The Stories We Tell
2026-02-19 10:00 - 16:00, 2026-02-20 10:00 - 16:00, 2026-02-21 10:00 - 16:00, 2026-02-25 10:00 - 16:00, 2026-02-26 10:00 - 16:00, 2026-02-27 10:00 - 16:00, 2026-02-28 10:00 - 16:00, 2026-03-04 10:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) and 5 more dates | Creative Growth Art Center, 355 24th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
“The Stories We Tell” features seven Creative Growth artists who translate their lived and imagined experiences into vivid visual narratives. Spanning painting, drawing and collaborative short films, this mixed-media presentation celebrates storytelling as a force that can spark humor and inspire new paradigms. The exhibition features artists currently practicing at Creative Growth: Kristian Cheek, Meyshe Shapiro-Nygren, John Martin, William Tyler, Larry Randolph, and George Wilson. Together, these artists all have a form of storytelling within their individual practices that takes the viewer into worlds both imagined and real.
Creative Growth is a studio and gallery where artists with developmental disabilities create work collected by leading museums and celebrated around the world. Together they constitute one of the most vital avant-gardes working today, challenging dominant narratives of authorship, aesthetics, and artistic agency. Their influence now extends across international biennials, galleries, and cultural institutions, redefining the future of contemporary art.

One Thing Leads to Another -- Gina Borg & Patrick Crotty
2026-02-21 - 2026-03-28 | Manna Gallery, 473 25th St., Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Manna Gallery presents One Thing Leads to Another, a two-person exhibition featuring Oakland-based painter Gina Borg and San Leandro–based artist and designer Patrick Crotty. Bringing together painting and marquetry, the exhibition highlights two distinct practices shaped by close attention to materials, process, and the evolving language of making.
Gina Borg explores how color behaves in relationship, using a limited palette of warm and cool shifts layered through repetitive marks to create subtle tonal changes that generate movement, spatial tension, and optical vibration across the surface.
Patrick Crotty works in traditional marquetry, precisely assembling thin wood veneers to “paint” with natural grain, tone, and texture, transforming a centuries-old craft into detailed contemporary imagery.
Together, their work creates a dialogue between gesture and construction, surface and structure, where each decision leads to the next and the process becomes a visible chain of connections.
February 21 – March 28, 2026
Artist Reception: Saturday, February 28, 2-4 pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays, 12-5 pm & First Friday, March 6, 5-8 pm

Opening Reception and Artist Talk – Dr. KC Rosenberg: Raised by Wolves
2026-02-21 03:00 - 17:00 | Mercury 20 Gallery, 475 25th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Dr. KC Rosenberg creates her work on the floor of her studio, where raw canvas and paper are walked on, soaked, and marked through movement and touch. Her background in printmaking and textiles informs a material-driven approach that values impressions, repetition, and layered surfaces as records of action. Lines and bands of color function as spaces where stories can unfold. In her newest series, Rosenberg introduces narrative fragments into these abstract forms. Images and words appear like passing thoughts or half-remembered moments—sometimes humorous, sometimes dark—forming a personal visual vocabulary. Using collage, she brings together abstraction, text, and imagery to create poetic connections rather than fixed meanings. The work invites viewers to slow down, look closely, and make their own associations. At its core, Rosenberg’s practice explores how memory, language, and the body intersect, transforming process itself into a form of storytelling.
Bio:
Born in Marin County, California, Dr. KC Rosenberg was raised in a bohemian household shaped by intellectual rigor and domestic improvisation; while her mother worked and studied law, Rosenberg and her siblings were cared for by a shifting network of caretakers, an environment whose chaos fostered early strategies of invention through imagined companions, substitute characters, and close observation of animal behavior. In 2021, medical complications during the COVID-19 pandemic prompted a significant shift in her practice toward abstraction, reducing narrative certainty and temporarily setting aside personal history, which later returned as material rather than subject; these formative experiences now register in her work as form and emotional traces rather than representation. Rosenberg has exhibited with Patricia Sweetow Gallery, and her work is held in the collections of the California Arts Council and the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles. She holds an Ed.D. and conducts social research on collective mentorship systems among artists.
Gallery Hours: Friday and Saturday, 12 – 5 pm (and by appointment)
Artists’ Reception: Saturday, February 21, 3 – 5 pm, artist talks at 4:00 pm
﻿Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: Friday, March 6, 5 – 9 pm
Image: KC Rosenberg, Backfloat, 2026, from Raised By Wolves Series, Acrylic paint and fabric collage on wooden panel 24” x 36”

Artist Talks
2026-02-21 12:00 - 17:00 | Studios 11, 560 2nd St Oakland, California, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
A Lively Afternoon of meeting the Artists of The African Diaspora, hearing their stories and learning their journeys.
Studios 11 & Grand Galleries
560 – 2nd Street, Oakland CA
Our Exhibit Runs Feb 1 – Mar 29, 2026

Opening Reception and Artist Talk – Christine Meuris: Wellspring
2026-02-21 15:00 - 17:00 | Mercury 20 Gallery, 475 25th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Using silk thread and simple motifs, Christine Meuris has created a series of semitransparent weavings that reflect feelings of harmony, joy, flow, and wholeness. In 2023, Meuris began studying weaving as a way to deepen and ground her creative practice. Working with weaving teacher Travis Meinolf, at the Richmond Art Center and at his eponymous weaving school in Marin County, Meuris was influenced by Meinolf’s judgment-free and open minded approach to weaving, a practice that can otherwise become exacting. After a period of experimentation, Meuris settled on a simple weaving technique — using plain weave with supplemental weft to construct imagery. In her weavings, Meuris returns to the font of her creativity, the work that steadies her in calm or tumultuous times, repeating simple steps to build something greater than the sum of its parts.
Bio:
Mercury 20 member Christine Meuris lives and works in Berkeley, CA. She has shown her work in solo and group shows locally, notably at the Berkeley Art Center, San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, and Mercury 20 Gallery, and in group shows around the U.S. She was a resident artist at Kala Institute in 2023 and was the inaugural Digital Artist in Residence at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles (SJMQT) in 2020. Her work has appeared in the Surface Design Journal, Fiber Art Now, and the Textile Society of America News, and is included in the collections of the City of Berkeley, SJMQT, Kaiser Permanente, and Four Seasons Residences SF, as well as several private collections.
Gallery Hours: Friday and Saturday, 12 – 5 pm (and by appointment)
Artists’ Reception: Saturday, February 21, 3 – 5 pm, artist talks at 4:00 pm
﻿Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: Friday, March 6, 5 – 9 pm
Weaving Demonstrations: Saturdays, February 14, March 7, 14, 21 @ 1:30
Image: Christine Meuris, Upwelling I, 2025, commercially and naturally dyed silk, 29 h x 24 w inches, photo credit: Mark Serr

Crowns, Power Grace and Wisdom
2026-02-28 12:00 - 2026-03-01 17:00 | Studios 11, 560 2nd St Oakland, California, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
An exhibition created by high school students at Oakland Tech’s Fashion, Art & Design Academy (FADA).
In celebration of Black History Month, students created artwork exploring themes of ethnic and cultural identity, and personal empowerment.
Presented at Studios 11 Gallery in Oakland’s Jack London Square
560 2nd Street, Oakland | Enter through The Grand Gallery On view from Sat, Feb. 28 – Sun, Mar. 1, 2026
Reception on Feb. 28, 2-5pm | Free and Open to the Public

Artists' Reception -- Gina Borg & Patrick Crotty
2026-02-28 14:00 - 16:00 | Manna Gallery, 473 25th St., Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Meet the artists of our current show, One Thing Leads to Another.
Gina Borg is a painter based in Oakland. Her work explores how color behaves in relationship, using a limited palette of warm and cool shifts layered through repetitive marks to create subtle tonal changes that generate movement, spatial tension, and optical vibration across the surface.
Patrick Crotty is an artist with experience bridging fine art and applied design. Raised in Chicago and now based in San Leandro, his practice is informed by a background in product and furniture design. He works in traditional marquetry, precisely assembling thin wood veneers to “paint” with natural grain, tone, and texture, transforming a centuries-old craft into detailed contemporary imagery.
Together, their work creates a dialogue between gesture and construction, surface and structure, where each decision leads to the next and the process becomes a visible chain of connections.
February 21 – March 28, 2026
Artist Reception: Saturday, February 28, 2-4 pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays, 12-5 pm & First Friday, March 6, 5-8 pm

Closing Celebration: Three Girls
2026-02-28 15:00 - 17:00 | Gearbox Gallery, 770 West Grand Avenue, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Join us for the Closing Celebration of Christine Ferrouge’s solo exhibition Three Girls.

Artist Talk: California Unseen, Along the Hills of the Central Valley
2026-02-28 17:00 - 19:00 | Oakland Photo Workshop, 312 8th St, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Join us for a presentation and Q&A with the artists of California Unseen, Along the Hills of the Central Valley.
The California Central Valley is more than the giant open fields we cross when driving down from San Francisco to Los Angeles via Interstate 5. It is a place of beauty and complexity, a land of contrast undergoing rapid changes: a housing frenzy, an alternance of droughts and floods, vibrant yet struggling migrant communities, immense fields producing half of the fruits and vegetables of the US, all surrounded by stunning natural beauty. This place has always fascinated artists (from Dorothea Lange to Jack Kerouac, Robert Dawson, and Stephen Johnson) and keeps doing so today. By featuring certain works done in the 1930s by Dorothea Lange and putting them into perspective with today’s works, this show will be an invitation to explore the Central Valley over a century.
This East Bay Photo Collective exhibition, curated by Claire Maen, brings together 6 photographers and one ceramicist from the Bay Area, the Central Valley, and Los Angeles who use photography to explore this land of extremes. The show will be visible from February to March 2026 at the EBPCO Gallery in Oakland, CA.

Howard Harawitz: Protest Photographer of the 60's
2026-03-04 12:00 - 2026-03-29 17:00 | The Grand Gallery, 560 2nd Street, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Start date: March 4, 2026
End date: March 29, 2026
You’re invited to the Grand Gallery’s Artist reception for protest
photographer Howard Harawitz March 7 from 1-5pm.
With his Leica camera in his hands, Howard Harawitz
documented protests during the Free Speech
Movement in Berkeley from 1964-5. The photographs in
this exhibit reveal the conditions in the Bay Area that
birthed many of the protests of this time. From fair housing
to farm workers’ rights with the Free Speech Movement at
the core, Harawitz shines a light on present-day parallels
as a reminder to us all:
People have the power.

ATMOSPHERIC – Rachel Major & Scott Idleman
2026-03-05 12:00 - 2026-04-11 17:00 | Gearbox Gallery, 770 West Grand Avenue, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
770 West Grand Ave, Oakland, CA 94612
Contact: info@gearboxgallery.com
Homepage
(510) 271-0822
Gallery Hours: Thursdays-Saturdays, 12-5 pm and by appointment
March 5 to April 11, 2026
Artists’ Reception: Saturday, March 14, 1-4 pm
Artists’ Talk: Saturday, April 11, 2 pm
Gearbox Gallery is pleased to present Atmospheric, a two-person exhibition featuring new
work by San Francisco–based artists Rachel Major and Scott Idleman. Though visually distinct,
their practices converge around shared concerns of process, perception, and the dynamic
relationship between structure and spontaneity.
Rachel’s paintings are created through a process of dripping paint onto canvas, resulting in
richly layered surfaces that explore texture, color, and the balance between control and
chance. The series is inspired by her daily encounters with the landscape surrounding her
home in San Francisco’s Richmond District—a quiet, often fog-laden neighborhood bordered
by Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, and Ocean Beach. Her work reflects the shifting moods of
this coastal environment, particularly the San Francisco Bay, the Marin Headlands, and the
Golden Gate Bridge as they emerge and recede through fog. The recurring acts of covering
and revealing in these paintings echo the rhythms of the landscape itself.
Scott Idleman’s work similarly inhabits a space between intention and intuition. His grid-based
dot series celebrates intersections: science and art, nostalgia and futurity, the organic and the
artificial, isolation and community. Drawing from his family’s heritage of textile-making, Idleman
merges meticulous patterning with imagined skyscapes and aerial perspectives—an enduring
fascination shaped by the view from above. Based in San Francisco’s Mission District, his
practice is informed by the neighborhood’s vibrant energy and colorful mural culture, translating
urban vitality into structured yet atmospheric compositions.
Together, the works in Atmospheric offer a meditation on place, process, and
perception—inviting viewers to consider how environment, memory, and material intersect to
shape visual experience.
All are welcome to join us for Atmospheric events! Please join us for the Artists’ Reception,
Saturday March 14th. Stop in any time between 1 and 4 pm to greet the artists, enjoy the light
refreshments and check out the artwork 1-4 pm. If you’re curious to learn more about the
artists and their work come out for the Artists’ Talk, starting at 2 pm Saturday April 11th as
Rachel and Scott discuss their themes, ideas and processes. Bring your questions!
More About Rachel Major
Originally from Toronto, Canada, Rachel is a graduate of The Ontario College of Art and Design
(OCAD) as well as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) and received an MFA
from Mills College in Oakland. Rachel has been living and working in San Francisco since 1994.
In her work Rachel explores our complex and often fraught relationship with food using a
variety of media including sculpture, painting, and photography. Her work has been exhibited in
Canada, France and the U.S. In September 2016 she was selected as an Emerging Artist at
MarinMOCA in Novato, California. Rachel works with San Francisco Art Education Project,
LEAP as well as SFUSD teaching art to children in San Francisco public schools.
More About Scott Idleman
Idleman received a B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute in graphic design with minors in
fibers, painting and photography. He implements a visual language of simple mark-making to
convey impressions of moods and dreams as a form of meditation to connect with others and
self.

Multi-Artist Exhibition -- March-April, 2026
2026-03-06 10:00 - 2026-04-25 18:00 | Art@Archer, 431 13th Street, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Join us in welcoming these wonderful Bay Area artists to our first show of 2026. Varied styles. Varied mediums. Enjoy their artistry!
Arie Dallas
Ken Knudsen
Nina Krebs
MacArthur Nelson
Shu
Diane Wang

Open First Friday: One Thing Leads to Another -- Gina Borg & Patrick Crotty
2026-03-06 17:00 - 20:00 | Manna Gallery, 473 25th St., Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Join us for the First Friday art walk in Uptown Oakland! Up now, One Thing Leads to Another, is a two-person exhibition featuring Oakland-based painter Gina Borg and San Leandro–based artist and designer Patrick Crotty. Bringing together painting and marquetry, the exhibition highlights two distinct practices shaped by close attention to materials, process, and the evolving language of making. Together, their work creates a dialogue between gesture and construction, surface and structure, where each decision leads to the next and the process becomes a visible chain of connections.
February 21 – March 28, 2026
Gallery Hours: Saturdays, 12-5 pm & First Friday, March 6, 5-8 pm

"Who Am I?" portraits by Leslie Plato Smith
2026-03-06 17:00 - 2026-03-28 17:00 | FM Gallery, 483 25th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
For March we are honored to feature the work of local Bay Area artist Leslie Plato Smith, in her latest show entitled, “Who Am I?”
“We are living in turbulent times. We are questioning our values, beliefs, and education. Our national leaders prove to be untrustworthy, as the media feeds misleading narratives. Our history feels as uncertain as our future. We are having difficulty finding common ground, the truth, and what we stand for. Conflict is everywhere. Everyone is asking themselves: “Who Am I?”
Artist Bio:
Choctaw, Viking, AVChancellor, Governmental Relations, emerita. Highlights: national award for bringing together 60 art departments, creating 125 life-size statues showing how budget cuts negatively impact access and opportunity, democracy and upward mobility; European Cultural Centre’s Venice Biennale: “Who Are We?”; Spotlight Artist for Richmond Art Center, “Vulnerability;” “Clay Sustains: Vessels of Change” Palo Alto Art Center.
Plato Smith’s grandfather was born on the Choctaw Reservation and her orphaned grandmother was born to immigrant parents from Denmark and Sweden. Migration, immigration, resettlement and environment/wildlife are key themes that resonate through her creative practice and professional work. She is very committed to acknowledgement of ALL LIFE. Her mother, Lee Plato Smith, educated at California School of Fine Arts, taught her to draw off the edge and never be afraid of making mistakes.
March 6th – 28th, 2026
First Friday reception: March 6th 5-10pm
Hours:
Saturdays 1-5pm
Every first Friday of the month 5-9pm
otherwise by appointment

First Friday Reception for "Multi-Artist Exhibition -- March-April, 2026"
2026-03-06 18:00 - 21:00 | Art@Archer, 431 13th Street, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Join us in welcoming these wonderful Bay Area artists to our first show of 2026. Varied styles. Varied mediums.
Arie Dallas
Ken Knudsen
Nina Krebs
MacArthur Nelson
Shu
Diane Wang
Refreshments will be served.

Artist reception for protest photographer Howard Harawitz
2026-03-07 13:00 - 17:00 | The Grand Gallery, 560 2nd Street, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
The Grand Gallery will host the Opening reception for legendary photographer Howard Harawitz, on Saturday March 7th 1-5pm

BOOK PARTY and Exhibition at mighty mighty studio
2026-03-07 16:00 - 18:00 | Mighty Mighty Studio, 480 23rd Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
BOOK LAUNCH and EXHIBITION curated by Lisa Solomon
opening
March 7th
Saturday
4:00 – 6:00
curated by Lisa Solomon
We’re celebrating the release of Art Craft Color by Lisa Solomon with a party at Mighty Mighty Studio.
ART CRAFT COLOR — Book Launch + Exhibition
In the book, each color is represented by a different artist, a snapshot of how art and craft intersect across materials, and perspectives. Lisa has brought together an incredible cross-section of the art-craft community, and for this event, we’re bringing that energy off the page and into the gallery.
IN our gallery we’ll be showcasing work by artists featured in the book, creating a show that reflects the spirit of collaboration, experimentation, and bold use of color that defines Art Craft Color.
Come celebrate the artists, meet the community behind the book, and experience the work in person.
​
show includes artists:
christine buckton tillman,
libby black,
jen hewett,
risa iwasaki culberston,
ana bianchi,
sonya philip,
robert j. bosscher,
jen duffin,
robert mahar,
kanako abe,
rashida coleman hale, twinkie chan, courtney cerruti,
e bond, kim nyugen, carissa potter carlson, jenifer lake, anne weil, bridget watson payne
​

Where Are You From? Group Exhibition
2026-03-12 - 2026-03-25 | ARTogether Center, 1200 Harrison Street, Oakland, 94612, United States
“Where are you from?” The eternal question faced by immigrants and the children of immigrants resonates far beyond a simple inquiry. In today’s political climate, it carries charged undertones shaped by power, exclusion, and surveillance, becoming a measure of legitimacy and belonging.
This exhibition gathers artists whose work examines how identity endures, evolves, and is reclaimed. Through personal histories, embodied memory, and lived experience, the works resist fixed definitions of origin. Instead, they center the stories we carry and embody, honoring nuance, diversity, and the shared threads that connect us.
Gallery Hours are Wednesday’s 12-4pm and by appointment
