Tanja Geis

January 21 - February 14, 2025

Bay Area artist Tanja Geis makes place-based paintings, drawings, sculptures, and videos that invite intimacy with human-disturbed ecosystems, spaces, and species. For the Else Gallery, Geis has created an immersive installation that explores the Northern California bull kelp as a resonant symbol of our endangered marine ecosystem. Casting, Sinking, Feeling draws on the visual languages of augury—the practice of reading cast objects and patterns in the environment—to imagine alternative forms of knowing as we face the irreversible human impact on the environment.

Tanja Geis holds a Masters of Fine Art in Art Practice from University of California Berkeley, a Masters in Resource Management in Marine Management from the University of Akureyri, Iceland, and a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from Yale University. She has exhibited with FOR-SITE, Berkeley Art Museum, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose, and galleries in Iceland, Scotland, England, Hong Kong, and Japan. Geis’ awards include a Graduate Fellowship and Affiliate Artist Fellowships at the Headlands Center for the Arts, a Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Award from The San Francisco Foundation, and a Graduate Arts Grant from the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts. She has been an artist-in-residence at Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Blue Mountain Center, and Kala Art Institute. Geis was born and raised in Hong Kong and is currently based in Oakland.

This exhibit is made possible by the Art Department’s Visiting Artist Fund. A donation to this fund supports students having direct experiences with professional artists in workshops, studio critiques, lectures, and exhibition contexts.

Artist Talk: Thursday, January 30, 4:30PM, Kadema 145