Exhibitions
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.
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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 July 2023
Join Shift Gallery for the Seattle Art Fair at Lumen Field July 27-30, 2023.
Participating Artists Include Anna Macrae, Sue Springer, Stephanie Krimmel, Craig Van den Bosch, Flora Ramirez-Bustamante, Sung I Chun, Dodi Fredricks, Cynthia Hibbard and Scott Coffey
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.
Parallel Practice | Waterstone + Shift Artists
July 6 – July 29, 2023
First Thursday Art Walk: July 6, 5-8pm
Artist Talk: July 15, 1pm
Closing Reception with panel discussion: July 29, 6-7pm
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 will present 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
Visit Shift Gallery – Booth A08. at the Seattle Art Fair: July 21-24, 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.
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Sue Springer | Viewpoint
February 3 – 26, 2022
Opening Reception: First Thursday, February 3, 5-8pm
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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
Opening Reception: First Thursday, October 7, 5-8pm
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.
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The Uncertainty Principle
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.
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Sue Springer