Emily Shepard: In Flux | Opening Reception

Emily Shepard, “Pouring In,” 2026, 71” x 79”, photo by Sibila Savage

Emily Shepard’s large-scale abstract paintings pull viewers into an immersive, otherworldly space — one of shifting depths, interacting layers, and arched forms that float like portals above restless water. Working on unstretched canvas, she builds richly textured surfaces through gestural mark-making, watery drips, and stitched canvas shapes. Indecipherable loops of script speak to rhythm, breath, and cycles.
Shepard’s work is mirrored by her practice as a year round swimmer in the San Francisco Bay: moving her body through cold water, attuned to tides and currents, releasing into the hypnotic push and pull. Her painting practice and bay swimming share the need for focused attention, awareness of sensation, and internal states. Each artwork, like each swim, is a search for wholeness, presence, and embodied learning.

Bio:
Emily Shepard is a Bay Area painter, born in Boston, Massachusetts. She earned her MFA with distinction from the California College of the Arts where she received the Barclay Simpson Award. She has shown her work locally and nationally, including the Crocker–Kingsley Exhibition at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. Currently she has three pieces on exhibit in “Voices without Boundaries” at the Sasse Museum of Art in Pomona, CA. Shepard is a Kipaipai Fellow and member of the artist-run gallery, Mercury 20 in Oakland, CA. Her work is included in private and corporate collections. Shepard swims year round without a wetsuit in the San Francisco Bay. The practice of cold-water swimming focuses her senses, challenges her will, and informs her art.

Gallery Hours: Friday and Saturday, 12 – 5 pm (and by appointment)
Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: Friday, July 3, 5 – 9 pm
Artists’ Closing Reception and Talk: Saturday, July 25, 3 – 5 pm