What’s Cookin’?: Art about food, culture and community

June 22 - August 18, 2024

Our lives are structured around eating and are reflected in the diverse food we eat. Food provides not only sustenance, but also a defining sense of culture and identity to us all. While food has always been synonymous with celebration and gathering, it is also inextricably linked to more challenging issues around income inequality, gender norms and biases, human consumption and waste, health, the environment, and labor. With human life and culture centered around eating, it is not wonder that the foods we eat not only provide a strong sense of identity and community, but also intersect with many of the important issues facing the world today. We look forward to sharing a plate with you, as we engage the community around art and food this summer!

Artists in the exhibition include:Yusser Al-Qazwini; Hila Amram; Brandin Barón;Amanda Bristow; Heidi Brueckner; Tachiya Bryant; Julia Cardenas; Tania Cardenas; Saranya Chandrasekaran; Dotti Cichon; Colby Claycomb; Aina Clotas; Eric Cowger; Lauren Crasco; Adriane Dedic; Rose Easterbrook; Kim Frohsin; Erik Garcia; Luis-Genaro Garcia; Glish Group (Timofey Glinin & Anastasia Shubina); Omar Harb; Susan Harding; Xiao He; Susan Murillo Helmer; Sandra Iraheta; Roston; Alyssa Karlin; Jessica Kwong; Richard and Judith Selby Lang; Jennifer Lay; Siqi Li; Carey Lin and Gabriel Gilder; Helena Ljoljic; Rayos Magos; Melissa Mahoney; Kent Manske and Nanette Wylde; Blair Migdal; Fateme Mokhles; Michael (MWIN) Nguyen; Kathi Peverini; Paulette Phlipot; Barbara Pollak-Lewis; Kaory Santillán Bueno; Jan Schachter; Chung-Fen Schildan; Ronit Shalem; Anna Sidana; Irene Suh; Carolyn Tillie; Zhanna Urodovskikh; Fe Villanueva; Ming Jing (Mike) Wang; Michelle Waters; Moose Wesler; Nancy Willis; Jee Wipperfurth; Dan Woodard.

 

 
Paulette Phlipot, Romanesco and Greens Mandala, 2017
Photograph printed on metal
40 x 40 in.

Revolution is a Dinner Party: An Installation by Martha Sakellariou
June 22 - August 18, 2024

In conjunction with What's Cookin', Palo Alto-based interdisciplinary artist Martha Sakellariou creates an installation that challenges ideas around domesticity and identity. In this immersive installation, Sakellariou investigates the potential of the dinner party to spark conversation, connection, action, and even a revolution. Through life-size photographic prints, she brings together two dramatically different women—one a famous figure from history, the other a mythological goddess. Through a table in the middle of the space, their worlds merge, transforming the domestic into the political, the familiar into the unknown. Sakellariou reminds us of the role of domestic spaces as sites of dialogue, action, and social change for women throughout history. She encourages us to sit down at the table in the middle of the space, engage with friends and strangers, and start to imagine our own change in the world.

Martha Sakellariou will be in residence at the Palo Alto Art Center May 28 through June 21. During this period, she will work on her site-specific installation Revolution is a Dinner Party and invites the public to find out about her creative process and contribute to the installation. Meet the artist on Mondays and Wednesdays from noon-3 p.m. in the Art Center’s Glass Gallery off the lobby. A special performance in conjunction with the installation will take place at the Friday Night at the Art Center opening celebration on Friday, June 21 at 7 p.m.

Silky Sea, Jim Colton, Big Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i, 2022

The Peninsula Photo Contest exhibition of winning photographs returns to the Palo Alto Art Center in our meeting room.

Please note modified hours for the exhibition while the space is being used for Art Center summer camps:

June 22-June 28: Exhibition open Monday-Friday 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. and standard Saturday (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) and Sunday (1-5 p.m.) hours.
June 29-July 7: Exhibition open standard Art Center hours
July 8-August 2: Exhibition open Monday-Friday 12:30-6 p.m. and standard Saturday (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) and Sunday (1-5 p.m.) hours.
Beginning on August 3, we resume our normal exhibition hours Monday-Friday 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. in addition to the standard weekend hours

Youth Art and Cultural Kaleidoscope

April 27 - May 19, 2024

At left: Chloe, Dreaming of Dumplings, acrylic on canvas, 8th grade, Ellen Fletcher Middle School; At right: (from left) Nico, Victoria, Sophie, Penelope, Audrey, Dorothy, Connie, Artic Squad, foam sheets, foil, plastic bottle, air dry clay, wire, 1st grade, Ohlone Elementary School

Our annual showcase of youth creativity features artwork by students of all ages in the Palo Alto Unified School District as well as artwork created in the Art Center’s artist-in-the-schools program: Cultural Kaleidoscope.

In Feast or Famine

January 20-April 7, 2024

Please see the In Feast or Famine exhibition page at the link here.

We think about food every day; it is necessary for life and central to our daily routines, commerce, and culture. Throughout history, communities have worked together to forage, hunt, and grow food. In good times and bad, feast or famine, food connects people. It is no wonder that food is a prominent subject in art. Opening January 20, 2024, Palo Alto Art Center is pleased to present In Feast or Famine, an art exhibit that explores food as story, symbol, and sustenance. Works in the exhibition from diverse mediums and artists introduce themes such as identity and community; history and memory; health, food equity, sustainability, and agriculture. Artists consider our relationship with food and present unique interpretations of meaning and connection. The exhibition is guest curated by Marianne K. McGrath.

Image credit: Gregg Segal
Altaf Rabbal DLove Bin Roni, 6, Gombak, Malaysia, photographed March 26, 2017 From the Daily Bread series
Courtesy of the artist

September 16-December 10, 2023

Palo Alto Art Center, 1313 Newell Road, Palo Alto, CA  94303

Free admission, open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday 1-5 p.m.

Tlacolulokos,Empeño, 2021, acrylic paint on cotton canvas. Arte Américas. Commissioned forBoom Oaxacawith a grant from The McClatchy Fresno Arts Endowment of The James B. McClatchy Foundation. ©2021, Tlacolulokos/Tlacolulokos,Empeño, 2021, pintura acrílica sobre lienzo de algodón. Arte Américas. Encomendado paraBoom Oaxacaa través de una subvención de The McClatchy Fresno Arts Endowment de The James B. McClatchy Foundation. ©2021, Tlacolulokos

Tlacolulokos, Guerreros de la Calle, 2021, acrylic paint on cotton canvas. Arte Américas. Commissioned forBoom Oaxacawith a grant from The McClatchy Fresno Arts Endowment of The James B. McClatchy Foundation. ©2021, Tlacolulokos/Tlacolulokos,Empeño2021, pintura acrílica sobre lienzo de algodón. Arte Américas. Encomendado paraBoom Oaxacaa través de una subvención de The McClatchy Fresno Arts Endowment de The James B. McClatchy Foundation. ©2021, Tlacolulokos

Artists in the Exhibition

Boom Oaxaca Book List 

Our friends at the Palo Alto Library have created a book list for the Boom Oaxaca show that is available at this link.

EARTH

June 24-August 19, 2023

Featuring the work of 34 artists from throughout Northern California, the exhibition showcases a broad range of artistic responses to the earth, through work in photography, painting, installation, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, and digital media.

 
Images from left to right, top to bottom: Alana Rios, "Superbloom," 2020, handcut archival pigment prints, beanbags made from custom fabric, dimensions variable, courtesy of the artist; Kala Stein, "Atmospheric River," 2023, terracotta, glaze, 80 x 147 x 1 in., courtesy of the artist; Federica Armstrong, "Carr Fire," 2018, archival digital print, courtesy of the artist.

Artists in the exhibition include: Susana Arias, Federica Armstrong, Defne Beyce, Andrea Borsuk, Henry Bortman, Heidi Brueckner, Leo Loren Burr, Alice Combs, Lisa Cooperman, Edi Dai, Tara de la Garza, Leeza Doreian, Jeff Downing, Claire Dunn, Richard Dweck, Tanja Geis, Bibby Gignilliat, Courtney Griffith, Charlotta Hauksdottir, Pantea Karimi, Jennifer Klecker, Albert Harold Lewis, Kent Manske, Mary Mocas, Ulrike Palmbach, Tricia Rainwater, Alana Rios, Piyaali B. Samanta, Emily Schlickman, Pragati Sharma Mohanty, Siana Smith, Kala Stein, Anja Ulfeldt, Minoosh Zomorodinia.

Juror Jodi Roberts selected the 34 artists out of hundreds of submissions. She explains, “Studying the works submitted for Earth has been a genuinely heartening experience. Even as the effects of the climate crisis are felt ever more acutely across the world, artists in the Bay Area are harnessing their creative skill and material ingenuity to address the problem. Each of the works in this show is rich in ideas, and many of the artists featured here are experimenting with new techniques and materials that demonstrate that art-making can be measurably good for the planet and our collective wellbeing. This show underscores the many contributions Bay Area artists make to global campaigns for a healthy and thriving natural world, and I’m excited to see the concepts and solutions these thinkers develop in months and years to come.

Jodi Roberts is the co-founder and Managing Director at Art + Climate Action (A+CA) and co-founder of Partners for Arts Climate Targets (PACT). At A+CA, Roberts leads the development of customized climate action plans for Bay Area institutional partners, connecting museums and galleries with resources available from government agencies, foundations, and local nonprofits in order to facilitate sustainability-focused operational and infrastructural changes. Roberts also has more than a decade of experience as a curator and art historian, with curatorial positions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Stanford University’s Cantor Art Center, and Adrian Rosenfeld Gallery. She holds a B.A., M.A., and PhD from New York University in the History of Art and Architecture and has published widely on modern and contemporary art from the U.S., South America, and Europe.

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Under Water explores the rich undercurrents in the water around us, through work in a wide range of media by a diverse collection of artists. The exhibition addresses diverse topics around water—what is in our water, how much we consume, how climate change has impacted water, how humans have sought to control water sources and to what effect, and the symbolic role of water in moving people literally and metaphorically.

The artists in Under Water explore a range of concerns lurking under the surface, bringing them to light. In this exhibition, we will find an exploration of the significance of water as a medium for migration and the role of water in environmental justice. Some artists use research, mapping and measuring data to share perspectives on water use, facts, and effects. Works in the exhibition help us experience the impact of sea level rise and realize the environmental benefits of marshlands. Other artists creatively address water pollution, plastic waste, and the impact of climate change on ocean temperatures and ecosystems. 

Artists in the exhibition include: Kim Anno, Barbara Boissevain, Sukey Bryan, Judith Content, Jeffrey Downing, Ana Teresa Fernández, Linda Gass, Tanja Geis, Liz Hickok, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Hughen/Starkweather, Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang, Trinh Mai, Danae Mattes, John Sabraw, Adrien Segal, Joan Takayama-Ogawa.

Under Water is a component of “Climate Connections,” a year-long series highlighting the power of art to promote reflection, dialogue and action on climate change. Climate Change—Protection and Adaptation is one of the City of Palo Alto Council Priorities for 2022. It reflects the City’s ongoing commitment to sustainability, outlined in its Sustainability and Climate Action Plan (S/CAP). Updated in early 2020, the plan develops the strategies needed to meet our goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2030 and other community-wide sustainability goals.

Visit the Under Water exhibition page here.

Fire Transforms

September 17-December 10, 2022

Jeff Frost,  King Fire Self Portrait, 2018. Inkjet print on archival paper, edition 1/1, 46” x 68”. Image courtesy of the artist.

In recent years, “megafires” in California have transformed our lives and our landscapes. “Fire season” used to mean a predictable annual period of hot, dry weather, low humidity, and brown hillsides, from August to November, when fire danger was historically highest. Now, fire season can start in early spring and keep burning into the new year. We may feel puzzled and afraid, struck with “climate fatigue,” an underlying feeling of dread that the endless cycle of wildfires will never end. This connects us to bigger pictures of environmental change around the world. How can we transform our fear, sadness, anger, and confusion into comfort and clarity?

Thankfully, we have artists to help us explore, reflect, and try to make sense of these new realities. In Fire Transforms, artists creating a wide range of work nudge us into new ways of “seeing” fire. Photographers face wildfire directly, revealing the flames up-close, or the detailed remains of a burned home. In weavings, drawings, and sculptures, artists show how science can calm us with knowledge. In miniature scenes in tiny suitcases, we learn how firefighters fight and prevent fires. In paintings of nature’s comeback, we see how black changes to green over time. In architectural drawings, house plans present options for rebuilding destroyed neighborhoods and towns. And in fire-hued abstractions, in paper and wire mesh screens, and in paintings of Native American fire dances, fire becomes a creative tool for reflection and beauty. All these artists engage curiosity, wonder, and attention acknowledging how fire’s transformative power works through its cycles of destruction and creativity.

This exhibition is guest curated by Rina C. Faletti, founding curator of Art Responds. 

To visit the exhibition website, follow this link:  Fire Transforms website.

RESTART

June 25-August 20, 2022

Location: Main Art Center Gallery

How can we restart and rebuild after the pandemic and the related personal and community crises? Now more than ever, we crave opportunities for healing, connection, and restoration. And we acknowledge the vital power of art as a tool for promoting resilience, hope, and renewal. 

RESTART showcases how art can promote healing and restoration. The first juried exhibition in more than a decade at the Palo Alto Art Center, this exhibition continues themes explored earlier in the year with the exhibition Creative Attention: Art and Community Restoration (on view January 21-May 21, 2022). The exhibition includes work in a wide range of media by artists from throughout Northern California. 

RESTART’s juror is Patricia Hickson, the Emily Hall Tremaine Curator of Contemporary Art at the Wadsworth Atheneum. Hickson oversees the post-war and contemporary art collection and acquisitions, organizes special exhibitions, and leads the MATRIX program, a series of changing exhibitions of contemporary art. Her thirty-plus MATRIX projects—three per year—have featured an international roster of artists. Hickson reflects, “What a delight it has been to serve as the juror for Palo Alto Art Center’s RESTART exhibition, which has reconnected me to the Bay Area’s distinctive contemporary art scene since working at the San Jose Museum of Art twenty years ago. In addition, the show’s relevant and timely theme—the transformative power of art during challenging times—serves to illustrate humanity’s strength, connection, and engagement through the visual arts.” 

Artists

RESTART exhibition overview with juror Patricia Hickson

The Peninsula Photo Contest Exhibition

June 11-August 20, 2022

Location: Meeting Room

Christopher Stevens-Yu, The Lost Years, San Francisco, California, 2021. Adult Portrait Winner and Best in Show. 

This exhibition features a wide range of photographs by the winners and honorable mentions in this year’s The Six Fifty 2022 Peninsula Photo Contest. Photographs on display include adult and youth winners and honorable mentions in six visual categories: abstract, landscape, moments, wildlife, travel, and portrait. 

Creative Attention: Art and Community Restoration

January 22 - May 21, 2022

Lettering by Christine Wong Yap. 

Creative Attention: Art and Community Restoration features the work of 18 artists from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. The exhibition, curated by guest curator Ann Trinca, showcases alternatives to our chaotic world of stress and anxiety, through practices of mending, healing, restoration, belonging, sustainability, and resiliency. 

Some of the work included in the exhibition looks inward—addressing past personal struggles with illness, addiction, and loss. Other artists turn their attention outward to connect with those who are suffering and to find solidarity in our shared adversity. Universally, what begins in the studio alters the life of the artist, who in turn brings that change to the world.  

Participating Artists: Johnna Arnold, Lynn Beldner, Wes Bruce, Caledonia Curry (Swoon), Paz de la Calzada, Angela Hennessy, Alexander Hernandez, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Jeremiah Jenkins, Corita Kent, Tucker Nichols, Marcel Pardo Ariza, Maria Paz, Jessi Rado, Leah Rosenberg, Lisa Solomon, Esther Traugot, and Christine Wong Yap.

Exhibition website

The enhanced website for the exhibition includes individual pages for each artist, images with alt text, and audio files with visual descriptions of the works of art in the exhibition, as well as videos and other resources. 

Creative Attention: Art and Community Restoration is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Arts.

We would like to acknowledge Pamela and David Hornik for their special gift to support the artists for public and educational programs.

The Art of Disability Culture

September 11-December 11, 2021

Michaela Oteri, Self-portrait, 2020. Digital print. Courtesy of the artist. 

At the heart of The Art of Disability Culture exhibition, curated by guest curator Fran Osborne, is a robust celebration of the diverse, personal, and infinitely varied “disability experience.” Every artist featured has one or more disabilities, whether visible or invisible, and the exhibition centers upon their creativity, vulnerability, and unique perspectives. Work in the exhibition includes traditional portraiture, mixed-media pieces, tactile paintings, ceramics, an interactive labyrinth experience, digital portraiture, video, installation art, and a large site-specific sculpture.

The Art of Disability Culture also provides a safe space for the community to come together and reflect upon the pandemic with a greater understanding of how disability culture can strengthen our communities through the practices of interdependence, accessibility, and inclusion. 

 Exhibition website

The enhanced website for the exhibition includes individual pages for each artist, images with alt text, and audio files with visual descriptions of the works of art in the exhibition, as well as videos and other resources. 

The Art of Disability Culture was made possible with funding provided by California Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Visit www.calhum.org. We would also like to acknowledge Pamela and David Hornik and Magical Bridge for their support.

The Black Index

May 1 - August 14, 2021

Lava Thomas, Mugshot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Alberta J. James, 2018, Graphite and Conté pencil on paper, 47 x 33 ¼ inches, Collection of Doree Friedman.

The Palo Alto Art Center is pleased to present The Black Index, a group exhibition featuring the work of Dennis Delgado, Alicia Henry, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Titus Kaphar, Whitfield Lovell, and Lava Thomas.

The artists featured in The Black Index build upon the tradition of Black self representation as an antidote to colonialist images. Using drawing, performance, printmaking, sculpture, and digital technology to transform the recorded image, these artists question our reliance on photography as a privileged source for documentary objectivity and understanding. Their works offer an alternative practice—a Black index—that still serves as a finding aid for information about Black subjects, but also challenges viewers’ desire for classification.

The works in The Black Index make viewers aware of their own expectations of Black figuration by interrupting traditional epistemologies of portraiture through unexpected and unconventional depictions. These works image the Black body through a conceptual lens that acknowledges the legacy of Black containment that is always present in viewing strategies. The approaches used by Delgado, Henry, Hinkle, Kaphar, Lovell, and Thomas suggest understandings of Blackness and the racial terms of our neo-liberal condition that counter legal and popular interpretations and, in turn, offer a paradigmatic shift within Black visual culture.

The Black Index is curated by Bridget R. Cooks, Associate Professor, Department of African American Studies and the Department of Art History, University of California, Irvine. Exhibition and tour organized by Sarah Watson, Chief Curator, Hunter College Art Galleries, New York in collaboration with the University Art Galleries at UC Irvine, Palo Alto Art Center, and Art Galleries at Black Studies, University of Texas at Austin.

Lead support for The Black Index is provided by The Ford Foundation with additional support by UCI Confronting Extremism Program, Getty Research Institute, Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, Carol and Arthur Goldberg, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, Leubsdorf Fund at Hunter College, Joan Lazarus Fellowship program at Hunter College, Pamela and David Hornik, Loren and Mike Gordon, University of California Office of the President Multi-campus Research Programs and Initiative Funding, University of California Humanities Research Institute, Applied Materials Foundation, Illuminations: The Chancellor’s Arts and Culture Initiative, UCI Humanities Center, Department of African American Studies, Department of Art History, The Reparations Project, and the UC Irvine Black Alumni Chapter. This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit calhum.org.

Associated Public Programs: 

Friday Night at the Art Center recording, with a virtual walkthrough by exhibition curator Bridget R. Cooks, a reading of The Black Index essay by Aldo Billingslea, a redaction poetry activity with playwright Leelee Jackson, and a  presentation by Palo Alto author Julie Lythcott-Haims.

Conversation with Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle and Lava Thomas 

Black American Art History: People, Places, and Things lecture series

The Black Index Publication Launch

The publication is available through Hirmer Verlag and University of Chicago Press. The Black Index publication is made possible by the support of the Ford Foundation, Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, and the Leubsdorf Fund at Hunter College.

Where the Heart is: Contemporary Art by Immigrant Artists

March 6-April 3, 2021

“I am from there. I am from here. I am not there and I am not here. I have two names, which meet and part, and I have two languages. I forget which of them I dream in.”

―Mahmoud Darwish

Zina Al-Shukri, Living Her Best Life, 2018, Gouache on paper, 30 x 22 in., Courtesy of the artist and Patricia Sweetow Gallery.

There are more foreign-born residents in Santa Clara County than in any other county in California, about 38% of the total population. In a state that has more immigrants than any other and a country than has a larger immigrant population than any other in the world, this is a truly meaningful statistic and one we should not ignore.

The artists in this exhibition inspect their identities and heal divisions using thoughtful encounters with strangers and an empowered gaze. With great confidence, each has refused to conform. With improvisation and adaptation of both media and spirit, they give representation to those communities who are often unheard. These artists push beyond counterproductive categorizations and fearlessly enter a world of hybridization.  

Looking into the faces in the portraits exhibited here, it is easy to feel connected by a common humanity and also appreciate the significance of history and ancestry. A sensitivity to both is the grace on offer, one we would all do well to welcome home.

Exhibition artists: Zina Al-Shukri, Paolo Arao, Firelei Báez, Susan Chen, Binh Danh, Claudio Dicochea, Guillermo Galindo, Jiha Moon, Aliza Nisenbaum, Maria Paz, Zemer Peled, Yulia Pinkusevich, Lien Truong, Saya Woolfalk, and Xiaoze Xie.

Please see a link to a flickr album of images from the show. And installation images.

Associated Public Programs:

Where the Heart Is Artist Lectures: Link to past Jiha Moon talk

Where the Heart is Artist Talks: Maria Paz—Link to past Maria Paz session

Where the Heart is Artist Talks: Yulia Pinkusevich—Link to past Yulia Pinkusevich session

Where the Heart Is Artist Talks: Lien Truong—Link to past Lien Truong session

Where the Heart Is: Contemporary Art by Immigrant Artists is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The exhibition is also made possible through the generous contributions of Alliance members Brigid Barton, Pat Bashaw, Kenneth Bird, Peggy and Yogen Dalal, Anne Dauer, Judy David and Ric Ferras, Sue and John Diekman, Jeannie Duisenberg and Rich Hlava, Mary J Elmore, Angela and David Filo, Sally Glaser and David Bower, Loren and Mike Gordon, Pamela and David Hornik, Amy and Glen Kacher, Carol Kenyon, Iris and Hal Korol, Beverly and Peter Lipman, Patty McGuigan, Marcia Pugsley and Kent Mather, Bill Reller and Kris Klint, Susan Rosenberg, and Jan Schachter.

Sanctuary City Print Project Residency

November 3-November 14, 2020

September 12-December 12, 2020  

Sponsored by the Palo Alto Weekly and The Six Fifty. Check out all the winning images.

Read the Palo Alto Weekly article on the exhibition.

Rooted: Trees in Contemporary Art

“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.”
—Herman Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte

Adam Donnelly and David Janesko, Pescadero Creek, CA, 2013, gelatin silver print, 40 x 50 in. darkroom mural; courtesy of the artists.

Perhaps more than any other elements of the landscape, trees represent nature. Their greenery breaks up the hardscape of our suburban or urban environments, reminding us of the natural world. Trees remain the largest living organisms on earth. They also serve as relics of a prehistoric world, with some trees in California dating to more than 2,500 years ago. For these reasons and more, trees have continued to inspire artists, generating artwork that encourages us to consider the power of trees in our lives and communities.

Our City is named for a tree—El Palo Alto—a 110-foot-tall, 1,100 year old Coastal Redwood. In the 1890s, early tree advocates in our community planted our initial tree canopy. At that time, members of the Palo Alto Women’s Club transported milk cans filled with water in horse-drawn buggies to irrigate these early trees. Today, the City of Palo Alto grows and maintains approximately 36,000 city-owned urban trees. These trees remain a vital part of the Palo Alto landscape.

Trees provide a variety of benefits to people and our larger ecosystem. They trap dust and air pollution, shading harmful solar radiation. Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, reducing the overall concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and slowing climate change. They are natural air conditioners, reducing summer temperatures. Trees help people live longer, healthier, and ultimately happier lives averting an estimated $6.8B in health care costs. Research indicates that exposure to trees reduces blood pressure, slowing heart rates and reducing stress.

The Palo Alto Art Center has its own collection of unique and wondrous trees on our property. After seeing the show, we encourage you to pick up a tree map and explore the trees around you.

Participating Artists: Galen Brown, Matthew Brown, James Chronister, Katie DeGroot, Adam Donnelly and David Janesko, Charles Gaines, Stephen Galloway, Maria Elena Gonzalez, Scott Greene, Azucena Hernandez, Andy Diaz Hope and Laurel Roth Hope, Tamara Kostianovsky, David Maxim, Klea McKenna, Ann McMillan, Jason Middlebrook, Meridel Rubenstein, and Jamie Vasta.

Take a look at some of the artwork in our Rooted exhibition.

Enjoy photos from our Friday Night at the Art Center to celebrate the Rooted exhibition opening.
Check out Canopy's videos and photos of our Rooted exhibition.