Staff Picks
Punching bags patchworked from vintage quilts. Egg-cellent paintings. New clocks that tell time differently. As the calendar flips to April — and as we weather the turbulence of a global paradigm shift — I’ve selected exhibits apt for these strange times.
“Tala Madani: Be Flat”
Humorous and heady, crude and tender, always masterful: Tala Madani’s first solo show in Washington state, a sprawling survey of the celebrated artist’s satirical video work and an intriguing, more tender suite of recent paintings, feels timely. It puts on view an artist at the height of her career who skillfully exposes the violence of the patriarchy and the dangers of the disinformation age. “As we’re sitting in this very polarized moment, if we can understand how we can laugh together, maybe we can find solutions,” Madani told me earlier this year. “There’s something quite dangerous about being able to laugh together, that might not be as easily controlled.”
Through Aug. 17; Henry Art Gallery, 15th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 41st Street, Seattle; pay what you can ($0-$20 suggested donation); 206-543-2280, henryart.org
“Past Perfect Future Tense” and “Jacob Lawrence: Prints”
Seattle artist Holly Ballard Martz, preeminent political provocateur and clever repurposer of found objects — bra straps, vintage vanity trays, punching bags patchworked from vintage quilts — takes on society’s incessant pressure to stop (or reverse) signs of aging in “Past Perfect Future Tense” at Greg Kucera Gallery. “Thinking about the loss of skin elasticity and the effects of gravity on that skin led me to explore the utility of bra straps and lead weights, combining them to create an embellished ‘skin’ that is dimpled and sagging, tagged and discolored, but beautiful,” the artist notes in her exhibition statement.
Also on view: a dozen prints by the famed painter and printmaker Jacob Lawrence, whose 1978 earth-toned silk screen “The Library” seems newly relevant in light of the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the agency funding U.S. libraries, museums and archives.
April 3-May 17; Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave. S., Seattle; free; 206-624-0770, gregkucera.com
“Amara Eke: Guess What?”
Forget the chicken or the egg: These days, both will make a serious dent in your shopping budget. But Amara Eke’s fowl fascination came long before poultry prices became an American obsession. Alluring and prescient neo-naïve paintings, sunny-side-ups and disco ball eggs form colorful geometric patterns like early aughts mandalas, while white orbs glow and chickens worship at the altar of the egg — all ways that the University of Washington grad tries to brood the concept of “unhatched ideas,” imploring the viewer to tap into their own potential for creativity, (re)birth and (re)generation.
April 3-26; Gallery 110, 110 Third Ave S., Seattle; free; 206-624-9336, gallery110.com
“Strange Time”
“What even is time?” It feels like our grip on the passage of time has loosened since the pandemic, the days and our recollection of them slipping through our fingers like sand. The inventive timekeeping devices in this exhibit take a different approach: Artists Melissa Winstanley and Max Cerami devised a kinetic sculpture in which flowers open and close at specific times of day. A meditative audio sculpture invites you to listen to and decipher time. A new kind of clock shows the lengthening and shortening of days while Betsy Kenyon’s pinhole camera photos of the sun show the cyclical and idiosyncratic nature of our days.
April 3-26; SOIL Gallery, 112 Third Ave. S., Seattle; free; 206-264-8061, soilart.org
“ONCE WAS”
The Lusty Lady marquee is melting. And is that the legendary Bush Garden sign, a bat signal for Seattle karaoke lovers? In this show, local artist and muralist KSRA (known only by this moniker, pronounced like que será) distorts, melts and warps miniature re-creations of Seattle’s familiar signs, as if they’ve buckled under the weight of time and the pressures of development. Individually, these are emblems of — and altars to — our city’s beloved places that once were (though some endure!). Together, they epitomize the city’s breakneck change, forming a diorama of loss.
April 11-May 5; Gallery ERGO, 1501 Pike Place, #314, Seattle; free; galleryergo.com
Also don’t miss
Under the motto “make art, not landfill,” the trash-collecting company Recology has offered a four-month artist residency to local artists who work with recycled materials for almost a decade. “The Unbearable Lightness of 300 Tons a Day” groups together program alumni’s new work “from the blue bin.”
Through May 2; North Seattle College Art Gallery, 9600 College Way N., Seattle; free; artgallery.northseattle.edu
Longtime downtown gallery Traver is reopening in a brand-new space across town, in the West Canal Yards development (near the Ballard Bridge, along the south side of the ship canal) with a show featuring glass sculptures by the celebrated Preston Singletary and paintings on panel and glass by Tori Karpenko.
April 5-26 (grand reopening celebration 3-7 p.m. on April 5); Traver Gallery, 1100 W. Ewing St., Seattle; free; travergallery.com
More good news: One of Seattle’s most idiosyncratic galleries has found a new home in Belltown. In its new location, Roq La Rue is showing work by three local artists: Jed Dunkerley, Mary Iverson and Tim Cavnar.
April 11-May 2; Roq La Rue, 117 W. Denny Way, Suite 217, Seattle; free; roqlarue.com
Local curator Gage Hamilton is a great gauge (pardon the pun) of the local / West Coast contemporary art scene, and I’m looking forward to this group show he curated with local artist-curator Grayson Richter. “‘Now You Are Me,’” Hamilton said, “is meant to loosely mimic a broader experience of self while losing grasp on ego.”
April 3-20, open 2-6 p.m. Thursdays, 1-5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, and by appointment; Common Ground, 312 Second Ave. S., Seattle; free; commongroundart.com
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