Spirit Made Visible

In San Ramon, we have a rare opportunity to experience the work of an international artist from Busan, Korea, who received her MFA from UC Davis and has been actively working in California. She recently presented a major exhibition at theM Museum in Seoul, along with a solo show this year at the Corey Helford Gallery and the Holter Museum of Art, as well as a featured installation at the John Natsoulas Center for the Arts. Yoo will also present a performance that reflects both her roots in Korea and her life in Northern California, bringing these two worlds together in a way that feels deeply personal and timely.

Interdisciplinary artist Seongmin Yoo is pleased to present Spirit Made Visible at The Dougherty Station Community Arts Center's Gallery Bowl. On view from January 6 through February 1, 2026, the exhibition brings together painting, sculpture, and a newly created performance work that offers a clear view into the breadth of her artistic practice.

The exhibition traces the movement of Yoo's process as it shifts between mediums, allowing form and color to move from sculpture to painting and back again. It culminates in a new performance created specifically for this presentation, to be held on February 1 at 3:40 PM during the annual Cultural Community Celebration. Developed in close collaboration with a group of dancers, the performance interacts directly with her sculptural installation, creating a vivid exchange between bodies and forms.

At the center of the exhibition is Yoo's newest sculpture, Spirit Made Visible, a saturated, expressive work that gathers many of the ideas she has explored throughout her career. Its violets, magentas, and atmospheric tones echo the palette of her paintings, creating a bridge between her sculptural language and earlier explorations on canvas.

Yoo's use of natural materials, dried petals and oak galls in Synbiotic (2025), and roadside fennel and black walnut shells in Life Cycle (2025), deepens her connection to the Northern California landscape. These materials give the works a sense of porosity and responsiveness, as if they are alive to their surroundings.

In Celestial City (2025), she imagines a surreal gathering place shaped by palm trees, invented structures, and hybrid figures that feel otherworldly yet grounded in local life. The work reflects the role of community spaces like the Dougherty Station Community Arts Center and suggests the diverse identities that define the East Bay.

Spirit Made Visible invites viewers into a terrain where sculpture, painting, and performance are intertwined, reflecting Yoo's ongoing exploration of transformation, place, and the unseen forces that move through daily life. At its core, the exhibition is about bringing people together. Yoo's figures often draw from plants, animals, and human bodies shaped by movement or change, offering a way to consider how communities form through resilience, adaptation, and shared experience. Presented in a community setting, the show encourages visitors to gather, reflect, and recognize the connections that link personal stories to the wider landscape around them.