Cate White

George Adams Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Bay Area artist Cate White. The exhibition features ten portraits inspired by photographs of men from the 1970s and '80s. This is White's second solo show with the gallery. Men will be on view April 18 – May 23 in the lower-level gallery at 38 Walker Street. 

Cate White was first introduced by the gallery in the 2021 Bay Area survey exhibition, Shapeshifters, featuring a series of gritty urban scenes depicting residents of Oakland. Tasmin Smith described White's works from this Men series in a recent review published in Juxtapoz as "relentlessly imaginative portrayals of abjectness and pathos mixed with small, significant signs of life's odd pleasures."

White is a sympathetic portraitist while not shying away from honesty and even irony. Included in the current exhibition are Ricky (tub man) (2025), depicting her subject as a wannabe rockstar looking equally preposterous and cool while drinking a beer in a bathtub, and Miguel (robe man) (2024), shown lounging on a bed with his cat, robe askew. In a similar vein to the paintings in Shapeshifters, White's perspective is not in the least condescending; rather she presents her subjects unapologetically, even appreciatively as they are. 

Cate White (b. 1971) has exhibited extensively throughout California and has been the recipient of several major awards and residencies, including Art + Process + Ideas residency, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA; Atlantic Center for the Arts Master Artist Residency with Joan Snyder, New Smyrna, FL; Roswell Artist-in-residence, Roswell, NM; the Tournesol Award from the Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA; the 2x2 solos from Pro Arts in Oakland, CA. She is the host of a painting show on YouTube, "How Do You Paint." White lives and works in Oakland and Albion, California.