Take refuge from fall's cooler temperatures inside a museum or art gallery, where you can see everything from international artists addressing themes of healing and self-care to a photography show about space and time to centuries-old Viking artifacts Past Event Like List . Below, we've compiled all of those and more critics' picks for art shows and events this season. You can also find a complete list of art shows in Seattle this fall on our Things To Do calendar, or check out the rest of our critics' picks from Seattle Art and Performance.
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Jump to: Museums | Galleries | Art Events
Museums
Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
Alfredo Arreguín: Life Patterns This Mexican-born Seattle artist, according to his representatives at Linda Hodges Gallery "recognized as one of the originators of the Pattern and Decoration movement in painting," imitates mosaic, tile, and floral decorations in oils. A salmon fisher and nature lover, he often depicts life in the Salish Sea. (As a side note, he was also pals with the writer Raymond Carver.) This exhibition will mount more than 30 of his works, particularly his more recent achievements. (Oct 13—Feb 13)
Bellevue Arts Museum
Bellwether 2018 We keep writing about the mischievous, Stranger Genius Award—winning artist trio SuttonBeresCuller for a simple reason: They're a lot of fun. Over the years, John Sutton, Ben Beres, and Zac Culler have caused stirs by floating around on an artificial island in Lake Washington and creating a joystick-controlled painting viewer module, among other installations and happenings. The trio has curated this year's annual Northwest arts festival in Bellevue, with exhibitions, installations, and events spreading from the epicenter of the museum to various areas around the city. They'll showcase rising Pacific Northwest sculptors in a special pop-up gallery, host performances, and no doubt highlight the creativity and architectural excitement to be found east of Lake Washington. (Through Sun Sept 30) JOULE ZELMAN
FEMAIL: AMPM (2.0) FEMAIL, a fashion duo composed of Janelle Abbott and Camilla Carper, collaborate on garments by sending them back and forth through the United States Postal Service. By a process of "reactive collaboration," Abbott and Carper create sentimental, extravagant, and quirky garments that are sometimes closer to soft sculpture than a traditional garment. This is FEMAIL's first museum exhibition, and it's a stunner. (Through Sun Sept 30) CHASE BURNS
Dylan Neuwirth: OMNIA Past Event Like List 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. (Oct 12—March 24)
Alex Katz: A Life in Print Alex Katz was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn in 1927 and studied under Morris Kantor at Cooper Union, only focusing on painting from life once he graduated from college. He went on to become one of the most important artists in the figurative mode of the 20th century. Selections from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation includes his matte, shadow-less portraits of New York poets and life-size depictions of bathers at the sea. (Through Sun Oct 14)
BAM Biennial 2018: Glasstastic Past Event Like List Artists from Oregon and Washington will contribute their most innovative pieces in glass to this year's BAM Biennial. (Nov 9—April 14)
Clyde Petersen: Merch & Destroy Past Event Like List Animation filmmaker, musician, artist, and roadie Clyde Petersen creates a "heartfelt yet abject love letter" to the 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, complemented by a set of guitars from the same humble materials, co-created with Darius X for the show Shredders: A Fantasy Guitar Store. Salute the punk/post-punk lifestyle and enjoy a gritty Northwest soundtrack as you explore the exhibition. (Nov 9—March 10)
Frye Art Museum
Group Therapy Group Therapy features a roster of international artists addressing themes of healing and self-care through a range of media. With its proximity to Harborview Medical Center (the region's largest trauma care hospital) and several other hospitals, the museum will also function as a community "free clinic" with immersive installations and participatory projects. By including racism, sexism, and political tribalism as social pathologies, the show reframes what it means to be ill in the 21st century and offers community building as one possible curative. Artists include Wynne Greenwood, Maryam Jafri, Joachim Koester, Liz Magic Laser, Leigh Ledare, Marcos Lutyens, Cindy Mochizuki, Shana Moulton, Pedro Reyes, Ann Leda Shapiro, Kandis Williams, and Lauryn Youden. Special events will include tarot and palm readings by Cindy Mochizuki, an art therapy workshop on November 4, and a curative drama "political therapy" workshop on November 10 and 11 with Liz Magic Laser and Valerie Bell. (Sept 14—Jan 6) KATIE KURTZ
Juventino Aranda: Pocket Full of Posies As Kanye West demonstrated by tweeting a photo of himself wearing one, a red MAGA hat is no mere political artifact; it's a potently charged totem, both symptomatic and symbolic of America's deeply racist past and present. In a recent show at Greg Kucera Gallery, Juventino Aranda exhibited a painted cast bronze version of the MAGA hat with all the words removed except "GREAT," imbuing it with a tragicomic sense of resignation. The child of Mexican immigrants, Aranda marries the activist spirit of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta with a cool, conceptual post-minimalism to explore how ideology is communicated visually. Pocket Full of Posies is his first museum show. (Through Sun Sept 23) EMILY POTHAST
Quenton Baker: Ballast In 1841, American-born slaves on the brig Creole, led by a man named Madison Washington, commandeered the ship bringing them toward a life of misery, cruelty, and early death, and landed on a British territory, where they found their freedom. Award-winning local poet Quenton Baker (This Glittering Republic) once again examines black history from a personal standpoint. The survival struggle of long-ago people and the lingering effects of slavery on the psyche of those born free inspired Baker's "erasure poems," which he has created through the negative process of blacking out words in the Senate report on the Creole. Along with the exhibition of these visually striking poems, there will be a special reading with Amanda Johnston, Dante Micheaux, and L. Lamar Wilson on November 1. (Oct 6—Jan 27)
Bench Mark Urban benches are an architectural reflection of the social contract of our shared spaces. They can be built as a place of comfort and rest, or they can be weaponized to discourage use by the unsheltered. Co-curated by Lynn Chou and Negarra A. Kudumu, Bench Mark presents bench designs created by 10 young artists mentored by teaching artists Laura Bartunek, John Hallock, and Jim Nicholls through the Frye's Partnership for Youth Program. In drafting their designs, these students considered not only what kind of design they'd like to look at, but what kind of world they'd like to live in. (Through Sun Oct 14) EP
Henry Art Gallery
MUSE: Mickalene Thomas Photographs and tête-à-tête Earlier this year, Mickalene Thomas's bright, brilliant portraits of black women in dazzling interior spaces graced the walls of Seattle Art Museum as part of Figuring History, a multigenerational group show that placed her in a lineage of monumental painters that also includes Robert Colescott and Kerry James Marshall. While most of Thomas's works begin with photographic sources, MUSE is the first exhibition devoted to considering her photographs as finished works in themselves. As the title suggests, this show revolves around the inspiring women who compose Thomas's community. Curated by Thomas, tête-à-tête is an accompanying exhibition of photographs by artists who further inspire her. (Through Sun Sept 30) EP
Elizabeth Murray and Anne Waldman: Her Story Elizabeth Murray and Anne Waldman's long collaboration produced a collection of drawings, prints, and poems reflecting on femininity, freedom, and interior and exterior life. Their symbiotic creation, consisting of 13 folded pages, will be on view, a testament to their friendship. (Through Sun Nov 4)
Martha Friedman: Castoffs The ancient two-finger amulet, made of dark stone like obsidian or hematite, was placed in ancient Egyptian coffins, presumably to protect the corpse within. Brooklyn artist Martha Friedman, a master of uneasy forms, places glass-blown versions of these talismans alongside distorted, blobby approximations of the male body. She derived these sculptures from casts of the body of Silas Riener, a dancer and choreographer, before embellishing and altering them with rubber tubing and sheeting and metal spikes. The combination of the fingers and the altered, impaled fragments, enthroned on unadorned pedestals, stimulates an icky, quasi-sexual discomfort and fascination. Friedman's dissection of the male body might be taken as an inversion of—or revenge for—the age-old male gaze, in which the torso is not only objectified but dismembered. (Through Sun Feb 10) JZ
Museum of Glass
Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight Past Event Like List One of the finest glass artists in the Northwest interprets the Tlingit story of Raven, who brought the moon, stars, and sun to the world, with perfectly formed sculptures accompanied by the research of Tlingit historian and mythologist Walter Porter. (Opens Thurs Oct 3)
Museum of Northwest Art
In Red Ink "Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land and from our minds as well," wrote West Indian anti-colonialist philosopher Frantz Fanon. By not privileging the imperial gaze, this group show of 20 Native American artists from around the country curated by RYAN! Feddersen (Okanogan/Arrow Lakes) with Chloe Dye Sherpe centers on the contemporary Native American perspective. Works include paintings on traditional Navajo rugs by John Feodorov (Diné), a fused glass installation of Native petroglyphs and modern symbols by Joe Feddersen (Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation), and an Indigenous Futurist screen print, Anti-Retro, by Andrea Carlson (Ojibwe). (Through Sun Sept 23) KK
Nordic Museum
The Vikings Begin Past Event Like List With no written history and its stories passed down orally through skalds (poets and storytellers), the history of Vikings has been pieced together mostly through artifacts. This traveling exhibition organized by scholars from Sweden's Uppsala University brings together agricultural, warfare, and ornamental artifacts dating back as far as 750 AD. New research has uncovered that women played a larger role in Viking society as warriors and sorceresses. This exhibition will also dispel other myths about Vikings, namely that they weren't all warriors and most of them had normal jobs as fishermen and farmers. (Oct 20—April 15) KK
Northwest African American Museum
Jessica Rycheal and Zorn B. Taylor: Everyday Black Jessica Rycheal is a portrait photographer whose work documents subjects drawn from Seattle's multigenerational activist community with a sensuous, effervescent joie de vivre. Also a portrait photographer, Zorn B. Taylor often spotlights the idea of intentionally chosen family, capturing his subjects with simultaneous attention toward the monumental and the quotidian. In this two-person exhibition, curated by C. Davida Ingram and Leilani Lewis, Rycheal and Taylor present a series of intimate, honest, and lovingly created photographs celebrating many prominent members of Seattle's black creative community. (Through Sun Sept 30) EP
Seattle Chapter Black Panther Party 50 Years: Power to the People Founded in 1968 by members of the Black Student Union, the Seattle Chapter of the Black Panther Party was one of the party's longest-running chapters, as well as one of the first to be founded outside of California. From 1968 to 1978, Black Panthers were a local fixture, preaching power through economic liberation and self-defense in Seattle's African American neighborhoods. This exhibition features a wealth of archival information about how the Black Panther Party intersects with the unique history of the Pacific Northwest, and what this history can teach us about our current historical moment. (Through Tues Nov 27) EP
Seattle Art Museum
Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in collaboration with the Mehrangarh Museum in Jodhpur, India, Peacock in the Desert is a traveling exhibition of some 250 artworks and objects that trace four centuries of royal history of the Rathore dynasty of Rajasthan, India. Most of these objects—which include miniature paintings, handcrafted armor, and carved furnishings—had never traveled to the United States prior to this exhibition. The installation at SAM will include large-scale photographic murals that evoke the geographic and historical context of these rare treasures. (Oct 18—Jan 21) EP
Noble Splendor: Art of Japanese Aristocrats Works commissioned by rich patrons of the arts in premodern Japan are celebrated: sculptures, screens, scrolls, paintings, and metalwork. (Through Sun March 3)
Tacoma Art Museum
To Sing of Beauty Paul Stephen Benjamin and C. Davida Ingram's collaboration considers blackness and musical expression through video installations. Ingram's The Deeps: Go Away from My Window incorporates music and performance by Hannah Benn and Rachael Ferguson, while her other video, Procession, "conjures a sense of the African American Northern Migration via railway" through the metaphor of changing Seattle. The Atlanta-based Benjamin reworks Nina Simone's performance of "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair" in New York City, 1959. Don't miss this duo—Ingram has been producing fascinating art in the city for the past few years, and Benjamin was awarded the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia Working Artist Project not so long ago. (Through Sun Sept 30)
Places to Call Home: Western Settlements See representations of Western cities throughout their history and development, including beautiful works by immigrant or immigrant-descended artists like Kenjiro Nomura and Mian Situ. (Through Sun Feb 10)
Native Portraiture: Power and Perception This exhibit invites you to contemplate structural oppression and appropriation of Native subjects in portraits by non-Native people, as well as Native artists' reflections and reworking of this stereotypical iconography. (Through Sun Feb 10)
Familiar Faces & New Voices: Surveying Northwest Art Past Event Like List 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 Sun Feb 16)
Immigrant Artists and the American West Past Event Like List This exhibition 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)
Whatcom Museum of History and Art
Endangered Species: Artists on the Front Line of Biodiversity With 80 works by 52 artists, this exhibition explores the full spectrum of our natural environment with art that addresses everything from anthropogenic climate disruption to habitat restoration projects. Pieces in the show date back as far as the early 1800s. Also included is Andy Warhol's Endangered Species series, 10 silk-screen prints from 1983, with each featuring a different endangered animal. (Through Sun Jan 6) KK
Wing Luke Museum
Wham! Bam! Pow!: Cartoons, Turbans, and Confronting Hate Vishavjit Singh responds to xenophobia—which he experienced plenty of after September 11, 2001, as a Sikh American lumped in with other South Asians and Middle Easterners—with a superhero series about a Sikh anti-bigot. (Through Sun Feb 24)
Lore Re-Imagined: Shadows of Our Ancestors Past Event Like List 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) EP
See all museum shows happening in Seattle this fall here.
Galleries
Return to topAtelier Drome
Anna Macrae: Morphing Landscapes Increasingly recognized Northwest artist Anna Macrae builds landscapes through frenetic, colorful lines, "awkward marks," and blotches of color. (Through Fri Sept 28)
Bridge Productions
Sue Danielson: Intangible Horizon Sue Danielson's vibrant abstractions trace geographical journeys over nameless city maps. (Through Sat Sept 29)
Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA)
Gary Hill: Linguistic Spill ([un]contained) Gary Hill's piece at last year's Out of Sight was tucked away in a dark corner of the basement, marked by a sign warning of flashing strobe lights. In the center of the room was a bench where viewers could sit and take in a slow-paced yet high-intensity experience that pushed the liminal boundaries of perception. Linguistic Spill ([un]contained) promises a similar audiovisual overload. "The immersive installation is not for the faint of heart," warns CoCA's promo text. Using electronic audio signals and a pile of video projectors, the artist aims to approximate pre-linguistic structures of perception—the "space where hieroglyphs are born." (Through Sat Sept 29) EP
Columbia City Gallery
ROAR: Your Voice, Your Story, Our Truth Dwana Holloway of studio e, photographer Naomi Ishisaka, and Elisheba Johnson of the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture's Public Art Project have juried this open-call art exhibition. (Through Sun Sept 23)
Davidson Galleries
Eunice Kim: Nature Stories This Seattle printmaker developed allergies to the chemicals generally used in the practice, and so developed a more environmentally friendly and healthy process, which produces variation in prints. She creates images formed by spots in simple formations, perhaps reminding you of magnified microbes or of a more subdued Yayoi Kusama. (Through Sat Sept 29)
Sister Mary Corita Kent: Selected Works Born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Sister Mary Corita Kent entered a convent at age 18. In 1947, during graduate school at the University of Southern California, she fell in love with screenprinting. Influenced by Andy Warhol, the slogans of the Civil Rights era, and her own commitment to consider poverty, racism, and injustice from a spiritual perspective, Corita Kent created one of the boldest, most distinctive bodies of 20th century poster art. After heading up the art department at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles for a number of years (where she could often be seen screenprinting in a full nun's habit) she left the order and moved to Boston, where her work took on a more introspective style. (Through Sat Sept 29) EP
Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery
Short Run Marathon Exhibition Prolong the excitement of the year's biggest indie comics event in Seattle, Short Run, with this exhibition of festival guests Mimi Pond, Carol Tyler, Anna Haifisch, Olivier Schwauren, Antoine Maillard, Rina Ayuyang, Ali Fitzgerald, Eroyn Franklin, and November Garcia. (Nov 2—Dec 5)
Foster/White Gallery
Janna Watson In the early 20th century, nonobjective painting was seen as something revolutionary. Today, it feels almost quaint and anachronistic, as though every painting for its own sake that the universe could possibly need has already been made. The large-scale mixed media works of Toronto-based painter Janna Watson stand in defiance of this trend. Large brush strokes and small bursts of color wiggle and dance on soft gradients like visual music. A recent article from Artsy named Watson's paintings among the most collectible offerings at the Seattle Art Fair, but even if you're not in the market to buy art, these are very nice to look at. (Through Sat Sept 22) EP
G. Gibson Gallery
Eirik Johnson What motivates people to carve their initials into the bark of a living tree? This fall, local publisher Minor Matters will be releasing PINE, a book of new photography by Neddy-award winning artist Eirik Johnson. For this body of work, Johnson has photographed found instances of tree graffiti, considering the circumstances that might have prompted people to leave such marks. To accompany these images, Johnson has commissioned a digital mixtape by an exciting roster of musicians including SassyBlack, Newaxeyes, Whiting Tennis, and Tenderfoot. This exhibition timed to the book's release will showcase Johnson's work in color photography, illuminated light boxes, and sound. (Oct 19—Dec 1) EP
Gallery 110
David Haughton: Angry White Men The title is pretty self-explanatory, but the "neo-Nazis, angry protesters and livid gun advocates" populating Haughton's turbulent canvases are genuinely alarming. He forces us to see the rage, despair, and perverse camaraderie of the so-called "alt-right." (Through Sat Sept 29)
Gallery 4Culture
Lawrence Pitre: We Are One Eschewing traditional perspective or shading in favor of a surreal impression of depth, and opting for a folk-art aesthetic, Lawrence Pitre depicts the Central District's history of European, Chinese, Jewish, African American, and Filipino communities, as well as its changing demographics today. (Through Thurs Sept 27)
Haein Kang: Illusion Haein Kang, a Ph.D. candidate at DXARTS at the University of Washington, overlays technology onto human experiences and broadcasts the results of this interplay. For Illusion, Kang travels straight into the brain with an interactive installation that is activated by EEG signals. The instructions are simple: "Have a seat. Close your eyes. Focus on your breathing. Your brain waves will produce a rhythm." As part of the show, Kang will host a "Gentle Introduction to EEG" workshop on October 11 for people to try out the headset. (Oct 4—25) KK
Kristen Ramirez If you've ever ridden your bike all the way to Bothell on the Burke-Gilman trail, you've seen the work of Kristen Ramirez—a dazzling, 250-foot mural of zig-zags and geometric shapes that lines the inside of the Wayne Tunnel in vibrant shades of orange, purple, and gold. Ramirez is a visual artist, activist, and educator with an MFA in printmaking—a set of processes for creating multiple images by transferring ink onto paper. For her 4Culture exhibition, Ramirez will be using silkscreen, neon, and sandwich boards to explore the role of human beings in creating the dystopian epoch of the geological present. (Nov 1—Dec 7) EP
Glassbox Gallery
Zack Bent: In Memoria In the summer of 2014, Zack Bent began taking his three sons on regular pilgrimages to a plot of land just south of Cle Elum, Washington. When he began visiting this site, it had just been burned by a forest fire; today, the region is showing signs of regeneration and regrowth. Through a series of photographs of his children interacting with the land over the span of four years—as well as sculptures made from overwintered tarps—Bent has documented not only the transformation of the land, but also the growth of his children into adolescents. It's a way of experiencing the land that many of us aren't accustomed to, in which time is subordinate to space, rather than the other way around. (Oct 4—Nov 10) EP
Greg Kucera Gallery
Claude Zervas: Starlings "Conscious thought is so overrated," Claude Zervas says while we're discussing his recent body of work. Starlings is a series of thickly layered oil paintings that—if anything—are a meditation on the fickle, tricky, and long-drying medium. Zervas has always leaned more toward minimalism with 3D and video work stripping nature and science to their most essential components and presented in abstracted ways. Zervas returned to painting about five years ago starting with pen and ink drawings, continuing on to acrylic, then—encouraged in part by Joe Park—landing on oils which he described as "a revelation." The months-long process of layering rich pigment and cutting it away allows Zervas to have new ideas about the work while stripping it of any overt meaning. (Sept 13—Oct 23) KK
Margie Livingston: Extreme Landscape Painting Margie Livingston never hesitates to test the limits of what can constitute a painting, like when she constructed a harness to drag a heavy canvas behind her, or when she used poured and woven acrylic to make paint sculptures. Given the bold title of this exhibition, we're excited to see what this Neddy, Arts Innovator, and Betty Bowen Award-winning experimenter has in store. (Nov 1—Dec 22)
Saul Becker: Uneven Terrain A Saul Becker landscape might be a painted sky hanging over a photographed sea on a piece of paper that fits in the palm of your hand. Real places are pulled into a frame, altered digitally and mechanically, and Frankensteined together enchanting monsters for your viewing pleasure. This is one way to be a contemporary landscape painter, to extend the tradition of using a flat surface and paint to evoke place, within a society awash in photography. (Nov 1—Dec 22) JEN GRAVES
Hedreen Gallery
Gravity Jokes Artists and comedians have worked at the meeting place of comedy and sculpture in an exhibition that gives rise to a new maxim: Art plus gravity = comedy? That's right: E.T. Russian, Dewa Dorje, Andy Fallat, Philippe Hyojung Kim, Khadija Ann Tarver, and Mario Lemafa communicate through their various media and "tell jokes about gravity and/or jokes with gravity." We're falling over ourselves to see what they've cooked up. (Through Sat Oct 20)
Jack Straw New Media Gallery
Chun Shao: Silicone Love—Her Garden The internet generates and absorbs our desires, giving scopophilia—the pleasure of watching—an almost infinite playground. If this virtualized realm of desire were condensed into a single form, what would it look like? DXARTS Ph.D. candidate Chun Shao makes "video-mapped gestural sculptures" that may provide an unsettling response. You can find a previous riff on this idea, Silicone Love - Her Finger, on Vimeo: a pulsing, illuminated, jellyfish-like object made of a lampshade, motors, baubles, and gauze. Like the Web, as you look into it, it yields and responds to your imagination. (Through Fri Oct 19) JZ
Jacob Lawrence Gallery
10 Études for Summer Second-year UW MFA students exhibit studies ("études") of particular techniques. The artists include Granite Calimpong, Lucy Copper, Abigail Drapkin, Jackie Granger, Baorong Liang, Sean Lockwood, Brighton McCormick, Charles Stobbs III, Emily Charlotte Taibleson, and Connor Walden. (Sept 26—Oct 13)
Linda Hodges Gallery
Ursula Rose Ursula Rose conjures parts of nudes, portraits, and still lifes in watercolor. (Through Sat Sept 29)
M. Rosetta Hunter Art Gallery
Orchids and Evergreens: Thai and Seattle Printmakers Seattle Print Arts, with the help of Nikki Barber and Miranda Metcalf, brings together floral prints from artists in Chiang Mai and Bangkok as well as in the Northwest. See work by, among others, Seattleites Claire Cowie, Kim Van Someren, and Romson Bustillo and Thailanders Kittikong Tilokwattan, Orn Thongthai, and Srijai Kuntawang. (Sept 24—Oct 18)
Youth in Focus For the past 25 years, low-income city youth have expressed themselves and captured glimpses of their daily lives thanks to Youth In Focus's arts program, which pairs the young photographers with adult mentors. (Nov 27—Dec 12)
MadArt
Maja Petrić: We Are All Made of Light Who knew that there were so many awards for light art? Maja Petrić knows, because she's either won or been nominated for a number of them. A Ph.D. in DXARTS (digital art and experimental media) from University of Washington, she's contributing to the Borealis Festival of Light with an exhibition called We Are All Made Of Light, in collaboration with computer scientist Mihai Jalobeanu. Artificial intelligence generates "audiovisual trails" of every visitor, combining them with the traces of previous gallery-goers. (Oct 6—Nov 21)
Mount Analogue
Aidan Fitzgerald On August 22, Cold Cube Press co-founder Aiden Fitzgerald staged a performance in which he sat in a folding chair, dressed in white from head to toe, and scrolled through his phone for eight continuous hours. This performance—which was live-streamed on YouTube—is one of Fitzgerald's meditations on the work of art in the age of digital content creation. In the 1930s, Walter Benjamin wondered if the work of art reproduced mechanically could retain any of the "aura" of the original. Today we might ask something different: If there was no one there to Instagram it, did the work ever exist in the first place? (Through Sat Sept 29) EP
Pottery Northwest
UnWedged: A National Juried Exhibition UnWedged is Pottery Northwest's annual, national Juried Contemporary Ceramic Exhibition. This time, it will be juried by potter Julia Galloway. (Oct 5—26)
Prographica / KDR
Phillip Levine, Dale Lindman Levine was recently the subject of a book published by the Museum of Northwest Art. His sculptures and drawings have netted him a Washington State Governor's Award and are exhibited in many collections and museums. Abstract painter Dale Lindman has received multiple prizes, including the Minnesota State Arts Board, Ford Foundation Scholarship, Northwest International Art Competition at the Whatcom Museum, and a Morris Graves Foundation residency. (Through Sat Oct 13)
Push/Pull
Nightmare of Ages Delight in all that is demonic and monstrous (and involving "dirty ugly punks") at this exhibition. Dewey Guyen, the featured artist, draws on vellum overlaying work by other artists, including Farel Dalrymple, Nick Gucker, Kiriska, Max Clotfelter, Seth Goodkind, Angelita Martinez, Eric Priestley, Marc J Palm, Heidi Estey, Gentian Osman, and Marco Kelso. The art will be collected in an eponymous book. (Sept 20—Oct 27)
Re:definition
Re:Definition 2018: Celebrating 90 Years of Community, Culture and Space For the Paramount's 90th birthday, respected curators Juan Alonso-Rodríguez, Tracy Rector, and Tariqa Waters preside over an exhibition of their own and other locals' works, including "large-scale panels, ceiling installations, video projection, and a rotating salon wall of artwork created by youth from various non-profit organizations." They've chosen Christopher Paul Jordan, Junko Yamamoto, Rhea Vega, Kenji Hamai Stoll, Joe (wahalatsu?) Seymour, Jr., and Gabriel Marquez to display work with them in the gallery. (Through Sun Dec 30)
Roq la Rue
Lush Life 6 Group Show After a two-year hiatus, Kirsten Anderson is transitioning Creatura House back to Roq La Rue with a themed exhibition of work influenced primarily by natural imagery. Work in the show includes ethereal imagery combining analog and digital techniques of ghostly figures by Kazuki Takamatsu, hyperrealist wildlife oil paintings that elevate animals to a monumental status by Josie Morway, the candy-coated darkness of Brandi Milne's pop surrealism, and Bella Ormseth's anthropomorphic mushrooms. Other artists: Camille Rose Garcia, Kari-Lise Alexander, Lola Gill, Casey Curran, Kai Carpenter, Rebecca Chaperon, and Sarah Leea Petkus. (Oct 3—28) KK
Shift
Ken Barnes: oYo Former rock climber and current sculptor Ken Barnes shapes elegant, simple objects in beautiful stone. In his new show, he concentrates on the "oYo form," which he's been exploring for the past 20 years. The oYo has two vertical holes drilled through the stone, offering a window into its core. (Oct 5—27)
SOIL
Louder in the dark In tandem with the ambitious Becoming American (read more under "various locations" below), this member artist show highlights and responds to Aram Saroyan's experimental poetry, written from 1964-72. (Through Sun Sept 30)
Station 7
Genna Draper Draper's mixed-media canvases may be abstract or representative, but they tend to be highly textured, layered, and earthily colored, sometimes mixing in elements of collage. (Through Sun Dec 30)
Statix
The Drawnk Show: ArtCade The Drawnk, a weekly drawing and drinking meet up at local bars, holds its second group show at Statix. Artists are contributing carnival-themed objects, some of which were commissioned for outdoor activities at Occidental Park this summer. Games like PLINKO! and Art Jenga, as well as facehole photo booths will be on display. The artistic styles of the 50+ artists—including street, cartoon, chalk, illustration, and murals—lend themselves well to the theme. (Through Mon Oct 1) KK
Stonington Gallery
Dan Friday Lummi glass blower Friday crafts exquisite sculptures based on Native practices like, in this case, cedar bark weaving—an art he encountered growing up with his relative, the Lummi weaver Fran James. The objects are exquisite, paying homage to the intricacy of the traditional craft and adding his own asymmetries and vividly contrasting colors. For this exhibition, he pays tribute to traditional Lummi reefnet fishing. (Through Sun Sept 30)
Preston Singletary: Solo Exhibition Over the course of a career spanning more than 40 years, contemporary Tlingit artist Preston Singletary has become one of the biggest names in the Northwest's thriving, collaborative glass-art community. Challenging the notion that indigenous art must be defined by a relationship to traditional materials, Singletary's work has expanded the notion of what constitutes a "traditional material," creating objects rooted in both history and innovation. Singletary's work is in the collections of many museums around the world. (Oct 4—28) EP
studio e
Periphery: New Work by Molly Magai Molly Magai examines factories, highways, and other manmade spaces that we generally see out of the corners of our eyes. Her blurred, dynamic style imitates glimpses from a moving vehicle. (Oct 4—31)
Warren Dykeman: Attention Span Warren Dykeman's paintings, prints and mixed-media works use typography, signs, and the simplified human figure to explore communication and semiotics. (Nov 8 —Dec 15)
Tacoma Armory
Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel This traveling exhibition is a full-scale reproduction of one of the most monumental artistic achievements of the Western world. Unlike the original, this one's available to see up-close. Admission lasts for 1.5 hours. (Sept 21—Oct 14)
Traver Gallery
Dante Marioni Marioni's lovely and justly celebrated glass art is often a throwback to the beautiful, symmetrical design of Venetian, Greek, and even Etruscan traditions, though he has also created reticello "gourds" inspired by African basketry. But his forms are anything but monotonous: Many of his vessels would look appropriate in a German expressionist sci-fi film. (Oct 4—27)
Heike Brachlow Munich-born Heike Brachlow, now working not far from London, carefully balances her highly varied, colorful, and ingenious glass objects—expect precarious pendulums, columns, tops, and wobbly cylinders. (Oct 4—27)
Cappy Thompson Cappy Thompson is responsible for the 90-foot-long window mural—a woodland/celestial scene of painted glass titled I Was Dreaming of Spirit Animals (2003)—at Sea-Tac International Airport. At the gallery this month, see the Seattle artist's smaller but no less vivid engraved glass and multimedia works. (Nov 1—Dec 22)
Various locations
Becoming American The "Pig War" of 1859, so called because it flared up over the shooting of a pig on San Juan Island, marked the last time the UK and US fought over territory. With no humans killed or shots exchanged, the episode has become something of a historical joke. Twenty artists organized by the nonprofit cefalonia drew inspiration from this once ambiguous borderland, creating on the very site of the bloodless conflict. It's worth taking the ferry out to the English and American Camps in the piney San Juan Island National Historical Park to discover the results. But if you prefer to stick closer to home, you can see works by Stranger Genius Award winner Barbara Earl Thomas, Dori Scherer, Rodrigo Valenzuela, and 11 others at Seattle's studio e, with a solo exhibition by Korakrit Arunanondchai at Specialist. In September, the 24 members of the SOIL collective will respond with an exhibition of their own. The diversity of artists yields an abundance of themes, but race, frontiers, barriers, immigration, and history all figure large. (Through Sun Sept 30) JZ
Virago Gallery
Elisheba Johnson: You Wouldn't Have This Problem If You Lost Weight In a recent exhibition at Juan Alonso's Tashiro Kaplan Building studio, Elisheba Johnson—who KUOW has called an "artist you should know"—showed a series of paintings in which she had transcribed the details and images from local rental listings onto vintage pillowcases. Inspired by the process of hunting for a new apartment, Johnson's tender, intimate mixed-media works reveal just how expensive Seattle's real-estate market has become, and why affordable housing is increasingly unattainable for many. For her latest exhibit at Virago Gallery, Johnson is responding to how "society tells women from birth that their body is not their own." (Through Fri Oct 5) EP
See all gallery shows happening in Seattle this fall here.
Art Events
Return to topEverywhere
Museum Day Choose one of the local institutions participating in the Smithsonian's Museum Day (including SAM, MOHAI, and the Henry) and go there for free. (Sat Sept 22)
Fred Wildlife Refuge
Fall for Zines! The ever-ambitious Kate Berwanger (who runs Swerve Zine Library and Assembly Literary Open Mic) will host this festival of comics and zines, complete with vendors, a DJ, a raffle, and more. (Sun Sept 23)
Nii Modo
Infamous Kitsap Ferry Riot Party On an October morning in 1987, I woke up to my mom yelling at my older brother and shaking the newspaper at him. "Rock fans riot on ferry" screamed the headline. To this day, I have no idea if Andy really was asleep in his friend's car like he told our mom or was "rioting" along with everyone else on their return trip to Seattle from a GBH show in Bremerton. While I'd only ever thought of this as a bit of family lore, the event has gone down as a critical moment in Seattle music history. This all-ages event celebrates the 31st anniversary of that night with a film screening of David Larew's Voices in the Dark, a sneak peek of The Infamous Kitsap Ferry Riot film, and music by Howling Gods and Toecutter. (Sat Sept 29) KK
See all special art events happening in Seattle this fall here.
ART WALKS
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