Inherited Forms
Following the gallery’s 2025 exhibition Concentric Circles: Tracing the Radiance of Bay Area Figuration, which centered on the founding members of the movement, Inherited Forms builds upon the gallery’s ongoing curatorial exploration of Bay Area Figuration. A focused presentation of works by historic artists associated with the Bay Area Figurative movement, Richard Diebenkorn, Nathan Oliveira, Theophilus Brown, Frank Lobdell, and Manuel Neri, establishes a generative framework for the exhibition. In dialogue with these foundational figures are contemporary artists Linda Christensen, Marshall Crossman, Mark Engel, KL Folgner, Kim Frohsin, Ruth Hunter, Carolyn Meyer, Sandy Ostrau, Gary Ruddell, Hiroshi Sato, and Diane Warner-Wang, whose figurative practices are deeply rooted in and responsive to this lineage.
Across painting, sculpture, and mixed media, artistic influence unfolds as a continuous exchange, carrying ideas, methods, and modes of attentiveness from one generation to the next. The artists engage the legacy of Bay Area Figuration through careful observation of the body, sensitivity to gesture, and a sustained commitment to material presence, while reinterpreting these concerns through individual perception and experimentation. The human figure emerges throughout as presence, psychological space, and expressive potential.
Inherited Forms positions the figure as an evolving language, one that carries forward the Bay Area’s legacy while remaining resonant within contemporary practice. In this intergenerational dialogue, the historic roots of a regional tradition meet the vitality of artists who continue to extend its reach.
