San Diego, CA
Lizzie Zelter's Art Exhibit “Wall Plates” Makes the Familiar Strange | San Diego Magazine
When he and I were small, my younger brother used to claim he could see without his glasses. He’d press the tips of his thumbs and forefingers together, leaving a tiny diamond of space to peer through. With everything else blocked out, he’d say, a once-blurry sliver of a scene would shift into sharpness.
San Diego artist Lizzie Zelter knows that trick, too.
A 2022 graduate of Columbia University’s painting MFA program and the founder of new La Jolla gallery Two Rooms, the 27-year-old, New York–born artist has long been fascinated with space. Her immersive paintings offer an accessible but slightly off-kilter experience of the world: real-life rooms and buildings made strange by tweaks in dimension or color.
Wall Plates, a series of works on view at Tijuana’s Sala de Espera gallery through May 4, is something else. “I had this one light switch cover, and I started realizing it worked as a viewfinder,” Zelter recalls. “I would hold it up in my studio and I would see through it. Little sections of the world would come into focus. I started collecting them because I thought they were an interesting object—something we see every day and don’t really think about.”
The collection became the focal point—no pun intended—of her latest work. The solo show (the first of Zelter’s career) depicts 12 oversized wall plates, the nondescript, usually plastic frames that hide electrical wiring.
“Making paintings based off of objects versus places was an exciting shift for me,” Zelter says. Still, place has its, well, place. The holes in each plate offer glimpses of worlds beyond, some familiar—a chain-link fence, a skeletal tree—and some strange, a smorgasbord of texture and color.
Though they are cartoonishly large in scale, there is something sobering and even frustrating about the way they block you out from the paintings’ inner worlds. It’s a narrowing of scope in the tradition of Georgia O’Keefe, who used animal bones, camera viewfinders, and even a piece of Swiss cheese to tighten her visual perspective.
Work that denies you full access has obvious resonance at Sala de Espera, an abandoned hospital converted to a living space (gallery co-owner Luis Alonso Sánchez dwells there) and art gallery in a border town.
The wall plates—domestic objects so common they usually disappear—become portals to places you can neither visit nor fully witness. Only one work, Uproot and replant, brings the inner world’s textures to our side of the wall, muddying the sense that the dimension beyond the plate is one entirely separate from our own.
“There is a lot of power or possibility in switching the focus,” Zelter adds. “I hope it has this kind of layered read about the dangers of flattened representations of spaces.”
After all, there’s a problem with my brother’s trick. Reducing the world to a pinprick isn’t really seeing—not when a whole story exists just past it, blurred beyond recognition.
See Wall Plates at Sala de Espera (Avenida de la Televisión, #2681 Col. Juarez, Tijuana, BC, Mexico) through May 4.
On Thursday, the average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in San Diego County recorded its largest increase since Sept. 28, 2023, rising 8.7 cents to $4.894, its highest amount since Nov. 13.
The average price has increased 15 consecutive days, rising 28.7 cents, including 7 cents on Wednesday, according to figures from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service. It is 22.4 cents more than one week ago, 38.6 cents higher than one month ago and 14.5 cents greater than one year ago.
The average price has dropped $1.541 since rising to a record $6.435 on Oct. 5, 2022.
“Gas prices are rising primarily due to a recent surge in crude oil following strikes on Iran by the U.S. and Israel,” Kandace Redd, the Automobile Club of Southern California’s senior public affairs specialist, told City News Service. “Any conflict with Iran can send oil prices higher, as Iran is a major oil producer and about a fifth of the oil consumed globally travels through the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman.
“Gas prices are increasing because of seasonal factors too. Refineries are beginning the switch to more expensive summer-blend fuel, and demand is picking up as we head into the spring break season with more people on the road.”
The national average price rose 5.3 cents to $3.251, its highest amount since Sept. 11, 2024. It has risen five consecutive days, increasing 26.9 cents, including 8.9 cents on Wednesday.
The national average price is 26.8 cents more than one week ago, 36 cents higher than one month ago and 14.4 cents greater than one year ago. It has dropped $1.765 since rising to a record $5.016 on June 14, 2022.
UNLV Rebels (16-14, 11-8 MWC) at San Diego State Aztecs (19-10, 13-6 MWC)
San Diego; Friday, 10 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: UNLV faces San Diego State after Kimani Hamilton scored 24 points in UNLV’s 92-65 victory over the Utah State Aggies.
The Aztecs have gone 13-2 in home games. San Diego State is eighth in the MWC with 9.0 offensive rebounds per game led by Miles Heide averaging 2.0.
The Rebels have gone 11-8 against MWC opponents. UNLV ranks eighth in the MWC shooting 34.4% from 3-point range.
San Diego State averages 79.1 points per game, 0.6 more points than the 78.5 UNLV gives up. UNLV averages 7.2 made 3-pointers per game this season, 1.9 fewer made shots on average than the 9.1 per game San Diego State allows.
The teams play for the second time in conference play this season. San Diego State won the last meeting 82-71 on Jan. 24. Miles Byrd scored 23 points points to help lead the Aztecs to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Reese Dixon-Waters is shooting 35.9% from beyond the arc with 1.6 made 3-pointers per game for the Aztecs, while averaging 13 points. Byrd is averaging 10.2 points and 5.1 rebounds over the past 10 games.
Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn is shooting 50.9% and averaging 20.6 points for the Rebels. Hamilton is averaging 1.4 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.
LAST 10 GAMES: Aztecs: 5-5, averaging 74.9 points, 28.9 rebounds, 13.7 assists, 6.9 steals and 4.2 blocks per game while shooting 46.4% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 69.0 points per game.
Rebels: 6-4, averaging 84.1 points, 32.3 rebounds, 14.7 assists, 6.4 steals and 4.8 blocks per game while shooting 50.0% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 80.8 points.
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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
SAN DIEGO (CNS) – Military bases in San Diego County and nationwide have increased security measures due to last weekend’s U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran, prompting traffic delays near base entrances, enhanced ID checks and access restrictions.
The Naval Air Station North Island on Coronado ports three aircraft carriers, including the San Diego-based USS Abraham Lincoln, which led some of the first-wave attacks on Saturday.
Naval Base Coronado warned motorists of possible traffic delays at all base entry points due to the increased security measures.
Targets included Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields.
The U.S. operation, dubbed “Epic Fury,” and Israeli operation, “Raging Lion,” began striking targets at 1:15 a.m. Eastern Time Saturday.
As of Tuesday, at least six U.S. service members had been killed in action.
The strikes also killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who had been Iran’s supreme leader since 1989, making him the longest-serving head of state in the Middle East.
Iran’s offensive forces claimed to have struck USS Abraham Lincoln with ballistic missiles, but according to an X post from U.S central Command, “The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn’t even come close. The Lincoln continues to launch aircraft in support of CENTCOM’s relentless campaign to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime.”
Those with concerns regarding the heightened security can contact San Diego County’s Office of Emergency Services at 858-565-3490 or oes@sdcounty.ca.gov.
Copyright 2026, City News Service, Inc.
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