Eight bridges connect the San Francisco Bay, so it is an apt name for a gallery platform that brings the Bay Area art world together.

Our mission is to maintain a vibrant gallery scene, despite restrictions on travel, celebrations and other larger gatherings. We want to support our artists by informing and entertaining curators, collectors and critics with potent online exhibitions of their work.

On the first Thursday of every month, we will launch 8 shows of artists relevant to the Bay Area. They may be working in this place, long considered an epicenter of change, or deeply engaged in the conversations the Bay Area holds dear, whether it’s related to technology, the environment, social justice or sexual identity, to name a few. In addition, each month will highlight the crucial work of a Bay Area non-profit arts organization.

Founding Committee

Claudia Altman-Siegel, Kelly Huang, Sophia Kinell, Micki Meng, Daphne Palmer, Ratio 3, Sarah Wendell Sherrill, Jessica Silverman, and Elizabeth Sullivan

Ambassador Committee

Sayre Batton & Maja Thomas, Joachim & Nancy Bechtle, Matt Bernstein, Sabrina Buell, Wayee Chu & Ethan Beard, Natasha Boas, Douglas Durkin, Carla Emil, Matt & Jessica Farron, Lauren Ford, Ali Gass, Stanlee Gatti, Brook Hartzell & Tad Freese, Pamela & David Hornik, Katie & Matt Paige, Putter Pence, Becca Prowda & Daniel Lurie, Deborah Rappaport, Komal Shah & Gaurav Garg, Laura Sweeney, The Battery, Robin Wright, Sonya Yu & Zack Lara

Sponsors

Lobus, The Space Program

Mercury 20 Gallery
Kathleen King, Chris Komater, Johanna Poethig, Mary Curtis Ratcliff
Form, Pixel, Movement, Story

Founded in 2006, Mercury 20 is a contemporary art gallery established, supported and operated by San Francisco Bay Area artists. Mercury 20 maintains a gallery space in Oakland, California, as well as an online sales platform. Our collective operating structure supports our ability to experiment, develop, exhibit and advance our work and to sustain community.

Form, Pixel, Movement, Story is an introduction to the work of 4 of our exhibiting artists. We invite you to visit our website and further explore the work of these and other Mercury 20 Gallery artists.

Kathleen King
Monument to the Precariat 1-3, 2018
Found plastic containers
Dimensions variable
$5,500
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Kathleen King
Monument to the Precariat 1-3, 2018
Found plastic containers
Dimensions variable
$5,500
Precarity is a political condition where people suffer as social and economic systems fail. The term evokes larger questions of uncertainty and the ultimate impermanence of life. In truth, our social existence depends on interdependence and the care of others; our bodies, work, and empathy sustain each other’s survival. These sculptures titled, "Monument to the Precariat #1-3" are constructed of found plastic containers. They juxtapose, engage, and balance, challenging viewers into empathy with sculptural objects and with each other.

Chris Komater
Mom and Dad, Chicago, June 23, 1951, 2020
Digital chromogenic development print
30 x 42 inches, framed
$2,800

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Chris Komater
Mom and Dad, Chicago, June 23, 1951, 2020
Digital chromogenic development print
30 x 42 inches, framed
$2,800

Chris Komater's recent photo series "Family Album" consists of images culled from his family history. Following the recent passing of both of his parents and older sister, he's chosen a few images of them and produced large-scale, low-resolution enlargements. There’s nothing to signify gender, personality, location, no discernible or specific details. Ranging in resolution from easily- to barely-recognizable, the images mirror the process of our loved ones disappearing from our lives. Komater asks his viewer to look past the specific content of these images, and to experience the gradual transformation of meaning and memory attached to them.

Johanna Poethig
Earth Station Garden, 2021
Acrylic on canvas
84 x 84 inches
$12,000

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Johanna Poethig
Earth Station Garden, 2021
Acrylic on canvas
84 x 84 inches
$12,000

In this painting from Johanna Poethig’s "Terrestrial" series mathematically generated plant growth patterns are layered with botanical renderings to draw attention to what we really perceive when we look at the natural world. These plant patterns relate to an ancient meta physics found across civilizations and through time connected by principles of micro and macro cosmos, fractal geometries and plant medicines. This visual field is painted to bring the eye in and out of focus with the floating phyllotactic shapes poised like satellite dishes, their faces turning towards the sun and space, imagined as futurist light transforming Earth Stations.

Mary Curtis Ratcliff
Exoplanets, 2020
Acrylic, colored pencil, ink brush pen on digital inkjet print on paper, steel, monofilament
64 x 60 x 58 inches
$4,250

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Mary Curtis Ratcliff
Exoplanets, 2020
Acrylic, colored pencil, ink brush pen on digital inkjet print on paper, steel, monofilament
64 x 60 x 58 inches
$4,250

In recent years, Ratcliff has come to focus on the healing, soothing properties of image-bearing circular artworks in stasis or gentle motion. These kinetic, suspended works incorporate natural imagery verging on abstraction: in "Exoplanets," the patterns are sourced in raindrops on the surface of a pond, elsewhere in tree branches or underwater life. All of the images derive from Ratcliff’s photographs, which are printed and then hand-worked in multiple media—in this case acrylic, colored pencil, and ink brush pens. The suspended forms turn water surfaces into celestial bodies that cast a continuous play of shadows on the surrounding walls. As the circles slowly turn and their shadows shift, they provide a grounded support for meditation, bringing the elements into a physical flow vis-à-vis the viewer. The dynamism inherent in the work ensures that it is never the same way twice—with each passing minute new relationships are revealed.
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