Search
Close this search box.

Ruth Tabancay: Microcosmos

July 2013

151.jpg

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THREE SOLO SHOWS!
July 5 – Aug 10
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kathleen King: OUT HERE
Hadley Williams: ORGANIC ABSTRACTION
Ruth Tabancay: MICROCOSMOS

Images from left: Kathleen King: "Puzzle" (2013) 21" x 24" spray paint on wood (photo by artist); Hadley Williams: "Bumps XV" (2012) 29" x 29" x 5" expanding foam acrylic glue on birch plywood (photo by Hanson Digital); Ruth Tabancay: "Crenation" detail view (2013) individual units 3.5" x 3.5" to 5" x 5" x 3.5" wet-felted wool (photo by Dana Davis).

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kathleen King: OUT HERE
Exhibition runs July 5 – August 10 2013

SPECIAL EVENTS:
Artist Reception: Saturday July 20 4-6pm
(with Artists Leading Tour of Exhibits at 4:30pm)
Oakland Art Murmur First Fridays: July 5 & August 2 6-9pm
New! Third Thursday! July 18 6-8pm

Kathleen King’s painted constructions begin with scraps of wood found in streets building sites and dumpsters. The artist creates a visual lexicon of spray-painted markings gradated color and blunt geometry that explore the relationships between the urban environment and the emotions and behavior of its individual inhabitants.

Taking a psychogeographic approach King wanders transitional East Bay neighborhoods corresponding in earnest empathy with phenomena and objects encountered cultivating an awareness of the ways in which everyday life is conditioned and controlled as well as the evidence that control can be subverted. King’s work investigates visual patterns and uncovers playful strategies that connect viewers to possibilities for openness and optimism.

Kathleen King was born in Oakland CA and has a BA in Art from UC Berkeley. Her work has been exhibited locally at Pro Arts the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art and the City of Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Building and is represented in numerous private collections.

Hadley Williams: ORGANIC ABSTRACTION
Exhibition runs July 5 – August 10 2013

SPECIAL EVENTS:
Artist Reception: Saturday July 20 4-6pm
(with Artists Leading Tour of Exhibits at 4:30pm)
Oakland Art Murmur First Fridays: July 5 & August 2 6-9pm
New! Third Thursday! July 18 6-8pm

Hadley Williams creates compelling mixed-media pieces using security envelopes foam fabric bubble wrap correction tape and other prefabricated materials to form abstract structures on flat surfaces. Machine-made elements representing control and perfection are altered and arranged by hand creating unevenly spaced and imperfectly connected compositions of repeating rows of text columns of measurement and accumulations of cells. Williams takes to her work with Sisyphean tenacity trying to humanize and make flexible the mechanistic and rigid and to allow the impulsive and the bodily to come forward creating tension between the ideal and the real.

Raised in Boston and Palo Alto Hadley Williams received a BS in Social Work from Cornell University and an MFA in Studio Arts from John F. Kennedy University. She has been exhibiting in local galleries since 2006 including Arc Gallery in San Francisco Branch Gallery in Oakland and Local 123 Gallery in Berkeley. Most recently her work was in an exhibit entitled "Paper Work" at the Oakland International Airport curated by the Oakland Museum. Her art has been featured in California Home and Design Magazine and on the websites of interior design firm Jute Home Bay Area Visual Artists Network Hanson Digital City Picture Frame Art Business and Pivot Gallery. Hadley’s shows received two Critic’s Picks reviews in the East Bay Express and a Critic’s Choice review in The East Bay Monthly. She has work in corporate and private collections nationwide. She lives with her husband and daughter in the East Bay and works in her studio in the Berkeley ActivSpace building.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ruth Tabancay: MICROCOSMOS
Exhibition runs July 5 – August 10 2013

SPECIAL EVENTS:
Artist Reception: Saturday July 20 4-6pm
(with Artists Leading Tour of Exhibits at 4:30pm)
Oakland Art Murmur First Fridays: July 5 & August 2 6-9pm
New! Third Thursday! July 18 6-8 pm

With stunning beauty and craftsmanship Ruth Tabancay’s sculptural works and installations let us delve into the fascinating and provocative world of microscopic life. The artist has a background in science and a long-held attraction to pattern and texture. Images of bacteria fungal spores amoeba parasites and human cells and tissues continue to form the basis of her visual vocabulary and these microscopic untouchables are realized in rich tactile works of felted wool assemblage stitching and jacquard weaving.

Berkeley artist Ruth Tabancay was born in Watsonville California and has lived in the Bay Area most of her life. Her work has been exhibited at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Memorial Art Gallery of Rochester and in numerous regional venues including Richmond Art Center San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles and Southern Exposure. She received her BA from University of California Berkeley; MD from University of California San Francisco; and BFA from California College of the Arts. Her work is in the collection of the Oakland Museum.

Mercury 20 Gallery

475 25th Street, Oakland CA 94612

Gallery hours: Friday + Saturday: 12-5pm and by appt