Casting, Sinking, Feeling
Tanja Geis
January 21 - February 14, 2025
Bay Area artist Tanja Geis makes place-based paintings, drawings, sculptures, and videos that invite intimacy with human-disturbed ecosystems, spaces, and species. For the Else Gallery, Geis has created an immersive installation that explores the Northern California bull kelp as a resonant symbol of our endangered marine ecosystem. Casting, Sinking, Feeling draws on the visual languages of augury—the practice of reading cast objects and patterns in the environment—to imagine alternative forms of knowing as we face the irreversible human impact on the environment.
Tanja Geis holds a Masters of Fine Art in Art Practice from University of California Berkeley, a Masters in Resource Management in Marine Management from the University of Akureyri, Iceland, and a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from Yale University. She has exhibited with FOR-SITE, Berkeley Art Museum, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose, and galleries in Iceland, Scotland, England, Hong Kong, and Japan. Geis’ awards include a Graduate Fellowship and Affiliate Artist Fellowships at the Headlands Center for the Arts, a Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Award from The San Francisco Foundation, and a Graduate Arts Grant from the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts. She has been an artist-in-residence at Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Blue Mountain Center, and Kala Art Institute. Geis was born and raised in Hong Kong and is currently based in Oakland.
This exhibit is made possible by the Art Department’s Visiting Artist Fund. A donation to this fund supports students having direct experiences with professional artists in workshops, studio critiques, lectures, and exhibition contexts.
Artist Talk: Thursday, January 30, 4:30PM, Kadema 145
Reception: Thursday, January 30, 5:30 - 7PM
About Robert Else Gallery
Student Awards Show 2025
The Department of Art and the University Galleries hold their annual Awards Show each spring. The exhibition is juried by two guest jurors and features work by current art students. The Awards exhibition includes several award categories as well as merit awards.
Jurors:
Ianna Nova Frisby is a Sacramento ceramic artist and a professor at Sacramento City Community College. She also leads art workshops, often at Verge Center for the Arts where she is a founding artist. Although ceramics is her primary focus, her practice includes textiles, printmaking and mixed-media sculpture. She is the co-creator of the Art Advice Booth, a nomadic project begun in 2016, once featured in Sactown Magazine. In the past, she co-managed and curated monthly art exhibitions at Tangent Gallery in Sacramento. Professional awards include the Regional Artist Award from Visions in Clay 2023, the Fine Art Juror’s Award at the 2022 California State Fair (#goldenbear), and The Leff-Davis Fund for Visual Artists of the Sacramento Region Community Foundation in 2016. Frisby earned her BFA in Studio Art from Humboldt State University and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Bridgett Rex is the Exhibitions Manager for YoloArts in Woodland, CA. She oversees both the Barn Gallery as well as Gallery 625. Rex has over ten years of work experience in the arts sector, and holds a B.A. in Art History Theory and Criticism from the University of California, San Diego. Committed to fostering a more equitable and diverse future in both physical and digital realms, she brings a wealth of knowledge and passion to her role as a curator. As an artist, she utilizes various “art languages” including graphic design, violin, photography, painting and pen and ink drawings.
About the Robert Else Gallery
The Else Gallery is named after emeritus art professor Robert Else and serves as a space for professional art exhibits, the work of Art Department graduate students, and student group exhibitions.
Exhibitions hosted in the gallery include the:
- Annual Student Awards Show
- Annual Senior Show
- Advancement to Candidacy exhibits by the Department of Art graduate art students.
Gallery Info
The Robert Else Gallery is located in Kadema Hall. The gallery is open Tuesday - Friday, Noon - 4PM.
Information for Exhibitors
Proposals for the Else Gallery are accepted by the Gallery & Events Committee each spring for consideration for the following academic year.
Please email Kelly Lindner, Galleries Curator at kelly.lindner@csus.edu.
