Sandra Wong Orloff — Champion
2025-09-13 - 2025-10-25 | Manna Gallery, 473 25th St., Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Figurative drawings and watercolor abstractions explore the act of witnessing in a relentless age of information
Manna Gallery presents Champion, a solo exhibition by Oakland-based artist Sandra Wong Orloff, whose graphite, ink, and watercolor works reflect on what it means to witness the world as it unfolds. Responding to cultural and political moments that are often dismissed, distorted, or silenced, Wong Orloff’s art becomes an act of attention and truth-telling—a way of reclaiming focus and offering care to both her subjects and herself. Each figure, drawn from her own photographs or sourced from news media, is rendered with meticulous detail and placed in open space, then paired with abstract watercolor elements that invite ambiguity, tension, and reflection. Through this meditative process, Wong Orloff transforms observation into a deeply human record of resilience, identity, and connection.
September 13 – October 25, 2025
Reception & Artist Talk: Saturday, September 20, 2-4 pm
First Friday: October 3, 5-8 pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays, 12-5 pm & First Fridays, 5-8 pm

PINT SIZE 3: Small Scale Artwork
2025-09-18 12:00 - 2025-11-01 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Transmission Gallery, 770 West Grand Ave., Suite A, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
PINT SIZE 3
September 18 – November 1, 2025
Opening Reception
Saturday, September 20th from 1-4 pm​
Pint Size 3 is our third national call for entries for small scale artworks. Last time we showed work by well over a hundred artists and are looking forward to showing more than 250 pieces this time with work coming in from Arizona to New Jersey, Texas to Tennessee, Oregon to Florida and, of course, California.
Mark your calendar for the Opening Reception, Saturday, September 20th from 1-4 pm. All are welcome so please plan to join us for this expansive exhibition of small scale sculpture, painting, collage, and assemblage works of all kinds – minimal, maximal, thoughtful, inspiring, free spirited and so much fun!
The exhibition includes both 2 and 3D pieces, 7 inches wide x 7 inches deep x 8 inches high or smaller for 3D and 7 inches by 7 inches for the 2D work including bronze, aluminum, ceramic, concrete, glass, cardboard, plaster, resin, potatoes, watercolor, acrylic and oil painting, collage, graphite drawings, photography, relief prints, lithographs and assemblage of all kinds – fur, nails, rhinestones, gum balls and more!
Invited artists: James Aarons, Stela Apostolova, Ash Asaro, Angela Baker, Marsha Balian, Jenny Balisle, Chris Beards, Carol Benioff, Kelley Berg, Christine Blankenship, Douglas Bloch, Rora Blue, Pietro Bonomi, Alexandra Bowes, Joy Broom, Nancy Brown, Wendy Brozic, Cristina Cabrera, Allison Caesar, Kim Cardoso, Ler Chang, Anne Marie Chavarria Boardman, Frank Cole, Jane Corich, Valerie Corvin, Lauren Crasco, Christina Creveling, Mittie Cuetara, Roger Daniells, Phoebe Deutsch, Christy Dunkle, Linda Ellinwood, Edward Eng, Catherine Epstein, Jane Erlandson, Laura Evans, Donna Fenstermaker, John Ferrell, Evelyn Ficarra, Lorrie Fink, Steve Firestone, Lin Fischer, Jane Fisher, Ofra Fisher, Julie Forbush, Rebecca Fox, Dalit Fresco, Taiko Fujimura, Dan Gay, Gi Gi, Sonia Gill, Jess Gilliam, Ray Gonzalez, Kitty Gordon, Debra Greene, Diana Greenleaf, Vicki Gunter, Jenny Hacker, LuluCat Hailouros, Judy Haney, Kristie Hansen, Luke Heimbigner, Christine Herman, Dianne Hoffman, Cye Husain, Scott Idleman, Clint Imboden, Kathryn Jahnke, Elizabeth Janss, Karl Jiang, Molly Jochem, Kyle Johnson, Perry Johnson, Ken Kalman, Rachel Katz, Christopher Keating, Rose Kelly, Betsy Kluga, Michael Kolitsky, Joseph Kosdrosky, Elisabeth Koss, Joseph Kowalczyk, Ines Kramer, Sandra Krause, Diana Krevsky, Julie Kumar, Dave Kwinter, Sophie LaBell, David Larson, Chris LaValley, Cathy Leather, Stephanie Lebaudour, Jerry Leisure, Annaliese Levaggi, Marilyn Levin, Judy Levit, Jon Lew, Suki Liebow, Meghan Littlefield-Whitston, Chang Liu, Jackie Liu, Frank Loftin, Thomas Maloney, Elizabeth Marshall, Felicia Martínez, Doug McCune, Lisa McElroy, Alison McLennan, Kathleen McNutt-Hart, Advay Mengle, Qing Miao, Maggi Miller, Meredith Moles, Jerry Monteith, Lori Murphy, Robert Bagnasco Murray, Audrey Ni, Ketakee Nimavat, Pat OConnor, Ben Ollen, Kathryn Page, Celena Peet, Thea Phillips, Dianne Platner, Barbara Pollak-Lewis, Jimmy Pollock, Sophia Pousson, Sue Puhlhorn, Caron G Rand, Carey Rasmussen, Alabaster Raven, Judy Riola, Bernadette Robertson, Jocelin Robles, Danny Rosales, Jenny Rosen, Jane Russell, Minoo Safai-Amini, Ruth Santee, Clare Schmehl, Tiffany Schmierer, Onna Schwindt, Elizabeth Sher, John Sheridan, Duncan Sherwood-Forbes, Rebecca Silliman, Liz Rundorff Smith, Siana Smith, Dobee Snowber, Mary Southall, Livia Stein, Mona Thornton, Sally Thornton, Paulette Traverso, Austin Turley, Dona Turner, Cynthia Vaicunas, Kerry Vander Meer, Gail Wagner, Catherine Walker, Danielle Giudici Wallis, Lanford Weingrod, Anne Whiteside, Charlene Will, Jia Wilson, Keith Wilson, Linda Wong, Benjamin Xuè, Dave Yoas, Alexander Yoshikawa, Xinyu Yu, and Lucia Znamirowski

100 Years of Creative Visions
2025-09-24 11:00 - 2026-04-26 16:00 | Mills College Art Museum, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, CA, 94613, United States
In celebration of the Mills College Art Museum’s centennial, 100 Years of Creative Visions features an intergenerational and cross-cultural selection of major works from the permanent collection that emphasizes creative communities and the importance of artist friendships. Thematic sections throughout the exhibition highlight the strengths of the collection, such as, ceramics, Modernist Photography, California Impressionism, Mexican Modernism, Printmaking from Dürer to the Expressionists, Asian and Asian American art, and more.

Soonoak Wood ~ California Dreamin’ Series
2025-10-01 12:00 - 2025-10-31 18:00 | The Grand Gallery, 560 2nd Street, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
The Grand Gallery will present the new works of Bay Area artist, Soonoak Wood, October 1, – October 31, 2025

Gomez was Here; Inspired by the Writing on the Walls
2025-10-03 18:00 - 2025-11-16 15:00 | Oakland Photo Workshop, 312 8th St, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Growing up in the Mission District of San Francisco, ‘Gomez was here’ was the first graffiti tag that caught my attention. ‘Gomez’ was everywhere – in between the buildings and walls of the Mission, on MUNI, at Juvenile Hall, carved into benches. This tag and practice have influenced my multi-disciplinary practice of collecting stories of the streets and archiving them through experimental film, live cinema, photography, collage, and assemblage.
When I was asked to curate this show, it was an opportunity for me to put photography in conversation with a diversity of visual experiences of the streets and other moments that might not always be exhibited together (or in strictly photographic spaces).
Whether it is through archiving their first rolls of shooting film, their walking meditation as they move through the city, their young queer moments, or their unique perspective on passengers on a MUNI journey – the artists in this show are part of the visual Rolodex in my mind.
This exhibition features the work of Hernán Martinez, Julian Marin, Kari Orvik, Leena Joshi, and Tatiana Rivas.

Leah Korican: These Truths
2025-10-10 12:00 - 2025-11-15 17:00 | Mercury 20 Gallery, 475 25th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
The United States Government has removed over 350 words from official websites, according to PEN America. Words that reflect truths about diversity, the environment, health, immigration, LGBTQ+ identity, racism, and women’s issues, among others that have been systematically deleted as a tactic for creating fear, and in an attempt to make the ideas and people behind these words vanish. These Truths is a meditation on holding onto values and beliefs in the face of censorship. In a series of works on paper, including a window installation, Korican layers text, cut paper, and paint, to explore and combat the current erasure of the truths we hold. In other cut paper pieces, Korican uses the tarot image of “The Hanged Man” to express the feeling of free fall she has been experiencing since the 2024 election.
Bio:
Leah Korican is a visual artist and writer based in Oakland, California. Korican has a BA from UC Berkeley and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work has been exhibited nationally, including the Richmond Art Center, Bedford Gallery, and Triton Museum. Her public art commissions include a large-scale site-specific cut-out for the Nashville International Airport and permanent artworks for Kehilla Community Synagogue and Rumsey Engineers in Oakland. Her writing has been published in literary magazines and anthologies. She is currently writing a memoir about growing up on a commune in the backwoods of Oregon.
Gallery Hours: Friday and Saturday, 12 – 5 pm (and by appointment)
Oakland Style Week Tour: Saturday, October 11, 11:30- 12 pm
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 18, 3 – 5 pm
﻿Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: Friday, November 7, 5 – 9 pm
Artists’ Talk: Saturday, November 15, 2 – 3:30 pm
Image: Leah Korican, “The Hanged One 2″, 65” x 60” x 3”, 2025, acrylic and cutouts on Tyvek, Photo courtesy of the artist

Laura Malone: The Shimmering Self
2025-10-10 12:00 - 2025-11-15 17:00 | Mercury 20 Gallery, 475 25th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Laura Malone’s exhibition of figurative oil paintings, The Shimmering Self, continues her ongoing exploration of embodied female subjectivity. Through the nuances of her subjects’ body language, as well as her own gestures as she moves paint across a surface, Malone investigates the feminine body and its connection to self and surroundings. Spanning half a decade, these mostly large-scale works traverse a wide range between representation and abstraction, often within a single piece. Moments of ferocious gesture slow to delicate precision, inviting the viewer into a rhythmic journey of brush and body. This sense of continuous flux expresses flowing states of consciousness and is the essence of her point of view. As her subjects’ inner experiences radiate into the environment, they are simultaneously permeated by their surroundings. In this way she invites viewers into an evolving conversation between inner and outer worlds, asking, what really is a self?
Bio:
Born into a family of artists and academics, Laura Malone grew up in the thorny heat of Tucson, Arizona. The greys of her surroundings and the measured reserve of her intellectual household drove her to create work that is intimate and lush. This melding of the arid emotional climate of her youth with the parched desert environment became an ongoing investigation into the porosity between self and world. Her parallel career as a somatic therapist informs the core of her artistic practice, where paintings translate ineffable, felt states into form. Malone lives and works in the wooded hills of Oakland. Her paintings have been exhibited across the U.S. Honors include a Sheridan Prize for Art, acceptance into The Crocker Kingsley Art Competition, 2022 and inclusion in Disrupted Realism, curated by John Seed. Her work has been featured in publications including the East Bay Times, 48 Hills Magazine, and Artsy Shark. She is represented by Studio Shop Gallery in Burlingame and exhibits regularly with Mercury 20 Gallery.
Gallery Hours: Friday and Saturday, 12 – 5 pm (and by appointment)
Oakland Style Week Tour: Saturday, October 11, 11:30- 12 pm
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 18, 3 – 5 pm
﻿Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: Friday, November 7, 5 – 9 pm
Artists’ Talk: Saturday, November 15, 2 – 3:30 pm
Image: Laura Malone, “Friends,” 2025, acrylic and oil on canvas, 38″ x 54″, photo courtesy of the artist

Dalar Alahverdi, Andrea Brewster, Charlie Milgrim: Assemblies of Absence
2025-10-10 12:00 - 2025-11-15 17:00 | Mercury 20 Gallery, 475 25th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
“Assemblies of Absence” unites three artists whose work explores presence, absence, and what is often overlooked. Charlie Milgrim constructs oversized nests from discarded materials that ironically propose how birds and wildlife repurpose former items of utility from our built environments. Andrea Brewster’s botanical-inspired works explore beauty, transience, and transformation, capturing the fleeting vibrancy of life while highlighting the delicate balance between fragility and resilience. Brewster’s practice bridges natural and technological worlds, suggesting that imagination and innovation are crucial to the future of life on Earth. Dalar Alahverdi’s work addresses the erasure of personal and collective trauma, using interactive media to reveal stories that history often neglects, inviting viewers to actively witness and remember what might otherwise remain invisible. Collectively, these works create an “assembly of absences,” asking us to notice the unseen, reconsider overlooked narratives, and confront the delicate, transient, and often invisible threads shaping our world.
Gallery Hours: Friday and Saturday, 12 – 5 pm (and by appointment)
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 18, 3 – 5 pm
﻿Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: Friday, November 7, 5 – 9 pm

Jill McLennan: Ancestral Pathways
2025-10-10 12:00 - 2025-11-15 17:00 | Mercury 20 Gallery, 475 25th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Jill McLennan’s prints and poems depict humans and animals moving along ancestral pathways of migration. McLennan created this series while working as an Artist in Residence at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley. She printed her linoleum block images with haiku poems using the letterpress technique and a Vanderhoop Press. The series began with the story of a man who had escaped from Yemen to Africa on a rowboat with a cow. Inspired by her friend, Collin, and his song, Every Step you Take is a Migration, she began to seek out other migration stories. She discovered animal migrations that have been altered by humans due to habitat destruction, such as giraffes being transported by truck. She read stories of the people risking their lives to travel across borders seeking new homes. When the Klamath river dams were taken down and salmon began to swim up the river again, she carved the story of the Salmon People. “I am processing the shadows we have cast on our beloved natural world and sharing the stories of those who wander searching for light.”
Bio:
Jill McLennan creates paintings and prints of her surroundings. Her recent work is a series of linoleum block prints with poems, telling stories of migration and climate change from around the world, printed during her residency at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California. She has been an active member of Mercury 20 Gallery for over 17 years. She is a founding member of her neighborhood organization, Jingletown Arts, Business + Community (JABC), working on various projects from East Bay Open Studios to neighborhood beautification projects. McLennan completed two public art projects — Jingletown Birds at 401 Derby and Emeryville Perspectives at 65th and Christie Streets. Both are cut steel fences depicting the local environment, shoreline, and birds, designed by McLennan and executed by local fabricators. As an artist and teacher, she is deeply invested in protecting her environment, inspiring youth and spreading hope and joy into the world.
Gallery Hours: Friday and Saturday, 12 – 5 pm (and by appointment)
Oakland Style Week Tour: Saturday, October 11, 11:30- 12 pm
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 18, 3 – 5 pm
Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: Friday, November 7, 5 – 9 pm
Artists’ Talk: Saturday, November 15, 2 – 3:30 pm
Image: Jill McLennan, “Spring Salmon,” 18″ x 11″, 2025 linoleum block print with letter press poem, photo courtesy of the artist

FALL MULTI-ARTIST SHOW
2025-10-22 10:00 - 2025-11-29 18:00 | Art@Archer, 431 13th Street, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
For our final exhibition of this year, we bring together four local artists whose varied styles and mediums are sure to catch your eye. There’s wool felting, pointillism, pencil, watercolor, acrylic on canvas and wood-burning. The artists who bring you this wonderful work are: Wally Fields, Dalit Fresco, Christie Langley and Murray Nelson. Don’t miss it.

GlitchesAreLikeWildAnimalsInLatentSpace!-BOVINE Karin + Shane Denson
2025-10-30 08:00 - 17:00, 2025-10-30 12:00 - 2025-12-06 17:00 | Gearbox Gallery, 770 West Grand Avenue, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
GlitchesAreLikeWildAnimalsInLatentSpace!—BOVINE
Karin + Shane Denson
A Special Installation in the Inner Room Gallery
Running concurrently with Material Dialogues: Danny Rosales &
Jules Campbell.
Dates: October 30 – December 6
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 1, 1-4pm
Artists’ Talk: Saturday, December 6 at 2pm (with Danny Rosales and Jules Campbell
as well)
GearBox Gallery is pleased to present this year’s winning Inner Room Call for
Entries proposal, GlitchesAreLikeWildAnimalsInLatentSpace!—BOVINE by
Karen and Shane Denson.
Inspired in equal parts by glitch-art vernaculars, the chronophotography of
Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey, the cut-up methods of Brion
Gysin and William Burroughs, and generative practices from Oulipo to Brian Eno
and beyond, our ongoing series GlitchesAreLikeWildAnimalsInLatentSpace!
stages an encounter between human imagination and automated image-making.
We begin by training AI models on a set of Karin’s glitch paintings, which are
produced by subjecting wildlife videos (all shot by Karin) to aleatoric
“databending” processes. The digital videos break and reveal their underlying
protocols and infrastructures in the form of glitches and compression artifacts.
Selected images are then painted by hand in acrylic on canvas. Fed back into the
machine, deep learning models are prompted to generate new images in the
style of Karin’s glitch paintings. But since contemporary (“diffusion”-based) AI
models are effectively trained to eliminate “noise” and glitches, we are pushing
them against their intended purpose—and the results are accordingly
unpredictable.
Having obtained a new image, Karin translates it back onto canvas. In this case,
we are working with a cow that the AI surprisingly, and humorously, generated in
response to the prompt “glitches are like wild animals.” Shane then takes an
image of the new painting as the “seed” for an AI-generated video. Produced in
short bursts of animation and strung together, the video is then subjected to the
original glitch processes that are responsible for its training data.
Because the video is broken, it plays differently in different software. When the
various versions are combined, they fall out of phase with one another, producing
a ghostly effect. The soundtrack is also produced through generative methods by
computationally (mis)interpreting a jpeg of the original painting as an audio file.
Custom software cuts and combines the video in real time and draws on Shane’s
book Discorrelated Images to generate novel sentences.
Finally, the generative video serves as a kind of latent space for the production of
new painted images. In this iteration of the project, Karin has chosen five frames
from the video and painted a slice of each one as a panel of a pentaptych, thus
capturing the video’s temporal progression in a spatial form that is equal parts
digital chrono(post)photography, automated cutup, and human resistance to
automation.
Through this recursive and collaborative process, which shuttles repeatedly
between the digital and the physical, the invisible and the perceptible, we hope to
open for viewers a space of glitchy imagination, if not insight, into the opaque
black-boxed operations of the algorithmic media that are rapidly reshaping our
visual cultures and environments.
About the Artists
Karin Denson is a Bay Area artist working with paint, photography, video, and
collage. Shane Denson teaches media theory and aesthetics at Stanford’s
Department of Art & Art History. In their collaborative work, they travel back and
forth between theory and practice, implementing generative and aleatoric
principles across the media of pigment and pixel, canvas and concept, machinic
and manual production.
Karin Denson: In my paintings, collages, and photography, I explore the fragile
intersections of nature and technology. Drawing inspiration from digital glitches
and broken ecosystems, my work engages with visual metaphors for the
disruptions and imbalances shaping our world today. Glitch aesthetics—those
accidental or aleatoric artifacts of malfunction—become a lens through which to
examine ecological collapse, transformation, and the possibility of renewal.
My work emerges from a deep love of the natural world and a sustained curiosity
about digital processes, especially their wild, unpredictable outcomes. Through
abstract forms and layered imagery, I aim to express concern for endangered
environments while also revealing their unexpected beauty and resilience. Some
species, like the California Brown Pelican, have been pushed to the brink of
extinction more than once, only to return through ecotechnical interventions.
Others are adapting in real time, expanding into human-altered habitats and
reconfiguring old boundaries.
I hope to make these entanglements—between species, systems, and
technologies—visible in the fleeting, fragile passage of time. My work asks
viewers to sit with malfunction, not as error, but as a mode of attention to the
interdependence and precarity that characterize life in the Anthropocene.
Shane Denson is Professor of Film and Media Studies and, by Courtesy, of
German Studies and of Communication at Stanford University, where he also
serves as Director of the PhD Program in Modern Thought & Literature. His
research interests span a variety of media and historical periods, including
phenomenological and media-philosophical approaches to media arts, film,
digital media, and serialized popular forms. He collaborates with Karin Denson
on generative media art projects and is a member, along with Brett Amory and
Karin Denson, of the non/phenomenal collective. He is the author of four books:
Bride of Frankenstein [film|minutes] (Lever Press, 2025), Post-Cinematic Bodies
(meson press, 2023), Discorrelated Images (Duke University Press, 2020) and
Postnaturalism: Frankenstein, Film, and the Anthropotechnical Interface
(Transcript-Verlag, 2014). See shanedenson.com for more information.
All are welcome to join us for the Opening Reception celebrating a decade of presenting
contemporary art in Oakland. Stop in anytime Saturday, November 1, 1-4pm to greet
the artists and enjoy the light refreshments. Free street parking in the nearby
neighborhood.
770 West Grand Ave, Oakland, CA 94612
Contact: info@gearboxgallery.com
Homepage

(510) 271-0822
Gallery Hours: Thursdays-Saturdays, 12-5 pm

Wrapped Up
2025-11-01 - 2025-12-13 | Manna Gallery, 473 25th St., Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Manna Gallery is pleased to present Wrapped Up, a celebratory end-of-year group exhibition featuring small works by nine talented Bay Area artists: Wayne Armstrong, Rita Benton, Patrick Crotty, Gina Gaiser, Julia Marchand, Olivia Meurk, Carole Moore, Halloran Parry & Sandra Wong Orloff. The show includes an engaging mix of drawings, paintings, photography, and wood inlay, each piece thoughtfully crafted and reasonably priced—perfect for collectors and gift-givers alike.
November 1 – December 13, 2025
Artists’ Reception: Saturday, November 15, 2-4 pm
25th St Galleries Holiday Party: Saturday, December 13, 2-5 pm
First Fridays: November 7 & December 5, 5-8 pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays, 12-5 pm & First Fridays, 5-8 pm

Hot Rods, Art and Rock ‘N Roll by Stanley Mouse
2025-11-01 12:00 - 2025-11-30 17:00 | The Grand Gallery, 560 2nd Street, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Old and new works by legendary artist Stanley Mouse at The Grand Gallery, 560 2nd Street, Oakland.
Opening reception with Stanley Mouse, Saturday, November 1st. 1-5pm Show continues through November 30th

First Friday Reception for "Fall Multi-Artist Show"
2025-11-07 18:00 - 21:00 | Art@Archer, 431 13th Street, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Join us for our last First Friday reception of the year. Our four Bay Area artists bring you their varied styles and mediums — wool felting, pointillism, abstract acrylic on canvas, pencil drawing, watercolor, and wood burning. Come share the experience with us.
Wally Fields
Dalit Fresco
Christie Langley
Murray Nelson
Refreshments will be served.

Feast: L. Song Wu Solo Exhibition Opening
2025-11-08 15:00 - 17:00 | Johansson Projects, 2300 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Feast is structured like an Italian full-course meal, unfolding in stages that explore the eroticism, performance, and violence behind acts of eating and consumption. Each painting resembles a thumbnail for a mukbang video, marked by surreal excess, seductive abundance, and intimate spectacle. Food is arranged with deliberate absurdity, pulled from internet virality, childhood memory, and embodied fantasy, reflecting L. Song Wu’s cross-cultural experiences across the U.S., China, and Italy, three places with deeply distinct but overlapping food traditions, aesthetics, and anxieties.
Feast will be on view at Johansson Projects from November 7 – January 3, 2026 with an opening reception and artist talk on November 8, from 3-5pm.

Not Heavy: Pacific Rim Sculptors
2025-11-14 12:00 - 2026-01-03 17:00 | Transmission Gallery, 770 West Grand Ave., Suite A, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Transmission Gallery is pleased to announce NOT HEAVY, an exploration of lightness celebrating sculpture that uplifts the spirit or defies gravity in form or feeling, curated by Transmission Gallery Owner/Director, Ruth Santee, from work submitted by members of Pacific Rim Sculptors.
Artists selected include George-Ann Bowers, Walter Bruszewski, Cheryl Coon, Dale Eastman, Jane Grimm, Karl X. Hauser, Terry Kreiter, Elizabeth Medrano, Margaret Michel, Jann Nunn, Mary Curtis Ratcliff, Lucy Snow, Kline Swonger, Ruth Tabancay, Kim Thoman, and Lynne Todaro.
Physically, Not Heavy may refer to works that are literally lightweight: airy constructions, suspended forms, delicate materials, or pieces that create the illusion of lightness despite their scale. Conceptually, the theme invites a break from the solemn or burdensome, instead embracing work that is buoyant, playful, warm, whimsical, uplifting, or even humorous. At Transmission Gallery plushies, plastic, steel wood, wire and clay showcase a surprising range of sculptural interpretations of weight, balance, and buoyancy. Heavyweight whimsy, seriously light-weight work, and unexpected materials expand on the concept.
Pacific Rim Sculptors (PRS) is a Chapter of the International Sculpture Center (publisher of Sculpture magazine). Founded on the beliefs that cultural vitality and artistic diversity contribute to a healthy society, the organization aims to increase public awareness of sculpture by promoting public and private exhibits, and through education and outreach programs.

Art for the Winter Solstice – Connecting in Community
2025-11-21 12:00 - 2025-12-20 17:00 | Mercury 20 Gallery, 475 25th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
This Winter Solstice, the Mercury 20 community comes together for the Art of the Winter Solstice – an exhibition that celebrates connection, belonging and shared creativity. In a time when these values feel especially vital, artist members present new work that reflects both individual perspectives and collective experience.
Diverse in form yet unified in spirit, the exhibition highlights the power of art to bring light, warmth, and reflection to the season.
List of Participating Artists:
Dalar Alahverdi, Andrea Brewster, Jessica Cadkin, Gustave Carlson, Tara Esperanza, Andrea Guskin, Patricia Guthrie, Leah Korican, Sara Lisch, Laura Malone, Alec Marin, Monika Mayer, Jill McLennan, Charlie Milgrim, Christine Meuris, Mary Curtis Ratcliff, Pat O’Connor, KC Rosenberg, Caity Salamanca, Emily Shepard, Elizabeth Sher, Abby Zhang
Also, unwrap the joy of artistic expression with The Back Room Gallery exhibit, LIMITED, a gathering of works by gallery artists all 8″ x 8″ in a variety of media.
NOVEMBER 21, 2025 – DECEMBER 20, 2025
Artists’ Reception: Saturday, December 13, 3 – 5 pm
Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: December 5, 5 – 9 pm
Open Friday and Saturday: 12 – 5 or by appointment
(e-mail mercurytwenty@gmail.com or text 510-918-9093)
Images: Clockwise from upper left Jill McLennan, Leah Korican, Dalar Alaverdi, Pat O’Connor, Alec Marin, Elizabeth Sher, Mary Curtis Ratcliff
(photos courtesy of the artists)

O V E R / E X P O S E D - Art Exhibition
2025-11-21 17:00 - 20:00 | ARTogether Center, 1200 Harrison Street, Oakland, 94612, United States
A group show by the 2025 ARTogether Artists in Residence.
What parts of ourselves do we keep safe from the hostility aimed at our communities? How do we share our art when we aren’t fully seen to begin with? How can we redirect the gaze to expose the oppressive systems themselves? When do we decide to reveal the true nature of our lives despite all this?
As immigrants, diasporic, queer, nonbinary, Black, mixed-race artists, femmes, parents, and healers, we are searching for a balance between what we choose to expose of ourselves and being overexposed to the greed and hatred around us. Our work takes up space and asks us to be vulnerable while we insist on the safety and dignity of our loved ones and neighbors.
Our works include mixed media, painting, sculpture, animation, installations, prints, and performance that move between disclosure and opacity. Some fragments are offered plainly, others remain guarded, resisting the demand to translate or explain. Here, exposure is not a spectacle, but a dialogue.
Exhibition Dates
September 26 – November 23, 2025
Opening Reception
Friday, September 26, 5 – 8 PM
Artists Talk
Friday, October 17th, 5 – 8pm
Closing Reception & Performance
Friday, November 21st, 5 – 8pm
Gallery Hours
Fridays and Saturdays, 4 – 7 PM
Sundays, 11 – 5 PM
This event is free and open to the public!
ARTogether Center
1200 Harrison Street
Downtown Oakland
Paid street parking onsite
Accessible by 12th street BART

O V E R / E X P O S E D - Art Exhibition Closing Reception
2025-11-21 17:00 - 20:00 | ARTogether Center, 1200 Harrison Street, Oakland, 94612, United States
a group show by the 2025 ARTogether Artists in Residence
What parts of ourselves do we keep safe from the hostility aimed at our communities? How do we share our art when we aren’t fully seen to begin with? How can we redirect the gaze to expose the oppressive systems themselves? When do we decide to reveal the true nature of our lives despite all this?
As immigrants, diasporic, queer, nonbinary, Black, mixed-race artists, femmes, parents, and healers, we are searching for a balance between what we choose to expose of ourselves and being overexposed to the greed and hatred around us. Our work takes up space and asks us to be vulnerable while we insist on the safety and dignity of our loved ones and neighbors.
Our works include mixed media, painting, sculpture, animation, installations, prints, and performance that move between disclosure and opacity. Some fragments are offered plainly, others remain guarded, resisting the demand to translate or explain. Here, exposure is not a spectacle, but a dialogue.

DIPTYCHS; 2025 EBPCO Members' Exhibition
2025-12-05 - 2026-01-25 | Oakland Photo Workshop, 312 8th St, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
EBPCO’s annual member exhibition challenges photographers from all around the Bay Area to explore a single topic or theme. This year the challenge is DIPTYCHS, where two images placed side by side can create an unexpected resonance and deeper meaning beyond the individual images. Curated by John Park, formerly of Underdog Film Lab, this exhibition features thirty seven local photographers as they take on the mysterious power of diptychs, revealing a broad range of human experience and emotion.

25th St Galleries Holiday Party - Wrapped Up
2025-12-13 14:00 - 17:00 | Manna Gallery, 473 25th St., Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Join us for a celebratory end-of-year holiday party on 25th St! This is the last day to see Wrapped Up, a group exhibition by nine Bay Area artists: Wayne Armstrong, Rita Benton, Patrick Crotty, Gina Gaiser, Julia Marchand, Olivia Meurk, Carole Moore, Halloran Parry & Sandra Wong Orloff. We hope you can come and meet the artists.
November 1 – December 13, 2025
25th St Galleries Holiday Party: Saturday, December 13, 2-5 pm
Gallery Hours: Saturday, 12-5 pm

THE ART OF WALLY FIELDS
2025-12-17 08:00 - 2026-02-28 17:00 | Art@Archer, 431 13th Street, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
The art currently on display at Art@Archer is the work of Wally Fields – a good friend, and an interesting and truly unique individual. His art was inspired by the things he loved – science fiction, mid-century modern architecture and design, and modern art (particularly that of a psychedelic bent).
Wally died on November 2, 2025. His final wish to us was that we find homes for his artwork.
Wally’s art is available for sale for a donation to one or more of the following organizations:
American Cancer Society
American Heart Association
Chabot Science Center
East Bay SPCA
The amount of the donation is totally up to you.

MAPPING TIME: A Juried Group Exhibition
2026-01-09 12:00 - 2026-02-07 17:00 | Mercury 20 Gallery, 475 25th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Left: Linda MacDonald, “Revelation”, 2022, Oil on Canvas, 64 in. x 48 in. x 2 in. (Photo courtesy of the artist) Right: Kim Smith, “Village”, 2025, Collage & Ink on Paper, 26.5 in. x 24 in. x 1.25 in. (Photo courtesy of Tony Molatore)
Mapping Time shows artists who approach time as a living material, something that accumulates, decays, heals, and transforms. In this exhibition, time is marked through the body, through ritual, through the slow processes of making, and through the traces we leave behind. The 41 works chosen from over 600 entries, map the rhythms of aging, grief, regeneration, and ecological change, revealing how memory, matter, and attention connect. Across diverse mediums, time becomes tangible, layered through repetition, captured in the traces left behind, and illuminated in cycles of loss and renewal.
Many of the artists in Mapping Time explore the body as an archive, mapping lived experience through physical traces, marks of illness, healing, vulnerability, and endurance. Mapping Time invites viewers to slow down, to witness how acts of marking, remembering, and remaking give shape to our memories in time, reminding us that our stories unfold within larger cycles of transformation.
Minoosh Zomorodinia is an Iranian-born interdisciplinary artist, educator, and curator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work explores the complex relationships between humans, nature, and technology. Through psychogeography and daily rituals, she documents time and movement across landscapes to challenge colonial histories, redefine borders, and highlight ecological interconnectedness. Zomorodinia has received numerous awards and residencies, including the YBCA 100, Lucas Artists Fellowship, Andy Warhol Foundation, Kala Media Fellowship Award, Headlands Center for the Arts, Djerassi Residency, Recology Artist Residency, Alternative Exposure Award, and California Arts Council grants. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues such as the Asian Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco Arts Commission, Berkeley Art Center, Pori Art Museum (Finland), and Nevada Museum of Art. It has been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, Hyperallergic, KQED, and SFWeekly. She holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MA and BA from Azad University in Tehran.
The artist awarded the solo exhibition in the Back Room Gallery will be announced at the Opening Reception.
Participating Artists:
﻿Adrienne Defendi, Alieh Rezaei, Andy Nguyen, Caleb Wheeler, Camille Schneider, Charlie Levin, Daniel Southard, David Ruth, Drew Klausner, Elaine Nguyen, Jean Cacicedo Leach, Joanna Ruckman, Judit Navratil, Katherine Lee, Kathy deRosas, Katya McCulloch, Kim Smith, Kimberlee Koym-Murteira, Leyla Rzayeva, Linda MacDonald, Luka Vergoz, M. Seishin Cádiz, ﻿Margaret E. Murray, Mark Brest van Kempen, Marsha Balian, Max Del Bosque, Mela Marsh, Michelle Lin, Michelle Mansour, Namrata Bhatter, Perry Meigs, Quinn Keck, Rainey Straus, Ruth Tabancay, Sarah Klein, Scott Idleman, Shelley Gardner, Sonja Lee, Syslee Rawlinson, Victoria Heilweil, Yvonne Cavanagh
Gallery Hours: Fri & Sat, 12–5 pm (or by appointment)
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 10, 3 – 5 pm
Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: February 6, 5 – 9 pm

ON MATERIAL GROUND – A Group Show by Andrea Guskin, Monika Mayer, Caity Salamanca
2026-01-09 12:00 - 2026-02-07 17:00 | Mercury 20 Gallery, 475 25th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
From left: Monika Mayer, Soft Sculpture #11, 2025, Inner tubes and zip ties, 33” x 14” x 4”, Caity Salamanca, Untitled, Collage Landscape, 2025, mixed media on canvas mounted on board, 8”x 8”, Andrea Guskin, Blue Roots, 2025, Cyanotype on cotton, 8.5” x 11” (Photos courtesy of the artists)
On Material Ground brings together three Mercury 20 artists whose practices are rooted in the exploration of materials, form, and process, which serves as the foundation from which concepts and ideas emerge.
Andrea Guskin’s practice moves across the disciplines of photography, sculpture, and painting to create objects, images, and spaces where the familiar converses with the existential. Through layering, ripping, and transforming ordinary materials–spices, foil, thread, wool– her work explores ancestry, memory, and our methods for seeking knowledge.
Monika Mayer’s practice is rooted in an ongoing dialogue of working with everyday materials like inner tubes, canvas, paint, and found objects. Guided by an intuitive, process-driven approach, she lets new forms surface organically. Through play and transformation, her work uncovers the quiet rhythms and unexpected possibilities within the familiar.
Caity Salamanca embraces experimentation, slicing apart large repurposed canvases to create intimate landscapes. Guided by the willingness to take risks and the liberating act of cutting into older work, she opens new creative pathways. Through this transformative process, Salamanca uncovers a series of landscapes that emerge as a surprising, unexpected discovery.
Gallery Hours: Fri & Sat, 12–5 pm (or by appointment)
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 10, 3 – 5 pm
Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: February 6, 5 – 9 pm

Vessel, an exploration in clay of form, ritual and story
2026-01-15 12:00 - 2026-02-28 17:00 | Transmission Gallery, 770 West Grand Ave., Suite A, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Artist’s Reception January 17 from 1-4 pm
Transmission Gallery is pleased to present Vessel: An exploration in clay of form, ritual and story, curated by Suzanne M. Long, on view from January 15 – February 28, 2026.
Drawing on her deep roots in the Bay Area ceramics community, Suzanne M. Long brings together a diverse range of ceramic works that interpret the concept of the “vessel” in expansive and unexpected ways—beyond function, into the realms of ritual, narrative, and abstract form. Included in the exhibition are works by James Aarons, Susana Arias, Michelle Gregor, Margaret Keelan, Mattie Leeds, Peggy Loudon, Kris Marubayashi, Lisa Reinertson, Claudia Tarantino, and Laura Van Duren. Through this collection, viewers are invited to consider how vessels can carry not only physical contents, but also cultural meaning, memory, and personal expression.
Vessel noun.
1a: A craft for traveling on water, a watercraft bigger than a rowboat; a ship or boat. An airship.
b: A hollow or concave utensil, a container (such as a cask, bottle, kettle, cup, or bowl) for holding something. A cup, bowl, pitcher, or vase, used for holding liquids or other contents.
c: A human that serves as a receptacle for a spiritual entity to manifest, acting as a spokesperson for that deity. A person into whom some quality (such as grace) is infused.
d: A vessel is a hollow tube or canal that circulates body fluids, most commonly referring to blood vessels (arteries, veins, and capillaries) that transport blood, oxygen, and nutrients throughout the body and remove waste. The term can also refer to other tubular structures that transport fluids, such as the xylem vessels in plants that carry water.
Vessel as Metaphor.
The essential vessel, devised in all cultures to antiquity, is the metaphorical container of all that has been and will be. For early cultures the sky was vessel, containing creation spirits and the departed; earth was mother vessel nestling, chiding and providing.
Images: Peggy Loudon, Vessels, up to 15”, Lisa Reinertson, Sentient beings, 74“ x 22” x 22“, Laura Van Duren, Rendering, 20” x 32” x 6”

Sin Contar Cincuenta: Miguel Arzabe Solo Show
2026-01-17 13:00 - 2026-03-21 17:00 | Johansson Projects, 2300 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Johansson Projects is pleased to announce Sin Contar Cincuenta, the third solo exhibition by Oakland-based artist Miguel Arzabe with the gallery. Arriving at a moment of heightened social and cultural reckoning, the exhibition features a dynamic body of new weavings that reflect not only a rich “pluriverse” of influences–interpolated ways of being and expression that span the artist’s personal life, Bolivian heritage, and art historical precedent–but also the urgent need to honor and defend cultural plurality in today’s world.
Sin Contar Cincuenta runs from January 17 – March 21, 2026 with an opening reception and artist talk on January 17, from 3-5pm.
For all inquiries, contact Johansson Projects at 510-444-9140 or info@johanssonprojects.com
