Exhibition: January 24 – June 15, 2024
Reception: Saturday, January 27, 2pm-4pm
Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm
Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
Hilda Robinson was a beloved artist whose vivid pastels captured joy, love of family, and community in celebrations of life. Hilda grew up in Philadelphia and as a young adult studied painting at the Tyler School of Fine Arts at Temple University. She later completed her BA and MA studies in art at UC Berkeley.
“My mom was a quiet, humble observer who enjoyed her life to the fullest, while documenting each moment in sketch books that later became paintings,” says her daughter Ramona. “She wanted the observers of her art to know her story, and that of her family, while also being reminded of their stories, their families, their friends, the people they admire, the places where they grew up, and the places where they currently live.”
Hilda Robinson was one of the longest participating artists in The Art of Living Black/Art of the African Diaspora. She was deeply connected to the founders and would fondly recall her friendship with Rae Louise Hayward. In 2000, Hilda received the Jan Hart Schuyers Award for Artistic Achievement, and had her work featured in The Art of Living Black in 2001.
Hilda’s artwork has garnered national acclaim, with exhibitions at prestigious galleries like J. Latham Gallery in New York, New York, and a solo show at Art Vision in South Bend, Indiana to name a few. She was also very generous in sharing her artwork in her community at local art institutions and galleries. In 2013, Hilda presented a solo exhibition featuring illustrations from her children’s book, “Didn’t We Have Fun!,” at Richmond Art Center. Her diverse portfolio now resides in both private and public collections, adorning numerous locations throughout the nation. Notably, her creations hold a significant presence in the Alameda County Arts Commission’s Public Art Collection and were recently showcased in The de Young Museum Open 2023.
Hilda was beloved in this community and her vivacious enthusiasm for art and life will be missed, but her beautiful artwork will continue to inspire us all.
Celebrating the artistic achievements of Richmond Art Center students!
Alice Armstrong, Maggie Burns, Larry Craighill, Julissa Duran, Ana Gadish-Linares, Mara Greenaway, Zamira Ha, Beatrice Hartman, Marion Henon, Eugenie Hsu, Susie Kelly, Jen Kelly-DeWitt, Juniper Kirkwood, Jolie Krakauer, Paula Kristovich, Michelle Lin, Susana Macarron, Ahmaya Maroney, Elijah Martinez Ruiz, Jessica McDowell, Jeanette Nichols, Tatyana Ryevzina, Maya Soichet-Yampolsky, Hanneke Steenmetz, & ‘Beginner Handbuilding’ Students
Exhibition: April 10 – June 14, 2024
Reception: Thursday, April 18, 5pm-7pm | More info…
Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm
Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
Art Blooms Here celebrates the artistic accomplishments of Richmond Art Center students. The work on display represents the wide array of mediums taught in our studios, from painting and ceramics to weaving and mixed media, as well as printmaking and digital art. Together they showcase the diverse levels of experience, ages, and interests that make up our vibrant studio community.
Want to join in? CLICK HERE for all the class listings and schedules.
Top image: Jen Kelly-DeWitt, Hold Complexity, 2023, Acrylic ink and pen
Español
El arte florece aquí
¡Celebrando los logros artísticos de los estudiantes del Richmond Art Center!
Alice Armstrong, Maggie Burns, Larry Craighill, Julissa Duran, Ana Gadish-Linares, Mara Greenaway, Zamira Ha, Beatrice Hartman, Marion Henon, Eugenie Hsu, Susie Kelly, Jen Kelly-DeWitt, Juniper Kirkwood, Jolie Krakauer, Paula Kristovich, Michelle Lin, Susana Macarron, Ahmaya Maroney, Elijah Martinez Ruiz, Jessica McDowell, Jeanette Nichols, Tatyana Ryevzina, Maya Soichet-Yampolsky, Hanneke Steenmetz, & ‘Beginner Handbuilding’ Students
Exhibición: April 10 – June 14, 2024
Recepción: Thursday, April 18, 5pm-7pm
Horario de la galería: Wednesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm
Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
El arte florece aquí celebra los logros artísticos de los estudiantes del Richmond Art Center. El trabajo expuesto representa la amplia gama de medios que se enseñan en nuestros estudios, desde pintura y cerámica hasta tejido y técnicas mixtas, así como grabado y arte digital. Juntos muestran los diversos niveles de experiencia, edades e intereses que conforman nuestra vibrante comunidad de estudio.
¿Quieres unirte? HAGA CLIC AQUÍ para ver todos los listados y horarios de clases.
Imagen: Jen Kelly-DeWitt, Hold Complexity, 2023, Acrylic ink and pen
Eli Africa, Ned Axthelm, Colleen Garland, Julia LaChica, Travis Meinolf, Kristin Satzman
Exhibition: April 10 – June 15, 2024
Reception: Thursday, April 18, 5pm-7pm | More info…
Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm
Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
Home never means just one thing. Home Show brings together artworks that respond to the theme of ‘home’ to explore the objects, people, sentiments and stories that come together to shape the structures where we live.
This exhibition also showcases the artistic talents of Richmond Art Center’s teaching artists working in the studios. Spanning weaving, painting, printmaking, ceramics and video, Home Show embraces the creativity thriving at home in our organization.
Top image: Artwork by Colleen Garland
Español
Espectáculo hogareño
Eli Africa, Ned Axthelm, Colleen Garland, Julia LaChica, Travis Meinolf, Kristin Satzman
Exhibición: April 10 – June 15, 2024
Recepción: Thursday, April 18, 5pm-7pm
Horario de la galería: Wednesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm
Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
Hogar no solo significa una cosa. Esta exhibición reúne obras de arte que responden al tema del “hogar” para explorar los objetos, las personas, los sentimientos y las historias que se unen para dar forma a las estructuras donde vivimos.
Esta exposición también muestra los talentos artísticos de los artistas docentes del Richmond Art Center que trabajan en los estudios. Abarcando tejido, pintura, grabado, cerámica y video, este “Home Show” compila la creatividad que prospera en nuestra casa, el Richmond Art Center.
Reception: Tuesday, April 16, 5pm-6:30pm (Award Presentation at 5:45pm) | More info…
Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm
Location: Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
Celebrating the wealth of student artistic talent in West Contra Costa Unified School District!
In its 58th year, the West Contra Costa Unified School District Student Art Show returns to celebrate the creativity of over 300 middle and high school students from 13 district schools.
Curated by classroom art teachers, this art extravaganza showcases best practices in arts curriculum for youth. The exhibition also embodies the shared vision of Richmond Art Center and WCCUSD to champion arts education as a vital part of a flourishing and productive society.
This year, we were honored to have Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez, a former district teacher, select the recipients of the Artistic Achievement awards.
Artistic Achievement Awards: Adrian Salmoran (Richmond High School), Rose Yerian (Pinole Valley High School), Valeria Rodriguez (John F. Kennedy High School), Quin Savage (Pinole Valley High School), Jose Guzman (De Anza High School), Ira Quimora (De Anza High School), Tyson Williams (El Cerrito High School), Meghan Reisbord (El Cerrito High School), Lourdes Mendoza Ramos (John F. Kennedy High School), Caylee Patterson (Betty Reid Soskin Middle School) *See the Artistic Achievement Awardee’s work*
Honorable Mentions: Jirah Jabla (Montalvin K-8), Suzie Rassinoux (Fred T. Korematsu Middle School), Ronard Abesamis (El Cerrito High School), Raheru Allen (Hercules High School), Dani Hermosillo (DeJean Middle School), Lydia Icabalceta (Vista High School), Brian Perez (Helms Middle School), Gorety Valdivia Gomez (El Cerrito High School), Ashley Belen Torres (Pinole Valley High School), Liana Soriano (Pinole Valley High School)
Participating Schools:Betty Reid Soskin Middle School, De Anza High School, DeJean Middle School, El Cerrito High School, Fred T. Korematsu Middle School, Helms Middle School, Hercules High School, John F. Kennedy High School, Mira Vista School, Montalvin School, Pinole Valley High School, Richmond High School, Vista High School
The goal for Richmond-artist Rebeca Garcia-Gonzalez’s project was to bring Black, Afro-Latinx and Latinx community members together to create a mural that affirms the Black Lives Matter movement. The idea came from an invitation by members of the Richmond Our Power Coalition. During the project, Richmond community members gathered in Richmond Art Center’s courtyard to paint several mobile murals on canvas, some of them in Spanish, to be displayed where the Latino community congregates.
Rebeca is specially grateful to Richmond artist and collaborator Carmen Melendez Toya, who assisted in all stages of this project.
About the Artist: Rebeca Garcia-Gonzalez is a Richmond, CA painter who grew up in a suburb of San Juan, Puerto Rico. After earning a BFA at the University of Puerto Rico, she came to San Francisco in 1985 to pursue a graduate degree in fine art. Rebeca has been painting the Bay Area landscape for a few years. She is also interested in the figure and in portraits of people from groups underrepresented in the canon. She shows her work locally. Her paintings are part of several local, private collections. garcia-gonzalez.com
About the ‘Art Lives Here’ Series: When Richmond Art Center’s facility is temporarily closed due to Covid-19, we worked with artists on these projects online and outside (at a safe social distance!) to find new ways to connect and make meaning with community through art.
This limited edition poster was created by a local Richmond artist from the Liberación Gráfica collective, a group from Richmond composed of artists, educators, and community members that create work to uplift social justice, the Richmond community, and young people’s voices.
As the Black Lives Matter movement has drawn global attention following nationwide demonstrations calling for an end to police and state sanctioned violence on Black lives, artists and activists have been mobilized in finding creative ways to support this work. This 8 color print City of Black and Brown Solidarity was created in response to this ongoing systemic oppression and racial injustice.
Highlighting the City of Richmond as fertile ground for cross cultural solidarity between Black and Brown lives, the image invites the community to reflect on the ways collective power is needed, and the ways we can fortify each other in the journey towards liberation.
Posters are being distributed to local businesses and nonprofits in support of this urgent message.
About the ‘Art Lives Here’ Series: When Richmond Art Center’s facility is temporarily closed due to Covid-19, we worked with artists on these projects online and outside (at a safe social distance!) to find new ways to connect and make meaning with community through art.
Richmond-artist and Teaching Artist at Richmond Art Center Lauren Ari created this interactive project, You Found Me: A Gift For You, as a way to stay connected and in creative dialogue with the Richmond Community.
Each of these 50 ceramic sculptures was hand formed by Ari, individually glazed and fired in her kiln in her home studio. Each fits within the palm of the hand, and can be used decoratively or ritually. However recipients chose to use them, “let it be a reminder that nobody is alone” says Lauren.
Wrapped in bright paper with a tag marked “I am a gift for you!” and an enclosed note, these sculptures were then distributed throughout neighborhoods, community centers, local businesses, bodegas, and parks, placed so that someone walking along could find them.
The note invited participants to correspond via email about the experience of finding the object, how they might be using it, and ways they are moving through this unprecedented time.
These colorfully packaged sculptures offer an opportunity for surprise in a time punctuated by monotony and an invitation for connection in a time of widespread isolation.
About the ‘Art Lives Here’ Series: When Richmond Art Center’s facility is temporarily closed due to Covid-19, we worked with artists on these projects online and outside (at a safe social distance!) to find new ways to connect and make meaning with community through art.
Richmond-artist AGANA spent two days creating her site-specific mural that now adorns the columns flanking RAC’s Barrett Street entrance. After five months of RAC’s facility being closed to the public during shelter-in-place, it was so exciting to have an artist working onsite again. Agana carefully developed her work to harmonize with Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo’s banner nearby, This is life long work.
Artist Statement:
Bringing us home, continuing to keep Richmond beautiful, it is a true honor to be able to paint my first mural as a solo artist in conjunction with masterpieces by other talented Bay Area artists.
This is my 3rd mural project at Richmond Art Center. The first two murals I had previously painted were with cohorts of talented youth artists from RYSE. The first mural is located at the side entrance, the theme is “Keep Richmond Beautiful”. The theme of the second mural temporarily installed located in the courtyard was “Keep Families Together”.
The front entrance mural welcomes you as a portal into the unique experience from galleries to studios that is the heart of RAC.
The under and overlapping colors you see are woven together like water connecting the iconic fish Guillermo with the visually vibrating poetic words of Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo’s banner.
The mural is a call and response connecting the art pieces while playfully speaking to one another on different dimensions of the same building, echoing water is life, agua es vida.
Each stroke of color is symbolic of our symbiotic connection to the elements of water and air literally flowing through our bodies.
We are the reflection of the earth in sliced growing gradients building each other up through our collective struggles from environmental racism to people over profit.
The intention of the close up splashes of paint you see from Guillermo the Fish’s tale are creating currents and waves of resistance against the fossil fuel industry.
Each pillar is a symbol of the vast spectrims of our identities giving us life, holding up our dreams and standing tall in solidarity with the deep roots of artistry, mentoring the seeds of our future.
This mural is a call to action protecting the elements of the earth for future generations adding urgency to create art as your action towards climate justice as a climate warrior.
Upon viewing the mural in person, you will see the seamless strokes wrapping around the edges of the columns differently depending on your point of view.
One may observe from walking through this mural experience that how we approach new art mediums is similar to ways that we approach creating new innovative ideas from different angles and perspectives.
May this mural bring new audiences, mentors and hidden talent through the doors to continue to cultivate our creative confidence in the rich history and herstory that is Richmond, CA.
About the Artist: Of Venezuelan descent and hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area, AGANA gives public walls vibrant life with her iconic pictorial imagery, bold aesthetics, bursting colors, textual calligraphic gestures and form. At the intersections of street art, graffiti and fine art practices she communicates common social threads via monumental vision. Rooted in her Latinx identity as part of the larger American experience, AGANA also translates the artistic mural process into fruitful community-building strategies. With a background in graphic design and jewelry metal arts, AGANA received a BAS in Visual Effects from Ex’pression College for Digital Art in 2008 working in the film, animation and video game production industries. Prolific in her production, AGANA creates platforms for successful global art projects found on city buildings across the Americas and worldwide from Switzerland to Senegal. www.djagana.com
About the ‘Art Lives Here’ Series: When Richmond Art Center’s facility is temporarily closed due to Covid-19, we worked with artists on these projects online and outside (at a safe social distance!) to find new ways to connect and make meaning with community through art.
During this period of social isolation digital platforms have become crucial in bridging gaps in social interaction. In my personal experience, the hardest parts of navigating this time have involved missing out on connecting to create tangible artifacts. As a full time teaching artist I spend a lot of time facilitating visual communication and various points of view with artists to create physical pieces of art. That came to abrupt halt when shelter in place was enforced, but the need to create physical records still remains.
There has been a rush to respond to this moment that leaves out some of the nuance and “realness” of it. Many of us have been spending an unprecedented time at home or in our own home bases. For me, this has afforded an opportunity to interact with my space in a new way, investigate what works for me and what doesn’t, cook meals and dive deeper into what physical nourishment means, and connect with my neighbors in new ways, including non verbal communication and eye contact because of face masks. In contrast, when I connect to friends and loved ones online, a lot of the focus is on the bigger moments, things “worthy” of transmitting.
For this project I asked community members to capture some of those deep, powerful, “small” moments to create a physical record of our time apart, and send me the digital photograph. I then printed these pictures as polaroids to create a tangible record of our daily lives during these times of quarantine, shelter in place, and social change. The process of converting these digital images into photos altered them slightly, shifting colors, softening resolution, obliterating details and cropping out certain elements, which mimics the way that history gets passed down. The resulting artifacts tell a story of life in Richmond at this very moment.
– Dawline-Jane Oni-Eseleh
Special thanks to our Richmond Art Center community contributors, without whom this project would not have been possible: Alissa Anderson, Alison Ahara-Brown, Amber Avalos, Coleen Haraden-Gorski, Erin McClusky Wheeler, Irene Wibawa, Laura Kamian, Melody Serra, Janet Lipkin, Jocelyn Jones, For The Barrios, Emily Ross, Holly Carter, Shantanice Swain, Chiara Sottile
About the Artist: Dawline-Jane Oni-Eseleh has been a part of the Richmond Art Center community since she began there as a teaching artist in 2016. She in based out of Oakland, CA, where she continues to work as a teaching artist, educational facilitator, illustrator, and exhibiting visual artist with a full time studio practice. www.dawlinejaneart.com
About the ‘Art Lives Here’ Series: When Richmond Art Center’s facility is temporarily closed due to Covid-19, we worked with artists on these projects online and outside (at a safe social distance!) to find new ways to connect and make meaning with community through art.
I started this project at the beginning of quarantine back in March. It was a way of keeping me sane through making and also a way of maintaining community during a time of isolation.
In partnership with Richmond Art Center, I made twenty mango bowls and gave them out to people in our network of teachers, artists and community members. I wish I could give a bowl to everyone I know! Because for me the bowls are an offering of love and care, and an embodiment of joy and human connection. Handmade objects hold power.
– Marisa Burman
About the Artist: Marisa Burman is a ceramic artist and teacher who has been making things out of clay for 15 years. Originally from San Francisco, she is currently living and working in Richmond where she manages the ceramics studio at Richmond Art Center. In her own work she loves using porcelain, and seeks to make colorful and meaningful objects that people can use in their daily lives. Burman enjoys the science behind the ceramic process and the constant surprises that firing clay brings. She also loves the community aspect of ceramic arts — the sharing of knowledge & experience, and the never ending source of learning and challenge. Follow Marisa Burman on Instagram: @marisaburman
About the ‘Art Lives Here’ Series: When Richmond Art Center’s facility is temporarily closed due to Covid-19, we worked with artists on these projects online and outside (at a safe social distance!) to find new ways to connect and make meaning with community through art.
Images: Images of the bowls in use by their new owners
