Lecturer and alum Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor (M.F.A. ‘05) is presenting a new solo exhibition “…and how long have you felt this way?” at The Fourth Gallery in Oakland. This show features Higgins O’Connor return to ceramic sculpture. This new body of work displays fragmented figures crowned with allegorical animal heads, their limbs wrapped in fired slip-saturated fabric. Her ragged figures are both tender and grotesque. ”I do not make work about animals but explore what they signify poetically for me—wild and domestic, tamed and feral. Mules embody stubborn resilience and the tension of hybridity. Coyotes navigate the threshold between rural and urban, masters of adaptation and quiet infiltration. Bulls evoke the Minotaur—powerful yet lost, trapped in the labyrinth of the present moment. Through allegory and fable, these figures serve as entry points, inviting the familiar while gesturing toward the unspoken.” 

The show is on view from Mar. 8-April 12, 2025. An artist’s reception is scheudcled for Saturday, Mar. 8 from 3-5 p.m.