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Museums
Bellevue Arts Museum
Dylan Neuwirth: OMNIA Dylan Neuwirth transforms the entire museum into an enormous metaphor for the cycle of life through five exhibitions composed of neon, video, performance art, digital art, and sculpture. Two parts of this multi-faceted takeover are installed outside, on the building's exterior and on the balcony, while two more are found within the museum. The last piece in the entire installation is an online flash gallery entitled New Folklore. Elaborating on the theme of post-humanish, Neuwirth reflects upon "alienation, subconscious violence, [...] systemic addiction," and the search for freedom and control. (Through Sun March 24)
Polaroids: Personal, Private, Painterly Robert E. Jackson's exhibition of his collection of Polaroids, cocurated with museum executive director and chief curator Benedict Heywood, is a curious and deeply interesting look into the candid lives of others. All the subjects and authors of these snapshots are unknown to Jackson—the photos are what Heywood described as "pure images." The Polaroid camera was responsible for leveling the playing field when it came to photographic authorship. Anyone could have one, and there was no special training needed to learn how to use it. All you had to do was aim at anything and push a button. The photos don't come across as narrative in and of themselves, but more like beautiful, half-second windows into random people's lives. (Through Sun March 24) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Simon Hanselmann: Bad Gateway You know that moment when you're in the middle of a session with your friends—slamming beers, passing a joint, shoving chips into your mouth, binging old episodes of Project Runway—and suddenly, the smoke clears, a space opens up in your brain, and you realize the depth of your complete unhappiness? Tasmanian-born, Seattle-based artist Simon Hanselmann's beloved comic characters Megg, Mogg, and Owl all constantly wrestle with that moment, their relationships to each other, drugs, and existence. In this show at BAM, Hanselmann will be presenting new sculptures and watercolors to coincide with the release of a new volume of Megg, Mogg & Owl published by Fantagraphic Books. (April 12—Aug 11) JASMYNE KEIMIG
BAM Biennial 2018: Glasstastic Artists from Oregon and Washington have contributed their most innovative pieces in glass to this year's BAM Biennial. (Through Sun April 14)
Clyde Petersen: Merch & Destroy Animation filmmaker, musician, artist, and roadie Clyde Petersen presents a "heartfelt yet abject love letter" to touring life, drawn from his own two decades of experience with Laura Veirs, Earth, Aesop Rock, Little Wings, Kimya Dawson, and his own band, Your Heart Breaks. With a style that's equal measures innocence and wry distance, he's constructed a Ford Econoline and a green room out of cardboard. They are complemented by a set of guitars from the same humble materials, and co-created with Darius X for the show Shredders: A Fantasy Guitar Store. Salute the punk/post-punk lifestyle and bathe in a gritty Northwest soundtrack as you explore the exhibition. (Through Sun April 14) JOULE ZELMAN
Ron Ho: A Jeweler's Tale Hawaiian-born Ron Ho looked to his family's Chinese roots and to world cultures to inform his own jewelry practice, incorporating found objects such as netsuke, Iranian bone beads, and jade buttons in structures of silver and gold. His finished pieces look narrative, drawing together disparate elements without heeding traditional notions of simplicity and balance. During his lifetime (he died in 2017), Ho was honored by many craft and art associations, including the American Craft Council. This exhibition reveals some of his essential treasures, reconstructs his studio, and screens the documentary Ron Ho: Becoming Chinese, A Jeweler's Tale. (May 10—Sept 15)
Frye Art Museum
Cherdonna Shinatra: DITCH Cherdonna Shinatra is a drag performer, dancer, choreographer, and generally fun lunatic. Her drag shtick is that she's a woman playing a man playing a woman, which used to be a radical idea but has now become pretty run-of-the-mill. Which is great! That said, Cherdonna is more than a woman playing a man playing a woman, she's a performance artist dedicated to interrogating how the female body is consumed by the male gaze/gays. Her work at the Frye, DITCH, will create immersive DAILY performances that are COMMITTED to making the world happy in a time of Trump. If anyone can do that impossible task, Shinatra and company can. (Through Sun April 28) CHASE BURNS
The Rain Doesn't Know Friends from Foes: Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, Hesam Rahmanian The Dubai-based Iranian artists—the Haerizadeh brothers and their friend Hesam Rahmanian—transform internet news images through painting and animation in an interrogation of mass media consumption, violence, and voyeurism. For this exhibition, they show two animations combining photographs of migrants striving to reach Europe with "painterly patterns, fablelike animal imagery, and surreal mirroring effects," among other animations and works on paper. (Through Sun April 28)
Tschabalala Self In the first solo museum presentation of her work in this country, New Haven—based Tschabalala Self's art resists the norms of traditional portraiture. Dealing with the "iconographic significance of the Black female body in contemporary culture," the figures in Self's work both accept and reject the stereotypes and fantasies surrounding the Black female body. They are not there to instruct or reprimand, but to simply be. At once garish, cheeky, and thought-provoking, Self's use of collage gives the paintings a textured look that makes you want to reach out and touch them (don't, though). (Through Sun April 28) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Cauleen Smith: Give It or Leave It Even though I know artist Cauleen Smith isn't explicitly referencing the Strokes's "Take It or Leave It," rather the phrase itself, I can't help but think that the 2001-era quintet could learn a thing or two from this exhibition. Emphasizing generosity and selflessness, the black feminist multimedia artist weaves together films, banners, and site-specific light installations from four distinct historical universes: musician Alice Coltrane, photographer Billy Ray, artist and sculptor Noah Purifoy, and spiritualist Rebecca Cox Jackson. (June 1—Sept 1) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Jane Wong: After Preparing the Altar, the Ghosts Feast Feverishly I love how poets use space. I think it has something to do with the way their minds wrap around words, arrange them into something familiar yet strange, that lends itself well to curating spaces. This will be poet and artist Jane Wong's first solo exhibition. Exploring the themes of hunger and waste and their meaning for immigrant families, Wong's show will consist of altars, sculpture poems, and belongings alongside texts that evoke her childhood in New Jersey, where her parents ran a Chinese American restaurant. (June 1—Sept 1) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Gretchen Frances Bennett: Air, the free or unconfined space above the surface of the earth Gretchen Frances Bennett's drawings shimmer like an oil slick in the sun, seemingly capturing the full spectrum and color of light—like an image that you see just through your eyelids, an impression of something bright that unfurled before you. The Seattle artist's use of popular media, like videos on YouTube and personal photographs, give her drawings a granular-like quality, as if they were transmitted to your eyes through radio waves. But there's also a raw emotional charge to them. Bennett will be showing key works from the last 10 years, as well as debuting five new drawings and a collaborative slideshow. (Through Sun June 2) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Henry Art Gallery
Cecilia Vicuña: About to Happen This is the first major US solo exhibition of the prolific Chilean-born artist Cecilia Vicuña. The show will encompass sculpture, installation, drawing, video, text-based work, and found object sculpture that dates back to Vicuña's practice since the 1960s. Vicuña's work is difficult to categorize, but resplendent and full of possibilities—at once operating within conceptual art, land art, poetry, and feminist art practices. (April 27—Sept 15) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Between Bodies In February 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—an international body of climate scientists—issued a statement declaring that global warming is "unequivocal," and the rise in global temperatures is "very likely" the result of human activity. Since then, the warnings have continued to ratchet up, as has governmental complacency. This exhibition includes queer, feminist, and indigenous perspectives that are absolutely critical to an expansive view. Participating artists include Caitlin Berrigan, Abraham Avnisan, Candice Lin with English artist Patrick Staff, micha cárdenas, Carolina Caycedo, Swiss artist Ursula Biemann, and German artist Susanne Winterling. (Through Sun April 28) KATIE KURTZ
Bruce Conner: Untitled Prints Conner's latest exhibition does not feature the music video he collaborated on with David Byrne and Brian Eno, or any of his other surreal experimental found-footage assemblages. Instead, it focuses on murky and moody prints Conner made in 1970—71 using a new-to-market felt-tip pen. Ink in these pens dried out quickly, resulting in Conner exploring ephemerality in his drawings, memorializing them forever by photographing and then transferring the results to print. (Through Sun April 28) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Edgar Arceneaux: Library of Black Lies Enter Edgar Arceneaux's unassuming wooden structure—a low, irregular-sided wooden shack—and find yourself in a parallel-world library of sugar-crystal-clouded books. Their titles may be or merely recall the Western canon, like a sequence including the clearly referential Birth of a Nation and the murkier Birth of a Night, Nation Goodnight, and finally, Goodnight Moon. According to museum materials, this installation—first exhibited in Paris in 2016—concerns Arceneaux's preoccupations with history, memory, and our subjective human reconstructions of both. The result looks like a cramped, mazelike hideaway, a metaphor for the limits imposed on our views of the past by our own need for containment. By amassing references to many different narratives, Arceneaux constructs an anti-narrative of history. (Through Sun June 2) JOULE ZELMAN
Museum of Glass
Translations: An Exploration of Glass by Northwest Carvers and Weavers This glassworks show features pieces made in the museum's hot shop by family members of "three of the Pillars of the Evergreen Longhouse"—Mary Ellen Hillaire (Lummi), Gerald Miller (Skokomish), and Hazel Pete (Chehalis)—with the aid of Dan and Raya Friday. Old weaving and carving treasures from the families' collections are juxtaposed with the new glass interpretations of baskets, sculptures, and bentwood boxes. (March 30—Oct 1)
Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI)
Live Wires: The Cable TV Revolution Find out what's behind the small screen at this exhibition about "the men and women who launched the first cable systems, shaped an industry, and changed American viewing habits forever." (Through Sun April 28)
Seattle Style: Fashion/Function Seattle fashion, whether utilitarian or glamorous, will be the focus of this exhibition drawing on the museum's clothing collection. The organizers say it'll be the "most significant" display ever of the PNW's regional fashion. (Opens Sat May 4)
Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP)
Prince from Minneapolis When Prince died tragically and prematurely in 2016, Larry Mizell Jr. wrote: "As long as someone is lustily singing along to his music, expanding the ideas of Blackness, just being a life-loving badass in general, our Prince will live on." This exhibition explores various aspects of his image and influence through costumes, photos, glass art, portraiture, and even a special tribute bicycle. See work by Minneapolis photographers Allen Beaulieu, Nancy Bundt, Terry Gydesen, and Robert Whitman, plus art dolls by Seattle's own Troy Gua and glass figures by the de la Torre brothers. (April 6—Jan 4)
Nordic Museum
EyeSound EyeSound is a collaboration between two Danish visual artists, Iben West and Else Ploug Isaksen, and four Icelandic authors, Sigurbjörg ĂžrastardĂłttir, KristĂn Ă“marsdĂłttir, HallgrĂmur Helgason, and Már GuĂ°mundsson. West and Isaksen sent the authors photographs, which they in turn "responded" to, creating a "visual dialogue" between image and text. The words do not explain the photos, and the photos do not explain the words, though your brain will want to see it that way. I think that tension, that building off of each other, is the point. (Through Sun March 31) JASMYNE KEIMIG
The Vikings Begin The Vikings Begin grew out of findings by researchers at Gustavianum, the museum at Uppsala University—the oldest still-operating university in Sweden. Dating from the mid-seventh to late 11th century, these artifacts come from 15 grave boats found buried around the grounds of Uppsala. Seattle is the farthest west these objects have ever been. The exhibition space is moody and more sense-stimulating than I thought possible in a museum. The gallery is completely dark, set away from the outside world, as if it takes place at a point outside of linear time. The ominous drumbeat playing throughout the space and the two giant screens depicting animal sacrifices and Viking battle scenes only add to the sensual nature of the gallery. (Through Mon April 15) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Northwest African American Museum
Jeremy Bell: Utopian Blackness Jeremy Bell's mixed-media portraits of his family in ink, encaustic, graphite, spray paint, charcoal, wax, and wood celebrate the beauty of blackness. (Through Sun March 24)
Two Seattle Icons: Bertha Pitts Campbell and Mona Humphries Bailey This exhibition celebrates two African American community activists: Pitts Campbell founded Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. in 1913, and Mona Humphries Bailey was the organization's 17th president. (Through Sun March 31)
Bold As Love: Jimmy at Home This Jimi Hendrix exhibit, which opened on the late, legendary Seattle guitar player's 76th birthday, features archival and family photos, Hendrix's own artwork, personal artifacts, music findings, and more from throughout his life. (Through Sun May 5)
Olympic Sculpture Park
Regina Silveira: Octopus Wrap Go inside the pavilion to view this Sao Paulo-based artist's installation of large, curving tire tracks, apparently left by tiny, whimsical motorcycles. (Opening Sat May 11)
Pacific Bonsai Museum
Gnarly The museum pays tribute to "American bonsai renegade" Dan Robinson, one of the founders of the PNW bonsai scene and a lover of whorly, gnarly forms in nature. (May 11—Sept 29)
Living Art of Bonsai: Principles of Design A follow-up to their 2018 exhibition, Elements of Design, this show emphasizes "movement, rhythm, proportion, unity, contrast, [and] (asymmetrical) balance " in bonsai. (May 11—Sept 29)
Seattle Art Museum
Gentleman Warrior: Art of the Samurai This exhibition means to correct the misconception that samurai did little but make war. Twenty pieces from the museum's collection and two suits of armor reveal the warriors' refinement. In these works, see them take part in tea ceremonies, Noh theater, and Buddhist activities. (March 16—Dec 1)
New Topographics The original version of this influential photographic exhibition, composed of mostly black-and-white "unheroic, man-made" landscapes, was shown at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. Old photographs by Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, and Henry Wessel will be accompanied by other, related works by different artists. (Through Sun April 14)
Trimpin: Hear and Now Students from Path with Art, a program that helps people struggling with homelessness and addiction express themselves creatively, have teamed up with MacArthur "genius" grant recipient Trimpin to create a large, moving sound sculpture that incorporates visual art, poetry, and music. (April 24—July 15)
Jeffrey Gibson: Like a Hammer In his first major museum exhibition, artist Jeffrey Gibson combines traditional elements of Native American art and materials with contemporary pop-culture references and images. This leads to objects displaying an interesting juxtaposition of cultures, like a wooden panel traditionally beaded with "I WANNA BE ADORED"—a lyric from the classic 1991 Stone Roses song—blazed across it. Or a punching bag beautifully adorned with beaded geometric patterns. The exhibit will bring together 65 different pieces of Gibson's work from the past eight years. (Through Sun May 12) JASMYNE KEIMIG
In This Imperfect Present Moment Artists from South Africa, Angola, Benin, and the United States depict the complexities of "labor, leadership, faith, and portraiture." Those exhibited include David Goldblatt, Pieter Hugo, Mikhael Subotzky, Lawrence Lemoana, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Igshann Adams, Hasan and Hussain Essop, Amy Sherald, Xaviera Simmons, Genevieve Gaignard, Athi-Patra Ruga, and Saya Woolfalk. (Through Sun June 16)
American Modernism Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove, and John Marin were modernist painters championed by photographer Alfred Stieglitz. This exhibition features two major works from the movement, O'Keeffe's Music—Pink and Blue No. 1 and Marsden Hartley's Painting No. 49, Berlin, as well as other works from the permanent collection. (Through Tues Feb 23)
Tacoma Art Museum
Abstraction Haiku Seven Northwest abstract painters metaphorically fill in the space between two permanent collection pieces: John Franklin Koenig's Lamento and the late Robert C. Jones's Mermaid/Sphinx. The artists—Deanne Belinoff, Dede Falcone, Teresa Getty, Karey Kessler, Anna Macrae, Angela Wales, and Audrey Tulimiero Welch—mean to help visitors discover the diversity of abstract paintings. (April 7—June 28)
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: In the Footsteps of My Ancestors The visual art of storyteller, activist, and artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Salish/Cree/French), which celebrates nature and seeks to expose injustice, is featured in this spring exhibition. (Through June 30)
Familiar Faces & New Voices: Surveying Northwest Art This exhibit promises a survey of Northwest art that will highlight work by both big names and less recognizable figures, and will offer a chronological take on visual expression in the region. See art by a wealth of significant regional painters and sculptors like Dale Chihuly, Roger Shimomura, Patti Warashina, Barbara Earl Thomas, Jacob Lawrence, Nancy Mee, and many others you may not have heard of. (Through Sat Aug 31)
UW Allen Library
Seattle General Strike Era & Centralia Tragedy of 1919 The year 1919 saw two major historical events in Seattle: the Seattle General Strike—when workers rallied for better working conditions and higher wages for five days in February—and the violent showdown that followed between radical labor activists and their opponents, which became known as the Centralia Tragedy. This exhibit features historical artifacts and first hand accounts from both events. (Through Fri June 7)
Wing Luke Museum
Excluded, Inside the Lines Acquaint yourself with the history of discrimination and redlining in our city, from the expulsion of Natives to unfavorable land, to the racist banking and real estate practices that prevented people of color from amassing generational wealth. (March 8—Feb 23, 2020)
Lore Re-Imagined: Shadows of Our Ancestors Curator Chieko Phillips has brought together three artists who make work that engages the cultural traditions of previous generations. Satpreet Kahlon uses embroidery and textile techniques passed down by her mother and grandmother to create soft works with strong critical subtexts. Seattle-born artist Alex Anderson studied ceramics in Jingdezhen and Hangzhou, China, and currently lives and works in LA, making work that probes the moral and physical decay lurking behind seemingly flawless facades. Also known as a photographer, Megumi Shauna Arai's Unnamed Lake uses the Japanese hand-stitched embroidery technique of sashiko to reflect on the physical, mental, and emotional implications of the act of mending. (Through Sun April 14) EMILY POTHAST
Worlds Beyond Here: The Expanding Universe of APA Science Fiction This dreamy new exhibition of Asian Pacific Americans science-fiction artists begins in a mock-up of a child's bedroom. Star Wars sheets cover the bed. Constellations of stars twinkle on the ceiling. From there you travel into the worlds created by local artists such as comic Stasia Burrington and sculptor June Sekiguchi, plus national comics artists such as Greg Pak. Along the way, you can play with cool VR and AR exhibits, and learn about representations of Asian Americans in film, television, and literature. It's fun for the whole damn family, people, and it serves as an excellent review of the significant contributions Asian Americans have made to the world's collective vision of the future. (Through Sun Sept 15) RICH SMITH
Galleries
Atelier Drome
Jane Richlovsky: Travel Brochures for a Past Future Richlovsky's paintings remix images from old magazines—"feral children who are up to no good, beatific high-heeled homemakers, cigarette-smoking proto-hipsters, futuristic dream houses, gizmos tucked into tiny spot ads in the back pages"—to satirize capitalism, nostalgia, and the desire for upward mobility. (Through Fri April 26)
BONFIRE
sweet, rotten, sweet The press video for dancer/artist Peggy Piacenza's sweet, rotten, sweet features a bearded Wade Madsen in clown makeup slowly eating cotton candy while apocalyptic doom music blares in the background. So I guess I buy it when Piacenza calls the piece an exploration of "the human struggle to find meaning within an absurd world." This wild video installation will serve as the backdrop for a suite of performances by some of the area's most compelling contemporary dancers, including Madsen, Ezra Dickinson, Kim Lusk, and Amelia Reeber. (Through Sun March 31) RICH SMITH
Davidson Galleries
Dion Zwirner: The Edge of Seeing Looking at Zwirner's paintings is like looking at a breathtaking landscape through a looking glass covered in rainwater—beautiful, emotional, and wet. Zwirner's abstract approach to documenting the natural world is refreshing and deeply dewy. The colors she uses drip and bleed into one another, marrying horizons, seas, trees, clouds, and earth in a way that almost reminds you of a place you've been to in a dream. Completely, plausibly real—and wet. (Through Sat March 30) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Shigeki Tomura: Retrospective For a lovely glimpse of moments in nature rendered in watercolor, drawing, and drypoint engraving, look no further than Japanese artist Tomura's pieces from the late '80s to recent times. (Through Sat March 30)
Miguel Rivera: New Works Widely exhibited artist Rivera creates abstract works full of intersecting planes, detailed textures, and multidimensional appearances. He's an associate professor and chair of the University of Guanajato's art department, where he teaches printmaking and use of computers in art. (Through Tues April 2)
Wendy Orville Orville makes exquisitely detailed, photo-like monotypes of Pacific Northwest landscapes, with wide skies, windblown trees, and morphing masses of clouds. They convey a sense of space, movement, and the interplay of ephemeral moments and geological time. (April 5—27)
Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery
Patrick Moriarty: Deep Artwork In his youth, Minnesotan punk rocker Moriarty designed posters for such groups as the Mekons, Soul Asylum, the Replacements, and many others. After moving to Seattle, he became an art director for Fantagraphics and then filled the same role at Comics Journal. He's been a GAP Award recipient, been featured on the Sundance channel, and snagged a Golden Toonie. (Through Wed April 10)
Foster/White Gallery
Cameron Anne Mason: Field Seattle artist Mason's heavily textured, dyed textile/print sculpture mimics natural Pacific Northwest landscapes. Mason is a member of Dusty Nation, a collective that creates interactive pieces at Burning Man. (Through Sat March 23)
G. Gibson Gallery
Saya Moriyasu: Quiet "The wrongness feels right to me," writes Moriyasu, recalling her mixed Japanese and American heritage and her consequent predilections for styles recalling European chinoiserie. Her works are often monumental ceramics, adapting folk art, myth, and visual humor. (Through Sat April 13)
Fell from the Sky: Culmination and Continuity Beneficiaries of Fell from the Sky—a group of women artists, many of them single mothers, supported by a fund established by Phyllis Hatfield—present the fruits of their labors. The participants, among them Thuy-Van Vu, Gala Bent, Dawn Cerny, Tracy Rector, and Natasha Marin, are true Seattle treasures. (June 1—July 13)
Gallery 4Culture
Ryna Frankel: Hold Me, Touch Me The title of this show sounds like a dare. Frankel's soft, emotional sculptures seem to reach out to you, begging you to hold them, touch them. They're very cute. Maybe it's winter getting me down, but all I want to do when I look at these pieces is become similarly limp, drown myself in fabric, and get in a corner and cuddle. It's a collection of work that understands how you feel—or at least, is here to talk it out. (Through Thurs March 28) CHASE BURNS
Leah Gerrard: Sentiment Leah Gerrard's wiry creations speak to the delicacy—and rigidity—of the material. Gerrard incorporates the natural (rocks, wood, organic forms) into the metallic sinew of the wire, which is often suspended from rusty iron chains. For this exhibition, the Washington-based artist's sculptures will be "inspired by memories of full moons, walks through forests, and playgrounds." (April 4—25) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Peter Rand: A to B — 6—10 Peter Rand works in a variety of forms: video, installation, interactive media, sculpture, socially engaged art, and performance. He is most interested in examining topics like identity, urban spaces, and the absurd. In his latest show, Rand uses time-lapse photography to depict him constructing objects as they move through space, shifting and reassembling these "toolsets" against various different backgrounds. These photos then become "a study in getting from here to there." (June 6—27) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Ghost Gallery
Veronica Mortellaro: New and Recent Work Indifference and beauty can be a terrifying combination. I think, as a society, beautiful things are allowed to exist in two ways: with arrogance or with complete innocence. Beauty any other way falls into the uncanny valley—recognizable, but a bit off. Veronica Mortellaro's stony, beautiful figures are frightening in that their beauty is something accepted and not to be dwelled any further on. The medium they are portrayed in, watercolor, makes them feel so fragile, so permeable, that you halfway hope they'll manage to soak into you. (March 14—April 7) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Greg Kucera Gallery
Drie Chapek: In the Quiet If there are gods, I think they may be hiding inside Drie Chapek's paintings. There's an energy at the center of them. Corners of the works are recognizable—maybe a pomegranate or some bones—but then they open up to an epiphany. They summon the unknown. If you've ever been turned off by abstract paintings, visit these. They'll make you feel things. (Through Sat March 30) CHASE BURNS
Ed Wicklander: Sculpture Wicklander is a master of his materials. For me, his works are uneven in their interestingness. When I look at his balloons made of steel, I feel like I've seen them before. I glaze over. His kittens? There's nothing else like them. They're hilarious and heartwarming, an almost impossible combination in contemporary art. They know about kitsch and they zoom happily by it traveling on the same road, another near-impossibility. So smart and so dumb at the very same time. (June 6—July 13) JEN GRAVES
John Buck: Sculpture Buck remixes cultural icons, classical iconography, and visual jokes in elaborate, often-kinetic sculptures. (June 6—July 13)
Harris Harvey Gallery
Richard Morhous: The Color of Light Light-obsessed Seattle painter Morhous dramatizes the play of beams and colors in acrylics. (Through Sat March 30)
Hedreen Gallery
Markel Uriu: An Object Lesson Seattle-based artist Uriu uses organic materials—like moss, branches, and leaves—to explore ideas of impermanence, maintenance, and decay. Her latest exhibition will investigate the narrative around "invasive species" of plants and animals, specifically the starling, an invasive European bird introduced to the U.S. in 1890 on the basis of a mention in Shakespeare's Henry IV. (Through Sun May 19) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Romson Regarde Bustillo: More than can be held Bustillo makes patterned, layered, mysterious works on paper that draw you in. His latest exhibition features collagraph prints, video, and acts of performance that draw on colonial and native history and iconography from his land of birth, the Philippines. (Opens Fri May 31)
Jack Straw New Media Gallery
Erin Elyse Burns: To Take the Shape of the Container This multimedia show by Burns, an assistant professor at Cornish College, draws on experiences of quiet, contemplation, loss, and "persistent mental imagery." (April 5—June 7)
James Harris Gallery
Amir Zaki: (In)formal Matter Zaki shows black-and-white photographs of coastal rocks and wood carvings to "disrupt common notions of authenticity, monumentality, and documentation through a hybridization of techniques." (Through Sat April 20)
Developable Surface The gallery displays 20th-century landscape photography by Paul Caponigro, William Clift, Emmett Gowan, Eliot Porter, and Bradford Washburn, who emphasized geological textures. (Through Sat April 20)
King Street Station
yəhaw̓ Mark the opening of a new arts space in Seattle by attending the opening exhibition, curated by Tracy Rector (Choctaw/Seminole), Asia Tail (Cherokee Nation), and Satpreet Kahlon and featuring 200 pieces by indigenous artists working in all sorts of mediums. (March 23—Aug 3)
Linda Hodges Gallery
Mya Kerner Artist and landscape designer Kerner makes art about ecology and landforms, particularly inspired by her family's history as Eastern European foresters. (Through Sat March 30)
Patti Bowman Bowman's encaustic depictions of bodies of water and urban life are shown through a haze of rain. (Through Sat March 30)
Gaylen Hansen Now 97 years old, Hansen has been making deceptively naive, neo-expressionist art for decades. At first glance, they may seem crudely childlike, yet they play with unstable compositions, complex lines, and deliciously earthy colors. (April 4—27)
Kurt Solmssen Solmssen's paintings are high-contrast pieces that depict outdoor and interior scenes in very Northwest colors. (May 2—June 2)
MadArt
Taiji Miyasaka: Circum•ambience A professor at the School of Design and Construction at Washington State University, Taiji Miyasaka has built three giant spheres from different materials at MadArt. Miyasaka is primarily interested in working with the light in the space to showcase different elements of his work. The largest sphere's design was inspired by the Japanese technique of plaster construction. Miyasaka brought in master plasterers from his native Japan to help him complete this element of the project. Visitors will be able to climb inside this 13-foot sphere, to be greeted by a dark interior illuminated only by a soft ring of light. (Through Sat March 23) JASMYNE KEIMIG
George Rodriguez: Reflect and Gather Texan-born Rodriguez makes stunning, monumental ceramic masks and sculptures inspired by traditions of indigenous Mexico. In this installation, he creates small rooms out of 1,000 clay relief tiles. He also invites visitors to enter a wet-clay room where they'll leave their own physical traces. Visit during the open studio phase (through April 24) and when the installation is finished (April 26—May 18). (April 8—May 18)
METHOD
Mary Coss: Groundswell METHOD collective artist Coss will return with more politically observant art. (Through Sat April 6)
Holly Ballard Martz: The Greatest Show on Earth "No need to run away to join the circus, the circus has come to you," writes Martz. In a symbol of modern American insanity, Martz has cut and stitched 50 sanctioned flags into a 30-foot circus tent. (April 12—May 25)
Michael Birawer Gallery
Robin Weiss Weiss is known for cheery plein air Seattle city scenes and environs. (Through Sat March 30)
Monster: Art, Clothing & Gifts
Omakase Images Get prints to match your "secular saint" candles like Saint Prince, His Purpleness; Saint Christine Blasey Ford the Brave; and Saint Bob, Painter of Happy Little Trees. (Thurs March 21)
Henry See new work by Ryan Henry Ward—you know him as Henry, and he's the muralist who has covered the walls of your city in goofy walruses, ostriches, fish, and wizards. (April 13—May 6)
Tripper Dungan Marvel at this Portland artist's 3-D creations. (May 11—June 3)
Mount Analogue
FORGE Currents 2019 Editor-in-chief of FORGE art magazine Matthew James Wilson curates this exhibition of 20 artists from across the nation. See textile art, comics, video work, digital art, and much more. (May 2—31)
Non-Breaking Space
Na Kim: Set v. 15 Na Kim's pieces have been shown at Victoria and Albert, MoMA, and more. At this visually appealing exhibit, she melds fine art and graphic design to separate out geometrical forms, a continuation of a series she began in New York in 2015. (Through Tues April 9)
Oxbow
Chanhee Choi Born into a conservative South Korean family, DXARTS PhD student Choi melds traditional handiwork with new media—video, neon lights, games—in an installation examining gender roles. (March 18—April 29)
Matthew Offenbacher Matthew Offenbacher made news a few years ago when, after receiving the $25,000 Neddy Award, he and his partner used it to buy works by queer and women artists and donate them to the Seattle Art Museum. In addition to being an asset to society, Offenbacher is a zine and book publisher, and an artist favoring inviting pastel colors, fauna, and eye-boggling patterns. (May 12—June 23)
Paramount Theatre
Re:definition: Latinx Diaspora Seattle Arts Commissioner Juan-Alonso Rodriguez has curated the newest incarnation of the series that transforms the theater's lobby bar into an exhibition space. Seattle-based artists Monica Arche (born in Puerto Rico to Cuban parents), writer Felicia Gonzalez (born in Cuba), and painter/printmaker Fulgencio Lazo (born in Oaxaca, Mexico), display works that manifest their contributions to the city's artistic and cultural scene. (Through Sat July 27)
Parklane Gallery
Miniature Show Peruse—and buy!—works of tiny art at this 27th annual juried show. You'll have more than 400 to choose from. (April 30—June 2)
Ed McCarthy: Pareidolia People McCarthy's art features geometrical shapes made from the materials of industry, hinting at his background in engineering. (Through Thurs July 25)
Patricia Rovzar Gallery
David French Through an organic, evolving process, French shapes wooden, painted sculptures. (Through Sun March 31)
Photographic Center Northwest
Riffs: A Residency and Works-in-Progress Exhibition Photographers and other media-makers have exchanged ideas for three months to develop this playful exhibit. Artists in 2019 include Tara Champion, Peter de Lory, Christopher Paul Jordan, Natalie Krick, Kat Larson, Mary Ann Peters, Joe Rudko, and Preston Singletary—great choices who will doubtless have engaged in fruitful collaborations. (April 4—June 9)
Phylogeny Contemporary
Celeste Cooning: Offerings This Seattle-based artist is known for her impressively large-scale paper cut-out art installations in parks and public spaces as well as on the stage. They look like gorgeous plants from an alien version of the Pacific Northwest. (Through Sat March 30)
Push/Pull
Made with Love & Anxiety A collective of Costa Rican artists from various disciplines who come together under The Joy manifesto—which was formed, in part, to "create work that expresses, from our point of view, the current state of our human condition"—will be showing work from Joy, a black-and-white zine full of cartoons, portraits, and more. (Through Tues March 19) JASMYNE KEIMIG
Shift
Peggy Murphy: Uprising Peggy Murphy's lush and scrawling works on paper, based on "observations on an unruly garden," are helpful things to meditate on as we straddle the line between winter's darkness and spring's grayness. A garden, like a painting, is more than just something to be looked at. It communicates and gives. Murphy's paintings are of a similar nature. View them and think of the sun. (Through Sat March 30) CHASE BURNS
Stonington Gallery
Drew Michael: Solo Exhibition "Tranquility" was the first word to pop into my head when looking at mixed-media sculptor Drew Michael's mask forms. Their smoothness and streamlined shape, drawing on both Western and indigenous iconography, immediately washed waves of calm over me. In his fourth solo exhibition, the Inupiaq/Yup'ik artist draws on a variety of sources to explore, even more deeply than he has in the past, concepts of shadow selves, spirals, and journeys through mazes to reach understanding. (April 4—28) JASMYNE KEIMIG
studio e
Dawn Cerny and Damien Hoar de Galvan: The Perfume Counter Stranger Genius Award nominee Dawn Cerny, whose playful collaborations and solo pieces have been shown at the Henry Art Gallery and elsewhere, builds an installation with Boston's Damien Hoar de Galvan, who often makes pleasingly fitted and painted sculptures out of scrap wood. (April 4—June 15)
Winston Wächter Fine Art
Mike McCready and Kate Neckel: Sway Pearl Jam's Mike McCready joins energetic abstract artist Kate Neckel for a multimedia exhibit featuring music, collage, painting, and more. (March 22—May 18)
Andreas Kocks: Solid Either Monumental cut paper installations are German artist Kocks's speciality. From afar, they resemble crazy splatters or kinetic swirls, but they're actually painstakingly constructed. He works at the intersection of 2-D and 3-D, to quite impressive results. (April 3—May 22)
Zeitgeist
Bette Burgoyne: Drawings Bette Burgoyne's drawings are delightfully fungal—they look like the underside of a mushroom, the living organisms you encounter on dewy hikes through the forest, what grows on chicken pad thai that you've accidentally left in the fridge for two months... But there's also something a bit brain-like about them, like you're looking at the folds of your own cerebrum. Perhaps that's what makes her dingy, soft-hued creations so compelling—it's the basest, most biological self-recognizing-self. (Through Wed April 3) JK
Art Events
Inscape
Open House The former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service building was turned into artist studios, and its doors have opened very few times since. Now is your chance to peek in and see what these artists working in "painting, neon drawing, photography, [and] clothing design" have been doing all this time, on all five floors. (Sat May 4)
Magnuson Park Hangar 30
Best of the Northwest See and shop for works by more than 100 local artists and artisans at this annual market, which will also have food trucks. (April 13—14)
Seattle Art Museum
Remix SAM Remix is a recurring and ever-changing late night art party that includes performances, tours, and dancing, all inspired by current special exhibits, including Jeffrey Gibson's Like a Hammer. (Fri March 29)
Legendary Children Presented in partnership with Seattle Public Library, SAM's Legendary Children is one of Seattle's best cultural events. It's free (although you should RSVP because it sells out) and features great performances, DJs, and art from Seattle's QTPOC communities. The upcoming Legendary Children will be programmed around SAM's buzzy new exhibition, Jeffrey Gibson: Like a Hammer, which will be open and free during the event. (Fri May 10) CHASE BURNS
Various locations
Phinneywood's Big Art Walk It's the mega-version of the regular romp through the charming neighborhoods of Phinney Ridge and Greenwood! In addition to art, there will be concerts and tasty refreshments. Bring the fam. (May 10—11)
Art Walks
Second Fridays
Second Saturdays
Third Thursdays
Second Fridays
Second Thursdays
First Fridays
Second Saturdays
First Thursdays
Third Fridays
Second Thursdays
