May Art Gallery & Trunk Show

Due to popular demand, our monthly celebration of art continues! This May, Rare Bird features painter Gina Zupo and jewelry designer Katie J. Evans. Gina’s oil paintings explore the underbelly of seemingly innocuous familiar objects, while Katie’s jewelry enshrines the largely unsung elements of the natural world – like snakeskin and turtle scutes – in glass and metal cases. As always, you are welcome to browse their work all month long at Rare Bird, and we invite you to meet these talented ladies in person on Thursday, May 19 from 6-9 pm. Celebrate these two rare artists with the local community, drink some vino or local Café Crush’s homemade chai, and enjoy the aural stylings of Resident DJ London Fog.

What: Trunk Show and Gallery Showing

Featuring: oil paintings by Gina Zupo and jewelry crafted by Katie J. Evans.

When: Thursday, May 19 from 6-9pm.

Where: The Rare Bird – 3883 Piedmont Avenue – Oakland, CA

About Gina Zupo A Richmond, Calif. based artist, Zupo has lived and worked most of her life in the Bay Area, except for a few extended stints studying classical oil painting in Italy. She has been painting since she was very young, communing with unicorns and bunny rabbits as a 7-year-old aspiring artist. Primarily an oil painter, Gina is interested in the anthropomorphic qualities of familiar inanimate objects. Her paintings are an exploration of the tension between the cute and the sinister. The daughter of a prolific doll collector and an accomplished woodworker, Gina builds canvases and frames by hand for her depictions of the stillness encountered in the objects of our daily life. The world that she creates is entered enthusiastically by viewers, although it’s perhaps not an easy place to inhabit.

About Katie J. Evans Katie is an artist and designer who recently moved to the Bay Area from Portland, Ore. Always intrigued by the cycle of life, she has developed a line of jewelry that highlights the forgotten and discarded. Bones, snakeskin, insects, turtle scutes, and feathers are chosen for their textures, shape, and colors as much as for the roles they play in the natural world. Using glass and metal, Evans creates unique reliquary jewelry that provides a wearable snapshot of the vitality and endurance of these elements.