Cliff Notes
Each week, our regional Cliff Notes columnists Hayashi Wilder, Emily Small, Jade Ichimura, and Renée Reizman pick the most exciting events and exhibitions on the West Coast. Read on for this month’s column from Jade.
Worlds Seen and Unseen: Paintings by Gary Faigin
Harris Harvey Gallery, Pike Place, Seattle, WA
February 5–February 28, 2026
Coming soon to the Harris Harvey Gallery in Seattle, the paintings of Gary Faigin, who passed away in September, will be featured in the exhibition Worlds Seen and Unseen. The show highlights two of Faigin’s series: “The Seen and Unseen” and “Colony,” and I find that “Colony” and the contexts that inform it are particularly pertinent.
Colony is a satirical series exploring humanity’s desire to colonize space, the so-called “final frontier.” To convey this idea, Faigin painted 1950s-style suburban homes on distant worlds—white picket fences on comets and cookie-cutter houses on the moon—imagining an American dream projected into a futuristic reality. His work humorously critiques this dream by transforming extraordinary landscapes into monotonous suburban settings, suggesting that colonization often seeks to assimilate and erase what makes cultures unique.
Faigin’s satire reminds me of modern ventures like SpaceX that pursue missions to colonize Mars and the Moon. One can easily picture a bleak, gray rectangular structure, built for efficiency over beauty, rising on the Martian plains with an unobstructed view of Olympus Mons.
In an era of political uncertainty, Faigin’s work reminds us to maintain joy by laughing at the ideals of our colonial ambitions.
Reflection Q: In uncertain times, what do you do to find joy?
Wallflowers
The Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
February 7–May 17, 2026
I don’t care what anyone else says. I love flowers. If money were not an issue, I would buy flowers every time I went to the grocery store. Flowers may seem banal to some viewers—as a hallmark of romance, femininity, or spring—but to others, flowers carry a variety of meanings, both cultural and personal.
The Frye Art Museum’s upcoming exhibition, Wallflowers, challenges the idea of the mundane floral arrangement by presenting an exhibition solely dedicated to the representation of flowers in still lifes with the goal of showing the evergreen nature of the subject matter. In addition to presenting eleven still lifes from their own collection, the Frye will plaster floral wallpaper from contemporary artists to complement the arrangements on view. Without knowing the appearance of these wallpapers, I am looking forward to viewing the contrast between the two media.
Reflection Q: What do flowers mean to you? Do they hold any special significance?
—Jade Ichimura