Mitchell Johnson, Pigeon Point Green, 1992, 14x30 inches, oil/canvas (©Mitchell Johnson, 2026) (SANTA CLARA, CA) - The Triton Museum of Art presents Mitchell Johnson: Fifty Years of Painting (January 16 - April 18, 2027). The third retrospective of the American colorist's career, following the Bakersfield Museum of Art (2014) and the Musée Villa les Camélias in Cap d'Ail, France (2023). The exhibition brings together 70 paintings made across six decades, from Johnson's teenage beginnings in the 1970s to canvases completed this year. Half of the exhibition is devoted to figure paintings from the 1990s and 2000s, a body of work overshadowed by the popularity of Johnson's Truro and Presidio paintings. The exhibition also presents early California landscapes made between 1990 and 1999, important paintings of Paris and New York City, and four monumental canvases, each 78 x 120 inches, of San Francisco and Cape Porpoise, Maine. Four vitrines of painted juvenilia from the 1970s open the story. Johnson made these early works as a child alongside his father and as a teenager at Staten Island Academy, where he first studied painting. They trace a lifelong conversation with color back to its source. The exhibition marks a return to the Triton, which first exhibited Johnson's work in 1993 in the 9th Biennial Drawing/Print Show and again in a solo exhibition, Play and Work, in 2003. A Voice Found Through Art History Johnson has found his own voice through a deep study of the painters he admires, above all the School of Paris, Giorgio Morandi and Josef Albers. He does not borrow their styles. He connects with their intentions. In 2007 he was an artist in residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, and his work is now in the collection of the Museo Morandi in Bologna. The art historian Alexander Nemerov explored this lineage in his essay "Heir of Theirs: Mitchell Johnson and Fairfield Porter," written for Johnson's 2014 retrospective. "A pleasing thing about Mitchell Johnson's paintings is how they suggest other artists such as Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Giorgio Morandi, and Josef Albers," Nemerov writes. Yet "Johnson is neither creating a superficial pastiche nor waging an epic battle to win a style of his own." Instead, "Johnson knows these artists from the inside." What the Critics Say Johnson has drawn sustained attention from critics for the way his paintings join observation and abstraction. Writing in Whitehot Magazine, the critic Donald Kuspit has reviewed his work three times since 2023. "Johnson is in a class by himself, for he seamlessly, ingeniously, eloquently re-integrates, with dialectical suavity, the purely artistic and objective, abstraction and realism, that Kandinsky divided, in rebellion against scientific materialism." — Donald Kuspit, Whitehot Magazine, 2023 "I don't know any work of Johnson in which the colors do not smile at you, that is, are bright with light." — Donald Kuspit, Whitehot Magazine, 2025 The art historian Peter Selz observed that Johnson's "realist paintings are basically abstract paintings and [his] abstract paintings are figurative," that is, representational. As early as 2004, ARTnews called him "a devoted colorist able to extract visual tension from the world around him." The Exhibition Fifty Years of Painting follows Johnson from his first painted objects as a child and teenager to the figure paintings, landscapes and cityscapes of his mature career. Color is the constant. His subjects change with the places he works: the topography of Truro on Cape Cod, where he has painted for more than twenty years; Paris and New York City; Cape Porpoise, Maine; Newfoundland; Italy; and San Francisco and the Presidio, close to his Bay Area studio. Across the decades, recognizable scenes — beach chairs, fields, boats, houses, city streets — are built from flat, interlocking planes of color. The retrospective lets visitors see that approach take shape, from the experiments of a teenager to the work of a mature painter. Events and Visitor Information Exhibition Mitchell Johnson: Fifty Years of Painting Dates January 16 – April 18, 2027 Public reception Saturday, January 30, 2027, 12:00–2:00 pm Artist talk Saturday, February 20, 2027, 1:00–2:00 pm Location Triton Museum of Art, 1505 Warburton Avenue, Santa Clara, CA 95050 Hours Tuesday–Sunday, 11:00 am – 4:30 pm; closed Mondays and holidays Admission Free Website tritonmuseum.org About Mitchell Johnson Mitchell Johnson (b. 1964) is an American painter known for his use of color. He began painting as a teenager at Staten Island Academy and studied painting, drawing and art history at the Washington Studio School and Randolph-Macon College before earning an MFA from Parsons School of Design in 1990, where he studied with Jane Freilicher, Leland Bell, Paul Resika, Larry Rivers and Robert De Niro Sr. Johnson moved to California in 1990, on the advice of Sol Lewitt, to work for in the Palo Alto studio of Sam Francis. Johnson was an artist in residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in 2007, at Borgo Finocchieto in 2010 and a visiting artist at The American Academy in Rome in 2015. His paintings are in 40 museum collections, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Crocker Art Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art, the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Tampa Museum of Art, the Cape Cod Museum of Art and the Museo Morandi in Bologna. He has had retrospectives at the Bakersfield Museum of Art (2014) and the Musée Villa les Camélias in Cap d'Ail, France (2023). Recent solo exhibitions include Galerie Mercier, Paris (2025 and 2026); and Twenty-One Years in Truro at the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill (2026), where he also teaches an annual master color class. His paintings have appeared in the films The Holiday, It's Complicated and Crazy, Stupid, Love. He lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. High-resolution images and interviews are available on request. More at mitchelljohnson.com. Media Contact Aileen Tran, Communications Coordinator, Triton Museum of Art · communications@tritonmuseum.org Sources for quotes Donald Kuspit, "Mitchell Johnson: Abstract Realism, Realistic Abstraction", Whitehot Magazine, July 2023 Donald Kuspit, "Mitchell Johnson: Giant Paintings from New England, California and Newfoundland", Whitehot Magazine, March 2025 (includes the Peter Selz quote) Alexander Nemerov, "Heir of Theirs: Mitchell Johnson and Fairfield Porter", in Mitchell Johnson: Color as Content (2014) Susan Emerling, ARTnews, June 2004, p. 88, via mitchelljohnson.com Mitchell Johnson: Fifty Years of Painting will be on view in the Triton Museum of Art’s John and Eve Mathias Gallery starting January 16th, 2027.

The Triton Museum of Art presents -futility in three acts- (August 29, 2026 - January 10, 2027) by Sieglinde Van Damme. Sieglinde Van Damme is a California-based multi-disciplinary artist whose work is focused on abstraction as an open, undefined potential to new interpretations. Her work reflects on the depth of our individual pasts and the complex dynamics behind big life choices. Van Damme’s message for her art is: re-imagine what else is possible. Born in Belgium, Sieglinde Van Damme moved to California in 1998. Van Damme graduated from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) with a MS in Economics and a MFA from San Jose State University. Van Damme’s art and writings have been published in various catalogs and publications, both in the US and Europe. As an award-winning artist, she has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world, including the US, Europe, Russia, India, and Japan. Van Damme’s art is also included in private and corporate collections around the globe, including Sotheby’s International Realty in France - Monaco. Sieglinde Van Damme’s upcoming exhibit, -futility in three acts-, explores identity, memory, adaptation, and how we continue to negotiate who we are as we move through life. Having immigrated to the US from Belgium, Van Damme realized that adapting to new circumstances where our experiences change our identity asks us to consider what parts of us stay, evolve, or have to be let go as a result of our many choices. Structured in three movements: destruction, reconstruction, and re-imagination. Van Damme wants us to utilize this exhibit to explore what happens when life changes course: What remains? What evolves? How do we stay connected to who we are while allowing new possibilities to emerge? At its core, this exhibit reflects a belief that “life itself is a creative act. That identity is not singular. And that we often have more freedom, possibility, and authorship in shaping our own lives than we realize,” Van Damme states. Van Damme’s exhibit comes forth to not only have viewers reflect on their own understanding of transformation as a concept, but what transformation means within the context of their own individual lives. -futility in three acts- by Sieglinde Van Damme will be on view in the Triton Museum of Art’s Digital Gallery starting August 29th, 2026. The exhibit will unfold in three parts, featuring: -futility in three acts-: On view August 29th, 2026 - October 8th, 2026 V O I D: On view October 8th, 2026 - November 19th, 2026 Things change and then nothing happens: On view November 19th, 2026 - January 10th, 2027

The Triton Museum of Art presents Rose Sellery: Fragile Strength (August 29, 2026 - January 3, 2027). Rose Sellery is a Santa Cruz-based, multidisciplinary artist whose work navigates the dichotomies of beauty and brutality, fragility and strength, traditional and rebellion by way of using various objects, often overlooked or discarded, and crafting a story through their own visual language. Originally from Venice, CA, Rose Sellery’s creative path has been shaped by years in the ceramics, woodworking, and jewelry industries, experiences that continue to inform her tactile, materially driven practice. She has also played a significant role in her local arts community, serving as Program Coordinator at Cabrillo Gallery, as a driving force behind FashionArt Santa Cruz, and later co-founding Pivot: The Art of Fashion. Currently, Sellery is a co-owner and curator at MK Contemporary Art in downtown Santa Cruz and founder of the Ripple Effect Arts Festival. The artist’s upcoming exhibition, Rose Sellery: Fragile Strength, explores the complexities of our lives through sculpture, conceptual garments, and photography. Everyday objects and materials - glass, fabric, metal, bone, found objects - whose value may otherwise be found solely in their utility - are sculpted and arranged into narratives that carry the weight of culture and history. Using humor and irony as an entry point, what lies beyond the softened execution is a plethora of conversations on issues of gender bias, societal pressure, resilience and survival. Ultimately, Sellery’s practice is about holding space for these many contradictions and complexities we experience in our lives, as well as giving reverence to the lived experiences that are often minimized or even erased. Rose Sellery: Fragile Strength will be on view in the Triton Museum of Art’s Permanent Collection Gallery starting August 29th, 2026.

The Triton Museum of Art presents Eye/Hand (August 29, 2026 - January 3, 2027) by Harry Clewans. Harry Clewans is an Oakland-based, largely self-taught artist whose work reveals how the big picture is made up of all the little details. Harry Clewans started out as a painter and has been working out of his studio in Oakland, CA since 1983. Clewans’s art consists of large-scale woodblock prints by assembling hundreds of smaller printed images. For the past thirty years, Clewans has been making the woodcuts for these pieces from found objects and has since built an extensive collection that he uses and reuses for his work. For every woodcut made, Clewans has a print of it that he’s pinned to the wall in his studio, serving as a sort of periodic table, each individual woodcut being an element for the larger picture. Harry Clewans’s upcoming exhibition, Eye/Hand, is a collection of works that hope to communicate that all things, by virtue of their makeup, are connected. Because the woodcuts are made from found items, Clewans also wants to emphasize that “all things participate in a cycle of composition and decomposition, in which the old, the broken down, and the disposed of becomes material for the new.” Some of these woodcuts may consist of objects such as a broken lightbulb, a battered plastic toy, a dried piece of kelp, etc. The texture of one woodcut image may be used to depict the skin of an animal, the ground floor, or the trunk of a tree. Exhibited extensively in California, nationally and abroad, his work has been awarded the James Phalen Award for printmaking and a fellowship at the Kala Institute of Art. His work has also been collected by The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Art, the Mills College Art Collection and the Judah L. Magnes Museum. Harry Clewans’s exhibition, Eye/Hand, will be on view in the Triton Museum of Art’s John and Eve Mathias Gallery starting August 29th, 2026.

The Triton Museum of Art presents Here and There (August 22, 2026 - January 17, 2027) by Tim Guan. Tim Guan was the Best of Show winner of the 2025 Salon at the Triton: A 2D Art Competition & Exhibition with his selected artwork, George, Doomscrolling (2024) Tim Guan is a San Francisco-based, figurative oil painter whose art is influenced by his life and his background in technology. For as long as he could remember, art has been an integral part of his identity and remained that way even through his earlier career. As someone who has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over a decade, Tim Guan has borne witness to the high-speed changes of public and private life, either as a direct result of digital innovation or a byproduct of it. Once a “true believer” in the promises of the tech industry, his paintings aid him in exploring his complex feelings regarding his personal complicity in these changes as they sit alongside his critiques of them. After finding ways to remain committed to his art during the COVID-19 pandemic, Guan left the tech industry in 2025 to be a full-time artist. Tim Guan’s upcoming exhibition, Here and There, presents a collection of works that examines our relationship to embodied experience. The digital world has become inseparable from our everyday life, affecting the way we keep in touch with our loved ones, to the way we choose our next meal, down to how we develop and foster relationships. Here and There represents the internet granting us the ability to essentially be “here and there,” in multiple places at once, but being less present than ever. “As so much of our lives shift online, the body can come to feel less like an essential dimension of the self and more like something to be managed, optimized, or transcended altogether,” Guan states. With nearly unfettered access to the world around us, in many ways it creates fractures in our socialization and ability to develop certain types of connections. The figures in Guan’s pieces speak to the various conditions we find ourselves in and how they negotiate their bids for connection. Guan’s exhibition offers these questions for viewers: What remains unique, meaningful, or irreplaceable about physical experience? What is worth noticing, preserving, and honoring about life in a body? Tim Guan’s work has been exhibited around the Bay Area at Wessling Contemporary, Decentered Arts Studio, The Drawing Room, Rosebud Gallery, and the Triton Museum of Art. You can learn more on Tim’s website and socials at timguan.art. Here and There by Tim Guan will be on view in the Triton Museum of Art’s Rotunda Gallery starting August 22nd, 2026.

The Triton Museum of Art presents Intrusive Thoughts (August 15, 2026 - January 17, 2027) by Devon Blood. Devon Blood is a Bay Area-based tattoo artist and author whose work, at its heart and in its blood, is driven by the conviction to not just triumph over adversity, but to “keep laughing” and stay positive throughout the journey. A third-generation San Franciscan, Devon Blood grew up one of eight children, with a strong, and supportive single mother. Growing up in a working-class family, Devon Blood understood that life wouldn’t be easy - it would often have its highest highs and its lowest lows. Though what made things more difficult was struggling with undiagnosed OCD, which also shaped the framework of how he moved through his life. At the age of twenty-six, Blood was a rising star in the Oakland tattoo industry. However, his life changed drastically in 2006 when a botched home invasion and robbery resulted in a near-fatal gunshot wound to the head. Miraculously, Blood survived his injuries. However, he still faced severe hemiparesis, his right hand developing micro tremors as well as extreme atrophy. As a result, he had to teach himself how to be left-handed through consistent daily practice. To this day, Blood still continues to suffer from the aftereffects of the bullet colliding with his brainstem. In a remarkable series of triumphs, Devon Blood taught himself to tattoo and continue making art with the left side of his body, resulting in the creation of an entirely new portfolio based on his new aesthetic. Blood also published an autobiographical book aptly titled, Keep Laughing, reflecting on his experiences accompanied with photographs and artwork from before, during, and after his recovery. Devon Blood’s upcoming exhibition, Intrusive Thoughts, is a culmination of his journey thus far and a visual chronicle of some of his greatest dreams and worst nightmares. It is an exhibition that is raw and vulnerable, allowing visitors the opportunity to witness art that marks a particularly personal chapter of Devon Blood’s life. “[Intrusive Thoughts] is a twisted tribute to my firm conviction in life that no matter who you are, or what you're going through, you have to stay up, stay strong, and above all else - keep laughing,” Blood states. Today, Devon Blood is the proud father of two, featured by Vans during their Pass the Bucket campaign, more recently the subject of a Hearst Television special featured on their subsidiary KCRA Channel 3 Sacramento, and continuing to be a rising talent in the modern art world. Devon Blood’s exhibition, Intrusive Thoughts, will be on view in the Triton Museum of Art’s Cowell Room Gallery starting August 15th, 2026.

Echoes of the Pitch by Pancho Jiménez The City of Santa Clara and The Triton Museum of Art presents Fútbol: The Art of the Game, a group exhibition and fundraiser (May 16, 2026 - August 2, 2026). To celebrate the upcoming FIFA World Cup* soccer games coming to Santa Clara this summer, The City of Santa Clara and The Triton Museum of Art are hosting a special exhibition combining both sports and art. Soccer, also known as fútbol, is a sport played by millions of people around the world. It’s also a sport that combines passion and community. This special exhibition features one-of-a-kind artwork from a talented group of diverse Bay Area artists. The exhibition is also a special fundraiser for the Museum. These skilled artists have given their time and talents to provide the Museum with donated works that correspond with the soccer theme. The art, in each artist’s respective style, will either incorporate an actual soccer ball or a reimagination of one. All works will be for sale through the Museum, starting at the artists’ reception on May 16, 2026 at 12:00 pm, and through the duration of the exhibition.** All funds received from the sale of these works goes directly back to the Triton Museum of Art to help support our mission of art, community, and education. Participating Artists: Sean Boyles, Vanessa Callanta, Ryan Campbell, Trung Cao, Judith Cook, Jonathan Crow, Mei-Ying Dell’Aquila, Ron Dell’Aquila, Steve Dellicarpini, Jemal Diamond, David Einstein, Mark Engel, Donny Foley, Emanuela Harris-Sintamarian, Hila Itszhak, Pancho Jiménez, Dean Larson, Lorraine Lawson, Hana Lock, Lost San Jose, Miguel Machuca, James Mertke, Preston Metcalf, Olivia Osborn, Jeff Owen, Peter Paluzzi, Jonathan Perea, Priyanka Rana, Alieh Rezaei, Ayesha Samdani, Tandem Panting (Suzette McDonough & James Whitehouse), Kori Thompson, Cedric Vu We wish to thank all of the participating artists – it is because of you, our community, that we exist and thrive. Fútbol: The Art of the Game will be on view in the Triton Museum of Art’s Cowell Room Gallery starting May 16th, 2026. *The City of Santa Clara and The Triton Museum of Art are not affiliated with FIFA or any professional soccer or sports association. ** Artwork will be sold on a first come, first served basis. We will not be reserving works for anyone; they must be purchased directly from the Museum in person starting at the artists’ reception. If artwork is not sold at the reception, it will remain for sale through the duration of the exhibition. Any sold works will remain on view in the Triton Museum for the duration of the exhibition and may be picked up by the buyer from the Museum once the exhibition has concluded.

Visual Duets: The Art of Creating Together The Triton Museum of Art presents Visual Duets: The Art of Creating Together (May 16, 2026 - August 16, 2026) by Judith Cook and David Einstein, Donald (Aldo) and Era Farnsworth, Ellen Konar and Steve Goldband, and Tandem Painting (Suzette McDonough and James Whitehouse). This exhibition brings together four collaborative artist duos whose creative practices demonstrate the power of partnership and shared artistic vision. Across the four duets, this exhibition showcases painting, photography, printmaking, and mixed-media artwork. This exhibition features painters Judith Cook and David Einstein. Over the span of two decades, Cook and Einstein’s collaboration transforms abstraction into a visual conversation. Working across oil, acrylic, ink, and mixed media, their process unfolds as a responsive exchange, each mark replying to the other. Nature is what first sparked their partnership and expanded into explorations of social, cultural, and environmental themes; their work merges two distinct sensibilities into unified compositions that emphasize gesture, color, and spatial dynamics. Cook’s focus on inner perception and transformation complements Einstein’s process-driven exploration of light, flow, and color, resulting in layered works that balance intuition with formal rigor. Also featured are Donald (Aldo) Farnsworth and Era Farnsworth, whose partnership bridges art, understanding of materials, and art history. Working through Magnolia Editions, the collaborative studio they co-founded, their practice spans Jacquard tapestry, printmaking, papermaking, and drawing. Their work reflects a deep engagement with materials as carriers of history, often incorporating techniques inspired by Renaissance-era papermaking and traditional Japanese processes. Their ongoing projects - including the Art Notes series and a narrative-driven exploration of Mount Fuji, blend craftsmanship, experimentation, and storytelling, demonstrating how collaboration can evolve into a way of life. Photographic artists Ellen Konar and Steve Goldband present works from their series Bayscapes, a body of work capturing the vivid, otherworldly salt ponds of the San Francisco Bay. These photographs document a landscape shaped by 150 years of industrial activity and now undergoing ecological restoration. “The beauty is real. So is the ruin,” Konar and Goldband state. Combining Goldband’s sensitivity to geometry and light with Konar’s interest in memory and meaning, the work exists as both environmental advocacy and elegy, holding the tension between beauty and loss as these striking, accidental abstractions disappear. The exhibition also highlights Tandem Painting, the collaborative practice of Suzette McDonough and James Whitehouse. Their vibrant figurative works center on identity, representation, and social justice, uplifting everyday individuals as they view them - as heroes. Drawing from McDonough’s background in visual storytelling and community engagement, and Whitehouse’s experience in science, law, and activism, their paintings aim to uplift while provoking reflection. Rooted in mutual respect and dialogue, their process mirrors the themes they explore: belonging, resilience, and the power of being seen. Visual Duets: The Art of Creating Together will be on view in the Triton Museum of Art’s John and Eve Mathias Gallery starting May 16th, 2026.

As of March 2026, we are no longer recording our lectures. This includes Book Club lectures and Art History lectures. However, if you are interested in watching past lectures, you may do so here. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to see you at our lectures in person!