CENTER ON CONTEMPORARY ART (CoCA)
1420 11th Ave, 728-1980.
DAMALI AYO, SHAWN NORDFORS
Sampling her own skin tone (that of her left forearm, to be precise) at a color-match station in a local hardware store, Ayo creates what essentially amounts to a room comprising human flesh. Shows with Nordfors’ dioramas built inside wooden heads. Through Feb 28.
* DK PAN
Final week. Tactile landscapes compose innovative performance artist pan’s installation, which features 2,500 pounds of salt, fake fur, fish, video monitors, projections, and a nude body, to be situated in the gallery for six weeks. Through Feb 26.
CONSOLIDATED WORKS
500 Boren Ave N, 860-5245.
* SORTA
Sorta honors the artistic tendency to collect and sort, to categorize, to put like with like, featuring work by Carl Fudge, Pat Boas, Jeremy Boyle, Larry Cwik, Jesse Paul Miller, Phil Roach, and the wonderful, undershown Sarah Morris. Through March 23.
FIFTH ANNUAL ALTOIDScolor=”#FF0000″>* CURIOUSLY STRONG COLLECTION
Don’t write this off as yet another corporate attempt to build cred in the art world–there’s almost always something good. Through March 23.
HENRY ART GALLERY
15th Ave NE & NE 41st St, 543-2280.
THERESA HAK KYUNG CHA
Ephemeral, language-based work in different media–provocative and elusive. Through March 2.
BRIAN JUNGEN
Vancouver artist Jungen takes the dreary model of consumerism–from lawn furniture to tennis shoes–and reconfigures it into the exotic in his first stateside solo exhibition. Through May 25.
KORI NEWKIRK
Conceptual artist Newkirk crafts site-specific paintings composed, in large part, of hair pomade. Through May 12.CONTINUING EXHIBITION
DAN AYALA
Final week. Sensual figure studies in graphite and charcoal. Secluded Alley Works, 113 12th Ave, 839-0880. Through Feb 23.
JOHN BAIN
Some kinda crazy mess of electronics and radio transmitters and lasers or something are let loose in a room of seemingly random sound fragments that the viewer interacts with. Polestar Gallery, 1412 18th Ave, 329-4224. Through March 22.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Pigment and its cost: The City of Seattle honors black artists from its portable works collection, featuring the wares of Jacob Lawrence, Gwen Knight, Barbara Thomas, Almerphy Frank-Brown, and others. Key Tower Gallery, 700 Fifth Ave, third floor, 684-7171. Through May 9.
CELEBRATE CUBA!
…or find yourself in a shallow grave. Benham Gallery, 1216 First Ave, 622-2480. Through Feb 28.
SAMANTHA CORCORAN
Watercolors of animals. Art/Not Terminal Gallery, 2045 Westlake Ave, 233-0680. Through March 6.
LINDSAY DAVIS
Davis’ Play paints up your Easy-Bake oven with a coat of the postmodern as she digs up the familiar reevaluation of children’s toys. Torrefazione Italia Cafe, 320 Occidental Ave S, 624-5847. Through March 6.
TREASURE FREY
Illustrator (and Stranger contributor) Frey presents a handful of beautifully petite ink drawings. Glo’s, 1621 E Olive Way, 783-3426. Through March 23.
T. CHRISTOPHER HACKER
Spare, obtuse narratives of line. Bluebottle Art Gallery and Store, 415 E Pine St, 325-1592. Through Feb 27.
HEART TO ART
The Guild of Natural Science Illustrators (whose membership “reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of natural science illustrators”) presents a cross section of its inadvertently captivating works. ArtsWest Gallery, 4711 California Ave SW, 938-0963. Through March 1.
JESSE PAUL MILLER
Using LPs as molds, Miller fashions their inverse in cast epoxy resin and embellishes them with a whole mess of crap–providing for “Secret Record” sculptures of vision and silent sound. Wall of Sound, 2237 Second Ave, 441-9880. Through March 31.
TIM MURLEY
Cartoonish layers of text, newspaper, and paint combine in fantastic color on canvas, in a package reminiscent of picture-book illustration. Pitcairn Scott Gallery, 2207 Second Ave, 448-5380. Through Feb 28.
* DYLAN NEUWIRTH
“It’s not much to look at, and at times one has the feeling one’s leg is being pulled–but this, for what it’s worth, is the kind of art-world instability that often precedes great change.” (Emily Hall) Artcore Studios, 5501 Airport Way S, 767-CORE. Through March 7.
NO HOTDOGS, NO DONUTS
“Plant erotica,” in the vein of Imogen Cunningham, minus the beauty, and with a heavy seasoning of sophomoric giggling. Aurafice Cafe, 616 & 612 E Pine St, 860-9977. Through Feb 28.
* MATTHEW PICTON, MARK TAKAMICHI MILLER
Casting molds of dried Oregonian lakebeds, Picton creates sculptures of rubber and resin that act as fossils or frameworks of absent water. Miller’s Moon over Maui collects a series of paintings based on random photos he’s essentially stolen from one-hour development centers. Howard House, 2017 Second Ave, 256-6399. Through March 1.
* THE PUSH PROJECT
“Organized by curator Larry Reid (formerly of CoCA notoriety) and artist Nin Truong, [the Push Project] combines the high concepts of current contemporary artists with the street-culture ethic of skateboarding.” (Jennifer Maerz) Roq la Rue Gallery, 2316 Second Ave, 374-8977. Through March 1.
* LAURIE REID
Reviewed this issue. James Harris Gallery, 309A Third Ave S, 903-6220. Through March 15.
SAMANTHA SCHERER AND RANDY WOOD
Final week. Inspired by what is perhaps the most inane (and I mean that in the best way possible) song in the scope of the Pixies’ inanity cannon, La La Love You further extends Wood’s deliberate challenge of the gallery setting, posed in his final One Night Only–this time separating subject from context in a multiangled installation. Also featuring Scherer’s latest–a look at every-fucking-body’s favorite subject, consumerism. Soil Gallery, 1317 E Pine St, 264-8061. Through Feb 23.
* JEFFREY SIMMONS
Reviewed this issue. Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave S, 624-4031. Through March 1.
* BRIAN SMITH
Cardboard boxes somehow transformed into art–the way Smith follows every rule of modernist aesthetics (while disregarding the sanctification of paint) is only part of the pleasure. Foster/White Gallery, 126 Central Way, Kirkland, 425-822-2305. Through March 9.
* FRIESE UNDINE, HANS NELSEN
Seattle expat Undine returns from Chicago with Perdition in Chickentown, a series of monotypes that combine words and images in an exploration of the tumultuous nature of the Windy City. With Nelsen’s woodwork. William Traver Gallery, 110 Union St, second floor, 587-6501. Through March 2.
DAVID WALEGA
Having recently returned from a UNICEF-sponsored photojournalism tour of war-torn Burundi, Walega presents works in documentary and portraiture. Artwood Studios, 3737 NE 135th St, 417-6867. Through Feb 28.
BEN WILKINS
Some crazy fool in a box videotapes himself painting said box through a pair of armholes. And you get to watch. Fancy, 1932 Second Ave, 443-4621.
EVENTS
CASAGRANDE & RINTALA
One night only. The people of Scandinavia may be a swarthy drunken lot, but there’s one thing I can say for ’em–they sure got that whole design thing down. The University of Washington welcomes the Finnish experimental architecture team of Casagrande & Rintala. University of Washington, Architecture Hall, room 147, 543-0997. Fri Feb 21 at 6:30 pm.
* FASHION SHOW
One night only. Sponsored by the likes of Damsel, Hello Gorgeous, Rummage, and Lipstick Traces (so you know it can’t be all bad), a bevy of beautiful bounty by the best–featuring designs by Feral, Feeline, Agent X, Pin-Go-In, and many more–but will you ever wear it? Aftermath Gallery, 928 12th Ave, 709-9797. Fri Feb 21 at 9 pm.