GRO Exhibition Press Release: September – October, 2025

Press Release: For Immediate Release September 3, 2025
Contact: Patti Trimble pmtrim@gmail.com (707) 360-8189

Upcoming Exhibits at Gallery Route One
September 20 through October 26, 2025
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Adrift: A Landscape of Loss by Renée Owen
Distant Voices by Sherrie Lovler
The Weight of What Was: Missing Homeland Series by Visiting Artist Fedra Yazdi
21 9x9s by Will Thoms

Gallery Hours 11-5, Thursday through Monday
Opening Reception Saturday, September 20, 3-5pm.
Artist Talks at 3pm

Upcoming Exhibits at Gallery Route One!

Gallery Route One in Point Reyes Station presents four new exhibitions, September 20th through October 26: Sherrie Lovler’s solo show, Distant Voices: elegant calligraphic paintings as voices of change, urgency, and hope; Renee Owen’s solo exhibition, Adrift: A Landscape of Loss: sculptural fiber and book art about fragmented human connections in our fragile natural world; Fedra Yazdi’s exhibition The Weight of What Was: Missing Homeland Series: paintings inspired by Persian and Suzani textiles, an exiled artist’s passionate search for belonging; and Will Thoms’ 21 9x9s, small mixed-media experiments in color, line and texture.

The public is cordially invited to meet the artists and enjoy a glass of wine at the Opening on Saturday, September 20, from 3 to 5, with artists talks at 3pm.

From September 20 to October 26, Gallery Route One’s new exhibitions respond in both abstract and narrative artworks to today’s world, looking especially at human displacement with empathy, grief, and support, and letting materials speak.

GRO Artist Renée Owen presents the solo exhibition: Adrift: A Landscape of Loss, showing meticulously hand-formed tactile sculptures and books as poetic metaphors of human displacement and loss in a fragile natural world. Owen pays special attention to the tactile and physical qualities of her materials: handmade paper, felt, cyanotype, stitching, discarded and repurposed objects, wire, porcupine quills. The work is often abstract, and Owen’s titles guide us to the themes. The sculpture Taking on Water refers to sinking migrant boats, and she hand-stitched the piece Mending the Broken Bits, as an art practice for healing. The piece Letting the Light Leak Through is about opening our eyes to what is happening on the planet. Owen writes: There is an intense amount of grief, and we hardly know how to sit with it all. One way is to work with my hands, choosing and shaping materials intuitively, learning what they have to tell me. Stories that settle in my heart come out in the work. 

More at www.reneeowenartandpoetry.com 

GRO Artist Sherrie Lovler’s solo exhibition—Distant Voices—presents her abstract calligraphic paintings that address the human journey. Lovler is an abstract painter and expert calligrapher, painting with ink and watercolor on paper. Her paintings reflect her long studies of t’ai chi, qigong, Eastern philosophy, Western art history, Chinese painting techniques, and fluid Zen circles. She merges earthy environments with asemic writing, a wordless and open form that suggests meaning but has no semantic content, leaving room for interpretation. For Lovler, the asemic calligraphy evokes the presence of words almost heard, deeply felt from a distance—distant voices that express movement, urgency, and hope. She speaks of her inspiration: the silenced voice of twenty-three-year-old Tehran poet Parnia Abbasi, killed along with her family by an Israeli missile, and the passing of her own brother, yet leaving us with tenderness and wonder. A book of Lovler’s original poetry and painting accompanies the show and can be viewed and purchased at the gallery. 

More at www.artandpoetry.com

Visiting Artist Fedra Yazdi’s paintings can be seen in the Project Space. Fedra is an artist in exile, and The Weight of What Was: Missing Homeland Series is part of a five- part project. Her work is infused with her search for belonging, with images of transition and isolation. Drawing on her cultural roots, she merges two aesthetics: that of Persian gabbeh rugs and Suzani textiles that traditionally symbolize the warmth and comfort of home, and also the aesthetics of Western-influenced abstraction and its broader, borderless narratives. Her canvas preparations are painstaking, and the paintings—in acrylic, gouache, and ink—are meticulous and multi-layered.

Like the Persian gabbeh, each piece tells a story. Childlike figures evoke nostalgia, and bright colors symbolize hope, resilience, and yearning for a home. In the painting Unfamiliar Gravity, large rectangles frame a clear and organized memory of another world, a beloved and abandoned life once lived with pets, homes, and trees. Outside the rectangles, faceless figures are pulled from their roots and float in a tangle of fractured memories. In the painting Where Goodbyes Land, the same faceless figures navigate a winding path, and camel-like creatures become a metaphor for the long road to a new life. 

More at fedrayfinearts.com

GRO Artist Will Thoms exhibition, 21 9x9s, can be seen in the Gallery Annex. These small mixed-media paintings begin with a visual idea, a meandering line, a shape, a splash of color that is eventually forgotten as the painting moves to completion. Sometimes a painting resolves quickly and sometimes it evolves over days or weeks: the goal is letting things happen as they will. Thoms writes 

“I want each painting to have a clear physical presence and to come forward from its place on the wall to meet you, the viewer. There is no illusion and no reference to anything beyond the thing itself. The driving impulse for me is always one of hopeful, open-ended experimentation and the simple pleasure of making something new. My artistic interests lie in the material world, in the beauty of the ordinary. As Gary Snyder says…” chisels, bent nails, wheelbarrows and squeaky doors are all teaching the truth of the way things are.” 

More at Will Thoms @ GRO

Gallery Route One is a nonprofit art organization. Our mission is to originate and present contemporary art exhibitions, educational programs, and community outreach, to inspire people to experience the world in new ways. The gallery was founded by 25 artists in 1983 and currently maintains a membership of 17 artists and 2 Fellows. Our Board of Directors is drawn from interested community members, including artists. The organization offers two exhibition programs: Artist Member exhibitions, and Guest Artist Program exhibitions that feature guest artists.