Primal Alchemy

Dates: February 27 to April 5

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 1, 1-4pm

Artists’ Talk: Saturday, March 22, 2pm (Linda Ellinwood, Jamie Treacy and Todd Laby)

First Friday: March 7, 5-8pm

First Friday Closing Reception: April 4, 5-8pm

Gearbox Gallery

770 West Grand Ave, Oakland, CA 94612

Contact: [email protected]

(510) 271-0822

Gallery Hours: Thursdays-Saturdays, 12-5 pm and First Fridays, 5-8 pm

Gearbox Gallery is proud to present Primal Alchemy,  an exhibition of new work by Gearbox artists Linda Ellinwood and Jamie Treacy. In their first feature exhibition together, Ellinwood and Treacy explore the primal in its connotation to early humanity, but also the psychological idea of primality as the origin of our emotional lives. The exhibition consists of Ellinwood’s sculptures made of materials like bull kelp, driftwood and palm pods; and Treacy’s works in acrylic and oil on panel. 

Ellinwood’s materials are sourced from the plants and trees that populate her Bay Area landscape; friends and gardeners sometimes contribute to her organic material inventory. She then melds them in such a way that one might question if they occurred naturally or were finessed. The resulting sculptures are at once intimate, haunting and/or humorous. 

Treacy’s latest series of paintings and drawings (all created in the eleven months since his show Creatures of Duality) examine the ancient human practice of watching fire rage and diminish. In his new series he includes acrylic paintings that are a study of the awesome and terrifying qualities of flames as well as drawings in oil stick that are further abstractions of raw energy and the stories that dancing flames inspire.