Shape of Water / When the Levee Breaks: Danielle Eubank & Beth Davila Waldman

LAUNCH Gallery is proud to present solo exhibitions by Danielle Eubank and Beth
Davila Waldman, whose work reflects on the passage of time through the changing
conditions of our natural world and the societies we inhabit. As artists and
humanitarians, they have devoted their practices to observing the beauty and fragility of the land, oceans, and communities that sustain us. Their paintings and mixed media
works bear witness to a world in transition, documenting the recent past and the present while inviting viewers to consider an increasingly uncertain future.

Danielle Eubank presents Shape of Water, a new series of paintings that continues her
personal relationship to the world’s waterways. In this series, her long-standing,
nuanced relationship offers the Pacific Ocean as both the subject and collaborator.
This body of work reflects Danielle’s increasing use of the texture of paint to evoke
wateriness, collaborating with the ocean and the oil paint to create something singular.

My work is about how water unifies us. Human history is intrinsically
dependent on water and I want to invigorate people’s passion for it. If
people observe and think about water, they will feel more motivated to
protect it.

Aesthetically, I am looking for the tipping point between the conceptual
and visible to create an emotive response. I consider forms created by
ripples, oil slicks, or refuse a foundation for deconstruction. I create
patterns within patterns, representing vertical stacks of rhythms in each
painting.

Ultimately, my work celebrates this elemental subject and focuses
attention on it, sharing my ardor for both water and painting. ~ D.E.

Danielle Eubank explores the relationship between abstraction and realism through painting water. She is a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Eubank created One Artist Five Oceans, a 20-year project wherein she sailed and painted the waters of every ocean on Earth to raise climate awareness.

Eubank is the Expedition Artist for the Phoenicia Ship Expedition, a replica 600BCE
ship that circumnavigated Africa. As Expedition Artist aboard the UNESCO approved
Borobudur Ship Expedition she traveled with the replica 8th century expedition from
Indonesia to Ghana. Eubank has sailed to Antarctica and aboard a barquentine tall ship to the northernmost settlement on Earth.

She was a Creative Climate Award nominee and the awardee of the WCA/United
Nations Program Honor Roll Award. Eubank has spoken in Japan, Korea, Germany, the
United Kingdom, France, Mexico, the United States, Spain, Syria and Italy, as well as
painting the Henley Royal Regatta. A film documentary about her work, Mozambique VI, premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival.

In her new mixed media series, When the Levee Breaks, Beth Davila Waldman further
explores the impact of socio-political trends on cultural landscapes, through imagery
laden with indicators of economic and social status, presented in a manner that
emulates the sheer stress of imposed change. She offers redemption, if only temporary,
through keen photographic imagery layered and embellished in paint as both a marker
of a questionable past and an uncertain but hopeful future.

When The Levee Breaks reflects our current state of vulnerability. Fragile conditions often go unnoticed as we move through our daily lives, yet we remain surrounded by breaking points—fault lines that, left unaddressed, will continue to bring destruction both near and far.

These paintings speak not only to the ongoing threats of climate change but also to the troubling tendency to overlook historical lessons that should not be repeated, yet often are. Drawing on photographic elements from the built environment from the Deep South, my process and application of paint portray a precarious landscape—one marked by signs of transformation, but without resolution. ~ B.D.W.

Born in Princeton, NJ in 1975, Beth Davila Waldman pursued her career in the arts initially at Wellesley College where she earned a BA with degrees in art history and studio art. She continued her education at the San Francisco Art Institute with a second degree in sculpture where she was awarded the 2004 Harold E. Weiner Memorial Sculpture Award.

Recently, Waldman has been awarded residencies by Art in Residence, 18th Street Art Center, Kala Art Institute, Playa Institute, and Edition/Basel as well as participated in annual projects at Djerassi Art Residency. Waldman’s work has been featured in art fairs in Hong Kong, Mexico City, San Francisco, and Berlin. Her work has been featured in the De Young Museum’s OPEN Exhibition in 2020 & 2023 in addition to the Museum of Northern California in 2024. In 2025, Waldman launched the publication of her 1st catalog covering 25 years of her art which is now part of SFMOMA's Library and Archives with the support of SFMOMA curator Shana Lopes whose essay is included in the publication as well as the SFAI Legacy Foundation+Archives with a supporting foreward by John Roloff. This year, she was a 2026 SFMOMA SECA Award Nominee. Waldman maintains studios in Los Angeles and Mill Valley, CA.