Gearbox Gallery

Struggling with the seemingly unending challenges present in today’s world, artists Patricia Sonnino and Marsha Balian each have responded in their art. While Sonnino explores the unknown searching for equilibrium where balance seems lost, Balian considers the tendency for people to hang their hats on implausible cures and far-fetched theories.

 Both artists are reaching through the darkness to accommodate or adapt to the uncertainty that defines these times.   Sonnino seeks anchors through emotion laden shapes and colors.  Balian seeks to corral fear and anxiety through playing with themes that historically pretended to have scientific merit.

Marsha Balian is a long time East Bay artist and resident. Motivated by curiosity, and influenced by a lifetime of stories she collects, she mines materials and found objects at hand to give visual form to narrative.

Patricia Sonnino lives and works in San Francisco. She builds her paintings with shapes, color animates the surface, and pattern and strokes create air and mark time.