Past Exhibits

As staff photographer for the Oakland Tribune between 1968-1982, Kenneth P. Green Sr. captured in the still image some of the most dramatic and dynamic social changes occurring not only in Oakland, but in our time. His work reflects the best of both photojournalism and photography – a chronicle of the here and now, and a collection of personal portraits that illustrate the timeless, human side of the people involved. This exhibition highlights early photographs taken at DeFremery Park in Oakland, a center for community organizing, an important base for the Black Panther Party and for the nascent Black student movement that was taking place at Laney and Merritt Colleges.

Darril Tighe’s watercolors explore abstraction as a means for expressing a range of emotions through color, layering of washes and choices about composition. Tighe’s complex color combinations suggest a quality of translucence and evoke a state of reverie and reflection, through which the viewer is momentarily transported, and then returns, enriched.

Matthew Mullins’s large scale watercolor paintings feature private collections, archives and storage facilities, mostly associated with the natural sciences. Fascinated at the amount of material they house, Mullins envisions these spaces as giant curio cabinets housing the souvenirs of people and experiences we’ll never know.

Body of Light features the stunning photography of Jean-Paul Bourdier, Professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley. Bourdier's colorful images of painted bodies in a desert landscape are a combination of painting, photography, sculpture, body art, land art, performance, design, gymnastics, dance, and acrobatics.