The abated April rains that endured throughout the week, and the extended daylight hours provided pleasant conditions and a very populated Art Murmur night, Oakland’s biggest monthly arts staple. This was also the first Art Murmur the recent additions of galleries participated, both in Jack London Square like The Hive Gallery and Studios and Swarm Gallery, and Old Oakland’s Popuphood shops Marion and Rose’s Workshop‘s “Clusternook” by artist group Wonderboom, and Crown Nine‘s presentation of works on paper and prints by West Oakland artist, Jen Schnell.

Further up Broadway and Telegraph, the classic Art Murmur artwalk spaces offered many new art shows, in fact every Art Murmur gallery had a new art exhibition to peruse. PHOTO Gallery presented beautifully-colored nocturne, long-exposure photographs by Nicolo Sertorio, “Peregrinations.” Sertorio cleverly explores how artists and audience typically determine the medium, as their abstracted nature depicting motion negates the very definition of photography, that of a true evidence or illustration of its subject.

FM Oakland has a stellar exhibition of Jason Aumann‘s mixed media works, “Impermanent, Imperfect, Incomplete.” The name is derived from the three marks of existence in Buddhist philosophy: “true appreciation of beauty comes from the understanding and acceptance that nothing lasts, nothing is perfect, and nothing is finished.” Through many layers of paint, print, and resin, Aumann builds physical distance resembling time-worn decay that cloud the images and obfuscates the photograph’s narrative, illustrating the complexity of nostalgia and memory: images from so long ago, meaning could be specific events that are personal or everyday and universal.

Krowswork gallery’s group exhibition, “Illuminations” the artists Varese Layzer, RKDB, and Julia Shirar powerfully explore within disparate mediums the depth and complexity of space and place within the dynamics of family and home upon death or absence. Layzer’s contribution to Illuminations is an evocative photographic examination of coping with the death of her mother through still lifes and suspended motion within empty rooms and quiet spaces, all within New York City, a metropolis that boasts its frenzied nature. RKDB and Shirar’s video and installations reflect upon loss and loneliness through luminosity the title of the show suggests, innately as a sense of warmth and comfort and yet calling attention to the darkness and emptiness that surrounds.

Art Murmur is never limited to just the gallery spaces, but also the pop-up arts events that also participate. The newly-formed arts non-profit, ArtIs MobilUs rolled into 23rd street and provided a mobile art gallery, a new take on public art. Outside the refitted school bus was a mural by Ezra Li Eismont, and inside were artworks by local artists Crayone, Sean Murdock, and Mark Erickson. Jon Sarriugarte’s monster mobile creations were meandering along the Art Murmur streets spewing fire, lighting up the Art Murmur night.