Museums
Asian Art Museum
Be/longing: Contemporary Asian Art The Asian Art Museum comes back to life after a long hiatus with this exhibition of 12 expatriate (or onetime expatriate) contemporary artists originating from Azerbaijan, Iran, India, Thailand, China, Korea, and Japan. Their work, which comes from the museum's collection and two private sources, reflects their perspectives on Asian heritage "as both insiders and outsiders" in the world. (Opens Sat Feb 8)
Boundless: Stories of Asian Art Explore the complexity of the huge and populous continent of Asia in the newly reopened Asian Art Museum. Rather than separating the artwork geographically, the curators have organized the displayed pieces around 12 themes, like "worship and celebration, visual arts and literature, and clothing and identity," with a broad division of "spiritual life"-themed art in the south galleries and "material life" in the north. (Opens Sat Feb 8)
Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
Face First What can possibly be more compelling to the human gaze than the human face? Artists from around the Puget Sound (Christopher Paul Jordan, Jessica Rycheal, Romson Regarde Bustillo, Paul Marioni, and many others) depict this most essential of subjects through sculpture, painting, photography, artist books, glass, and mixed media. (Through Sun Feb 23)
Jessixa Bagley: Worlds in Pictures Bagley's art is so adorable, it's netted the illustrator/author the 2016 Washington State Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award and other prizes. Immerse yourself in her sweet and playful world. (Through Sun Feb 23)
Jite Agbro: Deserving Agbro is concerned with what you're wearing. Well, okay, maybe not exactly with what you're wearing right now, but more with how what we wear and how we wear it as an expression of our "projected narratives and our authentic selves." JK (Through Sun Feb 23)
Bellevue Arts Museum
Emerge/Evolve 2018: Rising Talents in Kiln-Glass The winners and some finalists of Bullseye Glass Company's 18-year-old competition have kiln-glass on display. Some take geometric vase-like forms, like Andy Plummer's ovoid I Moved on Her Like a Bitch; others are weirder, like Evelyn Gottschall Baker's eerily realistic Bones-Group. (Through Sun Jan 12)
Nicole Gordon: Altered States Once again demonstrating their penchant for art that makes you feel like you're tripping balls, the museum presents the lysergic paintings of Chicago-based Nicole Gordon, who remixes past, future, and alternate realities in eye-boggling colors. (Jan 24— June 14)
Playa Made: The Jewelry of Burning Man Taking place in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, Burning Man is the festival to end all festivals: crowds of people on hallucinogens? You got it. Lighting a giant wooden effigy on fire? Cool. Constructing a temporary city from scratch where radical self-expression runs free? Great, but I'm also tired. Playa Made is an exhibition that specifically focuses on and celebrates the jewelry of Burning Man, featuring over 200 objects by 60 artists of various back- grounds, from the very handmade to the professional. Also on display: photographs of the Black Rock City by George Post. JK (Jan 24—June 14)
Maria Phillips: Hidden in Plain Sight Instead of being completely paralyzed into inaction by the overwhelming lack of response to climate change and environmental degradation, Seattle artist Maria Phillips is diving head first into interrogating her own consumption habits. Using non-recyclable plastics and single-use items generated by Phillips and her family over the course of nine months, the artist has created a two-part exhibit. The first part will feature a series of jewelry pieces and small-scale works accompanied by a video installation. The second will be a large-scale, immersive installation that's meant to confront viewers with the role that plastic has in our everyday life. Spooky, beautiful shit. JK (Through Sun March 8)
Robert Williams: The Father of Exponential Imagination The work of Robert Williams is sick, perverse, offensive, violent, erotic, profane, and firmly without any sort of god to speak of. That is also precisely why it is incredible. A technically skilled draftsman, Williams's works are often psychedelic, depicting an alternate, unhinged reality. He is naughty to the nth degree, hemmed in neither by "good taste" or any type of moral responsibility. In addition to being an artist and comic book illustrator, Williams was also a key figure in the California hot rod scene of the late 1960s. JK (Through Sun March 8)
Frye Art Museum
Recent Acquisitions: Mary Henry As part of their Recent Acquisitions series, the Frye displays two works from this Whidbey Island artist's estate, North Slope #15, Kuparuk and Brooks Range, based on the Brooks Range mountains seen from Wiseman, Alaska. Henry was a pioneering Minimalist who, despite her long career, did not start exhibiting until the 1990s, at which time she began to be recognized as a "matriarch of Modernism." (Dec 17—June 7)
Dress Codes: Ellen Lesperance and Diane Simpson Lesperance and Simpson use grid forms to interpret the values and significations of historical clothing. Lesperance paints the garments of nuclear disarmament activists, rendering "American Symbolcraft, the visual shorthand of knitting patterns" with gouache instead of stitches, while Simpson constructs three-dimensional sculptures based on gridded interpretations of "illustrations found in antique clothing catalogues, window dressing manuals, and histories of dress." (Through Sun Jan 5)
Pierre Leguillon: Arbus Bonus French artist Leguillon's medium is the exhibition itself. In this show, he uses 256 photographs by or inspired by 20th-century photographer Diane Arbus, as well as appropriations of her eerie postwar Americana. In the words of the museum, "Arbus Bonus reveals the ways larger cultural histories are assembled and disseminated, and encourages us to form our own, more inclusive counter-narratives." (Through Sun Jan 5)
Rebecca Brewer: Natural Horror Inspired by trash-strewn fishing nets or organs in a network of tissue, Brewer stitches large "scrims" of wet-felted wool on silk gauze to create dreamy, acidy, tapestry-like swathes that resemble diaphanous abstract paintings. The museum is also hanging her embossed enamel monoprints in resin frames. The title of the show refers to the humans-versus-nature subgenre of horror (we're thinking Annihilation). Drift among images that lie somewhere between plant microbiology and the upwellings of the visual subconscious. (Jan 25— April 19)
Subspontaneous: Francesca Lohmann and Rob Rhee Seattle-based artists Lohmann and Rhee probe the boundaries between "the natural and the manufactured" with sculptures based on the concept of subspontaneous plant species, which spread through human meddling but continue to flourish without further help. Both artists experiment with unpredictability in their processes, like Lohmann's sprouting potatoes, moldy sausage casings, and liquid plaster sculptures hardened in woven fabric bags and tubes, or Rhee's gourds grown in welded steel receptacles. (Jan 25—April 19)
Donald Byrd: The America That Is To Be Local Tony-nominated, Bessie-winning choreographer Donald Byrd's dance pieces confront the horrors of contemporary society: gay-bashing, war, racial terrorism, misogyny. This installation, Byrd's first solo museum show, uses archival footage and artifacts to advance the artist's idea of a future America, "multi-racial in every aspect." (Through Sun Jan 26)
Agnieszka Polska Krakow and Berlin-based audiovisual artist Agnieszka Polska revels in the digital, the hallucinatory, and the ASMR-ish to create her seductive video works. Interested in the intersection of language, history, and scientific theory, she examines individual and social responsibility. The show will also mark the US debut of two of Polska's video installations that address climate change and mass extinction: one is a giant projection of a childlike sun with huge eyes witnessing the environmental collapse of our own blue planet, the other an immersive video re-creating a lush and ancient prehistoric environment that contemplates "humanity's potential to overcome enormous threats like the current climate crisis." JK (Feb 15—April 19)
Unsettling Femininity: Selections from the Frye Art Museum Collection Why does femininity "unsettle"? The museum curates a selection of mostly 19th- and 20th-century German paintings of women that either challenge or reflect the traditional "female" traits of meekness and sexual submission. Many mysteriously suggest a narrative without overt indications of a story. This exhibit asks viewers to consider the act of looking and its relationship to power, gender, religion, and morality. (Through Sun Aug 23)
Henry Art Gallery
In Plain Sight This group show is stacked. Featuring some of the best and most interesting artists currently working nationally and internationally, In Plain Sight "addresses narratives, communities, and histories that are typically hidden or invisible in our public space (both conceptually and literally defined)." The work in this exhibit isn't confined to one particular gallery but is spread throughout the entire museum. Particularly of note is Iraqi painter Hayv Kahraman and her work surrounding memory, gender, and diaspora; Kiwi visual artist Fiona Connor, who deals in the overlooked infrastructure we are surrounded by; and the vibrant mixed-media pieces of Jamaican artist Ebony G. Patterson. JK (Through Sun April 26)
Samantha Scherer: These Are Their Stories Local artist Scherer confronts the depiction of suffering, loss, and vulnerability in her series of 35 small-scale black watercolor drawings of victims in the TV show Law and Order. (Dec 7—March 8)
Museum of Glass
Alchemy 5: Transformation in Contemporary Enamels This juried exhibition, traveling from the University of Oregon, pays tribute to the "alchemical" process of firing powdered glass to produce vitreous enamel, a coating that can turn glass, metal, stone, or ceramic into a shining object of deep, sheeny colors. See some of the best enamel-coated objects in the world. (Through Sun May 31)
Transparency: An LGBTQ+ Glass Art Exhibition Philadelphia's National Liberty Museum organized the US's first LGBTQ+-only studio class exhibit in 2017. Now, the Liberty Museum will team up with the Museum of Glass to bring the works to the Northwest. See pieces by Sabrina Knowles, Jenny Pohlman, Joseph Cavalieri, Pearl Dick, Kim Harty, Jeff Zimmer, and others. (Through Sun Sept 27)
Richard Marquis: Keepers American studio-glass master Marquis has works in permanent collections across the globe, from the Carnegie Mellon Museum of Art in Pittsburgh to the Koganezaki Glass Museum in Shizuoka, Japan, to the Finnish National Glass Museum. This retrospective of clever, inventive, asymmetrical "keepers" (Marquis's favorites from his archive) spans his 50-year career. (Through Sun Nov 29)
Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI)
Mont-Saint-Michel Gaze deep into the alleys and crevices of this 16th-century model of the medieval citadel of Mont-Saint-Michel, brought to you by Microsoft, the museum, and Paris's Musée des Plans-Reliefs. (Ongoing)
Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation The long and varied history of Indian Americans stretches back to the 19th century, and this exhibition explores their contributions to American life from the age of railroads to the civil rights movement. (Through Sun Jan 26)
Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP)
Prince from Minneapolis Prince's "If I Was Your Girlfriend" did to my erotic imagination what the flower revolution did to the earth millions of years ago—transformed a monochromatic vision of sexuality into one blooming with color. Listening to the song for the first time in 1986, I realized that sex was more (if not all) about play, rather than function, mission, or purpose. Many years later in college, I learned that this form of play was not specific to humans, but was the state of things in nature—most developed animals are not blind and efficient fuckers, but conscious wasters and abusers of sex. Fucking is mostly waste, wonderful waste. And lovers are only fully such when they are playful, when the borders between them are destabilized, when the sex is purely the energy of sex—a glowing substance that's there to be exploited and explored. Prince will never die, especially with exhibits like this one at MoPOP that uses nearly 50 artifacts (instruments, photographs, artworks, clothes) to delve into what made the late soul-pop artist a superstar. CM (Through Sun Jan 5)
Body of Work: Tattoo Culture Immerse yourself in the history and art of the tattoo—from First Nations practices to counterculture trends—with artifacts, films, interactive stations, and photos. (Opens Sat Feb 1)
Nordic Museum
L. A. Ring: On the Edge of the World This is the first exhibition of Danish artist L.A. Ring's work in the United States. Ring worked within the Symbolist and Realist tradition in the early 20th century, documenting the change in lifestyle occurring during that period in Denmark. Though extremely important to both Danish and Nordic culture, his work is relatively unknown outside his native land. The exhibit will feature 25 key paintings that best represents the work Ring did as a whole. The Nordic Museum will also be offering a special aquavit cocktail in their cafe, Freya, in honor of this exhibition—you can't miss it. JK (Through Sun Jan 19) JK
Jacob A. Riis: How the Other Half Lives In this era of extreme inequality, the work of groundbreaking Danish American photojournalist Jacob Riis reminds us that the desperation of the urban poor is nothing new. Exploiting newly invented flash powder to explore night scenes, Riis documented life in tenements, sweatshops, and city streets. This exhibition reveals moving photos by Riis and other photographers of the time, as well as excerpts from his journals and letters. (Feb 1—March 16)
Northwest African American Museum
Iconic Black Women: Ain't I a Woman Hiawatha D. pays artistic tribute to brilliant Black women of history. (Through Sun March 15)
Olympic Sculpture Park
Regina Silveira: Octopus Wrap Brazilian artist Regina Silveira was drawn to the PACCAR Pavilion's immediate surroundings. "The topography of this park is really special because it crosses many lines of traffic flow, from cars to trains," she told The Stranger via telephone from her home in São Paulo. "I found it magical and was really impressed with the park's strategy to take over the plot of land." That focus on Olympic Sculpture Park's decidedly urban context inspired Octopus Wrap's design: a series of black tire track adhesives that crisscross the pavilion's walls and ceiling, all emanating from tiny motorcycles. Wrapping the building in such a fashion—a longtime practice of Silveira's—certainly makes the glass building stand out rather than blend into the landscape. GREGORY SCRUGGS (Through Sun March 8)
Seattle Art Museum
Danny Lyon: Dissenter in His Own Country American photographer Danny Lyon has long been part of the civil rights movement and its successors, beginning in his student days in the 1960s. This exhibition gathers prints from three bodies of work from 1963 to 1980, offering honest and dramatic images of subjects from "bikeriders on a race track" to "children in the streets of Colombia." (Through Sun June 28)
Aaron Fowler: 2019 Knight | Lawrence Prize Winner Every other year, the Knight | Lawrence Prize is awarded to an early-career Black artist. And in 2019, the prize went to Harlem, Los Angeles, and St. Louis-based Aaron Fowler, who creates elaborate assemblages made of discarded found objects and other unconventional materials. The results are pieces falling somewhere between painting and sculpture, grander and larger-than-life and quite literally coming off the wall into the gallery. Looking to the compositional form of American history painting and religious iconography, his mixed-media work addresses issues such as American history, hip-hop, incarceration, and family. JK (Dec 13—June 28)
Exceptionally Ordinary: Mingei 1920-2020 Unfussy treasures of the Mingei movement, which was launched by the Japanese collector Yanagi Soetsu in the 1920s and fostered an appreciation for simplicity and utility, include folk-art-influenced ceramics, textiles, sculptures, and prints from Japan, Korea, and the US. (Dec 14—July 11)
Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum Flesh and Blood consists of 40 works by Spanish, Italian, and French Renaissance and Baroque master artists. These works are from the collection of Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, in the hills of Naples, Italy, and this is the first time many of them have traveled together. Perhaps the most exciting thing is the inclusion of Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith and Holofernes (1612—1613). It depicts the Old Testament story of Judith, a beautiful Jewish heroine, assassinating the Assyrian general Holofernes. Judith used her looks and Holofernes's desire to get into his tent, where he passed out after drinking too much, and she beheaded him with a giant sword, absconding with his decapitated head and saving her city and the people in it. Gentileschi's Judith is clothed, and she shows absolutely no qualms about the task. The surety and determination on her face is matched by the way she grabs Holofernes's hair, holding him so that she can position the sword accurately. She's a butcher of tyrannical men. JK (Through Sun Jan 26)
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 Sun Feb 23)
John Akomfrah: Future History Three works by nontraditional filmmaker John Akomfrah play on multiple screens in the gallery. Immerse yourself in Tropikos, set during the encounter of Europe and Africa in the 16th century; discover maritime exploration in Vertigo Sea, a combination of archival and new recordings about both peaceful waters and disasters at sea; and revisit the birth of the internet in The Last Angel of History. (March 5— May 3)
Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstract Variations The museum celebrates the acquisition of O'Keeffe's Music— Pink and Blue, No. 1, which it calls "the first complete expression of her personal brand of modernism," with an exhibition that also features loaned paintings, drawings, and Alfred Stieglitz's photographs of the artist. (March 5—May 3)
Material Differences: German Perspectives This gallery is dedicated to post-World War II German art, including Anselm Kiefer's large, thickly layered canvases and Katharina Mann's giant mouse sculpture, supplemented by photos of the Russian front by Dmitry Baltermants. The works offer fascinating glimpses into the trauma of dictatorship and war, and the ways in which artists have grappled with new representations. (Through Sun April 26)
You Are on Indigenous Land: Places/Displaces Traditional and contemporary art of Native peoples reflects matters of land, ancestry, and kinship through modern forms and handicrafts like basketry and weaving. Go for the artists' mastery of their media, but also for a reminder of the deep roots of pre-Western cultures and the urgency of sovereignty and environmental issues. (Through Sun June 28)
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas: Carpe Fin Yahgulanaas has been producing "Haida manga," a new style marrying Haida formline with Japanese manga storytelling and other visual influences, for nearly two decades. SAM has commissioned a major new work from Yahgulanaas: a 6-by-19-foot watercolor mural based on a Haida story about a hunter "taken underwater to the realm of a powerful spirit." The mural—accompanied by a 19th-century headdress made by Yahgulanaas's relative Albert Edward Edensaw, a naaxin robe and pattern board, and the artist's sketches—comments on environmental issues and humanity's relationship with nature. (Through Sun Nov 1)
Tacoma Art Museum
Bart at TAM: Animating America's Favorite Family This unauthorized look at the first 13 seasons of The Simpsons features 100 animation cels, scripts, and drawings in a zanily decorated exhibition space. (Through Tues Dec 31)
Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Their Circle: French Impressionism and the Northwest The Impressionists, far from ethereal or wishy-washy, were artistic badasses, turning traditional academic painting on its head. Don't miss this chance to see paintings by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Gustave Caillebotte, Paul Gauguin, Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, and Edgar Degas, plus American artists inspired by these innovators. (Through Sun Jan 5)
Immigrant Artists and the American West This exhibit helps rediscover stories and experiences of immigrant artists in Western expansion with works by people from Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Russia, and Sweden. (Through Sun June 14)
Galleries
Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA)
Northwest Mystics 2019: Women of the PNW Twenty-two women artists working in various media, from music to sculpture to video, pay tribute to gallery owner and Northwest School maven Zoë Dusanne with performances, installations, and "lighted animatronic motion-sensitive 'flowers' that seem to speak directly to visitors." (Dec 5—21)
cogean?
Lulu Yee: I am attracted to you. Bushwick-based artist Lulu Yee's ceramic figures have power. That is certain. When I visited the exhibition at cogean? gallery in Bremerton (the home of artists Joey Veltkamp and Ben Gannon), I was immediately struck by the playful joyousness of Yee's work. Her gnomes come from the depths of the kindest imagination, reminiscent of real-life animals combined with ones that crawl out of flower-filled dreams: sloths that walk like llamas, dogs with the grace of cows, etc. Yee often photographs her creations in situ, the bright ceramic figures contrasted against the craggy landscapes of Iceland and Montana (two places she also calls home). JK (Through Sun Dec 15)
Davidson Galleries
Leaves from a Book of Hours The gallery displays vellum pages from a 1501 Horae, Book of Hours (a type of prayer book owned by wealthy people in the Middle Ages) printed by Jean Poitevin. Feel awed by the survival of this precious devotional artifact, illustrated with lush wood-engraved panels. (Dec 5—21)
Natural History: Botanical and Naturalist Subjects Who doesn't love botanical and faunal illustration? This exhibition presents work by the 16th-century engraver Andres Lagunas, illustrator of the Dioscorides Anazarbeo, Acerca de la materia medicinal ("the Anazarbeo Dioscorides, on medicinal matter," 1555). These are accompanied by other hand-colored engravings of natural subjects. (Dec 5—21)
Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery
Short Run Marathon Prolong the excitement of the year's biggest indie comics event in Seattle, Short Run, with this exhibition of select festival guests. (Through Wed Dec 11)
Krampus Kristmas Because Santa shouldn't get all the love, the gallery pays homage to the Christmas demon with a collection of vintage images and works by local and far-flung artists. (Dec 14—Jan 8)
Foster/White Gallery
James Martin: The Book of Sunshine Circus denizens, anthropomorphic animals, and mythical beings populate James Martin's art. Martin was born in 1928 in Everett and has been creating these whimsical scenes for decades. This exhibition will include selections from his lengthy career, including pieces that haven't been seen in public since their completion. (Jan 9—25)
Gallery 4Culture
Yunmi Her: The factory worker in 2016 Every morning outside Seattle-based artist Yunmi Her's window, a factory worker stepped outside, ordered a sausage and drink from a food truck behind the building, ate it on the lid of a trash bin, and entered back through the blue door he exited from. Her—riveted by this quotidian routine—recorded her observations with a camera. Compelled by the idea of closeness to this worker, she created a video work based on her extrapolations of the factory worker's life outside those brief moments they spent "together." Using a two-channel video, male and female voice-overs, and Twitter accounts, Her explores the "shared but different" perspectives of subject and observer. JK (Jan 9—31)
Ghost Gallery
13th Annual Holiday Mini Art Exhibit Choose from hundreds of 10-by-10-inch or smaller works by locals and artists farther afield. (Dec 12—Feb 10)
Greg Kucera Gallery
Norman Lundin: Remembered Detail I do believe in the holiness of certain overlooked spaces. Especially at times of the day that almost do not exist. Like, 3:30 p.m. is definitely a time, but 6:43 a.m.? I don't know her. Seattle-based artist Norman Lundin's work memorializes and depicts this kind of time, in these kinds of spaces. The way the light from the late-afternoon sun slants through the windows onto the neglected side of a studio, or the orange glow of dawn outside the windows of a dark workroom. A reminder that the forgotten, the overlooked, the just barely remembered can be sacred and beautiful, too. JK (Through Sat Dec 21)
Paul Rucker: Forever In past exhibitions, this Guggenheim Fellowship-winning artist and cellist has meditated on such topics as police shootings, racism, slavery, and other atrocities against African Americans and other people of color. His 2016 series Forced Migration, for example, used animation and acrylics to expand upon the image of an enslaved person on a Confederate $100 bill. This exhibit features stamp prints on aluminum that depict activists, schoolchildren, falsely accused teens, and others murdered by white supremacists. (Through Sat Dec 21)
Jack Straw New Media Gallery
Naima Lowe: Aren't They All Just Love Songs Anyway? Multimedia artist Naima Lowe poses a question with the title of her exhibit that I have often wondered about myself. Aren't They All Just Love Songs Anyway? will feature new music, videos, sculptures, and drawings that explore the "risks and pleasures of being Black and valuing love." Like in her past work, Lowe will draw on Black musical traditions, tracing the relationship between Black trauma and Black joy. Lowe will also use the color pink "as a cipher to reclaim Black humanity." JK (Through Wed Dec 11)
Jacob Lawrence Gallery
As, Not For If you don't know much about African American modernist and Bauhausian design, this exhibition co-organized by the gallery and the design firm Civilization will get you started with a survey of work created by artists from 1865 to 1999. Jerome Harris curates. (March 5—26)
James Harris Gallery
Fay Jones: Las Golondrinas Seattle-based artist Fay Jones—whose work you may recognize from the Westlake Station—speaks in symbols and signs. The characters and figures of her paintings seem to come out of a lovely but strange dream: bunnies floating in the sky, sentient clouds, giant shadows of palettes hovering just above the horizon. In Las Golondrinas, Jones is presenting new large-scale works on paper that depict landscapes based on things she observed looking out her bedroom window. Dedicated to the memory of her late husband, artist Robert C. Jones (who passed away in January 2019), Jones explores grief, hope, loss, and joy. JK (Through Sat Jan 25)
J. Rinehart Gallery
New Additions: Lesley Frenz, Emily Gherard, Saya Moriyasu Frenz's abstracts mimic the atmospheres and landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and the coast. Gherard's phantasmal monochromes seem like humped shapes, doorways, human figures, or even coffins, depending on how you look at them. Moriyasu's representational ceramic sculptures sometimes channel a folkloric vibe while alluding to "animism, Americana, class, history, consumerism, humor, decorative arts, Buddhism and love of beauty." (Through Sat Dec 21)
Shaun Kardinal: Present Tense The art of active local conceptualist Kardinal is always worth a look. Here, he uses embroidered paper collages "revealing connections between spaces" to weave a reflection on space, time, nature, and climate. The gallery writes, "A portion of proceeds from sales will be donated to the Sierra Club Foundation, funding climate solutions and conservation." (Jan 4—Feb 15)
Tara Flores: Subtle Matter The paintings of Tara Flores are supremely satisfying to take in—their colors, patterns, and energies are radiant, always beginning from a point either in the center or corner, bursting in seed-like rays, moving outward. In their colorful abstraction, they are sublime. In Subtle Matter, Flores meditates on and responds to the healing properties of individual crystals, the title of the show referencing the Etheric or Subtle Body, which is the layer of energy just outside the physical body. In her exploration of the physical effects of energies, the vibe check on this show is curious, positive, and healing. JK (Feb 22—April 4)
King Street Station
Brighter Future: To be heard. To be seen. To be free. More than 50 local artists of color respond to the current political climate in this non-juried exhibition. Discover creative achievements by Carol Rashawna Williams, Juliana Kang Robinson, Eliachi Kamaro, Tatiana Garmendia, Barry Johnson, Anouk Rawkson, and many, many others. (Through Sat Jan 11)
Linda Hodges Gallery
Klara Glosova and Mya Kerner This show brings us work by two Seattle-based artists. Glosova is a Czech-born multidisciplinary artist who creates primarily through drawing and paintings. Taking inspiration from her history growing up in Eastern Europe as well as her experience as an artist and mother, Glosova's work is bright, its figures draped in bold swatches of color. Kerner—a multidisciplinary artist with a background in permaculture—works in mediums like paint and wire to create tranquil mountainscapes that seemingly exist outside of space and time. Her approach to her work is influenced by her Eastern European forester lineage, which aids in her exploration of place and memory. JK (Jan 3—Feb 1)
Gabriel Fernandez and Lisa Golightly It's a twofer of Oregonian painters: Beaverton resident Gabriel Fernandez paints photorealist scenes of unpopulated ordinary rooms and neighborhoods, taking as subjects sleek Airstream trailers, empty bathrooms, or unoccupied sofas. Portlander Lisa Golightly, who paints figurative and abstract works, makes excellent use of dapples of light, reaching for "the unplanned and the in-between." (Feb 6—29)
Justin Duffus Duffus's realistic paintings resemble snapshots of turbulent human behaviors, calling to us to flesh out the stories behind them. They isolate the strangeness of our fellow people, our possessions, our spaces, and our rituals. (March 5—28)
MadArt
Ian McMahon: Aperture New York- based artist Ian McMahon's work deals with the oversized and overstuffed, the permanent and ephemeral. Upending expectations of material and form, McMahon creates steel structures stuffed with what look like voluminous down pillows. It appears inviting enough to hop onto. But instead of goose feathers, his puffy pieces are made of molded plaster that only mimics softer material. With MadArt's mission to bring art into people's lives in unexpected ways, McMahon's site-specific work is sure to awe and inspire. JK (Jan 6—March 28)
Method Gallery
Margaret Chodos-Irvine: Corral Chodos-Irvine joins 12 identical white men's dress shirts into cloth rings in this examination of the "psychological shell" provided by formal garments. These interesting soft sculptures evoke questions of language, culture, connection, and self-protection. Chodos-Irvine joins 12 identical white men's dress shirts into cloth rings in this examination of the "psychological shell" provided by formal garments. These interesting soft sculptures evoke questions of language, culture, connection, and self-protection.(Dec 5—28)
ÂMuseum of Museums
Brian Sanchez and Neon Saltwater This new gallery space opens with a bright red installation by kitschy, technology-oriented Neon Saltwater and painter of luscious abstracts Brian Sanchez. (Opens Fri Feb 7)
Goodwitch/Badwitch This new indie arts space's first-ever group show focuses on a trendy topic: magic and its relationship with contemporary art. It's curated by occult artist Hoodwitch and includes work by horologist Brittany Nicole Cox, among others. (Feb 7—April 26)
Oxbow
Emily Gherard in Residence Former Stranger critic Jen Graves has written, "For quiet contemplation and wonder, we need Seattle artist Emily Gherard's living, breathing drawings of something—they hint at rocks or shadows or sheer presences." Gherard develops new work at this residency. (Feb 24—March 16)
Photographic Center Northwest
Innovation at the Intersection of Science, Technology, and Photography Witness historical and contemporary photography at the cutting edge of science and technology by Amir Zaki, Richard Barnes, Evert Bongers, Barbara Bosworth, Eadweard Muybridge, Zachary Burns, and many others. (Through Sun Dec 15)
Exploring Passages within the Black Diaspora In this massive link-up of the Frye Museum, Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Photographic Center Northwest, and independent curator Berette Macaulay, the cause célèbre is female-identifying photographers of the Black diaspora. This is courtesy of the MFON Collective (a journal and movement founded by artists Delphine Barrayn and Laylah Fawundu, and named after Nigerian American photographer Mmekutmfon "Mfon" Essien), which brings attention to photography rarely seen, celebrated, or critically engaged by the art world at large. At PCNW, work by these artists will be on display for viewers to take in. And cheers to that. JK (Jan 16—March 22)
Push/Pull
Julia Wald: The Golem: A Family History Pen-and-ink artist Julia Wald, locally known for her skillful, idiosyncratic architectural drawings, posters, and comics, reflects on her Jewish family's history of refugeeism through the metaphor of the golem, a benevolent monster made of mud and stones. The artist states, "My family's collective history can be summed up pretty nicely as a combination of hope and despair, monsters and saviors." (Dec 19—Jan 14)
SAM Gallery
Northwest Abstractions In conjunction with the Seattle Art Museum's opening of Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstract Variations, the gallery brings together work by skilled contemporary abstract artists Alfred Harris, Anna Macrae, and Laura Thorne. (March 4—29)
Shift
Shift Artist Members Group Show: Best of Shift Discover some of the finest work from the 21 members of this artist-run gallery, like Ken Barnes, Leah Gerrard, Patrice Donohue, and other talents. (Dec 5—28)
Kara Mia Fenoglietto: Hope all is well. Recently, I've been confronted about my use of "Best" when signing off e-mails. Where I thought the valediction exuded professionalism, competence, and friendliness, it's apparently interpreted as hostile, insincere, and condescending to the recipient. Seattle-based artist Kara Mia Fenoglietto uses another sign-off, "Hope all is well," as a starting point for her conceptual soft sculpture installation that "examines the disconnect between anxieties and appearances." Fenoglietto's sculptures and garments will use bold digital patterns and shape-distorting silhouettes to bridge the divide between the public and private self. JK (Feb 6—29)
Peggy Murphy: The Still Life Question In early 2019, Chase Burns wrote of Murphy's last exhibit (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." In The Still Life Question, her acrylic paintings convey ideas of "tenuous stability, slippery boundaries, and blurred identities." (Feb 6—29)
SOIL
Chris Buening: Empty Heads Buening has previously mined his past to conjure childhood and adolescent memories and artifacts. Here, he displays ceramic work enlivened by such influences as "face (celfie) plant pots, face jugs, 70s creamers and vases, memory pots, and other folk pottery." (Jan 2—25)
Stonington Gallery
Stonington Celebrates 40: 40th Anniversary Group Exhibition Celebrate 40 years of top-notch Northwest Coastal and Alaskan art with a Native focus as this excellent gallery hosts a group exhibition. There is awesome talent on view here, in everything from Preston Singletary's Wood Carver's Totem to Maynard Johnny, Jr.'s Heron Paddle to Paige Pettibon's caləɫali Altarpiece, the latter a fascinating merging of European painting tradition and Lushootseed language. (Dec 5—31)
studio e
Organic Archival This group exhibition promises "lusciously packed surfaces, playful personal narratives, [and] deliciously indulgent use of material and other forms of escape." It brings together work by a number of celebrated local painters and sculptors like Nikita Ares, Brian Beck, Dawn Cerny, Warren Dykeman, Alfred Harris, Ken Kelly, and Brian Sanchez, as well as distinguished out-of-towners Heather Wilcoxon, Andrew Hendrixson, Damien Hoar de Galvan, Sharon Louden, Maya Strauss, and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung. (Through Dec 28)
Places Dreamed/Real Michael Doyle, Christopher Gee, David C. Kane, Emily Pettigrew, and Sue Rose generate uncanny scenes drawn from the ambiguity of dreams and reality. (Jan 16—Feb 1)
TASTE at SAM
Liz Tran: Cleave the Moon The dominant shape in Tran's brightly colored, exuberant paintings is circles that look like gears in a machine that creates happiness from a movie set in a flower-power utopia. (Feb 5—May 3)
True Love Tattoo & Art Gallery
About Time This tattoo parlor/gallery/shop always has fun ideas for group shows. For this exhibit, more than 50 local artists have worked their magic on clock faces. (Through Fri Jan 3)
Various locations
Jacob Lawrence Legacy Residency Collaboration Once again, Jacob Lawrence Gallery and SOIL Gallery display work by a resident Black artist. This year, internationally exhibited artist Marisa Williamson, who works in video, performance, and installation, has been selected to introduce Seattle to her work about "themes of history, race, feminism, and technology." (Feb 5—29)
Vestibule
Emily Tanner-McLean: Rose/rose/rose/rose Riffing off the first line in Gertrude Stein's 1913 poem "Sacred Emily" ("Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose"), Seattle-based artist Emily Tanner McLean is playing with this symbol of love, devotion, and sexuality by iterating the flower throughout her multimedia installation. The rose will make visual and sonic appearances in video "wallpaper," organic and found materials, and audio compositions. Seeking to disrupt the visitor's experience with the flower but also "their security of symbolic conventions in general," enthusiastic participants are invited to spend select nights in the gallery within the installation. JK (Jan 18— Feb 16)
Wa Na Wari
Chantal Gibson, Brenetta Ward, Storme Webber, Moses Sun: Installations This cycle, Wa Na Wari brings us stellar works from four Pacific Northwest artists. In the same vein as her own work, Vancouver-based artist-educator Chantal Gibson's piece allows visitors to make redaction poetry from problematic historical texts about James Baldwin. Seattle-based Brenetta Ward is a third-generation quilter and will present her beautifully patterned pieces to the space. There's an installation from multimedia artist Moses Sun, who explores blackness in his work. And Two Spirit, Alutiiq/Black/Choctaw interdisciplinary artist Storme Webber debuts Home of Good: A Black Seattle Storyquilt, the result of a collaboration between her and educator Dr. Maxine Mimms. JK (Through Sat Dec 28)
Winston Wächter Fine Art
Maja Petric, Etsuko Ichikawa, Peter Gronquist: Digital Perspectives This group exhibition brings together three artists whose work—in one way or another—utilizes different digital mediums to talk about humanity's relationship to the world around us. Petric will be presenting Particle Attraction, a new interactive piece where viewers have the chance to walk through a simulated landscape. Ichikawa will continue her exploration of nuclear waste and "what we choose to leave behind" in Murmurings of Love, in which a futuristic figure smashes a vessel made of uranium glass. And finally, in A Visual History of the Invisible 2, Gronquist will project a "soothing and hypnotic" digital installation of a large gold fabric magically suspended against a bright-blue sky. JK (Through Sat Dec 21)
Christopher Boffoli: Bite Sized Culling inspiration from Jonathan Swift’s 18th century tale, Gulliver’s Travels, Seattle-based artist Christopher Boffoli creates miniature sculptures of people juxtaposed against bright and cheery pictures of food. He creates images of impossible situations: people jumping from cake pop to cake pop, a diver swimming in a martini, a family camped out on top of a s’more. Boffoli adds a layer of cheekiness to each of his compositions, giving the photos irreverent titles that can be read along with the image. JK (Through Sat Dec 21)
Susan Dory: Exotic Mass In 2012, Jen Graves wrote: "Susan Dory's color combinations have always been luscious. But in the last two years, her work has undergone a transformation—in Catenary Curves, Dory's signature softness and refined paint handling has gone a little bit street. It's as if each painting were a set of open jaws, or many sets of jaws, each vying for space in a fractured horizon. It is an exhilarating break." See how Dory's style has evolved even further at this solo show. (Through Sat Dec 21)
Art Events
Asian Art Museum
Asian Art Museum Reopening The museum is reopening after more than two long years! Rediscover the collection of ancient and contemporary treasures from China, Japan, India, Korea, Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, the Philippines, and Vietnam—admission is free all weekend long. (Feb 8—9)
Equinox Studios
Very Open House See the work of more than 100 artists and artisans in four buildings at the mammoth Georgetown arts collective. The studios also promise "guest artists, music, poetry, dance, demos, food trucks, and a whole lot more! " Stay after 10 p.m. for a night of revelry. (Sat Dec 14)
Inscape
Holiday Bazaar 2019 Check out many, many artists' studios and pick out some gifts for families and friends at this expansive shindig. (Sun Dec 15)
Pottery Northwest
ClayFest Northwest Celebrate clay art "from teapots to abstract sculpture" at this celebration featuring work—which you can buy!—by more than 40 Pacific Northwest artists. (Dec 13—20)
Seattle Center
ACES: Artists of Color Expo & Symposium This exposition of local talent, showcasing the wealth of work by 75 artists of color selected from an open call, promises 80 activities, talks by keynote speakers Nikkita Oliver and Paul Rucker, and more. (Feb 28—29)
Art Walks
Second Fridays
Second Saturdays
Third Thursdays
Second Fridays
Second Thursdays
First Fridays
Second Saturdays
First Thursdays (second Thursday in Jan due to holiday)
Third Fridays
Second Thursdays
