Current Exhibit

Art Exhibit: Northwest Waters

The Lynnwood Convention Center welcomes the artwork of 14 talented local Northwest artists, for our primary exhibit from January - June 2022.

For this show, we were looking for works that illustrated aspects of Northwest Waterways as a subject, in a variety of styles and media. Works could portray traditional views of Puget Sound, the Pacific coast, rivers, lakes, and wetlands. They could feature nautical subjects, plants and animals that inhabit our waterways, or they could be abstracted or uniquely creative imagery featuring the water theme.

The 35 pieces of artwork selected and hung throughout the Lynnwood Convention Center represent a variety of mediums, including photography, mixed media, watercolor, oil on canvas, pastels and more. Each artist's style is unique, yet the pieces' common theme of water create a beautiful and cohesive exhibit.

Click on the artist's name or thumbnails below to read more about their background and featured artwork, but since art is always better in person, we welcome you to come see our free exhibit here at the Convention Center. Stop by during normal business hours (M-F 8am-5pm) or on evenings and weekends when the building is open for events.

MEET THE ARTISTS Reception
On Tuesday evening, April 26th, we will be hosting a free Meet the Artists Reception at the Convention Center. From 6-8pm, you are welcome to browse the exhibit, meet the artists behind all the beautiful pieces in "Northwest Waters", and enjoy complimentary in-house appetizers and a cash bar. This event is free, but please RSVP here! Hope to see you there!

Deborah Barten

"The use of found materials in my work is at the core of my expression. I am always looking for unexpected fragments of nature that cross my path. I usually find them “hiding in plain sight” as I form a connection to a shape, a texture or a color. The Pacific coast is my home and my heart song. Bits and pieces from the beach provide me endless opportunities to complete my visual story. Using texture and layers of color, three dimensional forms are incorporated for emphasis of my desired effect. One of the major objectives in creating a painting is to honor the beauty of ordinary; the simplicity yet complexity of what we ignore or dismiss."

Enid Smith Becker

Enid Smith Becker works in the Seattle area. Inspired by the complex dynamic between humans and the surrounding world, her paintings remind us of the powerful capacity of nature’s beauty to transform the self. Working from a contemporary understanding of the sublime, she presents a fluid, multifaceted experience that mirrors our own interactions with place and time.

Painting of birds flocking together on a beach

Chaim Bezalel and Yonnah Ben Levy

Bezalel-Levy is the combined signature of Chaim Bezalel and Yonnah Ben Levy, a husband and wife collaboration. They have been collaborating since 1990 on mixed media paintings combining photography and oils, oil pastels, or acrylics on rice paper, canvas, or linen. In 2002 they opened Stanwood House Gallery & Art Center, in Stanwood, Washington in a restored, hundred year old landmark building to which they added a modern, architecturally designed ceramics studio.

Amanda DeSilver

Amanda graduated from Syracuse University as a printmaking major in 1993. After years of travel, she struck camp in the Puget Sound area, impressed by the astounding beauty of the Northwest. The unique landscapes of the region inspired her to explore them through painting and collage as well as on foot. Her emotions during these adventures have informed her bold and sometimes unusual use of color. Amanda has exhibited in a number of alternative spaces throughout Western Washington for the past decade, participated in public art projects and volunteered her time in various arts organizations.

Genevieve Fritschen

Genevieve C. Fritschen graduated from the University of Washington in 1985 with a BA in Broadcast Journalism intending to start a career as a photojournalist. But a cut-throat internship at a Seattle television station followed by a brief, unpleasant stint at a publishing company took the wind out of her sails. Looking for a bit of adventure, “just for the summer”, she found a job on a boat. That summer on the water turned into years, always with the intent of finding “a real job”. As life would have it, 35 years later, Captain Fritschen is still enjoying the adventure while sailing onboard the Washington State Ferries, still dabbling in photography as opportunities present themselves.

Painting of a tree in the forest with a pond nearby

Trish Harding

"My studio work begins with plain air sketches and thumbnails. It then becomes a composite of images that stir my memories of “coming of age” in a place that was wild and free, where everything was wet and liquid, even the sky. I am interested in place. I am interested in being a steward of my planet and especially coastal beaches."

Sonya Lang

Sonya Lang began exploring the world through the lens at an early age. Growing up between Woodland Park Zoo and Green Lake in Seattle, she was fascinated by the shapes and textures of both the natural world and the big city. With little formal education in photography, she found many mentors through photo clubs/groups and listened and learned, forming lifelong friendships with kindred spirits. Sonya enjoys the digital darkroom and uses it to complete her vision, pulling out textures and playing with different processing to realize her vision.

Frank Port

Frank Port is new to the Pacific Northwest. He and his family moved from the Lake Havasu City, Az to Bellingham, WA in 2019. While in Lake Havasu, Frank worked as an art teacher for the public schools in grades k-8 and taught Drawing and Design at Mohave Community College. In 2018 Frank graduated from Academy of Art University with a Master of Fine Arts in drawing and painting. Since graduating Frank has worked to build his career entering his art in various fairs and art shows. Frank has been creating new art that explores the Northwest. Frank looks forward to the art adventures Washington has to offer.

Sarah Rehfeldt

Sarah Rehfeldt lives with her family in Issaquah, WA, where she is an artist, photographer, and writer.Her work has been exhibited in Washington and Oregon, as well as on the east coast. A Pushcart nominee and author of two collections of image poems, her poetry has appeared in over 50 publications, including Appalachia; Weber – the Contemporary West; and Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction. Sarah is caregiver for an adult son with disabilities; the creative life has always been a source of respite for her.

Marcel Schwarb

"My style is impressionistic and semi-abstract. I strive for a balance between realism and abstraction in all my subjects. As a career architect, I developed a great appreciation for the fundamentals of good drawing and composition. I’m always searching for a unique point of view; something unexpected. Upon retirement, I began painting in pastels for their bold and vivid color, but now I paint mostly in acrylics and oils."

Abstract painting of boats docked near a beach

Ian Shearer

Ian Shearer is an artist based in Seattle, Washington. He is a graduate of The Academy of Art University of San Francisco. In 2018, Ian survived a massive stroke. Through intense therapy he was able to regain use of the right side of his body, however, his painting style and abilities were greatly changed. These changes have led him to “start over” as an artist. Currently, Ian’s work focuses on urban landscapes. Using the city as a lens to explore themes of isolation, subjective reality, sensory experience, and memory; often finding beauty in the everyday moments of urban life. These moments intrigue him, especially as ordinary moments become extraordinary in the wake of disability.

Abstract painting of a water theme in reds and blues

Janice Tayler

"My mixed media compositions are made of oil paint, newspaper and sand. They refer directly to urban decay and the environment. I maintain that only through abstraction can the viewer tap into their unconscious and access the sublime in their imagination. In the past I created a body of work concentrating on contrasting textures such as cardboard, plastic, cigarette butts, twine, earth, sand nail clippings, pieces of bark and twigs. In my present body of work I use images from photographs and drawings of the devastation of the urban landscape from natural and manmade disasters, architectural skeletal structures such as unfinished construction or demolished sites, partly finished bridges, abandoned and decaying industrial sites. These images I juxtapose with images of organic, abstracted rocks, roots, trees and water."

Painting of trees around a lake in the fall

Valentina Voronkova

"My affair with art started in the city of Art and Imagination, St. Petersburg, Russia. During the day I studied biophysics at Polytechnic University, during the evening I studied art at the famous St. Petersburg Mukhin Institute of Art and Design. In 1993 I moved to Seattle to study biochemistry at UW Ph.D. program. After earning my Ph.D. degree I worked as a researcher at different companies in the biotech industry. At 2012 my unfinished dialog with art became very loud and I decided to leave science and continue it at Mark O’Higgins atelier program at Gage Academy of Art, Seattle."

Jamie Wick

Jamie Wick is a locally recognized pastel artist based in Washington State. She is best known for her landscape and wildlife paintings. Creating images of the local landscape, her work allows her to constantly explore new places and techniques, inviting the viewer to see nature in diverse ways. While she has had little formal training and is primarily self-taught, she is constantly learning from the creativity and beauty that she keeps surrounded around her.