Winter Viewing Room: Works by Allison Allessio, Suzanne Frazier, and Jen Garrido
473 25th Street, Suite A, Oakland
November 15 - December 20, 2025
25th Street between Broadway and Telegraph Avenue was hopping this past Saturday: packed with throngs of people taking in the diverse abundance of art on exhibit at several galleries. With a grand opening fête at The Orchard / Galleries on 25, an artists’ talk at Mercury 20 Gallery, and nearly every other gallery on the block open, including Manna Gallery, The Fourth Wall, and Werkshack, it was a party atmosphere, testament to the vibrancy and mutual support of the Oakland arts community.
The many pieces on display at so many spaces was a lot to take in, but once the crowds began to thin a bit I was able to focus more exclusively on the art. After checking out the excellent show at The Fourth Wall, I headed over to Slate, eager to see the color-form paintings there. The gallery has moved to a new location at 473 25th Street, down the hallway from Slate’s previous spot. It’s smaller, but the curation is as good as it’s always been.
The piece that caught my eye straightaway was Kim Manfredi’s “Mesa”. Though technically not part of the show, the 48” x 40” work was on display from the gallery’s inventory. Created with acrylic, sand, and enamel on canvas, the composition is spellbinding. Manfredi is an artist who understands how to anchor the viewer’s eye so that everything else going on around it can be seen and considered: she employs bold, unadorned strokes, angles, curves, and sophisticated use of negative space. There’s a great deal of simultaneous action and stasis in “Mesa”, which I loved. Its chartreuse and chlorophyll color scheme, accompanied by brief flashes of equally strange contrasting rectangular pinks and oranges lent to its mystery. Its visual texture was hypnotic enough alone, but the areas where the sand is incorporated into the canvas caused me to reach out a hand. It possesses physicality that made me want to touch it.
Another piece from the gallery’s inventory that wasn’t part of the show was displayed in the hallway just outside Slate. “S1.16 Space” by Hannah Franco, an oil on canvas work in black and white, held me in thrall. Its formal composition of dark shapes are slightly rough-looking but ordered just-so. The negative light spaces are equally prominent, with border-like lines marked out in elliptical arcs that mirror the bolder shapes and give the impression of stilled motion, quilt-like.
I hate to admit that I didn’t have the same enthusiasm for the show’s “official” pieces, works by Allison Allessio, Suzanne Frazier, and Jen Garrido. They were colorful alright, but apart from a couple pieces by Jen Garrido, they failed to engage me. I most preferred Garrido’s “Hot Pink Silence”, in acrylic on raw canvas. Its wonderful, middle-of-the-canvas composition utilized unexpected shapes and colors that cooperated together in unlikely but harmonious unison. Simple abstract floral forms along with varied intestine-like shapes—some in simple off-whites and light pinks—and a few dense, mildly serrated contours played off one another very successfully. Her “Earthtones IO-9” reminded me a bit of Matisse for its five simple amorphic, amoebic shapes in beige, pink, violet, maroon, and peach; unassuming and plain, reminiscent of the compositions in many of Matisse’s works.
A trio of small sugar lift aquatints by Suzanne Frazier were pleasant enough, but all were the same composition—one in blue, one in orange, and one in red—and struck me as more decorative than anything else. Allison Allessio’s pieces, in acrylic and ink, bled into the canvases in an almost translucent way, and struck me as similarly decorative. My favorite of the bunch, “Fragrance of Color” (pictured at top, middle), is well rendered, but its quietness was too staid for my taste. Color-form art can be dazzling, but to my mind there must be something surprising and/or unexpected to the composition. For me, these fell short.
By the time I was through visiting Slate the crowds had begun to dwindle. I took one last tour of the galleries as things wound down, bidding farewell to departing acquaintances, grateful for the day’s festive vibe which left me feeling inspired. Oakland’s arts community is alive and thriving. Reach out and touch it.
To join in the revelry: The 25th Street Galleries Holiday Party will take place on Saturday, December 13th, from 2 - 5 p.m.
