Past Exhibitions
The Cañada College Art Gallery presents exhibitions to the public, focuses on an interdisciplinary interpretation of art and culture, and serves the public of San Mateo County, the college community, and beyond.
Guy Diehl: A Retrospective — Works from 1957-2025
Cañada College Art Gallery is pleased to present Guy Diehl: A Retrospective, an exhibition spanning nearly seven decades of work by one of California's most accomplished still life painters.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1949, Guy Diehl moved to the Bay Area in the summer of 1960 and has made it his home ever since. He has spent his career exploring the beauty found in everyday objects.
This exhibition follows his artistic development from a childhood drawing created at age eight in 1957 to paintings completed in 2025, revealing how an artist's vision evolves and deepens over time while maintaining its essential character.
His carefully arranged still lifes are studies in light, color, and form. Whether working in the clarity of morning or the warmth of late afternoon, he captures how light transforms ordinary objects into something worth our attention. His compositions are deliberate and thoughtful, each element carefully placed to create a visual conversation.
Throughout his career, Diehl has engaged with art history—from Morandi's contemplative arrangements to the Dutch Masters' technical precision—while developing his own distinct approach to painting.
Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 in
His work can be found in major California collections including the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, the Crocker Art Museum, and the San Jose Museum of Art.
This retrospective brings together works spanning nearly seven decades, offering viewers a unique opportunity to see how an artist's commitment to observation, patience, and painting has evolved and deepened.
Back to School: A Group Exhibition - Fall 2025
Back to School: A Group Exhibition, featuring seven student artists from Cañada College.
This exhibition explores the relationship between historical precedent and contemporary interpretation. Each artist has selected a masterwork to study and copy, then created an original piece inspired by that work—transforming tradition into personal vision. Through this process of copying and creating, the artists engage in a dialogue across time, investigating how the act of studying the past can inform new artistic possibilities.
Featured Artists
Isabella Burns, Cece Escobar, Violaine Mraihi, Ariana Myers, Sabrina Ng, Evie Rosmando, Katharine Wolf.
MART 362 Digital Photography Book Exhibition - Fall 2025
Come and celebrate the creativity of Cañada College photography students! This exhibition showcases striking images from our student-created Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Photography Book.
Authored by Professor Emanuela Quaglia, this inspiring project highlights student talent while making learning accessible to all.
Paul Wonner & Theophilus Brown Painting is its Own Language - Spring 2025
18 works spanning a period of over 50 years
Cañada College is proud to present the works of Paul Wonner (1920-2008) and Theophilus Brown (1919-2012), two significant figures in the Bay Area Figurative Movement.
This intimate exhibition brings together paintings and drawings from the private collection of San Francisco collectors Matt Gonzalez and Kelly Egan.
The collection offers a unique perspective on both artists' work, spanning over five decades. Gonzalez, who shared studio time with Brown, and his wife Egan have thoughtfully assembled these 18 works, providing a rare glimpse into the artistic evolution of these influential California artists.
Bill Morales - Fall 2024
The Cañada College Art Department is presenting “Bill Morales: Recent Works”. The exhibition includes 16 recent paintings.
Bill was Professor of Studio Art at Cañada College from 1992-2022. He taught drawing, painting, watercolor, life drawing, 2D design and color theory classes. Bill has exhibited his work widely, including two solo exhibitions in New York City and many group exhibitions in New York, California and Oregon.
Jenny Wantuch - Fall 2023
The Cañada College Art Department is presenting "Harmony in Hues: exploring landscapes through perception, imagination and memory", an exhibition of paintings by the Bay Area artist Jenny Wantuch.
Wantuch is showing 17 paintings in total. Nine of these paintings were commissioned for Cañada College in 2021 and were completed in 2022. The commissioned paintings are 8x8 inch oil paintings inspired by repeating patterns and architectural elements that frames the beautiful vistas seen at Cañada College Campus. Wantuch is a former student at Cañada College and completed an AA degree in Multimedia Art and Technology in 2013. View Exhibition Catalog.
Anna Valdez - Fall 2017
The Cañada College Art Department is presenting "Through Observation", an exhibition of painting by the Bay Area artist Anna Valdez.
Valdez is showing nine still lifes, all completed in the last two years. Painted in a manner that at times may appear simple, these works are beautiful orchestrations of objects and spaces in her studio, featuring her collection of plants, books, fabric, and works of art. The large scale of some of the paintings, up to six feet across, can bring the viewers into that world of the studio. The familiarity of the objects combines with vibrant color, a freshness of paint application, and a feel for abstraction create a wonderful dual reality.
Michael Ryan - Spring 2016
The Cañada College Art Department is presenting "Empty Promises", an exhibition of painting by the artist Michael J. Ryan.
The present exhibition consists of nine oil paintings representing plastic packaging that at times can be seen as both eerie and beautiful. The artist thus takes this mundane symbol of our throw-away consumerist culture, and causes the viewer to see the beauty in these forms.
Donna Cehrs - Fall 2014
The Cañada College Art Department is proud to present "Portraits - an Exhibition of Paintings by Donna Cehrs" at the College Gallery in Building Nine.
Cehrs, who studied art at UC Santa Cruz, is known primarily as a painter of still-life. Her paintings concentrate on an intense scrutiny of her subject, which she paints with a determined realism. The last few years she has turned her attention to painting portraits, primarily of children and young adults. This present show at Cañada College consists of 28 portraits, all painted in oil on linen.
