Upcoming
May 2026 · Opens May 1 · First Friday Art Walk
Andy McConnell brings a new body of shou sugi ban work — charred cedar surfaces reading like geological time, embedded black glass catching light at the threshold between solid and void, end-grain discs pulled in green where the wood's own growth rings turn outward. The hero piece, Knowledge of the Spirit, holds the room.
Maria Cristalli works iron at the forge — heat as memory, the moment before permanence. Twenty-seven years at the anvil produce pieces that carry the evidence of every threshold crossed in their making: from molten through workable through solid, each transition recorded in the surface.
Jill Kyong builds in the opposite register — minimalist wood reliefs and panels carrying the wood's bare grain, with painted geometries that read like horizons. Where McConnell's wood remembers fire, Kyong's wood remembers stillness. The cleanness is not absence; it is precision.
Three practices, three material intelligences, one room.
A new body of shou sugi ban work. Charred cedar surfaces reading like geological time, embedded black glass catching light at the threshold between solid and void, end-grain discs pulled in green — the wood's own growth rings turned outward.
McConnell pulls his material directly from salvaged sources — trees taken down by neighbors, beams from job-site dumpsters — making the work doubly grounded in place. Acknowledged influences: Mark Tobey, George Tsutakawa, Alexander Calder, Henry Moore.
The forge is a studio where the material sets the schedule. Iron at working temperature is briefly compliant, then closes back into itself — the smith reads color, timing, and resistance and works within those terms. Cristalli's pieces carry the evidence of every threshold crossed in their making.
Twenty-seven years at the anvil. BFA, University of Washington. Public art at Bellevue, NYC's MTA Arts for Transit, Hotel Windrow Ellensburg. Shown at the National Ornamental Metals Museum (Memphis), Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Bellevue Arts Museum.
A counterpoint to McConnell's charred dramatic surfaces — minimalist wood reliefs and panels carrying the wood's bare grain, with painted geometries that read like horizons. The cleanness is not absence; it is precision. Where McConnell's wood remembers fire, Kyong's wood remembers stillness.
Korean-born American artist based in the Pacific Northwest. Kyong’s practice spans minimalist wood sculpture, wall reliefs, and studio furniture. “Through observations of nature and the world around us, my work centers on quiet moments that give us hope. I create minimalist art to put an object of beauty into the world and bring us together.”
