 | Anything goes in Irene Kubota exhibition ‘Finding Our Way’ - Published in Seattle Times, September 22, 2014 We’re told that the vast majority of Americans believe that spirits accompany us in our daily life. Perhaps they are imaging the sorts of episodes portrayed by Seattle artist Irene Kuobota, cheerful and brightly colored accounts of encounters between the supernatural and the ordinary, where the rules of daily life don’t apply, and deeper meaning is left up to the viewer. Kubota’s show of large, decorative paintings at the Bryan Ohno Gallery comes by way of an introduction, representing her first local exhibition since her move back to town, following decades of living and working in New York, where most of the paintings were created. If there’s a familiar look to her work, it’s because she joins a strong contingent of Seattle artists creating similarly engaging, folk-art influenced personal narratives, a style popular enough to have spawned at least one gallery (Grover-Thurston) where it formed a specialty. |
