Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art opened a new exhibit on Feb. 12, featuring three Bay Area artists, each with a different approach to their pieces.  “Hilda Robinson: Retrospective” includes vibrant oil pastels that express spaces of joy for Black American communities. Artist Zach Clark’s “Walking the Quiet: A Collaborative Commission” showcases various perspectives of the Saint Mary’s campus landscape.  “Beth Van Hoesen: Felt Through Line” highlights her observations of objects, people, and animals through minimalist line work.

    Robinson (1928-2023) was born in Philadelphia before eventually moving to Oakland, Calif. She created her pastel works between the 1980s and early 2020s.  Her paintings’ themes revolve around the concept of third place – parks, stoops, cafes, transit stations, and churches – anywhere that groups would gather to express joy and a sense of belonging.

    Of special interest to Robinson was her subject’s clothing.  She felt that it voiced the wearer’s personality and identity.  Oftentimes, she painted them in clothes that reminded her of her own childhood, evoking memories of happy times. 

    “Robinson’s deliberate choice of oil pastel – a medium composed of pigment mixed with non-drying mineral oil and a wax binder – enabled her to produce vibrant, opaque, and highly expressive surfaces,” stated SMC Curator Britt Royer. “Through this medium, Robinson offers affirmative representations of people across generations, celebrating joy, resistance, and shared experience within Black communal spaces.”

    Clark (b.1983) was born in Denver, Colo., and currently resides in Oakland, Calif. Besides being an artist, he is also an educator and publisher.  His work is based in a combination of printmaking, photography, and publication. Publishing under National Monument Press, his projects focus on American stories through small edition printing and curatorial projects while collaborating with various artists.

    In working with SMC students, Clark uses locational memory by examining several sites throughout the campus’ landscape as sources of culture, history, and current experiences. According to Royer, “Through research, conversation, and photography, students considered how campus spaces emerge, shift, and persist over time, and how a single place can hold multiple meanings shaped by diverse perspectives.” The intention is to blur “distinctions between past and present, individual and collective memory," with the purpose of turning the college’s landscape into an evolving archive.

    Van Hoesen (1926-2010) was born in Boise, Idaho, later moving to San Francisco with her artist husband Mark Adams. Her works exhibited at SMC were created between the 1950s through the 1980s and include preliminary drawings and intaglio prints (a design incised or engrained into a material).  Her favorite subjects include people, flowers, and animals. 

    “Van Hoesen pared down lines in her still lifes and portraits to emphasize her subjects’ character and individuality,” explained Royer. “At a time when large-scale abstract art dominated the post-WWII art scene, her focus on technical skill, meticulous observation, and keen study of everyday wonders offered an alternative means of exploring universal meaning.”  

    An extra enticement to visit this new exhibit includes the monthly “Music in the Galleries,” performed by SMC’s Museum Emerging Fellow Desiree Sturrock ’25. She is a classically trained, experimental cellist, and multi-media artist whose work centers on creating immersive experiences through collaborative improvisation. 

    Sturrock began the free “concerts” four years ago calling them “Cello in the Galleries.” She would center on a particular painting or poem and use that as inspiration for her music.  Later friends joined her in playing several “shows.”  She has since opened it up to anyone interested in joining her solo appearances by advertising it as “an hour of musical improvisation in the galleries – bring an instrument, your body, your poetry, etc.  Be inspired by our spring exhibitions while listening and collaborating with others.”  

    The new art exhibition runs through June 21. For more information visit: stmarys-ca.edu/museum or call (925) 631-4379.