Gay Outlaw

Gay Outlaw, is a solo exhibition and residency by Bay Area artist Gay Outlaw, in David Ireland’s former home, which is conceived as a living sculpture. The exhibition brings Outlaw’s materially precise, process-driven practice into dialogue with the house’s ongoing transformation.

Outlaw’s body of work encompasses paint, collage, and woodcuts, as well as small, intensively handmade sculpture and large public installations. Her practice is grounded in a sustained investigation of form as it moves across media and scale. Photography is incorporated into her process, as she documents objects of interest and how structures are built.

She works with bronze, glass, painted steel, and wood, as well as cardboard, cast paper, felt, and pastry—a range of materials chosen for how they bend, support, stack, or appear. Durable materials coexist alongside the ephemeral, occupying the same space.

The exhibition also reflects Outlaw’s long relationship with David Ireland and their shared interest in domestic space and comfort food, as well as sculptural language. During her residency, Outlaw engages 500 Capp Street’s archives and collection while developing new, site-responsive work.

Gay Outlaw’s practice embraces transformation as a condition. The exhibition affirms sculpture as something alive—materially grounded, perceptually unstable, and always in the process of becoming.