Every second Thursday, rain or shine, the streets of Capitol Hill are filled with tipsy art lovers checking out galleries and special events for Capitol Hill Art Walk. On our Capitol Hill Art Walk calendar, you'll find a bunch of great options for the December 13 edition, but, below, we've compiled our critics' picks—the things you shouldn't miss. Follow the links for more details and images, check out our complete visual art calendar for even more events.
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D. Allan Drummond: Curiosity
I remember when I first watched The Mummy as a child, I was completely terrified by the scenes of bewitched scarabs crawling under some unfortunate person’s skin and eating them alive from the inside. Yuck. And even though I know scarabs and prehistoric trilobites have basically nothing to do with each other, looking at D. Allan Drummond’s bronze-cast rendering of the now extinct marine creature brings up a lot of childhood body horror for me—and fascination. In the University of Chicago professor’s first show, Drummond will be presenting a mounted installation of his 3-D printed trilobite sculptures, which visitors are encouraged to inspect (without touching) for themselves. Careful they don’t crawl under your skin, though. JASMYNE KEIMIG
Roq la Rue
The Digital Final Frontier Group Show
This annual light- and technology-themed show brings some much-needed illumination to Seattle winters. The third installation brings work that explores human progress via past and future technologies by Shelly Farnham, Greg Larson, and Jeff Larson of Totally Legit.
Vermillion
FROOT by Goldsuit: New Artworks from Genevieve St. Charles
The pop-art lushness of Genevieve St. Charles combines the sweaty ooziness of MAD magazine comic strips and the shellacked glossiness of 1950s-era fast-food advertising. Her to-scale La Croix cans with flavors like “Homeless Bitcoin Millionaire” or “Women Laughing Alone with Salad” is cultural commentary at its best: throwaway lines on a throwaway can of negligibly flavored bubbly water. A perfect fit for Jeremy Buben’s apartment living room art gallery FoodArt Collection, the show features functional art like peach drink coasters and tomato topped side tables. Tasty :) KATIE KURTZ
FoodArt Collection
Goethe Pop Up Seattle: Joe Shlichta
Celebrate German art and food at this talk by Seattle-based German American artist Shlichta, who'll speak about his detailed, classically inspired oil paintings depicting industrial junk, natural landscapes, and less definable things. The Goethe Pop Up will provide Feuerzangenbowle (alcohol-soaked sugar set on fire and dripped into mulled wine—exciting!) and cookies.Â
Chophouse Row
Holiday Mini Art Exhibit
Pay the Capitol Hill gallery a visit for its 12th annual holiday mini art exhibition, where you can choose from hundreds of small works by locals and artists farther afield.
Ghost Gallery
Jean Nagai: With Spirits
What does inspiration look like every day? What does creativity look like every day? Expression? Experimentation? Los Angeles–based artist Jean Nagai recently tackled these questions, embarking on a “100 paintings/100 days” project, committing himself to painting something every day for 100 days. Nagai’s colorfully hypnotic work is atmospheric and meditative, mirroring natural occurrences like sunsets, horizons, and oceans while also resembling someone’s captive aura. Select efforts from his “100 days” project as well as other large-scale paintings will be on display at this show guest-curated by Seattle artist Anthony White. JASMYNE KEIMIG
The Factory
Juicy with Danielle Blackwell
As part of the studio's monthly Juicy multi-discipline event, 10 performers from the Dear & Sincerely Ensemble will improvise dance around the theme of written correspondence, while set and costume designer, artist, and dramaturg Danielle Blackwell will show work. You can see a similar event this weekend at This Is Not a Post Office.
Studio Current
Juju Dang: Another Dimension
See colorful, otherworldly pieces by self-taught fluid acrylics painter Juju Dang, who'll also be selling originals and prints as well as clothing and other fun merch. The designs resemble psychedelic tunicates or ghostly neon fingers stretching out of a space-void.Â
Greenfire Products Experimental Store
Katlyn Hubner: Intimacy Issues
Focusing on the idea of transitions and loss, Baltimore-born Hubner asked her models to think about losing someone to death or lack of communication. The two-dimensional works convey yearning, hurt, and unrequited feeling.Â
Steve Gilbert Studio
Skylar Fleming
Montana-born Fleming is obsessed with making disconcerting slip-cast sculptures mashing "vintage dolls, animals, crystals, hands," and other objects that look truly gruesome together. If you're someone with surrealist or Cronenbergian predilections, check it out.Â
Kaladi Brothers Coffee
Taylor Renno
Autism and cognitive neuroscience researcher Renno draws and paints skulls, flowers, and other natural phenomena, sometimes combining them in surrealistic ways. Other themes include still lifes, landscapes, and swirling skies. Most impressive perhaps are her butterflies and insects whose wings are made of old musical scores, notes, and typed pages. Renno says it's a way of fighting the fear of losing memories forever.Â
Redhook Brewlab
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