Temporary Space

Alice Wu @alice.wu.art

Alice Wu is a multidisciplinary artist, designer, and arts worker in Oakland, CA. Her practice draws from a former career in fashion to explore themes of performance in everyday life, self-presentation, and reinvention after loss.

Statement: My recent work includes sculptures made from combinations of wood, wire, and textile remnants collected from my fashion design practice. Each piece incorporates multiple techniques: stitching, stuffing, cutting, weaving. Sometimes the pieces are slathered with paint. The abstract results can be touched, held, worn, rearranged. I grew up in the U.S. and Taiwan. Both and neither are home, so I’m always observing local visual language signifying identity and belonging. How do I want to fit in, how do I want to stand out? I’m curious about the performance of everyday life. What does self-presentation look while navigating different social roles and community relationships?

Amy M. Ho

Amy M. Ho builds video and spatial installations that bring attention to our existence as both physical and psychological beings. Amy completed her undergraduate degree in Art Practice at University of California, Berkeley and her MFA at Mills College in Oakland, CA. She was selected as a KQED Woman to Watch in 2017, received a San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artists Grant in 2013 and once won a costume contest at Emmy's Spaghetti Shack dressed as a fusilli pasta. Amy was included in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' Bay Area Now 7 in 2014 and was a 2013 fellowship artist at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA. She has previously exhibited at the San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art, the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, CA, the Elmhurst Art Museum in Elmhurst, IL, and at the San Diego State University Downtown Art Gallery. Amy is a trustee at OUTPOST in Norwich, UK. She lives in Bozeman, MT and is currently designing a board game about dogs.

Statement: Space is the most immediate medium through which we understand the world, yet we often take it for granted. I am interested in exploring how our environment impacts our experiences, memories, and identities. Many of my installations utilize projected images of imagined or remembered environments - places one accesses mentally but not physically. Past projects include recreations of memories from incarcerated individuals and another project series exploring the changing architectural landscape of San Francisco. Through my work, I ask viewers to slow down, feel, and consider the physical world around us.

Bessie Kunath @Bessie Konky

(b. 1981, Orange, CA.) Kunath acquired a Bachelor of Science in nursing from Drexel University and currently works as a nurse in Los Angeles. She holds an M.F.A. in Studio Art from University of California Santa Barbara, and a B.A. in Art and an MA in Education from the University of San Francisco. Kunath has participated in exhibitions in San Francisco, Oakland, Orange County, CA, Los Angeles, New York, Ohio, Finland, Salt Lake City, and Tokyo. She has worked in the arts since 2003 and is a founding member of LA-based curatorial collective, Manual History Machines.

Statement: They are performing bodies. Their meaning is fragile. Value is imposed. Function is obscured. These are the basic assumptions I have when considering my reference materials, most of which are found, salvaged or repurposed. I find personal value in responding to objects and images. Through this process, I show that I care for them and will meaning back into their tender body. As a nurse and a mother, I respond to what is needed through an experience that is mutually humbling. In my nurse role, my patients, are in a sense, strangers, and I gain a sense of intimacy with them by tending to them. With regards to my painting and sculptural work, there is a sense of intimacy through the experience of touching, gazing upon, handling, manipulating and living with an object or image. My recent work deliberates on objects or images that I have uncovered on Craigslist or local thrift stores as well as mined materials from my own studio practice. In the pieces entitled "Magic Mountain [photo]" and “Magic Mountain [painting]”, I include a reference image of Isamu Noguchi's 1984 sculpture of the same name. A photocopy of Noguchi’s piece is obscured by other pieces of cut paper. The meaning of Noguchi’s work is distilled amid its recognizability as an existing artwork. It is democratically cast into the same pile of paper scraps and bits of other reference material, suspended in a sort of purgatory as they wait to either be discarded or regarded once again.

Beth Krebs @beth.krebs.studio

Beth Krebs’ work champions a lumpy vulnerability. Her videos, sculptures, and participatory projects also recognize, with humor and tender regard, the sometimes peculiar ways we humans cope. Beth has been awarded fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, UCross, the Bemis Center, the Joan Mitchell Center, and Recology San Francisco (the dump).  In 2020 and 2021, while the San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art was closed due to Covid restrictions, her interactive hotline, “Still on Hold,” took over their phone line. She is currently a Lucas Fellow at the Montalvo Arts Center. Beth has an MFA from Rutgers University. She lives in Oakland, California, and is a member of the cooperative art studio, Real Time and Space.

Brandon Harris @niadartcenter

Brandon Harris (b.1989) is a Bay Area artist who joined NIAD Art Center in 2024. Working mainly in painting and sculpture, he reimagines pop culture icons in boldly colored, expressive portraits. Among the subjects are famed musicians and athletes, as Harris elaborates, “I’ve got big canvases going, and I’ve done a whole bunch of musicians: Prince, Nelly, T-Pain, Lauryn Hill. I painted Rocky and Mike Tyson too.”

Statement: Harris’s work has been featured in group exhibitions including Reflections at Sonoma State University, and Now Presenting in the Main Gallery at NIAD. His painting of Sylvester Stallone as “Rocky” was chosen to represent NIAD in Art Passages 2024 at the Contra Costa County Admin Building

Chris Thorson @turnalittletowardsme

Chris Thorson’s work has been presented in solo and two person exhibitions at Quint Gallery in San Diego, CA; Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco, CA; Mama’s in Vallejo, CA; and the Des Lee Gallery at Washington University in St. Louis, among others. Group exhibitions include Personal Space, Vallejo,CA, Paul Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Subsidiary Projects, London, UK; The Hessel Museum at Bard College; and Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA. Her work has been featured in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Riverfront Times, KQED, and New American Paintings. She received a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She lives and works in Vallejo, CA.

Statement: My sculptures make space to question the conditions of contemporary life and culture while testing the boundaries between what we overlook and what we esteem. Using a range of materials and methods, I remake and represent everyday objects to explore themes including consumption, illusion, and vulnerability.

Ebti @ebtiebtietbi

Ebti is a multidisciplinary artist, a photographer and a translator living between Cairo and San Francisco. She has an MA in translation and intercultural studies from Johannes Gutenberg Universitat, Mainz, and an MFA in Fine Art from California College of the Arts. Ebti is part of “Right window” collective, “Off Hours” collective and is sitting on the curatorial council at "Southern Exposure Gallery" in San Francisco. Her work was shown in galleries around the US and Egypt. She currently teaches visual arts and photography at Performing Arts Workshop in San Francisco, Bay Area.

Statement: What do we see when we look? I am interested in what we see and what we miss when we are navigating spaces in general and art spaces specifically. Missing what's right in front of us. The way I am doing it is by re-producing a part from a space to highlight it but also install it in a way that makes it: blend "back" in. This is the first take on that concept I have been thinking of for a while now. Excited to see how it develops.

Ember Avalos @ember_avalos

Ember Avalos They/Them lives and works in Richmond Ca. Ember makes, curate's and supports art making in a progressive art studio.

Statement: Ember's continued interest in Human psyche is often depicted through Human relationships with other Animals, and images mixed with text.

Emma Spertus

Emma Spertus is an artist who makes sculptures and site specific installations. Recent exhibitions include "Helping Heads" at Personal Space gallery in Vallejo, and a site specific installation titled "Sentence Model" for the Kala Windows in Berkeley. She has been the recipient of residencies at Chalk Hill and Winslow House Project. Emma has completed a diverse range of community-minded art projects, including co-founding Real Time & Space, which offers affordable artist studios to 17 artists in Oakland Ca. A graduate of the MFA program at Hunter College, Emma has exhibited her work at White Columns, Dorsky Gallery, Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, The Lab, NIAD Art Center, and other venues. Emma lives and works in the Bay Area.

Statement: Emma Spertus creates sculptures and architectural interventions, which bring attention to two- and three-dimensional space in humorous or unexpected ways. Her work focuses on questions around the vacancy, materiality, resource use, language, and display. She use wood, metal, paper, cardboard, fabric and found elements like building facades to create large portals and small studies for empty storefronts.

Heather Hamann @niadrrtcenter

Heather Hamann (b. 1990) is an interdisciplinary artist based in the Bay Area. Her work maps an ever-expanding magical universe that includes sculpture, performance, fashion, painting, and animation. She describes her motivation, “I always make all kinds of fantasy places, like Medieval Kingdoms, Enchanted Princess Castles, and the Wee Folk Forest. If you believe in your heart you can see all kinds of great things you can create.”

Statement: Heather sculpts miniature food to keep royal fairy folk well fed, and slab-constructed dioramas of palaces, fountains, carousels, and evergreen forests. She elaborates on these environments in hand-bound artist books: watercolor illustrations of verdant gardens and lavish interiors function as theater sets, poised for performers to activate the space. In recent years, Heather herself has taken the stage, fusing many aspects of her practice to create and star in films such as “The Dance of the Mushroom Kingdom” and “The Dance of the Flower Kingdom.” These performances incorporate spoken word, choreographed movement, and hand-stitched costumes. Each drama unfolds in front of a green screen playing Heather’s digitally drawn animations, allowing her to magically emerge from and disappear into her drawings as she dances. Heather Hamann joined NIAD Art Center in 2019. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at the Oakland Museum of California, Sonoma State University, Contra Costa College San Pablo, UC Hastings Law SF, and Mills College of Art. In October of 2024, Heather’s sculptures, paintings, and artist books were showcased in Telling Stories Even in Our Dreams, a two-person exhibition organized by Liz Hernández in the Main Gallery at NIAD.

Helia Pouyanfar @heliapouyanfar

Born in 1995 in Tehran, Iran, Helia Pouyanfar immigrated to California in 2014. Inspired by her cultural background and in an examination of passage and the relationship between liminal spaces and transit, her research endeavors to illustrate and investigate the permanently transient state of the refugee body and its negotiation and reconciliation with Place. Pouyanfar has been the recipient of the Lauren Krikorian Memorial Prize and Certificate of Excellence in Sculpture from UC Berkeley, Mary Lou Osborn Award and the 2021 Margrit Mondavi Graduate Fellowship from UC Davis, 2024 Berkeley Civic Arts Individual Artist Grant, and 2024 Kala Art Institute Fellowship. Her work has been exhibited at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, de Young Museum, Skirball Cultural Center, Miami University, Root Division, Southern Exposure, Berkeley Art Center, SF Camerawork, Foyer-LA, Personal Space, and Kala Art Gallery. She currently resides and maintains an art studio practice in the Bay Area.

Statement: My conceptual art practice investigates the permanently transient state of the refugee body and its negotiation and reconciliation with Place. Informed by my personal experience of living as a refugee for three years, my research explores the intricate relationship between the body and Place by humanizing and narrating the deeply poetic and peculiar experience of forced exile. The act of mirroring is a vital component of my work. In its metaphorical sense, I am interested in pushing architecture into movement. This ironic redefining of Place and its transformation from a physical structure to a metaphoric concept mirrors the intricate reality of the exiled. I see architecture as the poetry of the nomad and seek to translate this poetry by turning consistent into transient, and immovable into transferable while honoring its nonlinear reality. Time and movement are intertwined, and one defines the other. Leaving becomes a circuitous act: for the nomad, to end is to continuously begin.

James Heartsill @niadartcenter

James Heartsill has been working at NIAD since the summer of 1989. James’s work has expanded over the years to incorporate the NIAD studio space itself, unfolding his practice of maintenance and care to include each studio participant. The shelves nearest his usual workspace receive regular fresh coats of paint, sometimes calling for an entirely new color.

Statement: The same care and attention is paid to his miniature home constructions: new additions sprout, shift, change color, receive guests and connect to other constructions or living spaces. James also draws. His drawing practice feels like a respite from his construction, social sculpture and space-making. Drawing gives him time to reflect, to sit and change focus.

Jean McElvane @niadartcenter

Jean McElvane is a mixed media artist who primarily works in sculpture, drawing and painting. Pollinators are a key subject for Jean’s practice, which she has been exploring since 2017. Jean was commissioned to make about four different pollinator mobiles for a Marin County Event, who previously purchased a hummingbird mobile at one of the NIAD weekend openings. Dragonflies & other pollinators came in later, including as brooch pins. When asked about how she creates the names for her pieces she shares, “I go by personality.”

Statement: Jean likes to source materials from many places including recycling centers, household items, NIAD, Amazon, Etsy and Target. Types of recycled materials within her practice may include aluminum foil, caps, lids and juice bottles. When asked why she centers recycled materials within her work she shares, “They’re useful and beautiful.” Other materials frequently used include markers, masking tape, nail polish, fibers/cloths and paper clips.

Joe Ferriso @joeferriso

Joe Ferriso grew up in a Dominican, Honduran, and Italian household in Long Island, NY, in the 80s and 90s. His childhood was impacted by his indoctrination in a fundamentalist Christian doomsday cult. Making art during church services and skateboarding after school set the stage for making art with a sense of optimism. His artworks are made from recycled and found materials and are primarily concerned with how color relationships impact perception. Ferriso moved to the Bay Area in 2009 and is a graduate of The Cooper Union (BFA 2003) and Stanford University (MFA 2018). He lives with his wife, two young children, and a dog in Sebastopol, CA.

Statement: Working in The Bay Area has greatly impacted my decisions in the studio. While living in San Francisco, Oakland, The Sea Ranch, and now Sebastopol, I have been inspired by friends, neighbors, and the materials I’ve come across. Construction waste, driftwood, and leftover house paint are the starting points of my labor. I take immense pleasure in physically combining these castaway materials into solid compositions; when painting their surfaces, I also consider color's ability to create space and establish connections. The sheer energy of color motivates my actions. Color is not an object, and emotion is not an object. However, both can be bound into an object. Like a vine to a lattice, the color enmeshes with the object and changes it. The pieces I am currently experimenting with explore changing light conditions and are activated by audience engagement.

Jonathan Runcio @jruncio

Jonathan Runcio lives and works in San Francisco, CA.

Statement: The WORK is always the statement

Joshua Moreno @stopjoshgo

I was born and raised in Watsonville, California. In 2011, I graduated from the University of California San Diego with a BFA in art practice, and in 2022 I graduated from Stanford University with an MFA in studio art. Since 2012, I have been working in art education, teaching courses in art history, filmmaking, and art. Presently, I am teaching drawing courses at Stanford University.

Statement: In my work, I examine the overlapping relationship between the natural and human-made environment and highlight patterns and systems of efficiency that exist within them. Through installation, drawing, and film, I re-evaluate the everyday spaces and objects that surround us, with added attention to elemental phenomena.

jovi vidal @chaltandr

Jovi Vidal is a painter, drummer, and organizer. Originally from Los Angeles, they moved to the Bay Area in 2010. Jovi received a BFA from California College of the Arts and has been working in progressive art studios since 2017. They are currently an Arts Facilitator at NIAD Art Center in Richmond, CA. Jovi co-operates an art space called Grand Opening, located in West Berkeley, home of the Illusion Room and the world’s only Wingnut Museum.

Statement: Jovi Vidal (b.1989, they/them) Some of my earliest memories as a child are art-related. I was told from a young age that I would grow up to be an artist and so I was raised that way. I use art-making to connect with something spiritual. Art is also an activity from which I can learn about myself. When I am inspired I try and stay with that initial energy and follow what is presented. I try and keep my thoughts to a minimum because they go faster than I can move or create obstacles to being in and with the present moment of creation. I try to make art that is simple and direct so that I can stay with myself while I make it.

Mateen Van Dongen @niadartcenter

Mat Van Dongen (b. 2001) is a Bay Area artist who joined NIAD Art Center in 2023. His practice includes graphic geometric paintings and hand-built ceramic vessels that reference items from domestic spaces. Recently Van Dongen embarked on a series of works inspired by the storied lives and music of The Beatles. “I’d like to put on a festival to celebrate The Beatles and all the instruments they played.” Van Dongen shares, “It’s good to take the time to appreciate their music. I made this painting of The Beatles and I thought, ‘this is something I’d like to see on a record cover.’” Mat Van Dongen’s paintings were featured in the group exhibition, Now Presenting: New Artists of NIAD in the Main Gallery at NIAD Art Center.

Michael Nuñez @niadartcenter

Michael Nuñez (b. 1994) is an artist and writer based in the Bay Area. His practice incorporates meticulous research and spans painting & drawing, sculpture, and graphic novellas. As a prolific storyteller, Michael gravitates towards folklore and urban legends, explaining, “I’m drawn to the supernatural. I’ve come to think there are some things in the world that no one knows.” Some of his work shrouds familiar stories in mystery; other pieces are illustrative and sequential deep dives into obscure myths from around the globe — and beyond. One of his ongoing zine series records expeditions through alien planets with invented flora and fauna. On his creature and character development, Michael shares, “I get ideas by watching nature documentaries and then mixing that style with some alien stuff. One creature on this alien world is based on a prehistoric fish. I based the movements of another one on the basilisk lizard found in Central and South America. It can walk on water.”

Statement: Michael Nuñez joined NIAD Art Center in 2017. In recent years, his work has been featured in group shows at the Oakland Museum of California, Open Windows Collective SF, and UC Hastings Law, as well as in numerous on-site and virtual collections selected by guest curators. In October of 2024, Michael’s paintings, ceramics, and comics were showcased in Telling Stories Even in Our Dreams, a two-person exhibition organized by Liz Hernández in the Main Gallery at NIAD.

Ofra Fisher @ofrafisher

Ofra Fisher was born in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1981 and moved to the US at the age of one. She and her family made their way to California in 1989. She received her BFA from UC Santa Cruz in 2004 with a focus on sculpture, drawing and painting. Ofra explored different avenues in her art practice over the years and began to make ceramic sculpture when she moved to Berkeley in 2007. She decided to focus solely on ceramics in 2018

Statement: My artwork explores the concept of action, motion and tension with the human figure. I often make sculptures that place the human body in situations that are peculiar and out of the ordinary, setting the familiar in unfamiliar positions. Lately I have been creating work that depicts people’s ordinary moments and activities that seem significant and expressive to me. Through ceramic sculpture, I search for distinctive ways to explore elements of the human form.

Paulette Nichols @paulettespaintings

I was born in Stockton, and I like to make things.

Statement: I like to make things.

Pete Belkin @pebelkin

Pete is a visual and media artist, and exhibitions producer. Born in the Soviet Union, his work is inspired by a curiosity about the natural world as pursued in the sciences. Pete’s visual investigations contemplate changing dynamics between natural phenomena and human activity. His practice is varied in material and approach but remains centrally rooted in exploring shifting conditions of the anthropocene. Pete’s films, media works, sculptures, objects, curatorial projects and collaborations have been shown in Moscow, Paris, Venice, Mexico City, UK, Germany, Canada, Tokyo, French Polynesia, and San Francisco.

Statement: The sculptures on view re-imagine Carved by hydrologic cycles, polished by winds, and shaped by other natural phenomena, land is sculpted by geologic timescales, of which we are witness to for only a moment. Dry Garden is a contemplation of this creative process, and a reflection on a personal perception of time. As water falls onto rock, it finds its way back to the sea, only to be reinvented as cloud formations. Terrestrial forms and elevations are perceived through the lens of topography, always orienting the viewer in relation to sea level. Among many natural processes that transform our planet, the water cycle has a drastic impact on the equilibrium of life. Even subtle alterations to weather patterns can heave significant climatic changes for any location on earth. As one place sees drought, another is besieged by rising waters. According to the Gaia hypothesis, our planet as a whole is seen as a single living organism. With interconnected systems much like the many systems of a human body, when planetary cycles are thrown out of alignment it becomes a delicate process to regain balance and homeostasis. Dry Garden is inspired by this search for balance, featuring clashing sculptural forms and time-based vignettes in response to nature’s adaptations.

Peter Walker

Peter Walker has spent over 50 years designing public open spaces worldwide. During that time he has periodically made sculptural pieces of various materials, such as plywood, Masonite, metal, and PVC composition board. In his teaching at Harvard he gave a series of classes, field trips, and seminars that came to be known as investigations of landscape viewed as art. These efforts are described in his books Invisible Gardens and Minimalist Gardens written with historian Melanie Simo and Leah Levy respectively and “Process Architecture #85 – Peter Walker: Landscape as Art.” Like his designs, many of these gardens are expressed in minimalist sculptural figures that emphasize flatness, repetition, and linear formalities found in European Classical gardens of the15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. Since the 1980s, he has been collecting minimalist paintings and sculptures and has periodically made original paintings and wall pieces. He has designed a number of gardens to display modern works of art including the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas and Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Washington. He has now produced several series of wall pieces and collages derived from his interest in classical gardens and the minimalist art of the 1960s and 1970s.

Statement: Crosswalk (Off the Wall Series): This piece is cut from material of half-inch thickness mounted another half-inch off the wall and floor. The piece has a white polished surface that reflects light from windows or electric light found in most interior spaces. The piece explores the play between two-and three-dimensional reading. Here, the piece follows the wall and then crosses the floor into real space. In this way, it is perhaps post-Minimal. Zig Zag Fence with Gates: This piece is cut from material of half-inch thickness mounted another half-inch off the wall. The piece has a white polished surface that reflects light from windows or electric light found in most interior spaces. The surface implies folding, contrasting the pictorial reality with the physical flatness. In this way, it is perhaps post-Minimal.

Renée Gertler @renee.gertler

Renée Gertler was born in Santa Barbara, California to a Hungarian father and Dutch Mother she lives in Berkeley, California. Her drawings and sculptures explore ideas around metaphysical, psychological and emotional landscapes. She holds a BFA and MFA in Sculpture from The California College of Arts. She studied landscape architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate Studies of Design breifly. Her sculptures and installations have been exhibited at Southern Exposure, Eleanor Harwood Gallery, Et. al, and The Marin Moca. She has been awarded a Danish Arts Council Grant and artist residencies at the John Michael Kohler Arts/ Industry program, Spaces, Cleveland Ohio, Vermont Studio Center, Pilchuck School of Glass Emerging Artists Fellowship, The Macdowell Colony and Kala Art Institute.

Statement: This body of work is informed by my study of Cymatics and the pioneering efforts of Hans Jenny. My interest in Cymatics was sparked by working in a studio previously occupied by Viola Frey, whose energy and practices have profoundly influenced my creative process over the past seven years. Cymatics illustrates vibration and wave phenomena, and through this lens, I have developed sculptures and drawings that reflect these concepts. An ongoing exploration of my sculptures is inspired by Judy Chicago's observation that 80 percent of all public sculpture is phallic. In response, I aim to create sculptures that exist between traditional sculpture and architectural models representing the feminine. This collection examines themes of holding, receiving, and reflecting, inviting a conversation around alternative representations of femininity in art and occupying space.

Richard Zimmerman @machocity

Richard Zimmerman is an interdisciplinary artist whose work spans various media, includ-ing sculpture, photography, sound, video, and drawing. His work focuses on exploring the intersection of subjectivity and the built environment. He holds an MFA in Studio Art from Cornell University and BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute. He received the John Hartell Graduate Award, a Cornell Council for the Arts Grant, and a nomination for The Dedalus Foundation Master of Fine Arts Fellowship in Painting and Sculpture. His work has been exhibited at various venues, including Miami Art Basel, Artlot, Shore Institute for Contemporary Art, Signal Gallery, Royal Nonesuch Gallery, Enter Enter, and Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle. He has been an artist in residence at Real Time and Space in Oakland, California, Zero Foot Hills in Durham, Connecticut, and the Tulsa Artist Fellow-ship. Currently, he lives and works in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Sally Goldstein @sally_goldstein

A life of looking, Also at art. School of the Art Institute of Chicago, summers 1960 and 1961 UC Berkeley BA in painting, 1964, with studying with Peter Voulkos, work in high fire stoneware, porcelain, and later in low fire white clay Then 36 years of elementary school teaching in the Berkeley School District 2005 to the present Working with fabric, quilting and fabric constructions Exhibiting in: Berkeley Art Center Members Show 2014 - 2019 Richmond Art Center Members show 2015 - 2019 Berkeley Library Quilt shows yearly when held Pacific International Quilt Fest 2016 - 2019, 2022 -2024 East Bay Heritage Quilters Voices in Cloth biannually from 2008 - 2024

Statement: Stability is an illusion. What action on the picture plane can gently help our bodies experience this essential part of our lives? What unsettled visual movement gives us access to unmediated primary experience, a peaceful, expanding space to be? My work with the picture plane uses traditional forms in untraditional ways, often in series.

Samantha Kershnar @niadartcenter

Samantha Kershnar (b.1979) is a multidisciplinary artist based in the Bay Area whose practice spans printmaking, sculpture, jewelry, fiber arts, and drawing. Kershnar often recreates human, animal, and hybrid characters from literature and film. She describes her influences: “I like making different types of art for people in my life and for myself. I like making children’s books because children inspire me. My nephew inspires me to draw things that he enjoys such as dinosaurs and animals from across the world.” In this spirit of community-building and play, her recent series of miniature ceramic dioramas function as interactive spaces. These boldly glazed “Dollhouse Rooms” are furnished with little beds, tables, and bookshelves — each scaled to match a variety of hand-built clay figurines, which range from dragons to rabbits to snowmen.

Statement: Kershnar’s sculptures and drawings have been featured in group exhibitions around the Bay Area, notably at Sonoma State University, Et. Al Gallery San Francisco, and the Oakland Museum of California. Multiple items from her collection of tie-dyed clothing and accessories lit up the runway during NIAD's biennial Fashion Show, The Way We Are, Now (2024). Samantha Kershnar has worked at NIAD Art Center in Richmond, CA since 2018.

Sean Howe @seanmhowe

Steen Kjorlie

Steven Garen

Steven Garen lives and works outside of Nevada City, CA at 3000' elevation amongst oaks, fir, cedar, pine, madrone. He is the proprietor of Free Grain Woodworks where he designs and fabricates custom furniture from local and salvaged trees. Steven holds an MFA from Stanford, and a BFA from Washington University in St Louis.

Statement: My work as a furniture maker derives from my desire to investigate the living materials around me and the traditional methods of creating functional, sustainable objects. In my former sculpture practice, I sought to explore the relationship between transitional landscape and the transitory nature of art objects through ideas of accumulation, erasure, and structure. I juxtaposed discarded objects with building materials and traditional sculpture materials of wood, metal, and plaster in reference to the constant construction and decomposition of the built environment. My current interests have led me from the Bay Area to the Sierra Nevada foothills—one edge of industry and manufactured nature, to another edge of the conflicted interests of the ex-urban, national and private forest land, and historical resource extraction (gold and timber). Through employing permaculture techniques, watershed stewardship, and use of local, salvaged wood, I am forever learning to be a functional and beneficial part of my socio-natural ecosystem.

Tara Neuffer

Tara Neuffer is a multimedia artist living in the East Bay since 2019. Before that she lived in Utah, Uruguay and Chicago where she was raised. Besides art making, Tara enjoys spending time in nature, singing in choir, cooking and yoga. She currently works at NIAD Art Center.

Statement: My work in this show explores objects as vessels of emotional attachment and embodiment. I am interested in the human impulse to collect and sort objects, both human-made and nature-made, and how these objects relate to individual mythologies and rituals. Symbols of the natural world in my work accentuate human-made patterns and their boundaries.

Violette Alby @violettealby

Violette Alby is an interdisciplinary visual artist, teacher, and recycling activist living in Northern New Mexico. She makes quilts, drawings, prints, and photographs, while mobilizing everyone to appreciate and utilize unwanted fabric--rescuing it from the dreaded landfill. Born in Paris, France in 1953—her quilting practice was inspired by the architecture of the city streets, she thought then that she needed to make a quilt that would fit that scale and harmonize with this original influential force.

Statement: I use recycled fabric to make life-sized dolls and quilts. The quilts incorporate arrows, figures, hand drawn-fabric, abstraction, a personalized use of color, pattern and texture. I am dedicated to improvisation and painting-like compositions in quilt form. I appreciate that quilts can keep you warm unlike a painting.

Emma Spertus

Emma Spertus is an artist who makes sculptures and site specific installations. Recent exhibitions include "Helping Heads" at Personal Space gallery in Vallejo, and a site specific installation titled "Sentence Model" for the Kala Windows in Berkeley. She has been the recipient of residencies at Chalk Hill and Winslow House Project. Emma has completed a diverse range of community-minded art projects, including co-founding Real Time & Space, which offers affordable artist studios to 17 artists in Oakland Ca. A graduate of the MFA program at Hunter College, Emma has exhibited her work at White Columns, Dorsky Gallery, Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, The Lab, NIAD Art Center, and other venues. Emma lives and works in the Bay Area.

Statement: Emma Spertus creates sculptures and architectural interventions, which bring attention to two- and three-dimensional space in humorous or unexpected ways. Her work focuses on questions around the vacancy, materiality, resource use, language, and display. She use wood, metal, paper, cardboard, fabric and found elements like building facades to create large portals and small studies for empty storefronts.