Opening Night Reception: Fri, October 3, 2025 | 6:30-8:00PM
Spoken Word Performance: People Trippin Fri, October 3, 2025 | 6:00-6:30PM
Free admission to both the Spoken Word Performance and Opening Night Reception
Exhibition Dates: October 3 – November 15, 2025 | Gallery Hours Fri, Sat, 10AM-2PM or by Appt.
Traces of Change: Mark Making, Text, and (Social) Progress? brings together the work of Elizabeth Sher, Eszter Sziksz, and Jill Hoffman-Kowal in a dynamic mixed media exhibition that explores how visual language can reflect and challenge the complexities of contemporary life. Through painting, printmaking, installation, and film, each artist uses text and gesture to engage with themes of environmental fragility, cultural memory, political commentary, and personal narrative. Whether through Sher’s layered ink drawings that blend storytelling with social critique, Sziksz’s ephemeral materials and poetic text that address impermanence and justice, or Hoffman-Kowal’s minimalist compositions embedded with coded meaning, the exhibition invites viewers to reflect on how mark-making functions as a record of transformation—personal, cultural, and collective.
The exhibition opening will feature a live spoken word performance by People Trippin, an original collaboration between Tihda Vongkoth of Modern Marimba and Spoken Word artist Melanie Lavender. Blending rhythm, melody, and lyrical storytelling, People Trippin offers a genre-defying “sonopoetic” experience—a powerful journey through identity, resilience, and spirit.
ARTIST BIOS
Elizabeth Sher is a Bay Area artist and filmmaker based in Oakland and Sonoma County. A Professor Emeritus of Art at California College of the Arts, she taught painting and media arts for over 30 years. Sher is the founder of I.V. Studios: Art & Film for the 21st Century.
Her work—spanning drawing, printmaking, painting, and artist books—is held in the permanent collections of major institutions including SFMOMA, the Oakland Museum of California, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and the U.S. Embassy Collection. Sher’s films have been screened internationally and broadcast on television in the U.S. and abroad. Her recent solo exhibition, Mark My Words, was presented at Mercury 20 Gallery.
Jill Hoffman-Kowal began her art career in the early 1970s at California College of Arts and Crafts, where she collaborated with her partner Joe Rees during the height of the Conceptual Art movement. Together, they founded Target Video, a pioneering DIY media collective known for documenting avant-garde art performances and the emerging punk rock scene of the late ’70s and early ’80s. Her work from this era includes photography, video installations, and international tours that helped shape underground visual culture.
After relocating to Sarasota, Florida, Hoffman-Kowal focused on her studio practice, producing minimalist paintings grounded in conceptual and aesthetic exploration. She also co-produced the Cities Transit Show, served as Vice President of ArTarget, and held curatorial and educational roles, including Director of Education at Art Center Sarasota. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions such as SFMOMA, the Ringling Museum, Dokumenta (Germany), and Arte Fiera (Italy). She is currently represented by State of the Arts Gallery in Sarasota, where she lives and works with her husband, sculptor Dennis Kowal.
Eszter Sziksz, DLA is an American-Hungarian visual artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans printmaking, installation, and video. Working with ephemeral materials like ice, ash, and sand, her work explores impermanence, environmental fragility, and collective memory. Her art has been exhibited internationally—from Tokyo to Budapest—and is featured in major venues such as the International Print Center New York, Krakow Print Triennial, CICA Museum (South Korea), and the Santorini Art Biennial.
Sziksz holds a Doctorate in Liberal Arts from Pécsi Tudományegyetem (Hungary) and an MFA from Memphis College of Art, alongside degrees in printmaking and bookbinding. She is a recipient of the Puffin Foundation grant, MOZAIK Philanthropy’s Future Art Award, and was named Prix de Print winner in Art in Print magazine. Her writing and work have appeared in Printmaking Today and other international publications. Her academic and socially engaged work includes presentations at conferences across Europe on topics like climate justice and interdisciplinary art. She has participated in notable residencies, including the Arctic Circle expedition and IceHotel Summer Residency in Sweden. In 2025, she will return to the SGCI conference in Puerto Rico for her third presentation.
People Trippin is a collaborative performance project by musician Tihda Vongkoth of Modern Marimba and acclaimed Spoken Word artist Melanie Lavender. Together, they create immersive, genre-defying experiences that fuse rhythm, melody, and poetry into a powerful expression of identity, resilience, and spirit. Tihda Vongkoth leads Modern Marimba, an organization dedicated to inclusive, boundary-pushing performances that reimagine the role of marimba and percussion in contemporary, community-rooted settings. Melanie Lavender is a Sarasota-based Spoken Word artist whose work centers healing, heritage, and identity. A Hermitage Fellow and TEDx speaker, her performances channel spirit and cultural storytelling, offering moments of reflection, empowerment, and connection.
