Lisa Reinertson: Of Water & Earth

In of water & earth, Lisa Reinertson brings together new and earlier work spanning figurative ceramic sculpture and works on paper in pastel, pigment, charcoal, and oil stick. From intimate shoreline studies to major freestanding figures, the exhibition explores water and earth as both subject and substance, joining body, landscape, memory, and material. Water has long moved through Reinertson’s life and work. Growing up in Sacramento, rivers were places of family, summer heat, swimming, dogs, rest, and release. Years later, during the quieter period of the pandemic, she began walking regularly along the Benicia shoreline, looking closely at the shifting place where land and water meet. She became drawn to the traces left by the tides: shallow pools, exposed rocks, marsh grasses, birds, reflections, and the marks made where water recedes from shore. These observations developed into a sustained body of shoreline works and became the foundation for the exhibition, inviting ceramic pieces from different periods of her practice into conversation with them. In the works on paper, rock becomes water, water becomes sky, and birds seem to emerge from the landscape itself. These are not simply views of place, but expressions of memory, refuge, and belonging. The ceramic works give earth a physical presence. Clay becomes body, animal, wave, gesture, and human form. Reinertson’s figures often appear in acts of holding, protecting, waiting, or listening, carrying tenderness and vulnerability alongside strength and fierce care. Throughout the exhibition, the human body is understood not as separate from nature, but as part of it. The figure belongs to the same living world as the bird, the fish, the dog, the shoreline, and the sea. At a time when environmental and social crises can feel overwhelming, of water & earth offers something more intimate than a warning. It asks what remains worth loving, and whether close attention can restore our connection to the living world. Water offers movement, memory, pleasure, and renewal. Earth offers weight, form, origin, and belonging. Together, they remind us that beauty can carry urgency, and that care begins when we recognize ourselves as part of the world we are trying to protect.