GROW

September 21-December 15, 2024

Exploring the gardens from our memories and the green spaces that we share, to the gardens that grow us towards a better future, Palo Alto Art Center presents GROW. The group exhibition features works from twenty-one artists in diverse mediums to consider history and memory; sustainability, labor equity and climate change; as well as our unique connections with the natural world, our well-being and pleasure. GROW is guest curated by Marianne K. McGrath.

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Associated Programs

Cut from the Same Cloth: Textiles and Technology

On view from January 18-April 6, 2025, "Cut from the Same Cloth" showcases how textiles have not only fueled the creative inspiration of artists throughout history, they also have provided the catalyst for technological innovation.

GROW Friday Night at the Art Center

Celebrate GROW with the artists and community with hands-on art activities and specialty garden-inspired cocktails in a cash bar provided by the Palo Alto Art Center Foundation. Foundation members join early at 5 p.m. for a preview.

What We Sow in Cultivating Our Places: A Talk with Jennifer Jewell

What We Sow in Cultivating Our Places: How a Garden Culture of Care Grows Places and Their People: A Talk with Jennifer Jewell—Saturday, October 19, 2 p.m., Art Center Auditorium, FREE
In her presentation, Jennifer Jewell will explore the philosophy of Cultivating Place, her national, award winning-public radio program and international podcast, based on the belief that gardens/gardeners are power

Gardens Around Us: A Progressive Walking Tour

Meet at the Art Center for a special community walk to highlight unique community garden sites in Palo Alto.

Fall Grow Family Day

Join us for a creative afternoon inspired by our fall exhibition, GROW, and the gardens around us! This family-oriented event features hands-on art making projects led by Art Center teaching artists and community partners!

Artists in the Exhibition

Alisa Banks

Alisa Banks' work centers on inquiries into identity politics through the lenses of home, terrain, and the body, by reflecting on personal and communal experiences and how they shape perceptions of self in relation to community, the environment, and society.

Renée Bott

Renée Bott’s work is based on minute and detailed lines found in etchings and engravings from the 15th - 17th centuries.

Natalya Burd

Trained as a painter, Natalya Burd created an innovative approach to her work by fabricating dimensional constructions of hand-painted foliage on colored Plexiglas and mirrors.

Genevieve Cohn

Genevieve Cohn's paintings draw from a past, present and future that is both historical and imaginative to depict communities of women.

Glenn Hardy, Jr.

Glenn Hardy, Jr. is known for alluring, powerful paintings of black life liberated from the burdens of racial stereotypes and conflict.

Jay Lynn Gomez

Jay Lynn Gomez’s work is known for addressing issues of immigration and making visible the “invisible” labor forces that keep the pools, homes, and gardens of major metropolitan communities in pristine condition.

José Joaquin Figueroa

José Figueroa is a multidisciplinary artist working in painting, photography, video, and sculpture.

Nicholas Bono Kennedy

Nicholas Bono Kennedy's paintings intricately dissect the relationship between inhabited spaces and humanity's ability to manipulate and control them, taking inspiration from everyday life and observations in both private and public domains.

Pantea Karimi

Since 2014, Pantea Karimi’s multidisciplinary work has been focused on the interconnectivity of art and science by exploring select historical objects and scientific manuscripts of medicinal botany and mathematics from Iran, Arab regions, and Europe.

Jane Kim

Jane Kim is a visual artist, science illustrator, and the founder of Ink Dwell.

Stefan Kürten

The deep and universal desire to find the perfect place, a place that will ensure well-being and the contentment we imagine it will bring, is a recurrent theme in Stefan Kürten's painting practice and exemplified in the flourishing home garden patio of Too Beautiful to Last.

Kija Lucas

"The Enchanted Garden explores home, heritage, and inheritance. I consider the ways our environment shapes us, as it has shaped the people who have come before us." -Kija Lucas

Patrick Martinez

Patrick Martinez maintains a diverse practice that includes mixed media landscape paintings, neon sign pieces, cake paintings, and his Pee Chee series of appropriative works.

Melissa Mohammadi

Melissa Desmond Mohammadi earned a BFA with a concentration in painting and printmaking from Rhode Island College and an MFA from Southern Methodist University. Her work is held in many private and public collections and has been exhibited nationally.

Takeshi Moro

Takeshi Moro's work primarily utilizes lens-based media, such as photography and video. For the past decade, he has focused on working with communities and the collaborative process of art making.

Dominique Pfahl

Dominique Pfahl and her husband created Floréal in downtown San Francisco in 1981. As Floréal's owner and main designer, she always had a passion for the natural world.

Callan Porter Romero

Callan Porter-Romero grew up in Oakland, CA in a multi-racial household. Porter-Romero’s Black, Japanese, and Mexican heritage allowed her to have a well-rounded perspective on historical events and experiences, particularly those relevant to Oakland.