TEXT/TEXTURE: PATRICIA GUTHRIE, JILL MCLENNAN, CHRISTINE MEURIS
April 25 – May 31, 2025
Artists’ Reception: Saturday, April 26, 3 – 5 pm
Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: May 2, 5 – 9 pm
Christine Meuris’ textiles are examples of both overshot weaving, in which a contrasting pattern thread is interwoven with the structural plain weave threads as well as inlay in which areas of pattern are placed only where the weaver wants them. Patricia Guthrie hand dyes and prints text onto her fabrics to create improvisational quilts without preconceived patterns or drawings. Jill McLennan’s narrative series “Migration” includes linoleum prints accompanied by letterpress printed text haikus, which enhance the telling of the stories depicted in the prints.
Available Work
Patricia Guthrie
After retiring as a professor and department chair of Human Development and Women’s Studies at California State University East Bay, Patricia Guthrie decided to actively engage in the visual arts. She began taking community-based art classes: drawing, photography, quilt making, and printing on fabric. Quilt making and all its aspects has become her passion. Guthrie hopes her quilts encourage viewers to move beyond art that is merely pleasing to the eye to seek a deeper meaning.
Her work has been shown nationally and internationally including Schweinfurth Memorial, Art Center, Auburn, New York; International Quilt Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Tuch + Technik Museum, Neumunster, Germany. This is Guthrie’s second solo show at Mercury 20 Gallery.
Christine Meuris
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.
Jill McLennan
Jill McLennan creates paintings, collages and prints inspired by her surroundings and the stories that she collects. She has been a member of Mercury 20 Gallery since 2007. She is an active member of her neighborhood, Jingletown Arts, Business + Community (JABC), organizing Open Studios as well as beautification projects. She recently printed a series of linoleum blocks with poems, telling stories of migration and climate change, through a residency at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA. McLennan has completed two public art projects: Jingletown Birds at 401 Derby and Emeryville Perspectives at 65th and Christie Streets. Both are cut steel fences depicting the local shoreline with birds, designed by McLennan and executed by local metal fabricators. Her work was accepted to the deYoung Open in 2020 and 2023. As an artist and teacher, she is deeply invested in protecting her environment, inspiring the youth, and spreading hope and joy into the world.