A Lighting Exhibition at SOBU
5451 College Ave, Oakland
June 7-30, 2025
Members of the “Exquisite Corpse,” fam, by Taylor Shantz, hang in the front window of SOBU to greet guests. Lumpy and welcoming, life-forms in states of flesh or calcification. But like, in clay. Who would you build?
Twenty artists, working mostly with natural materials—the requisite reclaimed woods, linens, clay—have corporeally illustrated the multitude of options available to the curatorial consumer to illuminate their lives. On display now through June 30th at the soothingly chic Rockridge art-furniture store SOBU, “Lighten Up!” is a celebration of artisan handicraft, putting the fun in functional.
In collaboration with Coast Collective and TC Space, the “show explores the many ways light interacts with form and feeling— each artist offering a unique take on brightness, texture, and craft.” And a delightful way to explore their explorations indeed, in bite-sized chunks of light and wood, glass, paper, and filament. The back half of the large room was bathed in a just-before-golden-hour glow, with high paned windows throwing heavy shadows, exaggerated by the multitude of lighting fixtures. Some wore their contrasts effortlessly, others puddled darkness and light in hoards and hollows, hinting at what’s to come in dusk or darkness.
Too many pieces to take in at once and not enough space to see them in: my head began spinning the moment I stepped inside and I’m not sure I breathed full breaths the entirety of my visit. With nearly two dozen perspectives squeezed into an already chock-full store, and at the opening reception further stuffed with the lamp lovers, there was a lot to take in on nearly every sensory level. The aspirationally beautiful shop is an excellent choice for staging, with elegant couches, perfectly planed tables, and verdant, manicured plant life playing key supporting roles in this exhibition’s exploration of light. However, it was simply too full at the opening to be able to sit with (pun intended, my apologies) the works in a meaningful way. Getting up close and personal with the pieces was a must, but required contortion to avoid collision with other pricey and precarious goodies and fellow viewers in order to get a real good eye-full. You’ll likely have a more relaxed and leisurely walk through if you visit during regular business hours. I sort of wish I’d been able to catch them at their previous stop in Fort Bragg, presented in a more traditional gallery setting, white walls and pedestals aplenty.
Several of the lower-priced pieces had already sold, a lovely sign of both affordable, beautiful local luxuries and of an audience interested in elevating the everyday. Personal favorite “Big Top” by Mattie Hinkley, straddled the line of delightful whimsy and imperfection, human touch and classic design, neutrals and the natural, with clear manipulation and structured, brilliant color. It’s staging part of the charm. Placed in front of a large unstretched canvas painted in bold abstract chunks, a red (diamond or Congo, let me know if you know, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole but am still not sure) philodendron leaning over its center, partially shadowing the rim and blocking a portion of the light emitted, with coffee table books laying a low ground, a resting space for the eyes as they move left to a small, simple but perfectly spun, rounded mounded, figurine-like wooden candle holders, anthropomorphic, children to the towering, similarly warm-in-wood and curvature-filled sculpture, routed holes and pleasing dips. Big Top’s vase-like shape, very circus quirk-us chic line work, in raw ceramic and glazed stripes, stood in warm but raw contrast to the rest of its tableau, a very thoughtful sort of simplicity.
Fabric on/in wood, two ways: detail of “light box-folded and cut” by Mason Gardner-Scharf, left, and “Patchwork Erosion” Hannah Sawyer, right.
Amongst the more complex forms, “light box-folded and cut” (pictured in full at top), made of reclaimed white oak, and found fabric caught the eye of the new-to-town, chatty youngin Isaiah I spoke with: a little box lamp, he liked the “simple and unobtrusive shape and natural materials” maker Mason Gardner-Scharf had chosen to employ. He also said he saw a throughline from Ruth Asawa, whose retrospective he recently visited at MoMa, to “Patchwork Erosion” by Hannah Sawyer (one of the curators), with its undulating and criss-crossing lines, the curve of a hip or lip transferred to threads, pulled taut cross fine lines of wood. A womb or cocoon, a canvas tent illuminated by candle light, the comfort of a shawl wrapped tightly around shoulders. Fashioned in ash, bamboo, linen, and rice paper, it sits softly and comfortably in its dissymmetry. Light and airy, it is like the idea, or perhaps dream, of DIY you think you could make, a lesson in tension and restraint, of the fluid and the topsy-turvy. I saw more in common between the two works shown, with their carefully ratioed woods-to-woven-fabrics, tight and simple but unexpected forms, than in Asawa’s intertwined and deeply intricate crocheted bulbous hollows, their light environmentally derived, their shadows as important as their structures.
I clocked three low-tech lighting options — candle powered, that is— that elicited visceral and calming vibes. Whitney Sharpe’s “Guides,” a ritualistic, dimpled bowl brimming with voluptuousness and a literal pool of water, dripped wax and gleamed sensuously in the golden light. Curved handles above and below the rim of the bowl create negative space and gentle, delicate curves, containing the flame without stifling. A reminder to slow down and take stock, to watch a wick burn low in meditation, to caress a candelabra. Coated in a metallic glaze, the ceramic is transformed entirely, the metal façade a penetrating one, seemingly more sturdy and real than its bronze counterpart mere feet away, Cody Proska “Untitled work No. 1”.
Any true form-and-function freak will get a good dose of inspiration and gawking appreciation for the finesse, design, and love expressed in this collection of light fixtures, in all their soft bellied, ribbed, veined, fluid, budding, textured and thoughtful states, a beautiful reminder that pieces of the everyday can be a pleasure to behold.
