Current Exhibitions
Wrona Gall and Ted Gall: Stories in Pigment and Metal
July 18, 2026, to November 8, 2026
Cousins by marriage, painter Wrona Gall and sculptor Ted Gall grew up only a few miles apart in Chicago. Today, they continue to live and work near one another in Ojai, California. Ted moved to Ojai with his family in 1988, and Wrona and her husband, Jim, followed in 2015.
As a child, Wrona often looked to the sky, studying the movement of clouds from her bedroom window. Their ever-changing forms hinted at the possibility of transformation and offered an escape from tensions at home. While dating Ted’s cousin Jim, Wrona visited an exhibition of Edward Hopper’s paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago and decided to become a painter. After earning her BFA and Master of Arts in Teaching from Beloit College in Wisconsin, Wrona and Jim married in 1970 and purchased an 8,000-square-foot industrial loft in downtown Chicago, where they lived and worked for the next 40 years.
Raised in a modest, working-class Chicago neighborhood, Ted Gall’s parents noticed his artistic ability early on and sent him to summer classes at the Art Institute of Chicago when he was 12. At 15, Ted’s uncle helped him secure a job delivering artwork for a commercial art studio. After graduating from high school, Gall found work as an animator and graphic designer. It was while taking night classes at the Art Institute and the American Academy of Art that he shifted his focus to sculpture.
In 1973, Ted became artist-in-residence at automotive gasket manufacturer Fel-Pro, Inc., in Skokie, Illinois, a position he held for the next twenty-two years. There, he transformed industrial scrap metal and automotive parts into sculptures and awards installed throughout the factory, displayed around the city, and presented to clients.
Though Wrona and Ted work in very different mediums, both artists embrace a deeply hands-on approach to making art. Wrona paints directly with her hands, often climbing atop her wood panels to build luminous, abstract cloudscapes with layers of acrylic paint. Ted sculpts his mythic figures in clay, wax, or welded steel before sending each model to a local foundry to be cast in bronze, aluminum, or stainless steel using the lost wax method. The casts are further refined, polished, and patinated in Ted’s studio. Many of his sculptures are interactive, with moving parts that are meant to be touched and manipulated.
Ted draws inspiration from imagination, mythology, and folklore. For Wrona, the sky is both muse and metaphor—a universal point of connection, a catalyst for memory, and a source of respite. Together, their work invites reflection on our relationships with ourselves, with nature, and with one another. Ultimately, both artists hope their work evokes your own memories, questions, and stories.
Below is a sampling of artworks featured in the exhibition. Click on any image to enlarge.
Pam Grau: A Woman's Painted Journey
May 16, 2026, to September 13, 2026
There are moments in an artist’s life when a shift occurs, quietly at first, almost unnoticed, and then, over time, becomes unmistakable. This exhibition reflects one of those shifts—a four-year evolution in how the artist sees, gathers, and creates.
Pam Grau’s journey as an artist began young. As the child of two modernist painters, art was her family’s religion. Museums were their church, and traveling the world to see masterpieces was their pilgrimage. It never occurred to Grau that she might be anything other than an artist. When someone once asked what she would have done otherwise, she was stunned. She didn’t know that was an option.
Grau studied art and art history, attended multiple art schools, and painted through every chapter of her life: as a young wife and mother, through divorce, through romance and betrayal. Her work carried what she could not say aloud. It was angry, raw, and determined. After her divorce and cancer in 2010, something shifted. The work became quieter, more meditative. She no longer felt the need to shout.
Five years ago, Grau’s body demanded a change. Years of working with toxic materials in poorly ventilated spaces finally caught up with her, and her practice shifted again. She found herself increasingly drawn to digital tools—not as a replacement, but as an extension. Now Grau works in a hybrid language of Procreate, Photoshop, collage, ink, gelli plate prints, and acrylic paint.
Her works are now rooted in exploration and observation of the natural world: long road trips, quiet walks, unexpected encounters with color, light, and form. After five decades, Grau’s practice continues to evolve. The work from this chapter of her life is joyful—a body of work shaped by love, adaptation, sustainability, and flow.
