EXHIBITIONS
Seattle Art Fair July 2026
The World is On Fire and Into the Void were featured at the Seattle Art Fair in the Shift Gallery booth in July 2026. Shift Gallery has participated in the Seattle Art Fair since its inception, offering a vibrant group of artists with distinct styles and techniques. As an artist run gallery, Shift encourages exploration and innovation in artistic expression and media.
Participating Artists Include Anna Macrae, Peggy Murphy, Sue Springer, Susan Mask, Scott Coffey, Stephanie Krimmel, Karen Klee-Atlin, Craig Van Den Bosch, Becky Street, Dodi Fredericks, Amanda Triplett, Tomoko Suzuki, John Woodruff, Juju Ishmael, Karey Kessler, Kim Matthews Wheaton and Cynthia Hibbard. Curated by Jo Mikesell.
Shift Artists and Friends, Sharing Space
July 2 – August 1, 2026
This exhibition combines works from a group of Shift artists and friends. The gallery space becomes a place for mutual recognition. Through overlapping voices, the work considers how differences can be seen and shared without being erased.
This is What Democracy Looks Like
October 2 – November 1, 2025
"This Is What Democracy Looks Like" is a celebration of the spirit, humor, color and determination of protest in the US at this time of chaos. Sue Springer creates a rich tapestry of protest signs represented with collage, paint and photographs. Collecting protest signs from people making their own in a wide variety of themes and techniques, the diversity of opinions and humor are evident. Throughout the month of October, there will be a sign making station to allow visitors to express their feelings and create their own protest sign to add to the installation or to take home with them for the next protest. Throughout the month: Artmaking stations in the gallery to make your own protest signs and contribute to the “Creative Freedom” flag being created in the Shift window.
Additionally, Springer is showing recent ceramic sculpture in the spirit of protest reflected in the iconic image of the Statue of Liberty. The “Wounded Liberty ” series is comprised of a group of wall sculptures representing the head of the Statue of Liberty with a gash on her right.
Seattle Art Fair July 2025
Recent ceramic sculpture in the spirit of protest is reflected in the iconic image of the Statue of Liberty. The “Wounded Liberty ” series is comprised of a group of wall sculptures representing the head of the Statue of Liberty with a gash on her right.
Each individual wall sculpture is mounted on a colorful background in a grid.
Seattle Art Fair 2024
Three ceramic sculptures created by Sue Springer were featured at the Seattle Art Fair in July 2024. Bold textured surfaces and graphic symbols combine to build the varied surface of these sculptures.
Standing Up For Myself
University of Portland, Portland, Oregon
June 2024
Showing in The Buckley Center Gallery through the month of June, 2024, University of Portland alumnus Sue Springer presents Standing Up for Myself, with bold, abstract ceramic sculptures which reflect thoughts, experiences and particularly issues of the day.
The exhibit will be open through the month of June through reunion weekend. On Saturday June 29, the gallery will host an artist reception from 1-3 pm with an opportunity to meet and/or reconnect with the artist and enjoy wine and light refreshments.
Springer creates quirky high fired ceramic compositions from rolled slabs and textured forms, often coming together in a series with a specific thread. The sculptures, which are mostly figurative, celebrate color, whimsy and the freedom of unexpected combinations. Dreams, imagination and wonder combine with a response to the current world to tell the stories of these figures.
Connectivity at Shift Gallery, Seattle
December 7-30, 2023
Sue Springer and Susan Mask will present Connectivity for the month of December. Springer’s large abstracted ceramic figures and Mask’s colorful expressive paintings show connections with color and form.
A new collaborative work, Connectivity, combines an assemblage of painted panels, using the figure as a starting point with color and pattern connecting the two artists. Bright bold color, line and pattern characterize the distinctive styles and the similarities of the two artists in surprising ways.
Seattle Art Fair 2023
Continuing the theme of "Home" as a metaphor for inclusion and peace, the ceramic sculpture "Finding My Way Home" was featured at the Seattle Art Fair in July 2023.
Parallel Practice | Waterstone + Shift Artists
July 6 – July 29, 2023
Shift hosts Portland’s Waterstone Gallery in their combined group exhibition Parallel Practice. As successful art collectives in major metropolitan areas, the two galleries share values of artistic independence and passionate, persistent artmaking. In Parallel Practice, artists present a diverse selection of painting, sculpture and mixed media. The show highlights the similarities and contrasts between the works and demonstrates a certain synchronicity between the two galleries. The work confidently exemplifies the quality and freedom of expression that art collectives nurture. Together these galleries offer parallel perspectives from two groups of talented artists.
Shift Artists at Waterstone Gallery in Portland, OR
For the month of February 2023, Waterstone Gallery presented an eclectic mix of artwork from Shift Gallery. The work explores our collective’s experience of the past few years and question how climate change, pandemic isolation, and other global and local events have changed our experiences of self and community. As a fellow artist cooperative, we look forward to celebrating the artists of Waterstone Gallery, and bonding over our resilience and shared love of community.
Seattle Art Fair 2022
The Seattle Art Fair is a one-of-a-kind destination for the best in modern and contemporary art and a showcase for the vibrant arts community of the Pacific Northwest. The fair brings together the region’s strong collector base; local, national, and international galleries; area museums and institutions; and an array of innovative public programming.
Now in our 19th year, Shift was juried into The Seattle Art Fair for the fourth time, demonstrating the strength of our artists’ work and the ongoing efforts of our members. The Shift model is beautifully simple; total creative freedom, and ongoing participation in working toward the gallery’s success. Our inclusion in this international fair underscores the legitimacy of the “blank slate” cooperative’s rise in the art world, as more and more artists choose to supplement their gallery representation by staging their own venues – from studio sales to pop-up installations to single-artist art fair booths.
Sue Springer | Viewpoint
February 3 – 26, 2022
It depends on your viewpoint. The circumstances change, your position and perspective varies and it all appears different in the light of day, through the lens of history.
In addition to a worldwide pandemic and the record heat and rain of 2021, an injury limited my ability to get into the studio and create ceramic sculpture. So, I brought paper and paints, canvas and brushes home in order to “shift” to a different practice, thinking of sculpture I would like to make and painting it instead. What has resulted is a strange series of faces and torsos with an expressionistic tilt into color and line.
Susan Springer | Reflections
October 7 – October 30, 2021
Reflecting on this unprecedented time of separation, isolation and uncertainty I find myself looking for signs, looking for answers. Exploring forms in the studio has been a stabilizing force in the shifting realities of the pandemic. I roll and paddle and carve, adding texture impressions and color along the way. I have resolved to follow where the forms take me, keeping open to the unexpected and unknown. The stoneware figures give me signs and signals and teach me with open hands, surprised expressions and happy accidents. The surfaces of the new sculptural figures evoke hidden signposts and layered information of the new normal. The titles are often revealed after surviving the final fire.
The Uncertainty Principle, Shift Gallery
February 4 – 27, 2021
Sung I Chun, Stephanie Krimmel, Peggy Murphy and Sue Springer explore aspects of unpredictability, uncertainty and unease, issues made particularly pertinent through these months of isolation. In their group show, The Uncertainty Principle, painting, digital media, installation, and mixed media are used to speak the personal as well as existential challenges of the unknown and unknowable.
Early 2020 I began the Corona Diaries series of daily works on paper in a journal format, combining paint, paper, glue, fabric, written word, found objects, scraps, news articles and bits from the internet to find a way to make sense of the shifting ground of the new normal. This series has become a deconstructed sculptural journal in a river of time. This work attempts to speak of the uncertainty as is everything else in this challenging world.