Saturday, April 11, 2026 at 1:00 PM to Saturday, May 16, 2026 at 1:00 PM
Serious Topics, Down the Driveway
Serious Topics is delighted to present Culture, Borderline, Layered Time, an exhibition of new paintings by Michael Arata.Even when the subject is war and destruction, Michael Arata paints figurative and still-life paintings that exude the joy of being alive. People are in relationship with other people, working together (thinking, acting, and telling each other what they know). He is interested in how we carry a consciousness larger than the space we occupy, containing thoughts, dreams, memories and desires. Arata’s paintings diagram human interaction. Fresh ideas come from dismantling belief systems and rebuilding them. Past and present blur into an unknown future. Nothing is resolved, but nothing is lost either. All of this is in the paintings. Arata’s work is informed by growing up in 1960s San Francisco, marching for civil rights. He holds the idealism of that time as a working proposition rather than a memory. The paintings are optimistic. We need more of that.