Do You Know ESQUELETO?

ESQUELETO features a thoughtfully curated selection of fine jewelry, artwork, and both handcrafted and natural objects. Owner Lauren Wolf first opened the shop’s doors in 2011 after relocating to Oakland from New York, where she established her namesake line, Lauren Wolf Jewelry.

Esqueleto represents both local and international contemporary jewelers, ceramicists, and fine artists, and presents rotating art shows in the desert-like gallery space. An e-commerce website was launched in February 2015, and a second location in Los Angeles opened its doors in June 2015.

Lauren Wolf  honed her skills as a jeweler in the mountains of Mexico before launching her namesake line in New York City. In 2010 Lauren relocated to Oakland, CA, where she currently runs her studio and storefront, Esqueleto. Her work has been featured in W, Elle, BlackBook, Lucky, and Interview, and worn by the likes of Penelope Cruz, Brooke Shields, Debra Messing, and Karolina Kurkova. The collection is carried in over 60 boutiques nationwide. Lauren’s love of travel, curiosities, and the natural world continues to play out in her design process.

Matthew Craven’s space/time series currently occupies our desert-like gallery in Oakland, California. This series deconstructs old images from text books, and then re-assembles them back onto the book page to create a new history. Matthew Craven is a Brooklyn-based artist who uses historical images as a backdrop for his collages and drawings.

Craven synthesizes historical images from lost cultures, relics, archaeological remains as well as images from the cosmos, both well known and extremely ambiguous, to create the abstract patterns and narratives in his works. By doing so he reconfigures the original historical narrative and he creates his own myths that induce a new connection to our past.