In The Power of Presence, Los Angeles–based renowned artist Donna Isham invites viewers into an intimate dialogue between color, form, and feeling. Opening Saturday, November 8 at Walstory Gallery in Manhattan Beach, the exhibition presents a suite of new abstract and figurative paintings alongside Glass Between Us (2024), a large-scale immersive installation created in collaboration with composer Mark Isham. Together, these works explore the charged spaces between connection and distance, presence and absence, chaos and clarity.
Isham’s abstract works—Crimson (2025), Marbella (2025), and Forest (2025)—expand her visual vocabulary. In Marbella, translucent layers of acrylic, graphite, oil stick, and wax evoke skin, light, and atmosphere; the painting breathes with sensual restraint, its edges alive with quiet energy. Crimson pulses with layers of blues and reds of expressionist immediacy, its gestures raw yet choreographed, while Forest opens into an expanse of layered greens and ochres, an abstraction of renewal and stillness. Each painting is a study in emotional texture—where color and movement translate the invisible rhythms of being.
Isham’s figurative gestures anchor the exhibition in the body’s presence, bridging abstraction with lived experience. Her mark-making—simultaneously impulsive and precise—renders emotion tangible, turning line and form into vessels of empathy. The paintings invite reflection not only on what is seen, but what is felt: the trace of breath, the flicker of memory, the echo of touch. In Love Letters From Friends in Paris, Isham utilizes her bold use of color in both her figuration and background, melding them into a choreographed dance of female strength.
At the center of the exhibition, Glass Between Us (2024) stands as both painting and environment—an 84 x 64-inch acrylic and charcoal on canvas animated by sound and light. The piece unfolds as a meditation on human intimacy and separation, its layered surface reflecting the emotional terrain of modern communication. Mark Isham’s original score — woven from ambient synthesizers and melodic instrumentation — amplifies the tension and tenderness of Donna’s visual rhythm, creating a sensory duet between sight and sound. Animated projections extend the painting’s pulse beyond the canvas, enveloping the viewer in a contemplative, almost cinematic experience.
“The spaces between us are not empty,” Isham reflects. “They’re alive with emotion, memory, and potential. I paint that tension—the fragility and strength of being in relation to another.”
Known for her emotionally charged, expressive works that blend abstraction and figuration, Donna Isham continues to expand her practice through sound, light, and projection. Her paintings have been shown at Intersect Art Fair, Hamptons Fine Art Fair, and Context Art Miami, and her evolving multidisciplinary approach transforms traditional painting into a cinematic experience of presence and perception.
Just a block from the Pacific, Walstory Gallery has become a cornerstone of the South Bay’s contemporary art scene—championing artists whose work resonates with both aesthetic power and emotional depth. The Power of Presence brings Isham’s distinctive voice into dialogue with the oceanic pulse of Manhattan Beach itself: a meditation on stillness, reflection, and the beauty of being seen.
