CoCA Digital Archive:
2020-present
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![Bantu Detail]()
2020
Global Citizen
2020 Vision
Unseen Sacrifices
What Story Would the Unintended Beneficiaries Tell (WSWUBT)
Not Your Monolith
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!["Stones and Holes", "Spills", "Blown Glass" By Michelle Ross]()
2021
A Conversation Through Time & Space
Selma Waldman, In Focus
Let Us Not Confuse Zero with the Stillness of Electrons
Tell More II: Rajaa Gharbi
Towards Resilience: Art in the Time of Pandemia
Nick Riesland, GEO-CALLIGRAPHY
2020
Global Citizen
Exhibition Dates: Jan 2 – Feb 22, 2020
Location: Pioneer Square /114 Third Ave S.
Curator: Nat Thorton
Artist: 1st prize winner Faten Gaddes (Tunisia); 2nd place winner Mehmet Can Micik (Turkey) ; 3rd place winner Farideh Naderi (Iran); Honorable Mention Francis Elegwa Demesi (Kenya).
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We’re started off 2020 by presenting GLOBAL CITIZEN. CoCA was the official West Coast screening location of the top four award winning films from CARAVAN’s first juried international Smartphone Short Film Festival.
Considering today’s world of challenges and complexities, CARAVAN released an open call in the summer of 2019 to anyone in the world to share their vision of what it means to be a responsible member of this “global family.” Using their smartphone, applicants were asked to make a 3 minute or less film on what it means to make our world more equal, compassionate, fair, peaceful, and sustainable for humanity.
GLOBAL CITIZEN at CoCA will present the top three films plus an honorable mention film juried by the esteemed panel from CARAVAN’s Juried Short Film Festival.
SELECTED ARTISTS
1st prize winner Faten Gaddes (Tunisia)
2nd place winner Mehmet Can Micik (Turkey)
3rd place winner Farideh Naderi (Iran)
Honorable Mention Francis Elegwa Demesi (Kenya).
The top three winners will each receive a $100 cash prize from CoCA.
CARAVAN is an international peace-building NGO that uses the arts to build sustainable peace around the world. All of CARAVAN’s art initiatives are developed to promote intercultural and inter-religious harmony and provide a link within and between communities. They serve as shared starting points for developing community that inherently respects and honors diversity and working in harmony.
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
Exhibition dates: January 2 - February 22, 2020
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 2, 2020, 6-9 pm
Art Walk: Thursday, January 9, 2020, 6-8 pm
Art Walk: Thursday, February 6, 2020, 6-9 pm
Discussion/Q&A with Dr Bassem Bejjani: Saturday, February 8, 2020, 3-5 pm
Added 4/12/2020
20/20 Vision: CoCA Annual Members’ Show
Exhibition Dates: March 5 - April 25, 2020
Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave Cutator: Nat Thorton Artists:128 participating artists, listed below in About section.
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Based at the time in San Francisco, Survival Research Laboratories (SRL; Mark Pauline, Founder) had gained a national attention for staging complex, Our annual member show, 20/20 Vision, which explores creativity from artists of all ages and mediums showcasing a wide range of talented CoCA members. This show celebrates the true depths of artistic creativity. It is a unique opportunity for diverse CoCA members from across North America to network and exhibit their art as a community.
CoCA’s 2020 exhibitions are all dedicated to shining a light on our collective past in order to continue moving together towards a bright future. CoCA has been a pivotal artistic collective in Seattle since 1981. We continue our tradition of the annual members’ show to highlight the essential role of our artists within the global conversation of makers.
This year’s Guest Juror is artist and former CoCA ED/AD, Nichole DeMent. A juried show provides an excellent opportunity for CoCA members to receive public recognition of their talent. All artists in this year’s show will be included in the exhibition catalog; CoCA’s blog and newsletter.
Nichole DeMent’s art career has spanned over two decades. As an artist, leader and cultural producer, she understands how creativity helps us live better lives and connects us to our unique paths. For eight years, Nichole served as CoCA’s Artistic and Executive Director. She has exhibited her work at SAM Gallery and had work at the 4Culture Gallery here in Seattle.
CoCA supports artists not only through their exhibitions, but also through meaningful local partnerships. This exhibition provides an extra special opportunity for CoCA artist members to receive recognition by the juror in this year's catalog, as well as CoCA's blog and newsletter. This year there will be two winners of the Artist & Craftsman Supply People’s Choice Award with each receiving a $100 gift card to Artist & Craftsman Supply. CoCA is thrilled to provide a direct link to such valuable resources for artists in the region.
Participating Artists
From emerging to established, the list of contemporary artists showing in our gallery is comprehensive. The breadth of talent from across the continent is great, with art represented from New York, NY, Portland and Bandon, OR, Billings, MT, and Langley and North Vancouver, BC. Members from across Washington state join together from cities that include Ilwaco, Chellan, Tacoma, Bainbridge Island, Bellevue, Bellingham, Kenmore, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Sammamish, Lark Forest Park, Normandy Park, Olympia, Port Hadlock, Renton, Redmond, Seatac, Shoreline, Snohomish, Bothell, Port Townsend, Port Ludlow, Yakima, Twisp, Vashon, Anacortes, Medina, Wenatchee, Waldren, Auburn, Richland and, of course, Seattle.
As we extend the show through June, some artists will have prior commitments, but many will be able to continue displaying their work with us. This list of participants was complete for the original show dates:
Gallery Display Participants
Mike Adams, Nadia Ahmed, Rohena Alam Khan, Donna Allen, Tamar Alsberg, Kree Arvanitas, Wyly Astley, Leslie Atkins, Sarah Banks, Ann Beame, joan beard, Lana Blinderman, Nancy Bocek, Sandi Bransford, Reginald Brooks, Tatyana Brown, Karen Buhler, Lauren Carrera, Susan Christensen, David Clay, Lynne Conrad Marvet, Sena Clara Creston, GraceANN Cummings, Jessica Damsky, Nichole DeMent, Susan Derrick, Carrie Dinah-Rivah, Braden Duncan, Martha Dunham, Ebru Esra, Sara Everett, Lorri Falterman, Jeanne Marie Ferraro, Natalie Fobes, Michelle Friars, Babs Fulton, Makena Gadient, Susan Gans, Beatrice Geller, Carrie Goller, Catherine Grisez, Troy Gua, KT Hancock, perri howard, Judy Chia Hui Hsu, Tzu Hung Huang, il, Juju Ishmael, Etta J, Sheri Jacobson, Linda James, Lezlie Jane, Steve Jensen, Karen Johanson, Jody Joldersma, Meghan Jones, Jenny Jun Smith, Karey Kessler, Eliaichi Kimaro, Lorena Krause, Kalindi Kunis, Ingrid Lahti, Carole Landisman, Judy Laub, Andrea Lawson, Susan Lehman, Kimberly Leo, Kelly Lyles, Anna Macrae, Dan Mahon, Lin-Lin Mao, Max Marlett, Teresa McFall, Tom McIntire, Anne Marie McNamara, Jennifer Arlem Molina, Colleen Monette, Hugo Moro, Nabil Mousa,, Tiki Mulvihill, B. Murray, Lisa Myers Bulmash, Rosie Namara, Edward Nelson, Lindsay Peyton, Alyssa Poletti, Polly Purvis, Vinaya Rao, Victoria Raymond, Eddie Reed, Kyle Rees, ST Rivera, Stephen Rock, Liz Ruest, Cathy Sarkowsky, Barbara Shaiman, Lisa Sheets, Eva Skold Westerlind, Marissa Sohn, Dara Solliday, Shima Star, Phil Stoiber, Kristy Swanson, Amanda Sweet, Michiko Tanaka, Monica Tie, David Traylor, Li Turner, Aislynn Underwood, Lori Vonderhorst, Elizabeth Waddington, Randy Warren, Don Wesley, Kayleigh Wold, Suze Woolf, Zoee Xiao, Cynthia Yatchman
Digital Exhibition Artists
Laura Ha. Brown, Tabitha Brown, Alice Dubiel, Fredericka Foster, Mark Gordon, geraldine le calvez, Hayley McKie, Tom Parsons, Rina Patel, Nick Riesland
ARTIST & CRAFTSMAN SUPPLY PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS
We’re delighted to have support from Artist & Craftsman Supply again this year for their People’s Choice Awards. Vote here, online, while the gallery is closed, or use the power of Likes online in our Facebook album. Two winning artists will receive prizes, one for online votes, one for in-person votes.
Exhibit Events
Opening Reception: Thursday March 5, 6-8 pm, part of the Pioneer Square Art Walk
April Art Walk: Thursday, April 2, 6:30-8 pm, livestream!
Member Portfolio Review: Saturday April 25, 1-3 pm, Tashiro-Kaplan Lofts
Members-Only Party and Juror’s Talk: Tuesday, June 16
Added 04/12/23
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20/20 Vision was made possible with support from Elysian Brewing Company, Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture, Artist & Craftsman Supply, Rock’s Studio, 4Culture, and CoCA’s Publishing Committee.
Not Your Monolith
Exhibition Dates: July 2 – August 22, 2020
Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave. S. Seattle WA 98104 Curator: Nat Thornton Partners: La Sala, Wa Na Wari, Napantla, Asian Pacific Cultural Center, Crow's Shadow
Artists: Anouk Rawkson, Brenda Mallory, Brenetta Ward, Che Lopez, Jake Prendez, Jungho Kim, Lillian Pitt, Maya Milton, Michelle Kumata, Osa Elaiho, Qin Tan, Sara Siestreem, Shirod Younker, Silena Wie Chen, Tatiana Garmendia
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Each artist presents work that provides a distinct and equally invaluable perspective on what it means to be not only an individual but also a communal member of BIPoC artistic communities and the global community.
This exhibition is meant to provide a thoughtful push against preconceived notions and unrealistic expectations placed on BIPoC artistic communities and provide a more inclusive lens through which to view these communities. BIPoC artistic communities often have their art viewed through their external identity, how their identities are read by the people around them. This exhibition seeks to provide space not only for this external identity but their individual internal identities as well.
Added 4/12/2023
What Stories Would the Unintended Beneficiaries Tell
Exhibition Dates: March 5 - April 25, 2020
Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave. S. Seattle WA 98104 Curator: Nat Thornton Artists: Lisette Morales, Monyee Chau, Carlette Carrington Wilson, Charly Palmer, and Bonnie Hopper.
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As we reflected on the centennial anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment the artists engaged with our audiences and asked them, “What are we really celebrating?” “What does voting mean in 2020?” This exhibition also seeks to peel back the layers of white-washed history to examine the progress that may have been made and how far we still need to go.
WSWUBT is a group exhibition that encouraged artists to provide their perspective, to peel back the layers of white-washed history and examine the 19th Amendment, a non inclusive historical moment, through new perspectives that can not be ignored or erased.
Featured Image: Carletta Carrington Wilson, Awaiting the suffrage; Which, if hard work counts for anything, the Negress, richly deserves, 2020, Mixed-media-fabric, ink, canvas print, found objects, 24” x 14”
Added 04/12/23
2021
A Conversation Through Time and Space
Exhibition Dates: January 7 - April 17, 2021
Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave S. Seattle WA
Curator: Negarra A. Kudumu
Artists: Selma Waldman, Ellen Hochberg, Avril Lum, Amanda Triplett, Diana Milia, Rohena Khan, Yvonne Kunz, Mikhail Siskoff, Jennifer Molina, and Vian Nguyen.
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In A Conversation Through Time & Space, Selma Waldman’s artworks are juxtaposed with nine CoCA artist members. Together these works construct a creative dialogue between contemporary artists and Selma Waldman. Ms. Waldman has since passed beyond this moment as of 2008.
Selma Waldman spent her artist career speaking the specificity of her truth to dominator power. She mined the relationships between oppressed and oppressor; conducted rigorous examinations of the human body and the world around her. This CoCA exhibition asks its member artists to have a conversation across time and space to examine the similarities and/or differences between the world Waldman grew up and created in and the world our artists are creating in today. Selma’s physical voice has since been physically silenced, but her ideas and artistic voice lives on.
A Conversation Through Time & Space highlights the essential role of artists within the local and global conversations as makers and creatives and encourages audiences to make connections that spark dialogue about the progress or lack thereof we see in our political, cultural and national spaces.
Featured Image: by Selma Waldman
Added 04/13/2023
Selma Waldman, In Focus
Exhibition Dates: May 6 - June 26, 2021
Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave S.
Curator: Negarra A. Kudumu
Artist: Selma Waldman
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With paper, charcoal, and pastel Selma Waldman drew a world filled with incessant violence and terror. Leveraging a humanist lens, Waldman sharpened the focus on the suffering humans cause each other, creating moments of discomfiting tranquility for both subject and viewer. Whether it is the hands of armed forces pointing rifles, the hands of the hungry wielding a knife to protect against their bread being stolen, or the anguish of individuals stricken with un-abating misery, Waldman’s works speak as unabashedly today as they did during her lifetime.
In her fourth posthumous solo exhibition, and the first in ten years, Selma Waldman, In Focus, surveys works spanning from 1962 to 2005. The infamous work Blow Your Head Off (2000) lays bare the root cause and primary perpetrators of violence. Twenty-one years later, nothing has changed. Also included are six charcoal drawings from the Barrier Head series (1962) depicting the solitude and horror inherent to all forms of human suffering.
Featured Image: Barrier by Selma Waldman
Added 4/13/2023
Let Us Not Confuse Zero with the Stillness of Electrons
Exhibition Dates: July 1 - August 21, 2021 Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave S. Seattle WA
Curator: Negarra A. Kudumu
Artists: Meghan Elizabeth Trainor
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In this exhibition, Meghan Elizabeth Trainor continues her long standing activist investigations into the language and ideology of computer science. Trainor’s work is contextualized historically within pre-Christian, indigenous European spiritual traditions that centered The Hedge - both a border between village and the wild, but also the locus that separated the physical realm from the Otherworld. Caretaking The Hedge was executed primarily, though not exclusively - by women spiritualists and healers - stewards of the land if you will - who in partnership with nature spirits, served simultaneously as the conductors and the interlocuteurs between this world and the Other.
Featured Image: Meghan Elizabeth Trainor, XNOR GATE (detail) 2021
Added 04/13/2023
Tell More II: Rajaa Gharbi,
Exhibition Dates: Sept 1 - Oct 30, 2021
Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave S.
Curator: Negarra A. Kudumu
Artist: Rajaa Gharbi
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Within Rajaa Gharbi’s paintings there are multiple disciplines at play. The paintings weave together color in the way a seamstress links together pieces of fabric and recount previously unconsidered versions of shared histories. She reevaluates traditional calligraphy with a view towards accessibility. How does engagement transform when reading the text is no longer just letters that form sentences, but characters-cum-images that make meaning with their shape, color, placement, and size? She creates spatial opportunities for viewers to figuratively enter into the paintings and consider them as containers of infinite possibility, within which new questions about their positionally – be it in society or in relation to art – can emerge.
Gharbi fuses the findings of her socio-linguistic excavations into languages—the Arab, Amazigh and others—with calligraphy to create a lush palette of reds, blues, purples and golds. These compositions tell stories that return the potency and possibilities of language, literally and metaphorically, to the people. Her paintings are a visual poetry that offer the viewer entry into the social and artistic realities of the places she calls home without deciding for them what they must see. Gharbi’s paintings continue discourses that commenced centuries ago in temples, casbahs, and universities and remind us that to deal with history one must be willing to both implicate themselves within it and also problematize it. As Gharbi so eloquently relays in her paintings and in her poetry: "the work will reveal its joys and hidden friends."
Featured Image: Rajaa Gharbi, Cauldron Delight II (Detail), 2020
Added 4/13/2023
Towards Resilience: Art in the Time of Pandemia
Exhibition Dates: Nov 4 - Feb 12, 2022 Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave S. Seattle WA
Curator: Negarra A. Kudumu
Artists: Kree Arvanitas, Sarah Banks, Joan Beard, Neil Berkowitz, A. Reginald Brooks, Esra Ebru, Tatiana Garmendia, Steve Jensen, Jody Joldersma, Maggie Mackin, Vinaya Rao, Anouk Rawkson, Kevin E. Regan, Brenetta Ward, and Suze Woolf.
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For the 2021 edition of the annual Members’ Exhibition, CoCA’s member artists were tasked with the following call:
“Examine the themes of resilience, perseverance, and re-engagement contextualized within the pandemic realities of the past fifteen months.”
The response was overwhelming and reflective of a pandemic environment filled with uncertainty, angst, hope, and a desire to reclaim an optimistic way forward. The fifteen artists selected present strong responses that also reflect a harmony between compelling aesthetics and a relevant and engaging conceptual framework, which rather than deny the challenges of the past almost two years, gathers them up with careful consideration to move them forward towards a more resilient and better resourced future.
All the artists resoundingly agree that without art, our global civic society can not appropriately nor inclusively consider a vision for a resilient future. The works comment on aesthetic and conceptual themes—most notably the pandemic itself, nature, abstraction, and the figure. The works on display are a testament that art was, is, and must continually be engaged as an adept technology for accessible education and engagement that reflects the now but also offers diverse potential narratives for the path forward.
Featured Image: Tatiana Garmendia, Alchemical 37 (Sojourner Truth)- detail, watercolor on paper, 30” x 22”, 2020.
Added 04/13/2023
2022
CoCA ShowWall
Exhibition Dates: January 1 - 30, 2022
Location: Pioneer Square / Gary Manuel Salon / 528 Second Avenue, Seattle, WA
Artist: Tom McIntire, Susan Christensen, Karen Johanson and Judy Chia Hui Hsu
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CoCA ShowWalls is part of the CoCA artist membership benefit program and partners with businesses for innovative showcasing of individual CoCA Member Artist’s works. Currently, the CoCA ShowWalls program is partnered Gary Manuel Salon.
Featured Image: Susan Chistensen
Added 04/23/23
CoCA ShowWall
Exhibition Dates: Jan 1 - Feb 12, 2022
Location: South Lake Union - Gary Manuel Studio Artists: Judy Chia Hui Hsu
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CoCA ShowWalls is part of the CoCA artist membership benefit program and partners with businesses for innovative showcasing of individual CoCA Member Artist’s works. Currently, the CoCA ShowWalls program is partnered Gary Manuel Salon.
Featured Image: Judy Chia Hui Hsu
Added 04/23/23
CoCA ShowWall: Savina Mason
Exhibition Dates: March 1 - 30, 2022
Location:Pioneer Square - Gary Manuel Salon Artists: Savina Mason
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CoCA ShowWalls is part of the CoCA artist membership benefit program and partners with businesses for innovative showcasing of individual CoCA Member Artist’s works. Currently, the CoCA ShowWalls program is partnered Gary Manuel Salon.
Featured Image: Savina Mason
Added 04/23/23
A Convergence of Marks
Exhibition Dates: March 3 - April 23, 2022
Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave S. Seattle WA
Curator: Alexis Chapman Artists: Pamelagrace Beatty, Damon Brown, Esther Ervin, Vincent Keele, Tsehaye Afewerki, Earnest D. Thomas, and Di Faria
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This exhibition highlights seven artists from the ONYX Fine Arts Collective.
The ONYX Fine Arts Collective is organized by the voluntary efforts of a group of artists and supporters committed to celebrate and promote the visual artwork of Pacific Northwest Artists of African descent.
Featured Image: Tsehaye Afewerki, In silence, Oil on canvas, 2021, $5,500
Added 4/13/2022
CoCA ShowWall
Exhibition Dates: May 1 - 30. 2022
Location:Pioneer Square - Gary Manuel Salon Artists: CoCA Interns
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CoCA ShowWalls is part of the CoCA artist membership benefit program and partners with businesses for innovative showcasing of individual CoCA Member Artist’s works. Currently, the CoCA ShowWalls program is partnered Gary Manuel Salon.
Featured Image:
Added 04/23/23
CoCA Heals
Exhibition Dates: April 7 - August 30. 2022
Location: Harborview Medical Center Artists: Carole Landisman
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CoCA ShowWalls is part of the CoCA artist membership benefit program and partners with businesses for innovative showcasing of individual CoCA Member Artist’s works. Currently, the CoCA ShowWalls program is partnered Gary Manuel Salon.
Featured Image: Carole Landisman
Added 04/23/23
Traditions Upended
Exhibition Dates: May 5 - June 25, 2022
Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave S. Seattle WA
Curator: Alexis Chapman Artist: Polly Purvis & Philip Tice
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In the meta-physical landscapes of painter, Philip Tice and the re-imagined artifacts of sculptor, Polly Purvis, echoes of the modern and post-modern are juxtaposed with earlier, and more traditional, artistic movements – futurism spirals into a Dutch landscape, abstraction becomes scientific illustration, and industrial machinery morphs into organic matter. Merging the contemporary with the classical, the natural with the industrial, each artist provokes reconsideration of not only the real world we created, but also the ones we only imagined.
Pioneer Square Art Walk: May 5, 2022 and June 2, 2022 5pm-8pm
CoCA ShowWall
Exhibition Dates: May 12 - June 5, 2022
Location: Capitol Hill - Poco Wine Bar & Lounge Artists: Nahom Ghirmay
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CoCA ShowWalls is part of the CoCA artist membership benefit program and partners with businesses for innovative showcasing of individual CoCA Member Artist’s works. Currently, the CoCA ShowWalls program is partnered Gary Manuel Salon.
Featured Image: Nahom Ghirmay
Added 04/23/23
CoCA ShowWall
Exhibition Dates: July 1-31, 2022
Location:Pioneer Square - Gary Manuel Salon Artists: Kris Saknussemm
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CoCA ShowWalls is part of the CoCA artist membership benefit program and partners with businesses for innovative showcasing of individual CoCA Member Artist’s works. Currently, the CoCA ShowWalls program is partnered Gary Manuel Salon.
Featured Image: Kris Saknussemm
Added 04/23/23
The Canvas Speaks
Exhibition Dates: July 7 - August 27, 2022
Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave S. Seattle WA
Curator: Alexis Chapman Artists: Vincent Keele
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Vincent Keele is a second generation expressionist painter living and working in Washington with a focus on creating works that embody movement, energy and luminous light. This exhibition features his series, Rhythm in Motion, which merges a mixture of abstract expressionist with calligraphy and foregrounds symbols of cognitive thinking within the seemingly subliminal landscapes. Reminiscent of both western and indigenous mark-making, Keele creates space for the viewer to reflect on our shared histories and visual storytelling traditions. Each canvas is an infinite expanse, a place where the immeasurable meets the rational and directed energies flow freely.
Featured Image: Vincent Keele, Blue Wave (detail),
Added 4/13/2023
CoCA ShowWall
Exhibition Dates: July 7 - September 6, 2022
Location: Capitol Hill - Poco Wine Bar & Lounge Artists: Shima Star
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CoCA ShowWalls is part of the CoCA artist membership benefit program and partners with businesses for innovative showcasing of individual CoCA Member Artist’s works. Currently, the CoCA ShowWalls program is partnered Gary Manuel Salon.
Featured Image: Shima Star
Added 04/23/23
CoCA ShowWall
Exhibition Dates: September 1 - 30, 2022
Location:Pioneer Square - Gary Manuel Salon Artists: Tatiana Garmendia, Kree Arvanitas, and Geraldine Le Calvez
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CoCA ShowWalls is part of the CoCA artist membership benefit program and partners with businesses for innovative showcasing of individual CoCA Member Artist’s works. Currently, the CoCA ShowWalls program is partnered Gary Manuel Salon.
Featured Image: Kree Arvanitas
Added 04/23/23
CoCA ShowWall
Exhibition Dates: Sept 7 - Nov 2, 2022
Location:Capitol Hill - Poco Wine Bar & Lounge Artists: Aysenur Saral
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CoCA ShowWalls is part of the CoCA artist membership benefit program and partners with businesses for innovative showcasing of individual CoCA Member Artist’s works. Currently, the CoCA ShowWalls program is partnered Gary Manuel Salon.
Featured Image: Aysenur Saral
Added 04/23/23
Untamed: The Anatomy of Desire
Exhibition Dates: Sept 8 - Oct 22, 2022
Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave S. Seattle WA
Curator: Alexis Chapman Artist: Bri Chesler
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“Desire has shaped our insatiable drive and behavior. It’s a part of the human experience that is both cultural and biological. As a species, we have become hedonistic and overcome with excess; using abundance to fill the many voids left behind by our superficial fixations. Inspired by moments of intimacy that toe the line between our carnally driven desires and the hunger for empathy, I try to capture the intoxicating lure of indulgence and the vulnerability it inflicts on our fragile nature. Using the wild and erotic character of the natural environment, I abstract forms found both in biology and botany reflecting on cultural obsessions of beauty and desire.
As an artist who has learned through working in glass production, my artistic practice revolves around using excess scrap material to create multiples; in doing so, the work becomes a manifestation of waste from overabundance. Maintaining a glass focus while using a multidisciplinary approach, allows me to emphasize qualities found in both materials that translate a similar idea or aesthetic. I use glass in a way that refutes the materials natural beauty and exploits its obtrusively visceral qualities to seduce my audience. Manipulating surfaces and materials obstructs the audiences’ perception allowing me to develop a surreal dialog by diminishing the limitations of material identity.”
Featured Image: Bri Chesler, Bruised Brute (detail)
Added 04/13/23
CoCA ShowWall
Exhibition Dates: November 1 - 30, 2022
Location:Pioneer Square - Gary Manuel Salon Artists: Nina Alderete, George Tuton and Ann Beame
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CoCA ShowWalls is part of the CoCA artist membership benefit program and partners with businesses for innovative showcasing of individual CoCA Member Artist’s works. Currently, the CoCA ShowWalls program is partnered Gary Manuel Salon.
Featured Image: Nina Alderete
Added 04/23/23
CoCA ShowWall
Exhibition Dates: Nov 3 - Jan 4, 2023
Location: Capitol Hill - Poco Wine Bar & Lounge Artists: Eliaichi Kimaro
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CoCA ShowWalls is part of the CoCA artist membership benefit program and partners with businesses for innovative showcasing of individual CoCA Member Artist’s works. Currently, the CoCA ShowWalls program is partnered Gary Manuel Salon.
Featured Image: Eliaichi Kimaro
Added 04/23/23
Pluralism
Exhibition Dates: November 3 - January 21, 2023
Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave S. Seattle WA
Curator: Alexis Chapman Artists: Joan Beard, Sanjida Sharmin, Esther Ervin, Barbara Shaiman, Tom McIntire, Lorena Krause, Kelly Lyle, Sarah Carr, Plly Purvis, Reginald Brooks, Nina Alderete, Linda James, Kevin Regan, James Leach, Sarah Banks, and Johanna Porter.
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For too long, we have valued 'the individual' as one of the strongest drivers of our cultural, social, economic and political systems. As that power begins to feel more and more limited, it is through aggregation that we see the greatest opportunities for transformation and growth.
For the 2022-23 Curated Members’ Exhibition, we asked artists to respond with their own explorations of contemporary pluralism. Submissions examined notions of pluralism through the themes of nature, technology, politics, health and well-being, identity and community.
Together, their works aggregated to form a unified expression of contemporary pluralism. Composed of 26 pieces, this installation highlights the works of 16 CoCA Artist Members.
Featured Image: Esther Ervin, Jim Crow Under the Bald Eagle, 2015
Added 4/13/2023
2023
CoCA ShowWalls
Exhibition Dates: January 3 - 31, 2023
Location: Pioneer Square - Gary Manuel Salon
Artists: Jennifer Fernandez & Linda James
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Show Page: www.cocaseattle.org/2023/gms/jennifer-fernandez-linda-james
VideoWalkthrough: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGspuYjmI9o
Featured Image: Jennifer Fernandez
Added 04/23/23
Figment of Imagination
Exhibition Dates: February 16 - March 25. 2023
Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave S. Seattle WA
Artist: Damon Brown
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This Damon Brown I Creative Lou solo exhibition invites viewers to consider how the power of the imagination can bring people together and help us overcome the challenges that stand in the way of our aspirations. The show delves into themes of community, belonging, and the pursuit of personal and collective dreams.
Exhibition Page: www.cocaseattle.org/2023-exhibitions/figment-of-imagination
Featured Image: One Luv, Damon Brown
Exhibition Opening: February 16, 2023 at 6pm
Art Walks: March 2, 2023 5pm-8pm
Added 04/23/23
Full Color print catalog designed by Stephanie DeLancey including artists’ statements, bios and artwork narratives - available through the CoCA Store.
CoCA ShowWalls
Exhibition Dates: March 3 - 31, 2023
Location: Pioneer Square - Gary Manuel Salon
Artists: Sheryl Westergreen
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“My work explores geometric form as it applies to architecture, landscape and the human figure. I translate a memory of a place or an experience through the process of abstraction. By observation, contemplation, and repeated layering of paint, the canvas begins to reveal its particular shapes, lines and textures. The paintings are an exploration of color and geometric form as well as an attempt to suggest a feeling or nuance that is not cut off from the psyche and alludes to hidden affinities and elusive qualities.” - Sheryl Westergreen
Show Page: https://www.cocaseattle.org/2023/gms/sheryl-westergreen
VideoWalkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq4SAqMo0mI
Featured Image: Nest, Sheryl Westergreen
Added 04/23/23
CoCA ShowWalls
Exhibition Dates: March 3 - May 1, 2023 Location: Capitol Hill - Poco Bar & Lounge
Artists: Geraldine Le Calvez
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“My art journey has never followed a straight path, but I have always been consistent by being inspired and captivated by Nature. So of course, I was fascinated when I started working with lichens. But most importantly, I was in awe by the beauty that lichens could transfer on a canvas. I was able to play with the form of the lichens and create a unique 3D dimension art piece and give the perception that the piece is reaching out to the viewer. My other works represent my likes, wants, and wishes on that day. I am on a ever-changing artistic journey. However, I can’t compete with the beauty of Nature but I definitely get inspired by it.” - Geraldine Le Calvez
Show Page: www.cocaseattle.org/2023/poco/geraldine-le-calvez
VideoWalkthrough:
Featured Image: Blue, Geraldine Le Calvez
Added 04/23/23
Identity, Representation, and Resistance
Exhibition Dates: April 6 - 29, 2023
Location: Pioneer Square / 114 Third Ave S. Seattle WA
Curator: Tiarraray Square, Emerging Curator Artists: Evelyn Mikayla Martin, Dylan Sanidad, and Ariane Xay Kuyaas
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Throughout history, Indigenous artists and their artwork have constantly been overlooked and marginalized. Helping to break the overlooked gaze, this exhibition showcases how three Indigenous artists portray their identity, representation and resilience through their art.
Curated by CoCA Emerging Curator, Tiarraray Square as a visual presentation of her UW Museology Master Thesis.
Featured Image: Red Eagle, Dylan Sanidad
Added 5/1/2023