Map of Variations: Dharma Strasser MacColl | April 1 - May 20, 2026

Maybaum Gallery is pleased to present our premier solo exhibition for artist Dharma Strasser MacColl. Map of Variations combines a variety of techniques to create mixed media works on paper and ceramic sculpture.

Dharma's work centers on drawing and painting in three dimensions. As with much of her work, she combines a range of techniques— ceramics, paper, thread, and paint— to explore how materials can take on new identities. Paper is cut, pieced, and sewn like fabric, transforming the picture plane into a constructed surface. Porcelain becomes pigment, dyed and layered like paint, while thread extends her drawings into space and clay accumulates in small gestures, echoing brushstrokes. In this way, each medium borrows the language of another, creating a hybrid visual field between painting, textile, and sculpture.

"In Map of Variations," writes the artist, "I use satellite imagery of tidal patterns to map shifting boundaries revealed by rising sea levels. Walking the Northern California coastline year-round, I experience the push and pull of tides, light, and the increasing force of winter king tides. Each ceramic chain installation—composed of hundreds of hand-formed and pigmented links—speaks to both the strength and interdependence of communities, and to the shared path we will inevitably walk as the coastline continues to transform."

"Throughout history, humans have sought meaning in nature by recognizing and mimicking pattern. My practice continues this impulse: by layering color, pattern, and form, I create works in conversation with the intertwined visual languages of our built and natural environments."

Dharma Strasser MacColl grew up in Portland, Oregon. She studied painting and drawing in Italy, and later went on to receive her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in ceramic sculpture. She has taught at Mills College, California College of the Arts, and City College of San Francisco. Her work is included in public and private collections, including The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Berkeley Art Museum, the Fidelity Collection, Microsoft, and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Strasser MacColl works in Sausalito and lives in Mill Valley with her husband and three children.

Afterlight: Kim Cogan | May 1 - June 1, 2026

For over two decades, Kim Cogan has chronicled the shifting landscape of urban
life, attuned to what might otherwise be easily overlooked: empty storefronts, dim
alleyways, and anonymous city blocks. His work exists in the space between
observation and memory, where the familiar becomes charged with emotion and
time feels suspended. Cogan’s familiar and inviting depictions suggest these placeshave new stories to tell. In Afterlight, his first solo exhibition with Maybaum
Gallery, Cogan presents a new body of oil paintings shaped by San Francisco’s
ongoing social and economic shifts. He focuses on spaces that appear static yet
holds in-depth layers of history. These scenes, though devoid of figures, are alive
with presence. While the contemporary art market seeks brash and immediate,
Cogan’s contemplative work is necessary.

Cogan’s paintings evoke a city both lived and longed for. Works such as Siren Call
reimagine the once Cliff House, while Whisper Down the Wind pays homage to the
closing of the music venue, Bottom of the Hill. Through these elegiac gestures,
Cogan preserves sites on the brink of disappearance, allowing them to resonate
anew. Light functions as a central force in his work—glowing windows, humming
streetlights, and hazy skies suggest life within absence. From afar, the
compositions are precise; up close, they dissolve into loose, intuitive brushwork,
revealing the immediacy of his hand. Meaning emerges through layers, as color
and form shift and settle into focus.

Balancing nostalgia with urgency, Cogan moves between specific locations shaped by memory. In a city defined by constant reinvention, Cogan’s work offers a counterpoint to a city in flux: a sustained act of observing, slowing down, and
uncovering the contemplative resonance embedded in place. Cogan’s paintings,
through a narrative of vanishing landscape, reflect on how cities evolve and what
endures in the spaces left behind.

Image:

Dharma Strasser MacColl, "Map of Variations"

Champagne Dreams