Opening Tonight

Joey Veltkamp summarizes tonight’s First Thursday openings on Best Of, focusing on Vic Haven at Greg Kucera, Jaq Chartier at Platform, and Wynne Greenwood at Hedreen Gallery.  There are a few others I’d like to add to the list. At Gallery 4Culture, Gala Bent, whose work may also be currently seen in the 9th Northwest Biennial at the Tacoma Art Museum, celebrates the synchronicity of invisible forces with a group of drawings of natural forms made mythical.

Gala Bent. Ink and watercolor from Overgrown, Gallery 4Culture 2009.

Catherine Person Gallery is exhibiting High Line, a survey of drawings by Northwest artists that looks positively engrossing.

Joseph Pentheroudakis. Above the Fray. Pen and sumi ink, 2008. 32 x 48 in.

Last night I walked by Howard House while they were installing Tikkunim, an enticing exhibition of spiritually-infused work curated by Tamar Benzikry-Stern. Tikkunim is a Hebrew concept for mending the world through social activism.  This is a show I’m going to have to come back to once I’ve had a chance to see what it’s all about.

Jackie Brookner. The Gift of Water. Photo on foamcore, 2009. 16 x 12 in.

At SOIL, where the screen images are too small for bloggers to grab, is Forces and Formations, a group show about the relationship between personal processes and natural phenomena.

At James Harris Gallery, Todd Simeone works to unearth the mysteries of Oak Island, and with them the connections between factual occurrences and the mythic past.

Todd Simeone. Far Beyond. Gouache over inkjet, 2009. 22 x 30 in.

Alongside Vic Haven’s promising show at Greg Kucera is a quietly contemplative body of spiritually inspired work by Susan Skilling.

Susan Skilling. Eternal Sky. Gouache on Thai mulberry paper, 2008. 37 x 24 in.

Finally, at Davidson Galleries, printmaker Eunice Kim has her first solo exhibition of collagraphs inspired by elements of Taoism and evocative of natural emergence.

Eunice Kim. Porous #7. Collagraph and chine colle, 2006. 5 x 14 in.

As an artist with an interest in spirituality, biology, and emergent processes, I have to say this crop of new exhibitions displays an inspiring trend toward awareness of the forces that shape life and creativity of all kinds.  

With few exceptions, First Thursday exhibitions are from 6 to 8 p.m. this evening.

~ by emilypothast on April 2, 2009.