2023 Exhibitions
Hannah Waiters: The Tree Closes
October 21, 2023 - December 23, 2023
Second Floor Gallery October 21 | 2 - 4pm
Hannah Waiters: The Tree Closes
October 21 – December 23, 2023
Opening Reception October 21, 2023 | 2 – 4pm
Hannah Waiters's site-determined project, The Tree Closes, attends to historical forces emerging at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Alabama and shaped by experiences in the West. At the height of Jim Crow segregation, Black American airmen (Red Tails) who trained under Tuskegee were relocated to bases in Marin County during the Second World War. Hesitantly hosted across the county, in buildings styled in a Spanish Colonial Revival style that idealized Puritan heritage, these airmen analogized Black American futurity on a broader scale.
The Tree Closes explores shifting attitudes within Black education in Northern California as a portal for understanding Black collective pedagogical models that spread from the South across the country in the mid-20th century. The project explores gaps in Marin's historical account of Black Tuskegee veteran pilots and intellectuals in the Bay Area in the wake of WWII, drawing attention to widespread neglect of the histories of marginalized communities within American cultural institutions. Care for bees and the cultivation of bee hives -- skills central to early Tuskegee Institute education -- take the fore in The Tree Closes. Through images and hand-crafted bee boxes in the gallery as well as bee-lining workshops and a public conversation with Red Tail veterans, Waiters uplifts early Black independent education methods and their role as emblems of civic equality for African Americans.
There is Magic Here: MarinMOCA National Juried Exhibition
October 21, 2023 - December 23, 2023
Svea Lin Soll Main Gallery October 21 | 2 - 4pm
There is Magic Here: MarinMOCA National Juried Exhibition
October 21 - December 23, 2023
Opening reception October 21 | 2 - 4pm
Imagine a sanctuary where we embark on a collective journey to rediscover pleasure and joy in the aftermath of a transformative period in human history. How does art create the conditions for self-care, community care, and care for our shared environment?Juried by Svea Lin Soll this exhibition envisions a future built on collective effort and understanding, and celebrates our unwavering capacity to find solace, beauty, and meaning in the face of adversity.
ARTISTS
Marcia Barrow Taylor
Leo Bersamina
Kaory Santillan Bueno
Blair Martin Cahill
Joe Ceballos
Valerie Corvin
Tara Daly
MJ Davison
Rozanne Hermelyn Di Silvestro
Sheryl Renee Dobson
Guillermo Galindo
Nancy Gesimondo
Thomas Hennessy
Eric Lendl
Paho Mann
Gloria Matuszewski
Robert Minervini
Kalman Muller
jamil nasim
Beril Or
Mary Oros
Denise Owen
Ann Phelan
Stephanie Pierson
Jorge Rivas
Harumo Sato
Hunter Saxony III
Tiffany Schmierer
Maxine Schoefer-Wulf
Dobee Snowber
Gina Tuzzi
About the Juror:
Svea Lin Soll is a gallerist and independent curator based in Berkeley. She holds a master’s in Museum Studies from JFK University, and earned a bachelor’s in geology at University of Montana. She is the current Director at Johansson Projects in Oakland, serves on the board at the Berkeley Art Center and is an organizing member of Art + Climate Action. She is also an art world polymath with a deep concern for our climate crisis, her work spans the topics of art, environment and activism.
Special Thanks to our 2023 Media Partner Marin Magazine.
ART FWD Annual Benefit Art Auction
September 9, 2023 - October 8, 2023
Main Gallery September 9, 2023 | Opening Night Party & Silent Auction Kick-Off
Marin Museum of Contemporary Art
Celebrating 40 years!
ARTFWD Annual Benefit Art Auction
September 9 - 30, 2023
Support MarinMOCA's exhibitons and educational programs as you bid on a curated selection of artworks, singular experience packages, and Fund-A-Need.
Register Now!
View the full auction catalog at marinmoca.org/artfwd
Marion Faymonville : Black River
August 19, 2023 - October 8, 2023
Second Floor Gallery September 9, 2023
2023 Artist Member showcase
Marion Faymonville: Black River
Second Floor Gallery
August 19 - October 8, 2023
Black River contemplates the experience of insecurity in the wake of wildfires, a pandemic and racial tensions. Marion Faymonville uses documentary and staged photography to eliminate the divide between the real and the imaginary. Her practice is rooted in the beautiful and terrifying natural world and informed by cultural identities within her multiracial immigrant family. Black River speaks to a universal perspective created by the evocative rather than the specific. In embracing the windows and outside views brought into the gallery, connections between images and the outside world emerge and invoke personal narratives based on each viewer’s experience of the installation.
While isolating in their remote house during the pandemic Faymonville began photographing her daughter, her boredom, and her resilience. A blond wig, that she coveted when little, became the inspiration for an ambiguous drama created with found objects around the house. On hot days she twisted her hair, and at night they slept in one bed escaping the outside world. Evening walks to the river generated both solace and fear in a silent landscape.
The theme of the exhibition revolves not only around felt ecological changes but the history of photography and its complicity in white supremacy and the creation of myth; and the implications of raising a biracial child in a country that has never collectively faced its racist past.
Faymonville’s exhibition is a memory of her time together with her daughter and her experimentations with photography during a time of change and instability.
Black River explores how an Arcadian dreamscape is harnessed by the reality of a larger world and how a violent history can impose a narrative on the landscape and the body.
About the artist:
Marion Faymonville is an artist based in San Francisco and Sonoma County, CA. She uses documentary and staged photography and is interested in eliminating the divide between the real and the imaginary. Her practice is rooted in the beautiful and terrifying natural world and informed by cultural identities within her multiracial immigrant family.
Image Credit:
1. Marion Faymonville, Lichen, Archival pigment print, 2020. 18 x 24 in. Courtesy the artist.
2. Faymonville, Wig, Archival pigment print, 2021. 18 x 24 in. Courtesy the artist.
3. Faymonville, Back, Archival pigment print, 2020. 12 x 16 in. Courtesy the artist.
4. Faymonville, Human, Archival pigment print, 2021. 9 x 12 in. Courtesy the artist.
5. Faymonville, Insect, Archival pigment print, 2021. 18 x 24 in. Courtesy the artist.
2023 Artist Member Showcase Gail Galli : Figures in Collage
June 17, 2023 - August 6, 2023
Second Floor Gallery June 17 | 2-4pm
2023 Artist Member Showcase
Gail Galli: Figures in Collage
June 17 - August 6, 2023
Opening Reception June 17 | 2 - 4pm
The human figure has been depicted in art since antiquity, with representation changing and evolving within modern contemporary art.
In the series Figures in Collage, Galli takes inspiration from traditional interpretations of the figure and breaks it down into its basic components; playing with shapes, color, and patterns. With a background in interior design, Galli experiments with decorative colors with a rich contrast between light and dark.
Galli is deliberate with the placement of paper while playing with the contours that the ripped paper edges create. During the making process, Galli juxtaposes different postures with unique colors, designs and other materials found in her environment. While the figures have implied human qualities, Galli keeps the composition of the works minimalistic, leaving room for audience interpretation.
About the artist:
Gail was born in Massena, New York. Immediately after her birth her family moved to three other states. During her childhood she spent a great deal of time on her own and creative endeavors occupied her interest and time. She received her degree in interior design from the University of Oregon.
Her experience with drawing and painting began while studying at university. Subsequently, she pursued a career in commercial interior design with several architectural firms in San Francisco.
Over her lifetime she has worked with drawing, print making, oil and acrylic painting and paper collage. Gail currently lives and works in San Anselmo California.
Special Thanks to our 2023 Media Partner Marin Magazine.
Image Credit:
Riva, 2022, torn paper collage, 30 x 20 in. Courtesy the artist
Faith, 2019, torn paper collage, 30 x 20 in. Courtesy the artist
Nann, 2021, torn paper collage, 30 x 20 in. Courtesy the artist
Gio, 2019, torn paper collage, 30 x 20 in. Courtesy the artist
Pippa, 2021, torn paper collage, 30 x 20 in. Courtesy the artist
On Land
June 17, 2023 - August 27, 2023
Main Gallery June 17 | 2 - 4pm
On Land
June 17 - August 27
Main Gallery
Reception June 17 | 2 - 4pm
On Land presents the work of eleven emerging and established Bay Area artists who mine a range of explosive and restorative approaches to the natural world. Their artworks address oppressive structures of power, Feminist and Indigenous recomposition, and spiritual, sensorial interdependence with the Earth. Their variety of mediums and vista points on land encourage and enact widening relations with nature and place and thus deepening experiences of each other. To read the curatorial statement by guest curator Chris Kerr, click HERE.
Artists in the exhibition: Cynthia Brannvall, Victor Cartagena, Ocean Escalanti, Don Hankins, Claudia Huenchuleo Paquien, Hughen/Starkweather, Colter Jacobsen, Vanessa Norton, Rachelle Reichert, and Angelica Trimble-Yanu.
Public Programs:
Claudia Huenchuleo Paquien and Hughen/Starkweather at MarinMOCA
Sunday, June 25 | 12-3pm
Artists Claudia Huenchuleo Paquien and Hughen/Starkweather will be onsite for a special public program exploring landscape and meaning. Join the artists in the galleries to delve into and describe memories of a landscape that has personal meaning to you. When permission is granted, the interviews will be recorded for possible inclusion in a future artwork. Conversations in English and Spanish.
Forrest Gander and Lehua Taitano: Read in Rounds
August 5 | 5pm
In a spirit of adventure and discovery, renowned poets Forrest Gander and Lehua Taitano will perform live readings of poems chosen spontaneously - in reaction to one another and the energy of the moment.
Docent tours will be available at 2pm on the following Saturdays: June 24, July 15, July 29, and August 12.
Special Thanks to our 2023 Media Partner Marin Magazine.
Image credits:
1. Rachelle Reichert, Silver Peak 2010-2018, 2019, Graphite on paper, 22 x 30 in. Courtesy the artist
2. Hughen/Starkweather, Orosi, East Orosi (Pipe Dreams), 2021, Ink, pencil, acrylic paint, & gouache on paper,15 x 22 in. Courtesy the artist
3. Claudia Huenchuleo Paquien, Made To Move, 2021, Sheep wool dyed with plants and trees from the archipelago of Chiloé in Chile (carried to San Francisco circa 2009), alpaca wool, wire, suitcase handle, and ritual, 48 x 60 x 32 in. Courtesy the artist
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon: Land(e)scape
March 25, 2023 - December 23, 2023
Ron Collins Gallery
2023 Bay Area Legends Exhibition
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon: Land(e)scape
March 25 - December 23, 2023
San Francisco-based artist Barbara Stauffacher Solomon (b.1928, San Francisco), perhaps best known for her pioneering Supergraphics (oversized graphics created in response to the scale of architecture first produced at 1960s Sea Ranch), has worked across disciplines in graphic design, architecture, landscape architecture, drawing, writing, and more. Her original training in dance and painting, coupled with rigorous study of Swiss graphic design, has allowed her to establish an approach to art making uniquely her own. More Info
The presentation features a new Supergraphic installations created in response to the historic architecture of MarinMOCA’s 1933 Hamilton Field building, spanning the museum's Main Gallery and Ron Collins Lobby Gallery.
Special Thanks to our 2023 Media Partner Marin Magazine.
Image Credit:
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, Land(e)scape, 2023. Installation view, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, March 25 – December 23, 2023. Photography by Chris Grunder.
2023 Artist Member Showcase Elena Guryeva: PHENOMENA
March 25, 2023 - June 4, 2023
Catherine Clark Second Floor Gallery April 1, 2023 | 5 - 7pm
2023 Artist Member Showcase
Elena Guryeva : PHENOMENA
March 25-June 4, 2023
Opening reception April 1,2023 | 5-7pm
Second Floor Gallery
Visual language is a powerful and dynamic universal instrument of communication. Elena Guryeva's intention is to convey her emotions, ideas, and perspectives from an angle that differs from our daily encounters. Her work seeks to conjure a positive emotional response and to move people in their own ways.
In the series PHENOMENA, Guryeva is motivated to materialize changes in nature. These shifts are often a part of a natural cycle, like a sunset, a low tide, or the arrival of a new season. At other times they are sudden events, like an earthquake or the collapse of a glacier.
In creating these paintings, Guryeva juxtaposes the natural world with the digital realm to address the role that technology occupies in our society. Each pixel, or square, floats and levitates in her landscapes, assembling a narrative, like pieces of a puzzel activating the transformative forces that exist in Nature.
About the Artist
Elena Guryeva is a San Francisco Bay Area artist who grew up in Russia. A former practicing architect, Guryeva has since lived in several diverse countries. Upon her move to Belgium, she began making art. After her relocation to Santiago, Chilie in 2017, Guryeva joined a group of artists and dedicated herself full time to painting. In 2020, she completed her studies in the History of Art and Contemporary Gallery Management at the Sotheby's Institute of Art, New York. Since 2021, Guryeva has been living and working as an artist in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Image Credits:
1. Low Tide, 2022, Oil, acrylic on canvas, 67 x 47 in. Courtesy the artist
2. Atmospheric Phenomenon, 2022, Oil, acrylic on canvas, 39 x 31 in. Courtesy the artist
3. Frost Wedging, 2023, Acrylic on canvas, 35 x 35in. Courtesy the artist
SUPER-SILLY-US: Barbara Stauffacher Solomon & Nellie King Solomon
March 25, 2023 - June 4, 2023
Main Gallery
2023 Bay Area Legends Exhibition
SUPER-SILLY-US: Barbara Stauffacher Solomon & Nellie King Solomon
March 25 - June 4, 2023
Opening Reception April 1, 2023 | 5 - 7pm
SUPER-SILLY-US celebrates the work of nonagenarian Barbara Stauffacher Solomon in dialogue with that of her daughter, Nellie King Solomon. Their shared training in architecture speaks to the artists' expansive and playful approach to visual art which challenges the boundaries of established rules or frameworks.
San Francisco-based artist Barbara Stauffacher Solomon (b.1928, San Francisco), perhaps best known for her pioneering Supergraphics (oversized graphics created in response to the scale of architecture first produced at 1960s Sea Ranch), has worked across disciplines in graphic design, architecture, landscape architecture, drawing, writing, and more. Her original training in dance and painting, coupled with rigorous study of Swiss graphic design, has allowed her to establish an approach to art making uniquely her own. More Info
Los Angeles-based artist Nellie King Solomon (b.1971, San Francisco) is an essential collaborator for her mother and an accomplished abstract painter in her own right. While the two remain distinct in their formal approaches to art making, presenting their work in proximity demonstrates their shared influences and interests across architecture, movement, and the body. A selection of King Solomon's recent paintings will be included in the exhibition. More Info
The presentation features a suite of never-before-exhibited drawings from Stauffacher Solomon's hand-made book SUPER-SILLY-US, as well as new Supergraphic installations created in response to the historic architecture of MarinMOCA’s 1933 Hamilton Field building, spanning the museum's Main Gallery and Ron Collins Lobby Gallery. (The lobby installation will remain on view through 2023.)
The MarinMOCA exhibition is one of many across the world rediscovering the art of Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, including recent installations at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; LAXART, Los Angeles; Graham Foundation, Chicago; and St. Moritz, Switzerland (commissioned by the Serpentine Gallery, London).
The exhibition catalogue, designed by Stauffacher Solomon in collaboration with King Solomon, will feature new writing by critic and curator Peter Frank and arts writer Matt Stromberg.
View the press release here.
Image Credits:
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, SUPER-SILLY-US, 2023. Colored pencil, graphite, ink and rubber cement on paper, 11 x 8 1/2 in. Courtesy the artist.
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, SUPER-SILLY-US, 2023. Installation view, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art. Photography by Chris Grunder.
Nellie King Solomon, SUPER-SILLY-US, 2023. Diamond Cloud 2, 2022, UUUUU 12-16, 2021. Installation view, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art. Photography by Chris Grunder.
Nellie King Solomon, 1967 Ford Econoline with Supergraphics, 2023. Graphite on paper, 12 x 12 in. Courtesy the artist and Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Palm Desert.
Altered Worlds: 2023 Annual Members Exhibition
January 14, 2023 - March 12, 2023
Chester Arnold All Galleries January 14: 2:00 – 4:00pm
Altered Worlds:
2023 Annual Members Exhibition
January 14 – March 12, 2023
“The general museum-going public is still looking for art that is beautiful, that they can hang on the wall. But I feel painting could be more than that. It should raise questions and raise the hairs on the back of your neck. It can be used to explore issues that are more troubling than reassuring ...We become so bound up in what we’re doing that we cease to see the world objectively, and I think that’s one of the great values that art can have, that nature can have, that moments alone can have,” says Arnold.
The Artists of MarinMOCA is a vital community of 150 artists who support and sustain the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art and the creative endeavors of its members. Opportunities to exhibit at MarinMOCA and at satellite venues are available to artist members, along with a range of other museum benefits.
ARTISTS
Cheselyn Amato
Lucy Arnold
Barbara Ball
Colette Battaglia
Janet Bogardus
Louis Bording
Mia Brown
Mary Coman
Joyce Creswell
Toni Denmark
Debbie Dicker
Pat Doherty
Joeann Edmonds-Matthew
Jaleh Etemad
Jennifer Fearon
Tracy Flanagan
Janey Fritsche
Gail Galli
Jane Gitschier
Sarah Gorman-Brown
Diane Green
Gail Gurman
Mary Ellen Guroy
Elena Guryeva
Carole Haan
Habib Hastaie
The Artist Hines
Patrick Jones
Marie Krajan
Patricia Leeds
Diana Lyster
Pat Margis
Hunter Marvel
Hilary Maslon
Gloria Matuszewski
Barbara McLain
Beryl Miller
Mozhgan Mostafavi
Linda Mueller
Lee Nisbet
Cecily O'Connor
Linda Olive
William Otton
Celina Pagani-Tousignant
Wendy Ricks
Julia Ross
Bill Russell
Wo Schiffman
Hilary Sheehan
Kit Shepard
Susan Shipley
Ashley Sinclair
Donna Solin
Andrea Speer-Hibbard
Charlene Steen
Rose Steiner
Bibi Summer
Sandra Tasca
Vera Tchikovani
Phyllis Thelen
Donna Wallace-Cohen
Linda Wegmann
Carolyn Wheeler
Nathalie Worthington
Tom Zizzo
To learn more about the artists, visit the Marin MOCA Artist Directory.
About Chester Arnold. (b.1952) Chester Arnold is a well-known art teacher and nationally exhibited painter whose works explore the contemporary landscape. His compositions often present skewed linear perspectives that place the viewer at a remove, above and/or beyond an unfolding narrative. His work is in the public collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Crocker Art Museum, Nevada Museum of Art, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Tacoma Museum of Art, SFMOMA, and San Jose Museum of Art. In 2022, he was the subject of a mid-career survey exhibition at the Fresno Art Museum. Chester Arnold is represented by Catharine Clark Gallery.
This exhibition is generously supported by the MarinMOCA Board of Directors.
Image Credits:
Carolyn Wheeler, The Waste, 2019, Collage of plastic waste from under the Golden Gate Bridge, 30x40 in. Courtesy the artist
Jaleh Etemad, Malibu Fires, 2018, oil sticks and petroleum jelly on paper, 44x44 in. Courtesy the artist
Habib Hastaie, The Last Evacuees, 2022, oil and acrylic on canvas, 24x24 in. Courtesy the artist
Tom Zizzo, Shards of History, 2019, oil on canvas, 36x24 in. Courtesy the artist
