OAKLAND ART OPENINGS
SWARM - ROWAN MORRISON - PREMIUM - MANIFESTO - Reported by John Casey 02.20-21.09

Swarm Gallery: Jake Watling and Jared Clark - Enter/Exit; Joe Penrod - Orange and Blue.

Review by John Casey: Jake Watling creates landscapes using his neighborhood as inspiration. He populates his paintings with all sorts of oddball characters including circus freaks, gangsters, and religious icons. His discarded tire sculpture topped with a shaman is an urban monument similar to those inflatable, wavy-arm, balloon-men you find outside auto dealerships. Jared Clark's drawings are map-like in structure, and the imbedded pins add to that quality. His found object structures are part of his "interventionist" approach to art, transforming objects while trying not to deform them.

Joe Penrod uses shadow and blue tape to document everyday street objects. In the project space, Joe has constructed a pillar of traffic cones in reference to Constantin Brancusi's "Endless Column."

Rowan Morrison: Derek Weisberg - Olam Haba, The World to Come.

Review by John Casey: Derek Weisberg transforms Rowan Morrison's compact gallery space into a candlelit catacomb. There are over 30 pieces of ceramic sculpture, a real testament to the amount of work that goes into creating such a display. "Olam Haba" is Hebrew for "the world to come," and the environment does feel otherworldly. For the first half-hour or so, after a violin solo by Nadia Shihab and despite the gallery being full of people, everyone speaks in hushed tones as if in a church. Some photos below are courtesy of Rowan Morrison.

Manifesto Bicycles and Gallery: The Living City - Group Show.

Review by John Casey: The Manifesto Bike Shop has a small but energized art gallery in the back of the store. This time around, Obi Kaufmann curates a playful show of local Oakland talent. Also, if you're looking to buy a bike, this shop is great.

Premium Tattoo and Vintage: Obi Kaufmann - The Robot Volcano, Paintings About Psychology.

Review by John Casey: Obi Kaufmann's latest body of work explores his personal psychology with a loose exploratory use of materials, suggesting a sort of conjuring of strange Sci-Fi-like narratives.

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