Visual Arts
Studio Sessions: Yaminee Patel
A second generation Indian American, artist Yaminee Patel uses her work to explore her heritage, a childhood growing up in the Midwest, and the larger economic and cultural factors surrounding agricultural practices around the world.
Over the past year, Yaminee Patel has narrowed her artistic focus, centering rice as the medium for her work. A symbol of sustenance, survival, hard work, and culinary tradition, rice is a deeply important element in many cultures around the world. It also represents the idea of sharing a meal together, creating human-to-human connection, which…
Chihuly Returns to Venice
The Tacoma-born artist marks 30 years since ‘Chihuly Over Venice’ with three new glass works along the Grand Canal.
We’re standing on the Accademia Bridge in Venice, watching massive cardboard boxes marked “FRAGILE” craned up from a barge. It’s a few weeks before the opening of Dale Chihuly’s new exhibit, and from this vantage point, we can see all three monumental works on the Grand Canal being assembled. “It really did start here,” says…
Studio Sessions: Raili Jänese
The Kirkland painter brings a playful eye to daily life and the little rituals of being human.
Artist Raili Jänese pays close attention to the small stuff. It might be a goose on the move, a rabbit in the yard, or a person lost in the rituals of coffee or cooking. The Estonian-born artist, now based in Kirkland, makes colorful acrylic works that turn everyday behavior—human and animal alike—into something funny and…
Go See Diné Artist Eric-Paul Riege’s Largest Show to Date at the Henry Art Gallery
With a mix of mediums, ojo|-|ólǫ́ examines questions surrounding the authenticity and ownership of Indigenous work.
It’s a phrase that’s been drilled into most of us since we were young children: When you’re visiting a gallery, please, do not touch the art. In many cases, it’s with good reason: the pieces on display are fragile, one-of-a-kind, or historic works that cannot be reproduced. It’s such an ingrained approach to the museum-going…
Studio Sessions: Gabriel Stromberg
For his current show at studio e gallery, Gabriel Stromberg explores the challenges of working with clay.
Gabriel Stromberg has been a name about town for nearly two decades. As one of the cofounders of design firm Civilization (where he was the creative director and lead designer from 2008 to 2022), Stromberg worked on many award-winning projects, helped produce the wildly popular and always packed Design Lecture Series, and co-created and moderated…
A New Home for Seattle Artists in Pioneer Square
Actualize AiR expands its footprint with studios and a public gallery
Three years after launching Actualize Artist in Residency (Actualize AiR), founder Kate Bailey has relocated the venture to Pioneer Square. The women-led arts organization, originally opened in downtown’s Coliseum Theater, focuses on supporting emerging artists through long term residencies in free or low-cost studios. Early this year, Actualize AiR opened its new space—which spans 14,000…
Studio Sessions: Lauren Boilini
Seattle artist Lauren Boilini talks about animal behavior, field research, and the whale fall installation she counts among her proudest works.
Lauren Boilini has spent years building dense, teeming painted worlds full of animals, movement, and tension. Her work often starts with close observation—time in the field and conversations with scientists—and turns that research into large-scale paintings that feel charged, layered, and alive. Born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana, Boilini studied painting and art history at…
Woven Wonders: Textile-based Coast Salish Art Unravels Local History
Indigenous weaving, past and present, on view at the Burke Museum.
On display now at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Woven in Wool: Resilience in Coast Salish Weaving examines the traditional art form and its importance to Coast Salish communities. “This exhibition broadens the definition of American art by incorporating Indigenous voices and artistic practices historically marginalized due to biases…
Lifting the Fog
Beyond Mysticism at Seattle Art Museum broadens the old story of Northwest art.
For a long time, Northwest Modernism got boxed into one idea: mysticism—a way of describing the region’s art as inward-looking, spiritual, and closely tied to nature. That goes back to a 1953 Life magazine story about Mark Tobey, Kenneth Callahan, Guy Anderson, and Morris Graves, the four artists most associated with the Northwest School. Beyond…
Studio Sessions: Cristina Martinez
On the cusp of a new group show, Northwest artist Cristina Martinez reflects on storytelling, motherhood, and personal success.
Artistically inclined from a young age, Cristina Martinez was attending fashion school when she had a realization: Her passion wasn’t necessarily sparked by the clothes she was sketching, but by the stories behind her work. Drawing from her Black and Mexican roots, and from the lives, histories, and cultures of the community around her, Martinez…
Studio Sessions: Tininha Silva
Brazilian-born fiber artist Tininha Silva talks about building a life in the Pacific Northwest and the coastal landscape that influences her work.
Along the shores of the Salish Sea, textures are everywhere—seaweed tangled in the tide, stones worn smooth by water, the strange geometry of coral and barnacles. Those details are finding their way into the work of artist Tininha Silva. Silva grew up in Brazil’s rugged Pernambuco region before moving to Seattle in 1999 after earning…
Spring Arts Preview: Visual Art
New exhibitions across Seattle offer plenty of reasons to spend an afternoon gallery hopping.
Pioneer Square’s First Thursday crowds may be getting the headlines, but the city’s visual arts scene stretches far beyond one neighborhood. From Belltown to Ballard to Capitol Hill—and even down to Tacoma—galleries and museums are presenting new exhibitions that reward a slow look. Here are the shows we recommend seeing this spring. Indira Allegra: The…
Urban Grit Meets Wild Beauty: Inside Seattle Art Museum’s Beyond Mysticism
Seattle’s history is rooted in its fascinating juxtaposition of industry and nature, inspired by the region’s dramatic landscapes and rapidly changing cityscape. Seattle Art Museum’s current exhibition, Beyond Mysticism: The Modern Northwest, invites you to meet the artists who captured that tension and transformed it into a bold new vision of Modernism. Modernism, Made in…
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