BACK ROOM: April 15–May 21, 2022
Jessica Cadkin
Layering found, discarded slides, lit from behind, Jessica Cadkin creates surreal landscapes that play with the viewers perception of space and nature.
Jessica Cadkin was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and grew up in Napa, California. She received a BA in Sculpture and Painting from San Francisco State University. Her work has appeared in group shows internationally and throughout Northern California including Headlands Center for the Arts, Southern Exposure, di Rosa Preserve, Bateman Foundation Gallery of Nature, Bedford Gallery, Root Division, and the Berkeley Art Center. www.jessicacadkin.net
Charlie Milgrim
Charlie Milgrim’s series of large-format drawings, On the Precipice, represent the delicate balance of life and humanity’s flimsy respect for nature on our extraordinary planet. In many of her works, she explores the environmental and existential threats of pollution, climate change, and militarism.
Charlie Milgrim is a multimedia artist from New York City who moved to the Bay Area in her 20’s to attend the California College of the Arts, and later received an MFA from the University of California, Berkeley. In her formative years, Milgrim was an Upper East Side urchin, cynical and streetwise, with eccentric parents obsessively devoted to their own vocations. Her passionate and witty father was a concert pianist, her mother a volatile and outspoken English professor. These New York City roots combined with the Bay Area’s counter-cultural ethos, political and environmental activism, and passion for nature inform the themes and style of her work. Currently, Milgrim is active in the Bay Area arts community and exhibits her work in galleries and alternative spaces in California and New York City. www.charliemilgrim.com
Ruth Tabancay
One of the main causes of global warming is the burning of petroleum-based fuels which, among other applications, are also used in the manufacture of plastics. An increase in ocean temperature, as little as 2° Fahrenheit, can be deadly for coral reef systems. Corals form a mutualistic relationship with the algae zooxanthellae. Warmer temperatures cause them to expel the algae and, if sustained, eventually kill the corals. Instead of stunning colors, a skeleton is left behind. For Bleached, stylized coral reef structures are interspersed with plastic medical waste that has passed through Tabancay’s hands over the past nine years.
Ruth Tabancay‘s passion for science led her to study microbiology in college. Following a stint as a hospital laboratory technologist, she went on to medical school. After 11 years in private practice, she left medicine to study art. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley; University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco; and California College of the Arts. Her work has been widely exhibited regionally including Southern Exposure, Root Division, and Museum of Craft and Design, and nationally including The Textile Museum, Washington, D. C., World Financial Center, New York City, and Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Her work is in the collection of the Oakland Museum. www.ruthtabancay.com
