The Town Hall Theatre Lobby Gallery

Lafayette's historic Town Hall Theatre is dedicated to fostering a thriving community that brings together performing artists, students, and audiences through creative and accessible experiences. Since 2022, the theatre has also served as a venue for local art exhibitions, thanks to a collaboration that enables the City to expand its cultural arts programming. The gallery, open to the public during theatre hours, provides an inviting space for art lovers to appreciate and engage with the work of local artists. The theatre's warm and welcoming lobby is an ideal location for receptions, where the public can mingle with artists and fellow art enthusiasts.

Current Exhibition

Embodied: Figurative Works in Clay and Paint

August 4 – October 27, 2026 | Homework Center, Community Hall and Display Case

Embodied: Figurative Works in Clay and Paint brings together contemporary figurative work in ceramics and painting, exploring the human form as a site of presence, perception, and material translation.

Across both mediums, the figure becomes more than representation—it is shaped through touch, gesture, accumulation, and surface. In painting, the body emerges through layered color, mark-making, and image construction. In ceramics, it is built through weight, volume, and the physicality of fired form. Together, these practices reveal how meaning is held in material itself, and how the human form remains a central language for understanding lived experience in an increasingly digital world.

Throughout the exhibition, recurring moments of human experience emerge—figures in states of waiting, reflection, connection, and action. These works invite us to consider the body not only as an image, but as a record of time, experience, labor, and presence.

The exhibition offers multiple interpretations of embodiment, with each artist bringing an individual perspective while remaining in conversation through a shared focus on the body as subject, structure, and presence. In doing so, the works highlight the continued relevance of figuration as a way of seeing and making sense of the world through hand, material, and image.

Embodied points to what is felt most directly in physical encounter, from the weight of clay, the resistance of paint, and the trace of the hand. At a moment when images can be generated, altered, and shared instantly, these works hold time, labor, and attention in ways that ask to be experienced slowly and in person.

The paintings in Embodied: Figurative Works in Clay and Paint are on view in the Lafayette Library & Learning Center's Community Hall Gallery and Homework Center Gallery, as well as the Town Hall Theatre Lobby Gallery, while the ceramic works are exhibited in the Public Art Display Case at the Lafayette Library & Learning Center.

Artists

Suzun Almquist is a Bay Area painter whose work is informed by more than 15 years of study with Marcy Wheeler and active involvement in regional arts organizations, with exhibitions throughout the Bay Area, Napa Valley, and San Francisco. suzunalmquistart.com

Donna Arganbright is a ceramic artist who creates functional porcelain pottery with flowing forms and vibrant glazes, drawing on a lifelong career as an art educator and an active presence in the Bay Area arts community. moragaartgallery.com or laa4art.org

Amber DeSilva is an Orinda-based mixed media artist whose psychologically layered figurative paintings and collages explore themes of identity, emotion, and the cultural narratives that shape women's experiences. amberdesilvaart.com

Marianne McCraney is a Bay Area painter working in watercolor and oil whose observations of everyday life—from still lifes to portraits and working people—have been exhibited in galleries and arts centers across California and beyond. mariannemccraney.com

Ruth Stanton is a Lafayette artist whose expressive landscapes and portraits, inspired by California's natural beauty and her background in interior design, celebrate color, light, and human connection. ruthstantonart.com

How to Apply

Exhibits are selected by the City of Lafayette Public Art Committee. Artists interested in displaying artwork must submit a complete Exhibit Packet, including executed Art Gallery Release, an exhibition statement and an artist biography. Please contact Public Art Liaison Jenny Rosen for more information.

Applications shall be reviewed by the Public Art Committee at its regular monthly meetings. Scheduling of exhibitions is dependent upon availability. No alternate works may be substituted for accepted works.

Space and Guidelines

The gallery wall dimensions are 19' long x 7' high. All artwork must be suitably framed and equipped with hanging apparatus (D rings and wire) that will enable the artwork to be installed on the Gallery’s picture rail hanging system. Work that is fragile in nature or whose framing or display arrangement is of questionable durability may be rejected. Absolutely no nails, hooks, and/or mounting tape will be allowed to install any exhibit.

Location and Hours

• The Town Hall Theatre, 3535 School St. (at Moraga Rd.), Lafayette, CA 94549
• www.townhalltheatre.com
•  The gallery is open to the public when there are public events occurring in the Town Hall Theatre.