Rhythms and Reveries: Tara Esperanza, Laura Malone, Monika Mayer

Rhythms and Reveries is the work of three Mercury 20 artists celebrating the interconnectedness of the natural world and human consciousness.

Tara Esperanza’s love affair with succulents invites us to relish their fleshy resilience. Her almost hallucinatory use of hyperreal color reveals that life holds more depth when we stop to take a breath, feel with our eyes, and see with our entire being.

Monika Mayer’s sculptures use repetitive forms to echo the rhythms of traditional crafts, evoking a simple, meditative reverie. By working with ordinary familiar materials in unexpected ways, she highlights their potential for reflection and balance through the organic unfolding of intentional handiwork.

Laura Malone’s abstracted figures and spaces flux and flow between the reverent and the irreverent, humor and awe. Her figures emerge from and melt into the natural world – its primordial vastness and undulating specificity. As if to say, “come on in, the water’s fine,” they invite us to surrender to nature’s limitless rhythmicality.

Exhibition Dates: Feb 7 – Mar 8, 2025
Gallery Hours: Fri & Sat, 12–5 pm (or by appointment)
Opening Reception: Feb 8, 3–5 pm
Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: Feb 7 & Mar 7, 5–9 pm

Caption: From left: Tara Esperanza, I See a Ghost, 2022, metal print, 16” x 16”; Laura Malone, Water Sprites, 2024, digital print and acrylic on Duralar, 11.5” x 12”; Monika Mayer, Soft Sculpture #5, 2024, inner tubes, fused plastic and staples, 49” x 20” x 7”; Photos courtesy of the artists.