Art for March

What’s coming to Tacoma this month

By Alec Clayton on March 7, 2019

There are times when there is nothing in town for an art reviewer he hasn't already reviewed. But there are some exciting new shows opening in the coming days and weeks.

The one I'm most excited about is Kathy Gore Fuss: Above, Below and Beyond, opening March 11 and running until April 20 at Kittredge Gallery, University of Puget Sound. Gore Fuss is showing paintings, drawings and photographs, including some amazing new photoshopped aerial photographs that "examine relationships with nature and explore our expectation of the idealized natural world and the reality of consuming demands."

"Observing nature, both aerial and territorial, gives me a direct understanding of how we are all connected. I am hopeful that those reflections will help to inform how we make sustainable and community-based decisions for our future," the artist says. 

"This exhibit offers up imagery from several different perspectives; the intimate views of the woods near my home, the industrial imagery from the Port of Olympia, and the imagined reality in digital prints of the urban and rural settings that are a part of our everyday lives. I wonder what has to change for us to understand that we actually don't possess dominion over Nature."

In the smaller gallery at Kittredge will be Hiroshige Nihonbashi Bridge's Traversing the Urban Landscape through the Floating World of Japanese Prints.

The Gallery at Tacoma Community College continues its well-received group show, Culture, featuring many works from South Puget Sound artists that explore the idea of cultural biases and its influence on the outlook of other cultures. Included in the hard-hitting show are works by Bobbi Ritter, Irene Osborn, Frank Dippolito, Hart James, Lynette Chambers and many more. Reviewed here in January, this show should not be missed. It continues through March 15 and will be followed by the TCC Art Faculty Exhibition to run April 1-May 3.

Susan Massey's Meditations in Thread, a show of new work on a tiny scale, continues through March 31 at Minka. "I began to stitch to become quiet and present, to listen to myself, to feel," Massey said. "I stitched to relearn how to put one foot in front of the other, to become whole. I continue to stitch so I can slow down and be present for myself."

American Art Company is showing large acrylic landscapes by Michael Ferguson, complex, layered and energetic abstract paintings by Karen O'Brien, pastels by Amanda Houston, Barbara Benedetti Newton, Jan Wall, and oil paintings by Melanie Thompson and Richard Smith throughout the month.

Presented by 950 Gallery, Encompass, a site-specific installation by well-known Tacoma artists Elise Richman and Nicholas Nyland, will run through April 18.

KITTREDGE GALLERY, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday-Friday; noon-5 p.m., Saturday, 1500 N. Warner St., Tacoma, 253.879.3701

THE GALLERY AT TCC, noon-5 p.m., Monday-Thursday, Building 5A, entrance off South 12th St. between Pearl and Mildred, Tacoma, visitor parking in Lot G

MINKA, noon-5 p.m., Thursday-Sunday and by appointment, 821 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 253.961.5220

AMERICAN ART COMPANY, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Tuesday-Friday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, 1126 Broadway Plaza, Tacoma, 253.272.4327

950 GALLERY, 1-5 p.m., Thursdays or by appointment, 950 Pacific Ave., Suite 205, Tacoma, 253.627.2175, spaceworkstacoma.com/gallery