David Tomb
David Tomb has had an inseparable lifelong passion for birds and art.
He conducts research at many science museums, including the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Cal Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.
His field birding endeavors have taken him throughout the US and California, as well as to far-flung zip codes such as Bhutan, China, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, and Madagascar, among others.
David has exhibited widely in galleries and museums throughout the US.
His work is in many public collections, including those of the United States Embassies in Manila, Philippines, and Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Art Collections of the Consulate General of the United States, Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The Crocker Art Museum, The Oakland Museum of California, The Huntington Library Art Collections, The Arkansas Art Center, The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and The Fresno Art Museum, among others.
David’s work has been widely published and reviewed, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, Art LTD, Three Penny Review, and The San Francisco Chronicle
David received a B.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from California State University, Long Beach in 1984. David has maintained studios in Oakland, New York, San Francisco, and currently Marin County.
Statement from The Artist:
I approach art as a birder. I approach birding as an artist.
Birds are a central theme in my large-scale installations, collages, and oil paintings.
Birding in the field and museum research are equally important foundations of my work. I’ve been fortunate to conduct research at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley, the California Academy of Sciences, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, among others.
My interest in natural history dioramas, which combines a perfect blend of science and art, also informs the imagery. These resulting paintings feel to me part realism and part daydream.
James Patrick Finnegan
James Patrick Finnegan’s works on paper explore the delicate balance between clarity and ambiguity, form and space, and the familiar versus the unfamiliar. These floating vignettes invite viewers on a journey through both the conscious and the unconscious. A seasoned art educator, Finnegan has taught at institutions such as the University of Illinois and Long Beach City College. He has held three residencies at the Roswell, NM Artist-in-Residence program and has exhibited widely, with notable shows at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum and Poh Chang University in Thailand. His solo exhibitions include LA Artcore and the San Geronimo Art Center. Finnegan earned his MFA from the University of Wisconsin and currently resides in Woodacre, CA.
Rik Ritchey
From early on, Rik Ritchey’s work has employed various mediums; wood, Polaroid, foam and paper, all exemplifying what it meant “to resist the hierarchy of the material.”
Ritchey’s “homologies” are unique works on paper created with an innovative technique involving simultaneous drawing with both hands in a mirror-like fashion. The
nearly symmetrical pieces evoke anatomical references while recalling the imagery of Rorschach tests and Bruce Conner’s inkblot drawings from the late 1990s. Ritchey has exhibited extensively throughout the Bay Area and has held solo exhibitions in New York City and Chicago. He studied under esteemed artists Jay DeFeo and Ron Nagle at Mills College, where he earned his MFA. Ritchey currently lives and works in Marin County.