Jane Ivory
A Language of Respect
April 16 - May 26, 2026
An examination of the marks of human presence and the ethics of moving through the world with care and restraint.
Jane Ivory’s black-and-white photographs are of carefully composed nature, revealing moments where man has left a mark. Ivory’s work focuses on evidence of use, neglect, and remembrance. What emerges is awareness.
A Language of Respect is an invitation to move through the world with care and restraint. Through the act of intentional observation, understanding and becoming aware, Ivory reminds us that nature asks for respect and balance, not possession.
Jane Ivory, Entrance to Fleishhacker Pool, 2021. Archival pigment print © Jane Ivory.
Jane Ivory, Diorama Pastoral, 2021. Archival pigment print © Jane Ivory.
Jane Ivory, Sutro Parapet Walland Trees, 2021. Archival pigment print © Jane Ivory.
The exhibition brings together selections from two ongoing series: Elegy for the Forlorn and Confined. In Elegy for the Forlorn, Ivory photographs abandoned places, structures that once held purpose and now exist as quiet remnants. These images carry a sense of longing and reflection, acknowledging loss while holding space for memory. In Confined, Ivory turns her lens toward animals presented within constructed environments: museum dioramas, zoos, and staged habitats. Photographing these spaces without spectacle, she asks viewers to sit with the contradiction of care and captivity, admiration and superiority, beauty and confinement.
Based in San Francisco, Ivory continues a lineage of West Coast photography focused on environmental conservation, whose practice is deeply entwined with advocacy.
Exhibition Details
Title: A Language of Respect
Artist: Jane Ivory
Dates: April 16 – May 26, 2026
Location: Nelson Duni, 35 Bartlett Street, San Francisco, California
Press Preview: Wednesday, April 15, 2026, 11 AM – 5 PM and by appointment
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 16, 2026, 4 – 8 PM
Exhibition Programming
Artist Talk: Jane Ivory in Conversation with Raymond Holbert
Join us at Nelson Duni for an afternoon conversation with artist Jane Ivory and Bay Area artist, writer, and educator Raymond Holbert on the occasion of A Language of Respect. n this intimate talk, Ivory and Holbert will discuss her practice, the ideas behind the exhibition, and the role of observation, care, and awareness in contemporary art.
Date: Saturday, April 18, 2026
Time: 2:00PM (Gallery doors open at 12:00PM)
Location: Nelson Duni, San Francisco
RSVP: Recommended, please click here.
Raymond Holbert is a Berkeley-born Bay Area artist, photographer, educator, and writer whose multidisciplinary practice spans drawing, photography, printmaking, collage, digital imaging, and mixed media. A longtime faculty member at City College of San Francisco, where he taught for 35 years and chaired the Art Department, Holbert has been a dedicated teacher of African and African American art history and an advocate for journaling as a creative practice. His work has been shown widely in California and beyond, including exhibitions at SFMOMA, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Richmond Art Center, and held in many public and private collections.