New illuminated artworks on display at 19th St. Oakland Station
The artists - Courtney Cerruti, Liz Hernandez, Carrie Lederer, and Kija Lucas - and curator Lisa Solomon in front of Lucas's Untitled (Samin’s Garden) at 19th St. Oakland Station.
A new exhibition at 19th St. Oakland Station has been installed in the light boxes that replaced the original phone alcoves as part of the 2023 station upgrades. Intended for rotating art displays, the glowing lightboxes featuring site specific reinterpretations of artworks by four Bay Area artists. Filled with florals, organic textures, and scenes inspired by the natural beauty of the Bay Area, the exhibition brings a burst of spring into the heart of downtown Oakland.
Each of the works, created by Courtney Cerruti, Liz Hernandez, Carrie Lederer, and Kija Lucas, center botanicals, inviting riders to pause and experience a moment of inspiration as they travel through the station. The project was led by the BART Art Program that engaged curator Lisa Solomon, a local artist and educator who is actively involved with local Bay Area art and artists.
“I think it’s really exciting that people get to see [art] in their daily lives. They don’t have to go to a museum, they don’t have to be familiar with artwork; they just have to look up while they’re commuting,” said Lisa Solomon. The project is “all about bringing the outside in.”
“It was really important to show the gamut of what florals can do in art,” she said.
The artworks are located at four locations inside the station, all visible without entering the paid area: three on the eastside of the station near the entrance/station agent booths, and one on the westside of the station across from the mid-station agent booth. They will be on display at least through fall 2026. The pieces complement three stairwell lightboxes (located between the lower and upper platforms) with permanent installations by artists Ron M. Saunders, Phillip Hua, and Lisa and Hailey Banks.
“The role of the art program is to align with BART’s efforts to enhance station environments making people feel more welcome, and connecting with nearby communities,” said BART Art Program Manager Jennifer Easton. Other recent projects supported by the program include the writing contest BART Lines: 826 Valencia, Sound Tracks Music Festival, Fruitvale murals in partnership with The Unity Council, and the upcoming BART Police Headquarters, North Berkeley and Dublin Pleasanton station art enhancements currently in development.
Fox and His Circle of Gold
“I often focus on both macro and micro – minute things that people don’t really have a chance to notice, things that are hiding in plain sight. Also, I am focusing on this idea of transporting people across land, water, sky, on out into the cosmos. This idea of a journey is in the work. All the details, the movement, the textures, the patterns. And it dovetails nicely with this idea of people who are on a journey here in BART going somewhere.”
— Carrie Lederer, Oakland (carrielederer.com)
Jacarandas al Viento (Jacarandas in the Wind)
“There's such a big world of people who exist, who spend a lot of time here in the BART system, and who might not spend a lot of time in a museum or attending a show at the gallery. But just bringing art into the space that’s already familiar, that’s ordinary...I think it will help people break that normalcy of their commutes, but also it might make people think that there is room for art in their life. The natural world is not a backdrop for our lives, it’s actually an agent that feels and sees and participates in this, being alive.”
— Liz Hernandez, Oakland (liz-hernandez.com)
Sunday Morning. Lake Merritt Gardens
“[The scene] is from the Gardens at Lake Merritt, which I used to spend a lot of time at. This happened on a Sunday that, like most Sundays, it would be a very rare treat for me to have an hour two to be out in the world painting because I have a small child. It was kind of like a miraculous series of events to let me be in a garden painting on a beautiful sunny day in Oakland with my watercolor palette and my sketchbook and a sun hat and nobody else. I really had the garden to myself because it was early, and I think that sort of sereness but also playfulness shows through in the work as well, and that’s my favorite way to paint.”
— Courtney Cerruti, Oakland (courtneycerruti.com)
Untitled (Samin’s Garden)
“For me plants have a lot of memories. They might remind you of your home or your grandmother or a person in your life. They might have a certain smell or taste memory to them. You bring them with you like other objects in your life. I love seeing my work in places where people will encounter art where they might not encounter it otherwise.”
— Kija Lucas, Berkeley (kijalucas.com)