For the month of April Make.Shift invites you to step outside of the gallery and into an environment that welcomes curiosity and play. Spring has sprung and it’s time to invite your inner child to Playful Creatures, a partially interactive exhibit showing a combination of local, regional, and international artists. The exhibit is focussed on spreading a spirit of playfulness and imagination. Our featured artist this month, Sophia Munic, originally from Minneapolis, moved to Washington to pursue an education in Sculpture and French Studies at The University of Puget Sound. She is now based out of Tacoma and has become a fixture in Tacoma’s local art community. Her work is intended to create “a warm sense of nostalgia” using bright colored materials and toy-like forms. She is quoted saying “Creature like shapes reignite a sense of wonder when trying to figure out what exactly they are and how to place them in our memories. Reconnecting to these memories is an act of imagination. [...] To rekindle that sense of imagination I create objects of play.” Due to her emphasis on play, her featured installation is fully interactive. It is intended to immerse you in nostalgic interactions. A drawing table will be set up for viewers to color in coloring pages or draw their own responses to her work.
This exhibition will display work from several artists.
Keiko Scott, a BFA graduate from WWU’s art department, now based out of Tokyo, Japan, will be displaying multiple mediums of work including fiber and video. Their work touches on personal experiences from their own childhood as well as their queer identity.
Bellingham artist, Spiderleg, an Atlanta transplant, will be showing work from a series of unstretched canvas acrylic paintings. The subjects are creepy monsters and critters painted in the most delightfully vibrant color palettes.
Suzie Marco, based out of Bellingham, is a current WWU BFA student. She will be showing oversized plush art that references both play and nostalgia.
Lily Foss, a Bellingham based textile artist, is also a student in Western’s art department. Her work has been described as visual equivalents to the Mother Goose stories. This exhibition displays her current work in textile animation and plush paintings.
Join us on our journey down memory lane for a show bound to bring you back to a colorful past.