Art Opening: The Strange Within the Familiar

Show runs through 11/29/26

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Arturo Artorez (b. 1940) was born and educated in Mexico City. His extraordinary life has taken him across continents, through political upheaval, and eventually to Seattle, where he settled in 1976. By then, Artorez was already an accomplished international artist, having exhibited in Canada, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Mexico, Peru, and the United States, at times alongside celebrated artists such as José Luis Cuevas, Rufino Tamayo, Francisco Toledo, and Oswaldo Guayasamín. His work earned an honorable mention at the Sixth Paris Biennial of Young Painters, and critics predicted a brilliant career.

In 1988, while working as a security guard at the Seattle Art Museum, Artorez began transforming ordinary materials such as time cards, discarded artwork labels, and expired lottery tickets into intricate works of art. His richly detailed, figurative imagery inhabits a surreal, often phantasmagoric world populated by mysterious beings, combining imagination, irony, social commentary, and personal experience. Now in his mid-eighties, Artorez has spent more than six decades creating an extraordinary body of work.
IG: @arturoartorezart
Artzone profile 2014 with Nancy Guppy: https://www.seattlechannel.org/ArtZone/segments?videoid=x29768
Website coming soon.

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Lindsay Breidenthal is a painter based in Wenatchee, Washington, whose work explores the relationship between the body, its surroundings, and the unseen energies that connect them. Inspired by early 20th-century Spiritualist and Surrealist artists, she depicts human and animal figures in familiar environments transformed through layered imagery, repetitive lines, and transparent washes of color. Her paintings suggest dimensions beyond rational thought, inviting viewers to consider the intelligence of their own bodies and their connection to the larger universe. With a background in painting and botany, Breidenthal has exhibited throughout the Pacific Northwest for more than 30 years and teaches painting at Wenatchee Valley College and through her studio at ArtWorx.
Website: https://www.lindsaybroadvalley.com/
IG: @lindsaybroadvalley

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Liz Rowe: "I make analog collage art and stop motion animations because it brings me joy to create the art that only I can make. My clay fictional character that wears my MF DOOM ring as a mask has been exploring two Surreal worlds via my analog collage art and stop motion collage animation since 2016. TheRingOfDOOM dreams in Salvador Dalí and has over 400 analog collage character friends so far. I learned a lot cutting Salvador Dalí books for my 158 + piece MF DALÍ analog collage project and writing the book the art led to. Reimagining Dalí’s paintings was the impetus of me creating my own Surreal Art universe and setting it in motion under the umbrella of League Of Super Producers."
LeagueOfSuperProducers.com
IG: @TheRingOfDOOM TikTok: @LizMarquis

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Madeleine Schroeder is a Seattle-based oil painter originally from Vashon Island. Initially self-taught, she has further developed her practice through studies at Studio Escalier in Paris and the Aristides Atelier in Seattle. Drawing inspiration from classical European painting and contemporary surrealism, she begins by collecting and arranging imagery into collages, which she then translates into richly colored oil paintings. By placing familiar figures and environments in unexpected contexts, Schroeder creates imaginative worlds where seemingly unrelated elements take on new relationships and meanings, inviting viewers to discover their own narratives and connections.
IG: @madeleinespaint
https://www.madeleineschroeder.com/