Bountiful artistic talent in the Bay Area challenges SFMOMA curators selecting the annual SECA Award winners with a hefty task. Initiated in 1967, the SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art) Art Award pays tribute to Bay Area artists whose unique attributes are established, but whose work has not yet received attention from a major visual art institution. Receiving and reviewing nominations and following a series of studio visits, the curators in 2024 chose Oakland artists Angela Hennessy and Rupy C. Tu, and San Francisco-based Rose D’Amato. The exhibition displaying their artwork is open through May 26, and is curated by Maria Castro, associate curator of painting and sculpture, and Shana Lopes, assistant curator of photography. An exhibition catalogue edited by Castro and Lopes includes texts on the three artists, images of their work, and contributions by D-L Alvarez, Naz Cuguoğlu and Jacqueline Francis. In an interview, Tut says her paintings represent individual “slices” of her story and “this is where I am dots” on her life’s timeline. Moving beyond her background as a public health professional to her identity as a full-time contemporary art-maker during the last 13 years, Tut is becoming comfortable with her role and more truthful as a storyteller.  “According to my upbringing and the culture in India, artists just have to be artists because they are ‘chosen.’ There’s nothing else they will do,” Tut said. “I say art found me. This path I was avoiding by trying to be a public health expert, biologist, doctor, became something I could no longer ignore. “My self-interrogation is now shifting to honoring my role as an artist that extends to being a mother, a brown person, a person emotionally impacted by the world,” she continued. “Accepting this means I have to translate that into intentional acts of responding.” PATH TWIST Oakland’s Rupy C. Tut became a full-time contemporary artist 13 years ago after leaving a career as a public health expert. (Photo by Samantha Tyler Cooper) Tut’s work reflects her lineage’s traditional techniques and subject matter such as landscapes and iconic, ancestral figures. She pursued extended study of calligraphy and traditional Indian painting at the Prince’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts in London. Solo exhibitions at the ICA San Francisco, Jessica Silverman Gallery and Triton Museum of Art, among others, were well-received. Her works are in permanent collections at Crocker Art Museum, the de Young Museum, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the Eiteljorg Museum. Tut’s practice is intensely hands-on; grinding and mixing her own pigments, building layers on hemp paper or canvas. Her outlook is contemporary. The images are rooted in tradition while allowing for imagined landscapes, dream protector characters and shifted genders, and recapturing un-applauded, underrepresented or lost hopes and stories.  “Behind every person, there’s a whole world,” she said. Establishing, amplifying and clarifying her voice drives Tut beyond moments of self-doubt or sheer fatigue from the exhausting physicality of her methodologies. “Every time I finish a painting, I say, ‘Never again,’” Tut said. “I’m aware that if I lose my self-investigation of the truth, what else is there? It’s just color. What I love is that I get to see a mirror of my practice every day. I can’t cheat the process. I’m keeping alive my lineage and honoring women’s resiliency, my immigrant parents’ hard work ethic. I’m establishing my own tradition with contemporary ideas. I’m not pushing Indian painting traditions; it’s me, Rupy, pushing myself forward.” INSTALLATION VIEW Angela Hennessy’s ‘Wake Work,’ 2024, exhibits at SFMOMA. (Photo by Don Ross) In her Oakland studio, Hennessy’s process is equally hands-on, well-researched and intensely investigative. Her sculptures and installations involve washing, wrapping, stitching, knotting and braiding the materials, which often include human or synthetic hair. Her process and the resulting artwork honor ritual and the importance of the spaces in which each piece of art is created and “lives.” Center to it all is connectivity—or lack thereof—between human beings and other living creatures; between people and the planet, time past, present and future; and individual or community lineages, cultures and sacred spaces. Recently, she has focused on loss, post-mortem and living bodies, and awareness around death commemorations and rituals. “The audio poem in the show, titled ‘Grief Spell,’ is a call-and-response poem I created that’s about grief and death,” Hennessy said. “I recorded it with a small group of friends in a West Oakland studio. It’s a spoken statement then echoed, layered, repeated by their voices. For us, making the work was in itself an act of grieving; a necessary process of healing work is giving voice to the things breaking our hearts being witnessed.” Hennessy is intrigued by Western European context that she says is “death phobic.” Despite rituals of public grieving that are acceptable in some North American communities, she said, “Grieving in public is generally seen as something to be embarrassed about, ashamed of. The fear is that it won’t be held, recognized, made sacred. I advocate for creating spaces for grief to be honored. PUBLIC GRIEF Oakland-based artist Angela Hennessy focuses on loss, and awareness around death commemorations and rituals. (Photo by Airyka Rockefeller) “Anxiety around death comes when people rush to fill in the loss with flat, cliché expressions, like, ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’” Hennessy continued. “That focuses on the person hearing the grief, not the person who’s grieving and what they’re feeling.” Instead of “fixing” grief, Hennessy through her work invites people to not sidestep emotional pain or pretend they’re not suffering. Which leads to a question about the inevitable separation she experiences when the artwork goes out into the world.  “I do feel like my work is very much alive,” she said. “I want it to be cared for. Even the synthetic hair is not a completely stable material. It’s not growing, but the work still needs care. I sometimes have concern about knowing someone will take care of it. “Now that I’m farther along in my artistic practice, when I send it out, I’m more ready to let go and trust it will be received, loved and appreciated,” she added. “Only if a work is hanging out in my studio do I sometimes unmake, take apart and remake it in a new configuration.” The storytelling in Tut’s and Hennessy’s art—pieces deeply rooted in past practices and moving through traditional heritage to take risks and open new possibilities—can be recognized in D’Amato’s work. As a second-generation sign-maker, her exquisite, hand-painted, hand-lettered pinstriping is grounded in decorative folk arts. Her work often features text and iconic images drawn from her family’s culture and professional history, and reflects modern sensibilities. Collectively, the three artists’ work speaks in unclouded voices about timeless issues—change, identity, loss, heritage, dreams and hope. Having earned their position and celebrated under the roof of SFMOMA, their art represents ample evidence that contemporary art continues to thrive in the Bay Area.