Current Exhibitions
RESTART
June 25-August 20, 2022
Location: Main Art Center Gallery

How can we restart and rebuild after the pandemic and the related personal and community crises? Now more than ever, we crave opportunities for healing, connection, and restoration. And we acknowledge the vital power of art as a tool for promoting resilience, hope, and renewal.
RESTART showcases how art can promote healing and restoration. The first juried exhibition in more than a decade at the Palo Alto Art Center, this exhibition continues themes explored earlier in the year with the exhibition Creative Attention: Art and Community Restoration (on view January 21-May 21, 2022). The exhibition includes work in a wide range of media by artists from throughout Northern California.
RESTART’s juror is Patricia Hickson, the Emily Hall Tremaine Curator of Contemporary Art at the Wadsworth Atheneum. Hickson oversees the post-war and contemporary art collection and acquisitions, organizes special exhibitions, and leads the MATRIX program, a series of changing exhibitions of contemporary art. Her thirty-plus MATRIX projects—three per year—have featured an international roster of artists. Hickson reflects, “What a delight it has been to serve as the juror for Palo Alto Art Center’s RESTART exhibition, which has reconnected me to the Bay Area’s distinctive contemporary art scene since working at the San Jose Museum of Art twenty years ago. In addition, the show’s relevant and timely theme—the transformative power of art during challenging times—serves to illustrate humanity’s strength, connection, and engagement through the visual arts.”
Artists
Heidi Alonzo |
Fiorenza Gorini |
Melissa Mahoney |
Ric Ambrose |
Ricky Gumbrecht |
Erin McCluskey Wheeler |
Janis Anton |
Ellen Gust |
Zoe Mosko |
Erica Barajas |
Michael Hall |
Mundi |
Katya Bloshkina |
Charlotta Hauksdottir |
Beril Or |
Shirley Bunger |
Alexis Javellana Hill |
Kaytea Petro |
Brian Corral |
Joyce Hsu |
Ferris Plock |
Valerie Corvin |
Peter Ivanoff |
Misty Potter |
Daisy Crane |
Laura Johnston |
Priyanka Rana |
Adrienne Defendi |
Sarah Klein |
Alexander Rohrig |
John Eames |
Sammy Koh |
Miki Shim and Lance Rutter |
Donna Fenstermaker |
Danym Kwon |
Dennis Sopczynski |
Patrick Fenton |
Matthaus Lam |
Nina Temple |
Janey Fritsche |
Charles Lee |
Badri Valian |
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Kristin Lindseth |
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The Peninsula Photo Contest Exhibition
June 11-August 20, 2022
Location: Meeting Room

Christopher Stevens-Yu, The Lost Years, San Francisco, California, 2021. Adult Portrait Winner and Best in Show.
This exhibition features a wide range of photographs by the winners and honorable mentions in this year’s The Six Fifty 2022 Peninsula Photo Contest. Photographs on display include adult and youth winners and honorable mentions in six visual categories: abstract, landscape, moments, wildlife, travel, and portrait.
Drift by Wes Bruce
January 22-August 20, 2022
Location: Glass Gallery
Belonging Map by Christine Wong Yap
January 22-August 20, 2022
Location: Nook Gallery

An installation photograph of the Belonging Map by Christine Wong Yap and Drift by Wes Bruce.
Creative Attention: Art and Community Restoration closed to the public on Saturday, May 21, 2022. However, two associated installations—Drift by Wes Bruce in the Glass Gallery and the Belonging Map by Christine Wong Yap in the Nook Gallery—remain on display until August 20, 2022.