House / Hold
2025-12-11 12:00 - 2026-01-17 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Gearbox Gallery, 770 West Grand Avenue, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
GearBox Gallery
House / Hold
Featuring artists: Laura Van Duren and Mittie Cuetara
Dates: December 11, 2025- January 17, 2026
Reception: Saturday, December 13, 1-4 pm
Artist’ Talk: Saturday, January 10, 2pm
GearBox Gallery is pleased to present House/Hold, featuring GearBox Gallery artist
Mittie Cuetara and guest artist Laura Van Duren.
Laura Van Duren and Mittie Cuetara share a sensitivity to how architecture informs our human experience. Laura’s sculptures work through the physicality of form—playful, visceral structures that illuminate the body’s influence on the mind, embracing a deeply corporeal sensibility. Mittie’s paintings, by contrast, explore psychological space through slightly abstracted interior scenes, where domestic tension gathers in shadows,
thresholds, and doorways. While Laura builds outward from the tangible presence of
bodies, Mittie draws viewers inward to the charged quiet of domestic environments.
Cuetara’s work begins inside- slightly skewed dreamlike interiors act as metaphors for the body, exploring the tension, comfort, resistance, and pull of her shifting relationship to domesticity.
Cuetara is drawn to the friction between independence and belonging, ambition and
home. The house becomes a shell and an identity—a container for contradictory desires.
The interiors she paints aren’t pristine; their meaning comes from their histories. Rooms bear the imprint of lives lived, and doorways recur as thresholds of change, marking our hesitation before the unfamiliar.
House/Hold reflects this pause—the moment before transformation. Through these
spaces, she explores the house as an extension of the self: a site of memory, conflict,
vulnerability, and possibility.
In House/Hold, Van Duren navigates the complexities of support systems—those that
can feel uprooted and unsteady, even as they are built back up through collective
persistence. Through chairs and sculptural forms, the work examines the interwoven
issues of housing instability, community support, and resilience amid our shifting political reality.
Swollen ceramic pieces stride forward, precariously balanced on wheels, nozzles, and cobbled-together chairs, illustrating a narrative of collective effort and adaptive repair.
This pieced-together community becomes both vulnerable and resilient, emphasizing
that real stability and shelter are created not alone, but through interconnected acts of
care, ingenuity, and shared endurance. The installation considers how support is
made—and remade—together.
About the Artists:
Mittie Cuetara grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As the daughter of an architect, she’s always been drawn to the particular interiors and strange paths that humans create for themselves. Graduating from the Boston Museum school, she moved to the Bay Area, where she wrote and illustrated several children’s books, then spent several years teaching art. Since receiving her MFA in 2022 from Mills college, she has been showing her acrylic paintings and sculptural work at shows around the Bay Area. She joined Gearbox Gallery in 2024.
Laura Van Duren is an interdisciplinary artist based in Oakland, California, recognized for her innovative approach to ceramics, and mixed-media sculpture. Her practice often
merges drawing, ceramics, glycerin soap, and recycled materials, reflecting a
commitment to experimentation and abstraction. She works with the Peter Voulkos
family helping to manage the archival aspect of his collection which has had a profound influence on her creative process.
Van Duren’s work has been exhibited at major institutions across the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Crocker Museum (as part of the feminist exhibition Making Moves), Sonoma Museum of Art, Southern Exposure, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, and Berkeley Art Center. She is dedicated to arts education, teaching ceramics and sculpture as an adjunct professor at several community colleges. Her achievements in the field include residencies, such as the Open Studio residency at Haystack in Maine (2023) and a 2025 residency at Dream Farm Commons Gallery in Oakland. Notably, her work has been acquired by The Crocker Art Museum.
Van Duren holds a BFA in drawing from Carnegie Mellon University and she completed her MFA in sculpture at San Francisco State University in 2017.
GearBox Gallery’s Opening Reception for Mittie Cuetara and Laura Van Duren’s
House/Hold will be Saturday, December 13th, 1-4pm All are welcome.
About Gearbox Gallery:
GearBox Gallery is an artist-run contemporary art gallery dedicated to showcasing the work of its members and a broad range of regional contemporary guest artists, fostering community and education through intellectual and cultural exchange focused on the visual arts. We are located at 770 West Grand Avenue in Oakland, California.

Opening Reception – MAPPING TIME: A Juried Group Exhibition
2026-01-10 15:00 - 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)
Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: February 6, 5 – 9 pm

Opening Reception: ON MATERIAL GROUND
2026-01-10 15:00 - 17:00 | Mercury 20 Gallery, 475 25th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Andrea Guskin, Monika Mayer, Caity Salamanca
ON MATERIAL GROUND
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)
Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: February 6, 5 – 9 pm
Image from left: Monika Mayer, Soft Sculpture #11, 2025, Inner tubes and zip ties, 33” x 14” x 4”; Andrea Guskin, Blue Roots, 2025, Cyanotype on cotton, 8.5” x 11”; Caity Salamanca, Untitled, Collage Landscape, 2025, mixed media on canvas mounted on board, 8”x 8”. (Photos courtesy of the artists)

Vessel - Opening Reception
2026-01-17 13:00 - 16:00 | Transmission Gallery, 770 West Grand Ave., Suite A, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
All are welcome to attend the Opening Reception, Saturday, January 17th from 1-4 pm. Greet the artists, enjoy the light refreshments and lively conversation. Free street parking in the nearby neighborhood.
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.

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

Opening Reception: Wayne Armstrong - Between Here and There
2026-01-17 14:00 - 16:00 | Manna Gallery, 473 25th St., Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Meet Oakland-based artist Wayne Armstrong at the opening reception of Between Here and There at Manna Gallery. Join us to celebrate this vibrant new body of work inspired by California landscapes, memory, and imagination.
Wayne Armstrong was born in Fresno, California, and studied art education at Fresno State University. He taught art for more than three decades, first at a residential treatment center for autistic and emotionally disturbed children and later as a high school art teacher in the Hayward Unified School District, while continuing his own studies at Laney and Merritt Colleges, UC Berkeley, and the San Francisco Art Academy. Since retiring from teaching, Armstrong has remained deeply engaged in his studio practice and maintains a studio in Oakland. His work has been exhibited widely throughout California and the Pacific Northwest, including at the Fresno Museum of Art, Fresno State University Art Gallery, The Sun Gallery in Hayward, and Manna Gallery in Oakland, where he has had multiple solo and two-person exhibitions.
January 10 – February 14, 2026
Artist Reception: Saturday, January 17, 2-4 pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays, 12-5 pm & First Friday, February 6, 5-8 pm

Three Girls
2026-01-22 12:00 - 2026-02-28 17:00 | Gearbox Gallery, 770 West Grand Avenue, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Three Girls
solo exhibition with new paintings by Christine Ferrouge
GearBox Gallery
770 West Grand Ave.
Oakland, CA 94612
510-290-9660
info@gearboxgallery.com
gearboxgallery.com
Gallery Hours: Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays noon-5pm; and by appointment
Exhibition Dates: January 22, 2026 – February 28, 2026
Closing Reception: Saturday, February 28, 2026, 3-5pm
California painter, Christine Ferrouge makes paintings about the social and intrapersonal
complexity of girlhood. Inside these paintings, her daughters and their friends have been
growing up before our eyes. Now the girls are older. They are not little girls. They are teenagers. Ferrouge’s teens are not exactly what you might expect. They are not the weak, crazy, second class we often negatively associate with “teens”. They have the strength, dignity, and psychological presence that she has always shown us in her paintings of girls. They are still the “women-to-be” that you could always see simmering below the surface of these determined and confident characters.
These works are a mother’s view of her teens: their lounging around, napping frequently, and the quiet social understanding between the them. You can feel the unique and tight knit bond-especially connecting the girls- and the looks they give you when you catch them in that sacred space. “When you enter the gallery and stand in front of one of these scenes, you are present in their space, but you are not part of their circle.” –Ferrouge
This is a well established thread in Ferrouge’s work. After the Costume Party (2019), Desert Picnic (2020), After the Fires (2021), Watching/Waiting (2023), and Girls in the Mirror (2024) all give the viewer the feeling that you are in their space. The artist first observed exclusivity and girl power in her daughters and their little friends when they were just 5 and 6 years old, which inspired The Huddle (Ferrouge, 2016). To Ferrouge’s surprise, many young men found that painting scary.
“[Ferrouge] portrays complex humans, not cute, one-dimensional beings; her paintings are seriously insightful images…”
Betty Ann Brown, PhD
“…painter Christine Ferrouge, whose ongoing portraiture practice engages a particular thread of art history in which women paint women, girls, and girls on the cusp of womanhood—celebrating their insider’s perspective on subject’s inner lives, and their outsider’s perspective on the culture that surrounds them.”
–
Shana Nys Dambrot, Art Critic
Los Angeles, 2024
In contrast to the seven feet high oil paintings that dominate the room, Ferrouge also has small works that capture the gestural, figurative narratives on an intimate scale. Since beginning to paint and exhibit some small paintings last year, they have become popular and easy to collect.
Please visit the gallery to experience this work in person:
Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays noon-5pm
Closing Celebration: Saturday February 28, 2026, 3-5pm
See websites for other events during the exhibition.

Fourwalls – new works by Mike Texada at mighty mighty studio
2026-02-06 17:00 - 20:00 | Mighty Mighty Studio, 480 23rd Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Opening February 6th 5:00 – 8:00 pm at Mighty Mighty studio
Mike Texada – Foruwalls
Four Walls invites the audience into the foundational practices of MATTE Universe worldbuilding. This exhibition dives into the origins of reoccurring themes in the artist’s work such as Camoism and the Gatekeepers. Artistically, Four Walls showcases the creative pillars of Texada’s practice using multiple mediums and techniques such as digital illustration, mixed media oil paintings, Hand-painted 3D collectibles, and creative writing to emphasize his ever-expanding vision.
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BIO:
Mike Texada is a self-taught mixed media artist working in an abstract style he calls Camoism, a visual language rooted in the interconnectedness of all things. Through colorful, camouflage-like sequences, his work explores themes of history, philosophy, worldbuilding, and identity, inviting viewers to consider how meaning emerges through connection.
