Top Seattle art shows to see in May 2026

Staff Picks

May is a month of marvels in the Seattle art scene: sticky notes filled with sweet artworks, incredible artists who are finally getting their due, secret galleries hiding away in garages.

Here are six options that will inspire wonderment.

‘Influences: Japanese Prints and Northwest Art'

While it's not Mount Fuji but Baker's white peak glistening behind the tree-branched peekaboo view, Elizabeth Colborne's 1928 small print clearly bears some hallmarks of Japanese woodblock printing. Colborne (1885-1948) was a printmaker and illustrator who lived in Bellingham. This show traces the influence on her work and that of her Northwest peers of Japanese printing, featuring work by renowned Japanese artists including Hiroshige, Hokusai and Kōshirō Onchi, father of the modernist creative woodblock movement of sōsaku-hanga.

Through June 7; Cascadia Art Museum, 190 Sunset Ave. S., Suite E, Edmonds; $0-$15, free on the third Thursday of every month; 425-336-4809, cascadiaartmuseum.org

‘We Left It Like This'

Call it a speakeasy gallery: Infused with a spirit of discretion, there's a bit of effort required to visit Double Garage. This carport-turned-gallery attached to a private residence on Beacon Hill is open by appointment only. The new show is a site-specific installation by Carly Sheehan, the current visiting artist and full-time lecturer in painting, drawing and printmaking at the University of Washington. Sheehan has made the garage, currently being used for storage following a house fire, part of the work: with moving blankets, Styrofoam, growing ivy and paintings drawing from damaged family photographs following a house fire in Sheehan's childhood.

Through May 17; Double Garage Gallery, address on request via the website; doublegaragegallery.com

‘Clare Johnson: A Life in Sticky Notes'

While walking recently on Capitol Hill, my eye fell on a yellow sticky note attached to the push-to-walk button. "A Life in Sticky Notes," it read, advertising a show with 6,000-plus art Post-its made by Clare Johnson. At the center stood a figure with glasses holding up little hearts. Johnson has kept up a nightly practice of Post-it drawing and writing for nearly two decades. Her vignettes show a craftsman on a nighttime stroll. A literary heroine imagined at sunset by the sea. A locker room having a funny conversation. "I see Post-its as the epitome of an ordinary effort at remembering, designed to hold on to all the things slipping from your mind," Johnson once wrote. "Instead of using them to remember household lists or work deadlines, I make them a visual record of life."

May 7-June 18; Gallery 4Culture, 101 Prefontaine Place S., Seattle; free; 206-296-7580, 4culture.org

‘The World to Come'

In this installation, an office phone rings, a recruitment video plays and visitors can recline in an examination chair for a guided imagination session before filling out a survey to share their perspectives. With two new works, a video and a sound piece, artist Emma Bergman creates a surreal environment that expands on a version of the show previously exhibited in Chicago. Walking the tightrope between tender humor and apocalyptic doom, Bergman asks: So what's next?

May 7-June 13; Specialist Gallery, 300 S. Washington St., Seattle; free; specialist.gallery

‘Tom Lloyd'

Many exhibits purport to be "landmark" shows, but this one really is: When the Studio Museum in Harlem opened in 1968 in a rented loft, the first solo showing featured work by artist and community organizer Tom Lloyd (1929-96), colorful abstract sculptures of lights flashing in patterns programmed electronically. Lloyd - a vocal advocate for Black artists - was an early and still-undersung pioneer of using electric light as an artistic medium, inspired by everyday city sights like traffic lights, auto signals and theater marquees. This exhibition at Frye Art Museum aims to "illuminate Lloyd's lasting impact at the intersection of art, technology and Black cultural history."

May 16-Sep. 20; Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave., Seattle; free; 206-622-9250, fryemuseum.org

‘Dee Dee Does Downsizing'

American flags, figures from famous paintings, war planes, invectives used to refer to women rendered like ransom notes - Deborah Faye Lawrence has been collaging dreamy, political collages for more than two decades, and yet these densely satirical and textual artworks feel as fresh as ever. The longtime local artist - who won the 2015 Twining Humber Award for Lifetime Achievement in Visual Art, an annual Washington state-based honor - is now downsizing her inventory with a priced-to-sell pop-up show of more than 125 collages.

1-7 p.m. May 16 (meet the artist: 3-4 p.m.); The Grocery Studios, 3001 21st Ave. S., Seattle; email nkieferart@mac.com for more information; deedeeworks.com

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