic-book style depiction of bustling corners of San Francisco.

The exhibition shows over 40 works from the California native painter who studied at San Francisco State University. Large canvases display Fromm’s characteristic graphic animation cityscape paintings. These works use thick, dark hand-painted lines with modern graphic precision to draw cartoon scenes of busy city life and local characters in recognizable corners of San Francisco. Fromm’s muted color palette evoke an immediate tone of nostalgia with tints of burnt-orange and baby-blue that capture the feeling of vintage signage, but maintain vibrancy through thick, painterly hues and playful contrast.

Storefronts, billboards and shop signs serve as the cartoon backdrop to the artist’s vignettes, creating a unique and simplified comic-book view of city life. The simple graphic designs evoke classic images of urban Americana and further add to the sense of American nostalgia.

One such work, titled That’s It, displays this comic-art vision of San Francisco. The viewer is thrust into the busy world of lights, signs, storefronts and a smattering of sidewalk-dwellers that is carefully layered upon the canvas, finding an order in the bustling chaos, and setting a street scene that feels like it could be 1950—or today.

Funeral Home (Acrylic on Found Wood | 14.5″ x 7.5″ )

The gallery also showcases a series of smaller works titled “Barry,” which are painted on found wood scraps. Here, Fromm presents slices of city life that center around a cartoon, male figure, allowing her to use her distinctive palette and animation style to explore narrative and pictorial emotion, like in Funeral Home.

Fromm’s works can be seen as the pages of her painted comic-book of San Francisco city life, capturing it’s dizzying array of visual noise, and yet crafting a comforting, nostalgic tone to the urban experience. Onlookers in the gallery can experience the little of joy of recognizing their own slice of life in a familiar neighborhood corner.

111 Minna Gallery, “No Vacancy” Emily Fromm

111 Minna Street | San Francisco, CA 94105

Show runs through Feb 23, 2019