A Place to Rest
(My Tired Mind)
On view at Oceanside Museum of Art
May 2 - September 27, 2026
“Collective Fatigue”, 20”x20”, Oil on Linen, 2026
“Let Me Be Still”, 36”x36”, Oil, dry flowers, acrylic, on clear primed linen, 2025
“A Place To Rest”, 84”x84”, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 2026
“Wasting Time II” , 24”x24”, Oil and Acrylic on Linen, 2026
“Work / Break”, 24”x30”, Oil and Acrylic on Linen, 2026
“Work / Break II”, 24”x30”, Oil and Acrylic on Linen, 2026
“The Keeper of the Wild”, 60"x60", Oil, dry flowers, gel medium, acrylic on canvas, 2025
“Embracing”, 8”x10”, Gouache, Acrylic, and Dry California Poppy Flowers on Canvas, 2026
“My Tired Mind”, 24”x24”, Oil on Linen, 2026
“Wasting Time”, 36”x48”, Oil and Acrylic on Wood, 2026
“Fire-Follower”, 30”x30”, Oil and Acrylic on Linen, 2026
Violet Hill, 24"x24", Oil and Acrylic on Linen, 2026
“Tired Mind II”, 20x20, Oil on Linen, 2026
“Reconnecting”, 24”x30”, Oil and Acrylic on Linen, 2026
“Out of Office”, 20”x20”, Oil and Acrylic on Linen, 2026
“Hold Me”, 9”x12”, Oil on Linen, 2026
Kate Tova: A Place to Rest (My Tired Mind)
May 2–September 27, 2026
Kate Tova explores emotional and physical burnout, questioning what it means to truly rest in a culture that equates productivity with worth.
Moving up through the stairwell into the gallery, the exhibition unfolds as an immersive environment of her A Place to Rest series. Inspired by the gentle California hills surrounding her studio that erupt into wildflowers each spring, Tova’s paintings envision wildflower fields as inner sanctuaries. Here, the meadows become a metaphor for the mind at rest: expansive and unforced. The artist imagines a space where the struggle is over and where nothing more is required of us, leaving us free to simply be.
Tova began this series while recovering from burnout herself, confronting deeply ingrained beliefs about labor, worth, and rest. Raised by a Soviet grandmother with rigid ideas around work and shaped by the pressures of her immigrant experience in the U.S., she developed an unhealthy relationship with rest. This body of work represents a slow unlearning of guilt and shame in response to the simple human need to pause.
A Place to Rest (My Tired Mind) invites viewers to move through cycles of depletion into a spiritual superbloom - finally finding permission to sit with stillness and heal.
Kate Tova “A Place To Rest”, 84”x84”, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 2026
Kate Tova and Svetlana Platova “A Place To Rest II”, Rugs, Yarn, Fabric and Fiberfill, 2026
Just as a superbloom erupts from scorched earth, this work represents the human awakening that follows the wildfire of total burnout. It is a tribute to the resilience of the artist’s mother as a single parent and a ‘soft landing’ for their collective exhaustion.
This sanctuary also serves as a reminder of what we have lost: with 90% of California’s native grasslands now gone, we are witnessing the erasure of the very habitats that sustain other species and restore our own souls.
At the artwork’s base lies a tactile sanctuary of green yarn and hand-knitted blooms - a collaborative labor of love created by Tova and her mother. Here, the tired mind finally finds refuge, transforming the scars of a difficult existence into a spiritual superbloom of resilience and peace.
Detail:
Kate Tova, “Wasting Time”, 36”x48”, Oil and Acrylic on Wood, 2026
“Wasting Time” examines the tragedy of the "time is money" mindset, which has colonized our leisure hours and distorted the simple moments of joy. The image of children "swimming" through wildflowers represents a total immersion in the physical world - a state where the boundaries of the self dissolve into the environment. The artwork invites us to remember a life lived without an internal clock, before we began calculating the "worth" of our actions against our productivity. The black sky looming above suggests a day that has slipped away unnoticed: a perceived "waste" that is, in reality, a profound victory of presence.
Kate Tova, “Collective Fatigue”, 20”x20”, Oil on Linen, 2026
This artwork frames burnout not as an individual failure, but as a systemic epidemic. By depicting a collective collapse, the piece insists that our exhaustion is shared. The painting positions rest as a radical act of resistance against the toxic hustle culture of the modern world. Within this field, professional hierarchies dissolve, leaving everyone equal in their primal need for stillness. This artwork invites viewers to recognize their own weariness mirrored in others, offering the courage to acknowledge our common need for rest.
Kate Tova, “Work / Break”, 24”x30”, Oil and Acrylic on Linen, 2026
This artwork examines the precarious threshold between professional demand and personal collapse, suggesting that if we do not intentionally choose a "break," the labor itself will eventually "break" us. The work interrogates a modern psyche that views a moment of pause as a failure of character, highlighting a boundary - thinner than we care to admit - where the body snaps long before the mind grants permission to stop. While the contemporary attire anchors this crisis in the daily grind, the encroaching flora represents a sensory craving to be one with the earth.
Kate Tova, “My Tired Mind”, 24”x24”, Oil on Linen, 2026
The painting beckons the viewer’s mind to lie down within a velvety sea of pansies - flowers that traditionally symbolize "thoughts" (from the French pensée). Here, the figure literally rests her head among her own reflections and sorrows, seeking sanctuary within the dark garden of the subconscious. It is a quiet protest against a world that demands constant emotional performance, offering instead the deep relief of a mind at rest.
Kate Tova, “The Keeper of the Wild”, 60"x60", Oil, dry flowers, gel medium, acrylic on canvas, 2025
In “The Keeper of the Wild” the artist explores our deep connection to the natural world through the lens of instinct and loss. The lynx, a Ukrainian symbol of intuition, serves as a guardian, reminding us to stay grounded and protect our well-being. On the horizon, the presence of bones and figures evokes a landscape of memory and the fragile line between survival and extinction. Through the striking contrast of vibrant color against ominous imagery, the artwork reveals a world both radiant and endangered, urging us to protect the beauty that remains.