First Thursday April 3, 2008

ArtXchange Gallery - Extended final week of “Stitched, Woven, Sewn,” an exhibition featuring textiles from Laos, Peru, Thailand, Indonesia, and nomadic weaving tribes of Central Asia.

Benham Gallery - Continuing exhibit “Erotic Beauty,” featuring Paul Dahlquist, David Steinberg, Fiona Aboud, and Sean Newman. Exhibit runs through April 12, 2008.

Photograph by David Steinberg at Benham Gallery

Catherine Person Gallery - New exhibit “Strata” featuring richly layered ceramic sculpture and installation work by Hannah Alex-Glasser. April 3 - May 10, 2008

Corridor Gallery - Reception for “Hunting Season,” sculpture and mixed-media by Jody Joldersma. Joldersma creates sculpture and flat work in a wide variety of media. Her pieces are dark, yet whimsical visions of the internal lives of strange people and animals. April 3-26, 2008.

Jody Joldersma "Lester Tells Charlie his Dreams," Scratch Board, 2008

Foster/White - Paintings by “Darlene Cole.” Apr 3, 2008 - Apr 19, 2008.

Friesen Gallery - Reception for "What Does Compassion Look Like?" an exhibition and fundraiser for Seeds of Compassion featuring donated artwork by 40 regional artists. "What Does Compassion Look Like?" is a national campaign with gallery participants in multiple Seattle locations through April.

G. Gibson Gallery - “Unnatural History” featuring artwork by Nealy Blau and Justin Gibbens. April 3 - May 10.

Gallery4Culture - Opening reception for “Saturn’s Return” an exhibition of embroidered textiles by Seattle artist Allison Manch. The title refers to the astrological phenomenon that occurs nearly every thirty years in a person's life when said person undergoes a series of life altering changes and also a period of self reflection. Manch, nearing her thirtieth year, reflects upon her familial heritage through embroidered text and images on second-hand linens and handkerchiefs. Her family's move from New York to Arizona, and then Manch's subsequent move to Seattle, gave rise to a feeling of displacement and disconnection. Her study of photography influences the subject matter, be they cactus, hip-hop portraits, or Jewish folk tales, as Manch examines icons and relics of her past and future. April 3 - 25, 2008.

Works by Allison Manch in "Saturn's Return" at Gallery4Culture

Gallery 110 - “Members 1: New Gallery Artists.” Featuring works by: Alexandra Gjurasic, Joel Grossman, Robin Harlow, Holly Ives, Elissa Voland, Reilly Donovan, Susanne Kelly, Sara Zin, Li Turner, Jennifer Kemp, Ann Maki, and Amy Oates. April 3 - 26, 2008.

Gallery I|M|A - “John Franklin Koenig.” In collaboration with the Whatcom Museum’s exhibition of John Franklin Koenig, Home and Away, Gallery IMA proudly presents a retrospective of available works. John’s abstract paintings weave the story of his epic life onto canvas. While he spent much of his life living in Paris, the roots of his work are clearly Northwest - capturing the mystical qualities of the Puget Sound in his subtle use of color and forceful brushstrokes. April 3rd – 27th, 2008.

Garde Rail Gallery - “Lloyd Benjamin, Paul Cordes Wilm, Tim Hooper: Folk Pop!” Staying in the narrative and pragmatic tradition of the Southern Folk artists that came before them, this group of young artists portray their individual experiences and varying perspectives in a unique new style. Although the styles all vary, we find them harmonious, and fitting quite well into a new sub genre ‘Folk Pop.’ Through April 26, 2008.

Greg Kucera Gallery - Opening reception for new painting exhibition featuring “Jeffrey Simmons and Michael Knutson.” Through May 10, 2008.

Grover/Thurston Gallery - “Hybridizing Nature,” sculptural works by Margaret Ford. Through April 26, 2008.

James Harris Gallery - New gallery unveiling celebration marked by inaugural exhibition “Now and There,” a solo exhibition of Seattle based artist Margot Quan Knight. Culling from a diverse range of art historical precedents, Quan Knight unremittingly explores the transformative potential of photography. While Quan Knight draws on her experience at Fabrica, Benetton’s communication arts research center, she is also undeniably pushing well beyond the boundaries of a photograph’s ability to communicate an actual, fixed event in time. Also opening are four works by intramedia artist Gary Hill. For the last 35 years Hill has pushed the limits of our experience with his work making him one of the most important contemporary artists investigating an array of issues ranging from the physicality of language, synesthesia and perceptual conundrums to ontological space and viewer interactivity. Exhibition runs through May 10, 2008. The new gallery space is located at 312 2nd Ave. S.

Linda Hodges Gallery - “Glue” a group exhibition of artists working in collage. Curated by Daphne Minkoff, these artists have been chosen for their original take on an art form described as a quintessentially twenty-first century. Through April 26, 2008.

Pratt Gallery - The Pratt Gallery in the Tashiro Kaplan building presents “Small/Big,” an exhibition of metal sculpture from the Sculpture and Jewelry/Metalsmithing Studios at Pratt Fine Arts Center. April 3rd- April 25th, 2008.

Punch Gallery - Opening reception for “Animal Spell” featuring the work of Justin Gibbens + Amy Ross. Referencing early wildlife and botanical illustration, both artists demonstrate their own distinctive versions of a subversive natural history. April 3 – 27, 2008.

Composite of details from Birch with Birdshrooms by Amy Ross and Unicorn Moles by Justin Gibbens

Rock | DeMent - “Stephen Rock: Conversation with a Lake.” During the month of April, Stephen Rock will be showing select work inspired by a 2005 Morris Graves Foundation residency at The Lake in Northern California. Rock was given access to the property, studio and artist’s library of the late Morris Graves. During the stay he explored themes dealing with a retreat from technology and how that effects our world view, our relationship with nature and the change of pace when disengaged from a modern lifestyle.

Stephen Rock "6 Stages of Not Being Morris Graves, #6" watercolor on paper

Shift Collaborative Studio - Shift Collaborative Studio is proud to present “American Woman,” a new body of work by Jennifer Diamanti. American Woman is a series of mixed-media self portraits that are an organic and expressive narrative on Diamanti’s daily life as a woman, housewife, and stay-at-home mother, reflecting her struggle to retain a sense of self as an individual and artist. April 3 thru 26, 2008.

SOIL - “Soapland,” artwork by Issei Watanabe. A large castle suspended in an uncanny sort of innocence represents only the very surface of Soapland. The castle is composed of individual cast-ceramic bricks shaped as bars of soap, which then go on to rest upon various materials of an artificial nature. This exhibit compares the differences between how things appear at a surface level and the realities which often lie beneath. April 3-27, 2008.

Issei Watanabe, "Soapland" Christmas lights, silicone, plastic planter, mirror, tape, sheet metal, wax

Some Space Gallery - Exhibition featuring recent work by “Joey Bates.” Our faces are capable of creating over 20,000 expressions giving us a set of the most complex language tools out of all animals. For the past few years, Joey Bates has been focusing on how these expressions function as a language and how we read one another. His new paintings and drawings are a continuation of of the study with an added twist. Showing April 1st - 26th, 2008

Traver Gallery - New exhibition featuring painting by “Alan Fulle” and blown and carved glass and mixed media by “Hiroshi Yamano.” Through April 27, 2008.