Celebrate the New Art Exhibition at The Seattle Public Library's Central Library
release date: November 29, 2022
Join The Seattle Public Library on Thursday, Dec. 1 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. for a first Thursday reception celebrating the opening of the Library’s new art exhibit in the Central Library’s Level 8 gallery.
The exhibition, which runs through Jan. 15, 2023, shows the work of nine local artists who collaborated with the Library in 2022 to highlight Library programs including the Year of Wonder and Summer of Learning.
Featured artists will show illustrations and other current work in a variety of media. Find out more by visiting www.spl.org/Artists2022.
Featured artists in the show are:
- Cyrus Huston Brown (Summer of Learning artist): When Cyrus is not making art or going to school, he loves to be in nature, skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding and hiking.
- Kellie Kawahara-Niimi (Year of Wonder fall artist): Kellie is a non-binary Asian-American artist whose insatiable curiosity pushes their boundaries of creativity, allowing for explorations into various art forms, mediums, techniques and styles.
- Sloane Miller (Summer of Learning artist): Sloane is a Seattle-born visual artist and illustrator who is creatively exploring herself as a Black artist and pushing the boundaries as to what a creative can be.
- Gabby Park (Summer of Learning artist): Gabby is an illustrator and pastry chef who has lived in the Seattle area for nearly her entire life. When not laminating croissants or working on a webcomic, Gabby is usually napping with cats, snacking or watching a K-drama.
- Erin Shigaki (Year of Wonder summer artist): Erin is a yonsei (fourth-generation) Japanese-American born and raised in Seattle who creates work that is community-based and focused on BIPOC experiences. She believes that wielding art and activism to tell stories can educate, redress and incrementally heal.
- Brandon “BT” Thomas (Summer of Learning artist): BT has been painting professionally since age 14, including creating pop-surrealistic artwork for clients including MoPOP, MTV, and the PNW Pride Foundation. BT is a founding member of the “Vivid Matter (Art) Collective,” a contributing artist to Seattle’s BLM mural during the protests of June 2020.
- Sharon Tu (Summer of Learning artist): Sharon has been drawing since childhood. After raising a child as a teen mom, Sharon says that “I struggled hard to find who I was again. It wasn’t until 2018 that I picked up a pen and paper and participated in Inktober, a drawing challenge to draw every day for the month of October. And now here I am still drawing every day.”
- Adrian Valencia (Villiane) (Year of Wonder spring artist): Villiane is a self-taught queer artist who resides in Tri-Cities, Washington. Inspired by the beauty and fantasy that manifests in queer culture, he explores gender identity and expression with fashion, fantasy, fear and tragedy in his work.
- Jorge Villavicencio (Year of Wonder winter artist): Jorge grew up in Washington state for the majority of his life and is a first-generation American with familial roots in Oaxaca, Mexico. You can find Jorge’s murals in San Diego and Everett, Washington.
MORE INFORMATION
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