Sweater weather is fast approaching, and Seattle’s galleries and museums are about to head into the season with exhibitions that tackle politics, identity, and the environment alongside work that simply celebrates beauty. With arts funding under strain, showing up for First Thursdays or a neighborhood opening is one of the most direct ways to support the city’s creative community.

the Where

An artist interested in maps, Karey Kessler is bringing new work to Shift Gallery this September. According to the show notes, the title, the Where, “literally means ‘a physical place’ but also embody a place mysterious and beyond the known.” Kessler’s complex pieces, consisting of paint, overlaid map imagery, and text, evoke the chaos, emotion, and anxiety of modern life, while also
suggesting a findable route through the trenches of the everyday.

the Where, through September 27, Shift Gallery.

Winston Wächter Fine Art

This fall, Winston Wächter Fine Art presents two exhibitions featuring the contemporary talents of Ethan Murrow and Mary Finlayson. Orange, Violet is a showcase of Finlayson’s ultra-vibrant paintings of interior vignettes that appear collage-like in their stylization.

The artist has long been interested in the concept of “home” both as a physical space and emotional state. In his solo exhibition, The Parliament, Murrow presents a new set of drawings and paintings that bring humans and animals in close proximity, often in fantastical scenarios meant to spur us to question humans’ approach to life.

Orange, Violet runs through October 11; and The Parliament runs through October 18 at Winston Wächter Fine Art.

Anila Quayyum Agha: Geometry of Light

Pakistani-American artist Anila Quayyum Agha has made her Pacific Northwest debut with a solo show at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, running now through April 2026. Agha is known for her immersive installations that play with shadow and light, taking inspiration from Islamic art and architecture to create intricate, laser-cut patterns and designs on large steel cubes. “Geometry of Light invites visitors to become part of the art,” says José Carlos Diaz, Seattle Art Museum’s Susan Brotman deputy director for art. “Agha draws from her life experiences and South Asian artistic practices to address global issues such as discrimination and immigration. She activates gallery spaces with light, transforming deeply personal reflections into geometric shadow patterns that evoke a universal sense of contemplation.”

Anila Quayyum Agha: Geometry of Light, through April 19, 2026, at Seattle Asian Art Museum.

Call It What It Is: A Neon Show of Banned Words

Neon is hot this year, and in the Factory’s September show, it’s taking on a political bent. Curated by Tommy Gregory and Marisa Manso, this exhibition is titled Call It What It Is: A Neon Show of Banned Words, and it will feature 25 artists, including Jeremy Bert, Kelsey Fernkopf, Yale Wolf, and Eve Hoyt, creating work in response to an increase in federal memos and internal agency guidelines discouraging or banning the use of terms such as “equity,” “transgender,” “intersectionality,” and “climate crisis.” According to the gallery’s description, “the show reclaims the words, quite literally bringing them to light.”

Call It What It Is: A Neon Show of Banned Words, The Factory, September 11–28.

Art + Culture Week

Returning for its second run, Seattle’s Art + Culture Week is a free, city-wide festival held across 12 neighborhoods, from Georgetown and the University District to Beacon Hill, Columbia City, and Queen Anne. With museum exhibitions, surprise pop-up performances, and cross-disciplinary events, Seattle will turn into a gigantic creative treasure hunt for eight days straight. The evening of September 26, Foster/White Gallery welcomes neon artist Kelsey Fernkopf and Baroque violinist, Tekla Cunningham, for a not-to-be-missed musical experience set against Fernkopf’s neon sculptures. Kick off the week with the debut of WALK DONT RUN (September 20): a free, one-day public art celebration spanning a nearly 2-mile stretch of the city, from Pioneer Square to Belltown, featuring a vibrant corridor of experimental dance, collaborative painting, live music, textile art, and more.

Art + Culture Week, September 20–27, various venues.

Gray Sky Gallery

This fall, Gray Sky Gallery presents work from two Seattle-based female artists interested in materiality. During October, sculptor Terry Richardson’s Reclaimed: Beauty in the Forgotten challenges accepted ideas of beauty by putting overlooked materials front and center in her work. “This exhibition is a meditation on possibility,” Richardson says. “It’s about reimagining what surrounds us—not just as waste or byproduct, but as a source of inspiration, beauty, and meaning.”

In November, Brooke Borcherding’s show, Familiar Structures: Bold Urban Landscapes, asks us to rethink traditional landscape painting through her acrylic works, which reimagine Seattle in a blocky, abstract style. “These ‘deconstructions’ aim to shed light on the beauty of the everyday,” Borcherding says. “Beauty is something we really need right now.”

Re-claimed: Beauty in the Forgotten runs October 1–31 and Familiar Structures: Bold Urban Landscapes runs November 1–29 at Gray Sky Gallery.

Of the Land

An interdisciplinary group show at SOIL Gallery, Of the Land looks at the  complex relationships between ecology, gender, and identity while also examining the act of reclaiming spaces, personal histories, and cultural practices. A poignant topic for current times, the show features seven artists working in mediums from film to photography, challenging colonial narratives and pushing us to rethink our interactions with the earth. In SOIL’s Backspace—an area behind the main gallery—collective member Colleen RJC Bratton will present their work, which is primarily made with found materials such as flowers, fabric, wood, and glass, offering another meditation on the connection between humans and nature.

Of the Land, October 2–November 1 at SOIL Gallery.

Taut

Pioneer Square’s METHOD Gallery presents Taut, a solo exhibition featuring the work of indigenous artist William Passmore (a member of the Okanogan and Arrowhead Lakes Bands). For this show, Passmore, who is best known for his work with glass, draws from the visual vocabulary of Indigenous art, transforming materials such as animal bone, hide, sinew, and rope into compelling works of visual storytelling. “Glass is both metaphorical and literal in its beauty, allowing me to blend memory, landscape, and heritage into something both contemporary and deeply rooted,” the artist says. “This exhibition is an act of holding on, of letting go, and forming something new in the tension between.”

Taut, October 2–November 26 at METHOD Gallery.

TELEPHONE

Launched 10 years ago by Pacific Northwest artist, composer, and poet Nathan M. Langston (who lived in New York at the time), TELEPHONE is an epic creative experiment now in its third — and most ambitious—iteration. The rules are simple, like the child’s game where a phrase is whispered then repeated down a line of people, individuals sign up, then, according to the website, “you will be assigned an anonymous work of art from somewhere else on earth, and it will be your job to translate this artwork into your own medium.” Each fresh creation passes along to multiple artists, who respond in turn. Since the project’s launch, 1,250 artists from 900 cities in 62 countries participated, resulting in more than 1,500 pieces of art. In October, Base Camp Studios will open a three-month exhibition across both its galleries, featuring work from the TELEPHONE’S first decade. “This is a must-see, monumental exhibit,” says Base Camp Studios founder Nick Ferderer. “I’m ecstatic to bring this international-scale exhibit to Seattle.”

TELEPHONE will run October 10–January 10, 2026, at Base Camp Studios and Base Camp Studios 2.

Boren Banner Series: Camille Trautman

The latest installation in Frye Art Museum’s Boren Banner Series is by Seattle-born Camille Trautman, a transgender Duwamish artist whose work critiques long standing colonial systems while exploring themes of gender identity and Indigenous erasure. The work will mark the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in their hometown. (In addition to displaying work on the side of the museum facing Boren Avenue, the artist will have an accompanying exhibition inside.)

“Camille Trautman’s experimental technique explores Duwamish storytelling through the lens of contemporary art, says Frye curatorial assistant Alexis L. Silva, “calling attention to the ways photographic and digital representations can shape and distort cultural identity—and the ways media has the power to enhance, obscure, and deny visibility.” As part of the show, the Frye will be the first institution to present Trautman’s newest creation, In the Land of Liquid Crystals, a video work displayed on a deconstructed LCD screen and placed directly on the floor.

Boren Banner Series: Camille Trautman runs October 15–April 12, 2026, at the Frye Art Museum.

This story is part of Seattle magazine’s Autumn Arts series, which highlights theater, dance, and visual arts across the city.