MISSION
 

Royal NoneSuch Gallery is an artist-run alternative art and event space located in Oakland, California. We are dedicated to creating community around art-based experiences that are thought provoking and conceptually rigorous, while also being accessible and fun. Through a framework of monthly exhibitions and related programs, we strive to maintain a dynamic schedule in which the gallery is continuously reinvented to reflect the spirit and process of an artist, specific program series, or collaboration.

The Royal NoneSuch Gallery is not motivated by commercial interests, but instead by working with other artists and creators to facilitate experimentation and social engagement through monthly exhibitions and events. We encourage artists to translate their studio practice, not only into a month long installation, but into a social context that allows the public to actively connect with the central concepts and ideas of the exhibition through opportunities for participation. We take active responsibility for being part of an emerging art scene in Oakland by encouraging an atmosphere of creative risk taking from artists and participation from the community, aiming always for public experiences that are inclusive, innovative, and educational. Visitors to Royal NoneSuch can expect to see, hear, learn, experiment, and participate.

Our Name: Borrowed from the crafty theater troupe in Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn, Royal NoneSuch Gallery was named in the spirit of participation, interaction, and art making of all kinds.

CO-DIRECTORS
 

Elizabeth Bernstein, founder and co-director, 2009–present
Elizabeth Bernstein is an artist, educator, and gallery director who lives in Oakland, California. She received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2007. In addition to being the Co-Director of Royal NoneSuch Gallery, she is visiting faculty in the photography department at the San Francisco Art Institute. She is a photographer whose work examines the visual language of our daily lives, and how it communicates our complex emotional and psychological landscape. Elizabeth has shown her work on the East Coast and in the Bay Area. Select exhibitions include Swarm Gallery in Oakland, Five Points Arthouse in San Francisco, and Attleboro Arts Museum in Attleboro, MA.

Amy Nathan, co-director, 2018–present
Amy Nathan is an artist and curator based in Berkeley, California. She received her MFA from Mills College in 2018, and she will be a Graduate Fellow at the Headlands Center for the Arts from 2018–2019. Her sculptures and paintings are guided by the meaning and the formal qualities of language and signs, and oscillate between two and three dimensions as a way to think through perception.

Annie Albagli, co-director, 2019–present
As a multimedia artist, Annie Albagli examines personal narratives and their entanglements with ecological histories and landscapes shaped by different forms of power. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally at such venues including the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Art Museum of the Americas, Dream Farm Commons, and Fort Mason Center for the Arts. She has contributed to various artists’ land projects such as AZ West, Mildred’s Lane, and Salmon Creek Farm and participated in residencies such as CEC’s Back Apartment residency in St. Petersburg, Russia, Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus in Schwandorf, Germany, This Will Take Time in Point Arena, CA, and Djerassi in Woodside, CA. Albagli was a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Truth Fellow in 2017-18. She is a co-founder and editor of the publication and art machine, WHIZ WORLD.

PAST CO-DIRECTORS
Dana Hemenway, co-director, 2015–2017
Carrie Hott, founder and co-director, 2009–2012
Carey Lin, co-director, 2011–2015
Susannah Magers, co-director, 2014–2015
Kathleen Quillian, co-director, 2011–2012
Zoë Taleporos, co-director, 2014–2017
Sarah Thibault, co-director, 2015–2017
Hillary Wiedemann, co-director, 2014–2015
Christina Wiles, co-director, 2017–2018