Sono Osato
Evolution of an Idea: Diluvia to Midden
Sono Osato
Evolution of and Idea: Diluvia to Midden November 15, 2025 - January 10, 2026
PAUL THIEBAUD GALLERY 645 Chestnut Street, San Francisco, CA 94133 415.434.3055 | www.paulthiebaudgallery.com
Foreword I first encountered Sono Osato’s paintings when I landed an internship at the di Rosa Preserve (now known as the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art) in Napa, CA, in 2005. As I walked through the museum’s main gallery on my orientation tour, hanging on the wall was a dark – nearly black – thickly encrusted painting made from tar, beeswax, oil paint, and the mechanical innards of disassembled typewriters and adding machines. The painting was not large in scale, less than three by four feet, but its thickness of at least two inches of ruggedly textured impasto made it stand out from the other paintings and sculpture around it. I speak of both categories of art objects, because this painting arguably straddles both forms. Its surface read as if it were a fragment of an ancient monument or rock face that had been eroded by time. Without the need for a mediating text, the message was clear that Osato was exploring, in a very humble way, themes of the eternal, the transcendent, and the primal that call to the very core of who we are as humans and what our place in the world is. One other truly captivating aspect of the painting was its smell. Stand close enough and you will encounter the sweet smell of beeswax, the tang of tar, and the smooth scent of linseed oil as it crosses your olfactory senses. I am reminded of this moment when I encounter any of these scents individually to this day. I knew from this experience that Sono Osato was a person I was destined to meet. That happened a little over a decade later, and I have had the privilege of calling her a close friend ever since. It has brought me great joy and pleasure in presenting Sono Osato’s works at Paul Thiebaud Gallery for the first time, and I look forward to many future exhibitions with her in the future as her paintings continue their evolution. I give my greatest thanks to Sono Osato for creating her magnificent works, for our continued friendship, and for her trust in Paul Thiebaud Gallery to present the work to our audience. In the following pages you will find the keenly perceptive essay about Osato’s exhibition of paintings from her Diluvia and Midden Series by writer Emily Lee. I give great thanks to Emily for sharing her insights into Osato’s works and to allowing us to include them in this catalogue. Lastly, I give my ongoing thanks and gratitude to my colleagues at Paul Thiebaud Gallery – Colleen Casey, Matthew Miller, and Gregory Hemming – for their continued hard work and dedication to our exhibitions, publications, and to presenting our artists and their works to the world. Greg Flood, Director December 2025
Time Piece: Sono Osato at Paul Thiebaud Gallery by Emily Lee
To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees, according to the French poet Paul Valéry, whose thinking has inspired artists throughout history, from Paul Cézanne to Robert Irwin. This is the benefit of abstraction: forgetting the ascribed meaning of the material world so as to discover new sensations that only emerge in the absence of that meaning. Sono Osato’s most recent exhibition, Evolution of an Idea: Diluvia to Midden, depicts pictorial representation on the verge of abstraction. Middens are ancient trash piles that archaeologists carefully decode to learn about bygone human civilizations. Diluvia refers to catastrophic tsunamis and the material evidence they leave behind, which the artist references as a major conceptual inspiration. While each work in this exhibition is categorized as either Diluvia or Midden, they all maintain a unified subject matter throughout— gears, sprockets, rings, and other forms so painstakingly specific that one can only generalize by referring to them as “hardware.” The paintings in the Midden series show these mechanical forms overlapping one another in a compressed space, shaded but not outlined, in mounds that are fully framed within the picture plane. By contrast, the Diluvia paintings show these same forms heavily outlined and originating from beyond the bounds of the composition, such that the picture plane seems to be a fragmentary still taken from a larger fluid motion. This crucial difference in composition highlights painting’s power to conceal as much as it depicts. But what middens and diluvial detritus have in common is the way they decontextualize objects and collapse time. To mark upon the surface of a panel, clayboard, or paper is to darken the brightness of that blank substrate. Osato strategically carves around the existing brightness of the surface with every deliberate brushstroke, resulting in works that appear to be illuminated from within. This tension between luminosity and solidity recalls photograms—camera-less photographic prints made by laying objects onto photographic paper and exposing them to light—a technique as old as the history of photography itself. As in photograms, the pictorial space in Osato’s paintings is
indeterminate, and there is no horizon line or single-point perspective. Though the forms are recognizable, viewers may find themselves in ever-shifting co-existence with the paintings. They may imagine looking down onto a pile one day, or looking up as a swell overtakes them the next. Today, the machinations of our technologies are fully abstracted, imperceptibly hidden behind slick and colorful screens, represented in visual shorthand by icons and logos. In this context, the hardware pictured in Osato’s paintings feels almost heirloom, plucked from an antique watch or vintage typewriter. Indeed, the passage of time itself is an abstractor that has rendered these oncefunctional mechanisms now illegible. But, as the archaeologists who study ancient humans’ trash middens know well, new connections emerge when the bias of legibility is rendered obsolete. About ten minutes from the gallery, at SFMOMA, there is a black and white photograph by Shomei Tomatsu titled Atomic Bomb Damage: Wristwatch Stopped at 11:02, August 9, 1945, Nagasaki. The photograph depicts the face of a watch that appears to float contextless atop a satin background. Rendered functionless at the very moment the Atomic Bomb’s radiation reached it, this watch becomes a way to measure something other than the time. I am reminded of this image when I see Osato’s paintings and hear her speak about her inspirations. Evolution of an Idea: Diluvia to Midden asks how we measure catastrophe when the catastrophe exceeds the mechanisms we have invented to measure it. It suggests that we reconnect with the materiality of those tools, with a material language that is felt rather than read, intuitive rather than logical. Perhaps then we can find meaning despite, or even thanks to, abstraction. * Emily Lee is an artist and writer from the Texas Gulf Coast.
Plate 1: Midden 10, 2025 graphite, watercolor, and gouache on Stonehenge paper, 8 x 8 inches
Plate 2: Midden 2, 2025 dry pigment, graphite, watercolor, gouache on Stonehenge paper, 18 x 17 1/8 inches
Plate 3: Diluvia 4, 2023 tinted rabbit-skin glue ground and oil on panel, 48 x 48 inches
Plate 4: Midden 1, 2025 oil on clayboard, 16 x 16 inches
Plate 5: Diluvia 1, 2021 tinted rabbit skin glue ground and oil on panel, triptych, 30 x 72 inches
Plate 6: Diluvia 5, 2023 tinted rabbit-skin glue ground & oil on panel, 36 x 36 inches
Plate 7: Midden 3, 2025 oil on clayboard, 30 x 30 inches
Plate 8: Midden 6, 1992 oil on clayboard, 48 x 48 inches
Plate 9: Diluvia 7, 2025 tinted rabbit-skin glue ground & oil on panel, 36 x 36 inches
Plate 10: Midden 4, 2025 dry pigment, graphite, watercolor, gouache on Stonehenge paper, 22 1/4 x 22 inches
Plate 11: Midden 8, 2025 dry pigment, graphite, watercolor, gouache on Stonehenge paper, 22 1/2 x 22 1/4 inches
Plate 12: Midden 5, 2025 oil on clayboard, 30 x 30 inches
Plate 13: Midden 9, 2025 dry pigment, graphite, watercolor, gouache on Stonehenge paper, 22 1/2 x 21 3/4 inches
Exhibition Checklist
Plate 1: Midden 10 2025 graphite, watercolor, and gouache on Stonehenge paper 8 x 8 inches Plate 2: Midden 2 2025 dry pigment, graphite, watercolor, gouache on Stonehenge paper 18 x 17 1/8 inches Plate 3: Diluvia 4 2023 tinted rabbit-skin glue ground and oil on panel 48 x 48 inches Plate 4: Midden 1 2025 oil on clayboard 16 x 16 inches
Plate 5: Diluvia 1 2021 tinted rabbit-skin glue ground and oil on panel triptych, 30 x 72 inches Plate 6: Diluvia 5 2023 tinted rabbit-skin glue ground and oil on panel 36 x 36 inches Plate 7: Midden 3 2025 oil on clayboard 30 x 30 inches Plate 8: Midden 6 2025 oil on clayboard 48 x 48 inches
Works not Exhibited
Plate 9: Diluvia 7 2025 tinted rabbit-skin glue ground and oil on panel 36 x 36 inches
Plate 12: Midden 5 2025 oil on clayboard 30 x 30 inches
Plate 10: Midden 4 2025 dry pigment, graphite, watercolor, and gouache on Stonehenge paper 22 1/4 x 22 inches
Plate 13: Midden 9 2025 dry pigment, graphite, watercolor, and gouache on Stonehenge paper 22 1/2 x 21 3/4 inches
Plate 11: Midden 8 2025 dry pigment, graphite, watercolor, and gouache on Stonehenge paper 22 1/2 x 22 1/4 inches
SONO OSATO Born 1960 in Baden Baden, Germany EDUCATION 1986 1983
MFA, California College of Art, Oakland, CA BFA, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES 2008 2000 1999 1997 1995 1994 1989 1988
Pollock-Krasner Grant CHANGE INC. Pollack-Krasner Award Djerassi Foundation Artist in Residency Contemporary Art Center of Herblay, Artist in Residency, Pontoise, France ART MATTERS INC. Pollack-Krasner Award Djerrassi Foundation Fellowship in Visual Arts, Ridge Vineyards LOCI, Award Exhibition, “Best of Show” from 1988 Pro Arts Annual Djerassi Foundation Artist in Residency
TEACHING 2001 2000 1999 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1990
Intermediate Painting, & Foundation 2-D, University of Georgia, Athens, GA Intermediate Painting, & Foundation 2-D, University of Georgia, Athens, GA Independent Graduate Studies, California College of Art, Oakland, CA Open Seminar, Graduate Studies, California College of Art, Oakland, CA Through the Body; Paint as Substance, Anderson Ranch, CA The Circle as Paradigm, Interdisciplinary Graduate Seminar, California College of Art, Oakland, CA Interdisciplinary Critique team taught w/ William Farley, California College of Art, Oakland, CA Interdisciplinary Graduate Seminar, California College of Art, Oakland, CA Graduate Seminar-New Genre, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA Interdisciplinary Sculpture, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA Beginning Drawing, Mills College, Oakland, CA Beginning Drawing & Advanced Painting, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2025 2023 2022 2017 2009 2007 2006 2005 2003 2002 2001 1999 1998 1994
Evolution of an Idea: Diluvia to Midden, Paul Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, CA Stratum, Ivester Contemporary Project Space, Austin, TX Diluvia, Brian Gross Fine Art on Arts Silent Language, ICOSA Window Dressing Series, Austin TX Submergence, Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, CA Babylon: The Buried Language Series, Brian Gross Fine Art, CA Silent Language, GALLERY twenty-four, Brooklyn, NY Revenant, Art in Odd Places (Outdoor Projections), curated by Jeremy Helton, New York, NY Angels in Dust, Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, CA Echo, Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, CA Paintings/Assemblages, BGFA at One Post Street, San Francisco, CA New Work, Lowery Gallery, Athens, GA The Sound of Ku: New Paintings, Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, CA S(O)UND, Natalie & James Thompson Gallery, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA S(P)OO(O)R, Terrain, San Francisco, CA
1993 1992 1991 1989
Oakland Drawers, Oakland Museum Sculpture Court @ Civic Center, Oakland, CA New Sculpture by Sono Osato, Terrain Gallery, San Francisco, CA Utland, San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA Exploded Crate, Laguna Art Museum Satellite @ South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, CA Painting as Sculpture Installation, UC Davis Art Center, Davis, CA New Work, Terrain Gallery, San Francisco, CA Innojo Eard Onwaecna, Fuller Gross Gallery, San Francisco, CA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2025 2024 2023 2022 2020 2019 2014 2013 2011 2008 2007 2006 2000 1999 1997 1996 1994 1993 1991 1990 1989
Where Things Begin: 10 American Artists of the Asian Diaspora, Paul Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, CA Contemporary Asian American Abstraction, Paul Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, CA To the Max, di Rosa Center of Contemporary Art, Napa, CA GESTURE/COLOR/FORM, Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, CA 30th Anniversary Exhibition, Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, CA Mask Collection, Vault Stone Shop, Austin, TX, curated by GD Wright Open Space, ICOSA Collective, Austin TX, curated by Leslie Moody Castro The Right Amount of Wrong, ISE Foundation, NYC, Curated by Lovina Purple Traces, 7 DUNHAM, Brooklyn, NY, curated by ARMCHAIR/SHOTGUN, A Cage Went in Search Of a Bird, Radiator Arts, NYC, curated by Sarah Walko Piece of Mind, Elga Wimmer Gallery, NYC, curated by FIT MA program Beauty’s Burden, Educational Alliance, NYC, curated by David Gibson Honoring CCA at 100: Works by Arneson, De Forest, Fleming, Osato, & Solomon, Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, CA CCA(C) @ Di Rosa Preserve: Celebration of CCA’s Centennial with Prominent Alumni in the Collection, Napa, CA Tuttavia Povera, Shore Institute for Contemporary Art, Long Branch, NJ International Assemblage Art Exhibition, GALLERY twenty-four, Berlin, Germany Remnants, Lemmons Contemporary, New York, NY Three Person Show (with Tatiana Parcero & Oscar Muñoz), Gaviria-Lorduy Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY Egg Drop Soup, Salon on South Second, Brooklyn, NY Rumble-20 DUMBO Artists, Tribes Gallery, NYC, curated by David Krepfle Time Capsule, Refusalon, San Francisco, CA Meaning and Message: Contemporary Art from the Museum Collection, The Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tel Aviv, Refusalon San Francisco, CA Requiem: Living Artists Eulogize a Dying Century, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA The Art Orchestra (A Sculptor’s Ensemble), performed at Florence Gould Theater, San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts, written and directed by Tom Marioni Trace, The Dead Space Gallery, Portland, ME Samplings, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA Public Art/Public Space/Public Process, South of Market Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA Roots in Asia, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA. Facing Eden: 100 Years of Landscape Art in the Bay Area, De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA Wunderkammer, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, curated by Maria Porges Trash, Southern Exposure Gallery, San Francisco, CA Ad Majorem Dei Glorium, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA Ymbspr C Rhymet, The Left Bank Gallery, Kansas City, MO Wall Sculpture: The Art of Found Objects, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, Oakland Artists ‘90, Oakland Museum Chain Reaction, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery Fresh Views, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA. Guerrilla (Girls), Terrain Eye Sores, New Langton Arts, San Francisco, curated by Nayland Blake.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS (cont.) 1988 1987
LOCI, 3 honored artists selected by SFMOMA, curated by Graham Beal, Pro Arts, Oakland, CA Monumental Women, curated by Jo Babcock & Michael Bell, South of Market Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA X the Unknown, curated by Michelle Ellis Pracy, at an independent site, San Francisco, CA
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa, CA Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach CA Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA Stanford University Law School, Stanford, CA The Flood Family Collection, San Francisco, CA SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 2025 2024 2022 2017 2012 2009 2005 2003 2002 2000 1999 1998 1995 1993 1992
Van Proyen, Mark. “Sono Osato, Evolution of an Idea: Diluvia to Midden”, Squarecylinder.com, December 15, 2025. Van Proyen, Mark. “Contemporary Asian American Abstraction @ Paul Thiebaud”, Squarecylinder.com, June 26, 2024. Amin, Lakshmi Rivera. “A View from the Easel”, Hyperallergic, November 16, 2022. Roth, David. “Sono Osato @ Brian Gross Fine Art”, Squarecylinder.com, July 18, 2017. DeWitt Cheng. “Sono Osato @ Brian Gross Fine Arts”, Visual Art Source, July 28, 2017. Featured Artist, Armchair/Shotgun, Volume 2. Baker, Kenneth. “Sono Osato-Babylon: the Buried Language Series”, San Francisco Chronicle, April 4, 2009. Swanhuyser, Hiya. “Danger Beauty Goo”, San Francisco Weekly, March 4-10, 2009. Cerbini, Lorenza. “Creativity at Work”, SpeakUp, Milan, Italy. Baker, Kenneth. “Sono Osato-Angels in Dust”, San Francisco Chronicle, April 2, 2005. Baker, Kenneth. “Objects Speak a Private Code in ‘Silent Language’”, San Francisco Chronicle, April 19, 2003. Baker, Kenneth. Critics Picks, San Francisco Chronicle, June 7, 2002. Porges, Maria. Review of the Sound of Ku, Artforum, March, 2000. Bonetti, David. “Charting 35 years of California Art”, San Francisco Examiner, January 6, 2000. “Home is Inside Me”, Stretcher.Org. Baker, Kenneth. “Bearable Weightlessness of Being”, San Francisco Chronicle, December 18, 1999. Sherman, Ann Elliot. “Second Impressions, Meaning and Message in Contemporary Art”, The Museum of California, Fall 1999. Cullum, Jerry. “What’s on the Surface isn’t the Whole Story”, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 16, 1999. Southern Exposure 25 Year Silver Anniversary Box Set. “di-ROSA Preserve/Art & Nature”, Local Color-ing Book first edition. Miller, Alicia. “The Secrets of Nature at Paradise Wood Sculpture Grove”, Artweek, July/August 1998 “Facing Eden-100 Years of Landscape Art in the Bay Area”, edited by Steven Nash. Litfin, Katy. “Profile: Sono Osato”, City Life Magazine, July/August 1993. Thym, Jolene. “Sculpture Offers Visitors to Peek Inside Oakland’s ‘Drawers”, Oakland Tribune, June 7, 1993. Hull-Webster, Mary. “A Conversation with Sono Osato”, Artweek, May 20, 1993. Jan, Alfred. “Sono Osato at Terrain”, New Art Examiner, December 3, 1992.
1992 1991 1990 1988 1987 1986
Cohn, Terri. “The Forgotten and the Familiar”, Artweek, October 22, 1992. Baker, Kenneth. “Scavenged Material Becomes Sculpture”, San Francisco Chronicle, September 15, 1992. Sherman, Ann Elliott. “Detritus and True”, The Metro, San Jose, November 7, 1991. Burkhart, Dorothy. “Poetry from Piles of Stuff”, San Jose Mercury News, November 1, 1991. Bonetti, David. “Sono Osato at Terrain Gallery”, Artnews, October 1991. Littlefield, Kinney. “Oakland Artist Explores a Deeper Shade of Black”, The Orange County Register, August 30, 1991. Curtis, Cathy. “There’s More Than Meets the Eye at Offbeat Laguna Museum Exhibit”, LA Times, August 25, 1991. Baker, Kenneth. “Osato’s Salvage Show at Terrain”, San Francisco Chronicle, April 4, 1991. Bonetti, David. “Artist with a Cinderella Touch”, San Francisco Examiner, March 29, 1991. “Spirituality and the Avant-Garde”, Five Fingers Review. Baker, Kenneth. Review of Fuller- Gross Exhibition, San Francisco Chronicle, June 13, 1990. Baker, Kenneth. “Installation Explores ‘Art/Non Art’ Question”, San Francisco Chronicle, May 2, 1990. “A Lot of People Just Don’t Get it”, CRACK 3. Solnit, Rebecca. “A Sense of Presence”, Artweek, July 25, 1987. Baker, Kenneth. “Different Kinds of Raw Art”, San Francisco Chronicle, January 17, 1987. Baker, Kenneth. “Sono Osato at New Art”, San Francisco Chronicle, July 4, 1986.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS: 2023 2012 2000 1999 1995 1991 1988
Process + Place: Headlands at 40 Featured Artist, Armchair/Shotgun, Volume 2 Home is Inside Me, Stretcher.Org Southern Exposure 25 Year Silver Anniversary Box Set di-ROSA Preserve/Art & Nature Local Color-ing Book first edition Facing Eden-100 Years of Landscape Art in the Bay Area, edited by Steven Nash Spirituality and the Avant-Garde, Five Fingers Review Alot of People Just Don’t Get it, CRACK 3
Cover: Diluvia 7 (detail), 2025 Rear Cover: Midden 1 (detail), 2025 Copyright 2025 Paul Thiebaud Gallery. All Rights Reserved. Images copyright 2025 Sono Osato. Essay copyright 2025 Emily Lee. Design: Greg Flood and Matthew Miller. All images, photo: Matthew Miller. No portion of this document may be reproduced or stored without the express written permission of the copyright holder(s).
PAUL THIEBAUD GALLERY