See & Experience
Tucker Nichols, ST RAFAEL, 2026. Courtesy the artist.
In Other Words
September 26 - December 20, 2026
ART FWD: In Other Words takes its cue from artist Tucker Nichols’s trademark play with words. At MarinMOCA, he brings together fellow artists who borrow from a wide range of written communication — from vernacular signage to graffiti-like mark making, from handwritten correspondence to coded signs — to create work that is playful, poetic, and always deeply human.
Tucker Nichols
Nathan Cordero
Rose D'Amato
Isaac Tin Wei Lin
Jeffrey Sincich
Xylor Jane
Ed Ruscha
…and more
Words are strange. When we read a novel, we silently build combinations of letters into complex narratives straight from the minds of authors we've never met. These sequenced squiggles can make a person cry. Words can proclaim love or deliver terrible news. People carve words into picnic tables and scribble them on matchbooks. Words say: I was here.
Each artist in this exhibition looks at writing from their own particular vantage. In wildly different ways, they pick up the raw material of text and bend it to show us something we couldn't see otherwise.
Some of these artists speak through found text from streets, businesses, or magazines. Others form their own abstract writing, creating a language that is felt more than explained. A gallery of mail art holds work that, whatever its content, still somehow says letter. Several artists express a wild determination through physicality or scale, or through inquiry into something vast and beautiful. And still others present words like passed hors d'oeuvres, each perfectly formed. You reach for another.
—Tucker Nichols, Curator
Screening: Tell Them We Were Here
Thursday, October 29 | MarinMOCA, San Rafael
Join us for a screening of Tell Them We Were Here, presented in conjunction with In Other Words, curated by Tucker Nichols. Directed by Griff and Keelan Williams, the film follows a group of Bay Area artists whose practices are shaped by community, activism, and social consciousness.
Featuring artists including Alicia McCarthy, Amy Franceschini of Futurefarmers, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Sadie Barnette, Jim Goldberg, Tucker Nichols, and Nigel Poor, Tell Them We Were Here offers a look at the people and ideas that have shaped the Bay Area art community over the past 25 years.
Xylor Jane, Replay, 2023. Oil, ink, and graphite on panel, 33 x 33 in. (83.82 x 83.2 cm). Courtesy of the artist and CANADA, New York. Photo: Joe DeNardo.
Jeffrey Sincich Lotto • Tobacco • ATM (2025) Cotton fabric, batting, wooden panel, walnut artist frame.
Isaac Tin Wei Lin, Green and Green, 2013, enamel on vinyl, 84 × 60 in (213.4 × 152.4 cm) Courtesy of the artist and Fleisher/Ollman, Philadelphia
Nathan Cordero, Untitled. Mixed media, 39.5 × 40 in. Courtesy of the artist's estate.
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