Art Murmur First Friday at Werkshack

Werkshack is pleased to present “Kummerspeck”, recent Sculpture and Mixed Media work by Bay Area artists Kelly DeFayette and Cybele Gerachis.

Kummerspeck is a German word that translates to “grief bacon” — the weight gained from emotional overeating, or, more broadly, the ways people absorb and deal with discomfort, emotional confusion, and uncertainty.

This show does not illustrate the term as much as it moves through its emotional atmosphere. Across sculpture, painting, and mixed media, the work reflects making sense of creating amidst the pressure to adapt to a world constantly reshaping itself.

It also radiates humor, sarcasm, and material pleasure. The stubborn act of making something by hand while much around you feels out of human scale. There is no substitute for the act of making something – as a way to process, archive, feel, and connect.

The exhibition invites viewers into that shared space between grief and pleasure, vulnerability and spectacle — and asks what kind of meaning can still be built from the fragments around us – the scraps of paper or the bric-a-brac at the thrift store.

Meet the artists during this Oakland Art Murmur First Friday Event!