STG is creating a space to spotlight artists and galleries making positive change in the community.
Please read more about our current exhibits at our theatres and about the featured artists below.
the gallery at the paramount
SEEING THE SPARK: PHOTOGRAPHERS OF STG’S EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENTS
FEATURED ARTISTS
Christopher Nelson
Christopher Nelson is a Seattle-based photographer and a firm believer that a picture really should paint a thousand words. He documents some of the Northwest’s largest festivals and marquee events, while also working closely with local nonprofits and community based organizations. His keen eye and easygoing demeanor allow him to capture an authentic narrative wherever he goes.
website: http://www.christophernelsonphotography.com
FB: @cnelsonshoot
Instagram: @cnelsonshoot
Programs photographed:
David Conklin
David Conklin is a professional photographer, master printer and aspiring bass player based in Port Townsend, Washington. He grew up in Washington, DC, the son of Peace Corps photo editor Paul Conklin. When not photographing for STG and Centrum, he may be found in his greenhouse attempting to grow hot peppers.
Programs photographed:
Nate Watters
Nate Watters is a commercial and editorial photographer based in Seattle. Over 20 years ago, he brought his passion for photography together with his love of live music, eventually leading to a full time career in photography. Nate now specializes in portrait, lifestyle, and food photography, as well as shooting live music, theater and dance — actually, there really isn’t much he won’t shoot. Outside of photography, you can usually find him around town with his family enjoying food, coffee, or live music. If not there, then very close to a body of water with a fishing rod in hand, or at the very least daydreaming of fishing.
Programs photographed:
Nikki Womac
Nikki Womac is a self-taught photographer, a professional dancer, and a choreographer. Her photography work centers on authenticity, connection, and storytelling. Through Nikki Womac Photography, she offers a tailored, intuitive experience designed to help people feel truly seen, capturing images that reflect who they are.
A California native now based in West Seattle, Nikki shares life with her wonderful husband, two incredible sons, and an adorable mini goldendoodle. Before stepping behind the camera, she spent 23 years dancing professionally, performing on Broadway, in music videos and commercials, and as a Radio City Rockette. She has a double major in Dance and Spanish, and a minor in International Business from Santa Clara University.
Her photography journey began with a desire to preserve the magic of her children, and quickly grew into a passion-driven career. Her extensive background in the arts as a dancer and choreographer informs every image she creates, bringing a deep understanding of timing, composition, detail, and emotion.
At the heart of Nikki’s work is a commitment to justice, inclusivity, and community. She is deeply grateful for her connection with Seattle Theatre Group, whose values of art, service, and community closely align with her own. In a chaotic world, Nikki finds purpose and peace in focusing her lens on the beauty, truth, and humanity in front of her.
LINKS:
Website: https://www.nikkiwomacphotography.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkiwomacphotography/?hl=en
Programs photographed:
Tino Tran
Tino Tran is a documentary and commercial photographer based in Seattle, WA.
Link: http://www.tinotran.com
Programs photographed:
RECENT artist alumni from The Gallery at The Paramount
- Jake Prendez
- Jose Rodriguez III
- Gerardo Peña
- Raquel García Martínez
- Rolando Avila
- Teresa Martinez
- Víctor Meléndez
- Berhanu Wells
- DK
- Inye Wakoma
- Kamari Bright
- Kenya Shakoor
- Lex Clark
The Gallery at Kerry Hall
TEMPO/TEMPUS: rhythm and time in visual art
Tempus (Latin): Time, season, moment
“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.” Martha Graham (1894-1991), dancer, teacher, and choreographer
The pulse, the heartbeat, of a building — or an arts organization and the work of the artists within it — can be described as rhythmic expansions and contractions through time. Music and dance are readily associated with tempo and movement, and theatre, of course, unfolds narratives through time. But how does visual art express rhythm, speed, or the sense of time unfurling?
For this inaugural exhibition of the Seattle Theatre Group (STG)’s Gallery at Kerry Hall, I drew inspiration from the past and present of the building, built in 1921 to house the young Cornish College of the Arts (then called the Cornish School) and its founder Nellie Cornish, a musician and educator, who believed in a holistic education that involved all of the arts. In 2024, STG became Kerry Hall’s new owners, dedicating it to community-centered arts programming in the spirit of its mission to make “diverse performing arts and education a vital part of the region’s cultural identity while preserving the vibrancy of our historic venues.”
To celebrate the decades of music and dance that animated these spaces and in honor of Nellie Cornish, who lived here one hundred years ago, “Tempo/Tempus” showcases womxn artists — all Cornish faculty or alumni — whose works of art express ideas about rhythm, movement, vitality, and the passages of time.
To echo Martha Graham, who once taught in this building, these artists — Nikita Ares, Gala Bent, Monyee Chau, Chloe King, Alissa Dymally Williams, and Ilana Zweschi — uniquely translate energies and quickenings into action and expression. Through drum beats and markings with pencil on paper (Bent), projected image and refracted light (Dymally Williams), rhythmic and/or automatic painting (Ares and Zweschi), and vibrant socio-biographic narratives (Chau and King), these works of art capture fleeting moments or connective histories. Collected together, here and now, they help us reflect on this season of change and continuing creative force.
Gayle Clemans
art historian, writer (The Seattle Times, Urban Glass Quarterly, The Map as Art, etc.), and professor at Cornish College of the Arts at Seattle University
FEAUTRED ARTISTS
Nikita Ares
Nikita Ares (b. 1996, Cagayan de Oro, Philippines) is a Seattle-based visual artist whose work explores movement, energy, and the emotional landscape of the self through abstract painting and drawing. She immigrated to the United States when she was 17 and received her BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in 2018. Her work spans studio painting, public art, and community-centered workshops, including murals that enliven spaces with vibrant presence. Ares has created outdoor murals across Washington and beyond, and she continues to expand her practice through collaborations and socially engaged projects.
Website: nikitaares.com | Instagram: @kita.licious
Gala Bent
Gala Bent is an artist who pursues a hybrid mix of studio-based practice and project-based illustration with inspiration supplied by science, music, theology, poetry and contemplation of natural forms.
She received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Visual Arts from State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY) Buffalo, New York in 1999 and has exhibited her work nationally ever since. Bent was a finalist for the Neddy Award in 2012, and was awarded the Westfjords Residency, in Þingeri, Iceland in 2017. Her work can be found in the Microsoft Art Collection, the Jordan Schnitzer Print Collection, Portland, OR, and the Washington State Art Collection as well as many private collections in the US and beyond.
Bent is currently a full time faculty member at the Cornish College of the Arts at Seattle University and lives with her artist/photographer husband Zack Bent and her sons in Seattle, WA.
Website: galabent.com | Instagram: @galabent and @galabent_illustration
Monyee Chau
Monyee Chau is based on Coast Salish/Duwamish land with a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts. They explore journeys of collective healing through their lens as a queer Asian Diaspora, utilizing storytelling as community building for the path to liberation. Monyee uses multiple mediums to speak to themes of labor, diaspora, and community care.
They’ve exhibited in museums including the Wing Luke Museum, Bellevue Art Museum, Museum of Northwest Art, Mori Art Museum, and Copelouzos Museum. They have spoken and given keynotes at institutions such as Harvard Graduate school of Design, New York University, University of Idaho, and the University of Washington. They have been awarded as one of the 100 Changemakers by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the 4Culture 2021 Arc Artist Fellowship. Their work is in collections such as the Museum of History and Industry, NYU, and Center for the Study of Political Graphics.
Website: chinesebornamerican.com | Instagram: @monyeeart
Chloe King
Chloe King (b.1999, lives and works in Oakland) is a multidisciplinary artist who works between painting and photography. King’s work is born from her experience as a mixed-race queer womxn from a small, predominantly white town and explores notions of identity, power, and perception through vibrant and chaotic textiles, plants, and camouflaged figures in dystopian settings and misleading backdrops. King received their B.F.A in 2021 from Cornish College of the Arts, and is currently pursuing a dual degree (M.F.A & M.A) at California College of the Arts. King has participated in residencies at ARTS at King Street Station, (2021), Specialist Gallery (2020), and Chautauqua School of Art (2020). King has also participated in a number of shows and public art events including, 2024 Murphy & Cadogan Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition, Somarts, San Francisco, CA, Fools Gold, Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA (2024), Cheek and Hole, Specialist Gallery, Seattle, WA, Public Dreams of Fractured Futures, Wa Na Wari, Seattle, WA (2022), TIME CAPSULE, Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle, WA (2021), CVA School of Art Student & Emerging Artists Exhibition, Chautauqua, NY (2020).
Website: chloekingstudio.com | Instagram: @kinggtingg
Alissa Dymally Williams
Alissa Dymally Williams is a new media artist, local curator, and arts administrator hailing from Washington D.C., and based here in Seattle. Anchoring the image as a focal point in her work, Williams moves into an interdisciplinary practice that culminates in video installation, photography, and site specific work. Her current work pushes against the archetype of the image through varied methods of manipulation and moves to question the source of her iterative and ephemeral relationship to the image, space, and subsequently the photograph as object. By way of concept, material, and her own cultural perspective and consumption, Williams aims to transform the viewer’s perception of the image and upend the construct in which we consume it.
Alissa Dymally Williams works in an arts admin role at Mini Mart City Park, a local arts organization and is currently an artist in residence at Actualize AiR, located in the heart of downtown, which has new works of hers on view in a two person exhibition, ICONS, by Williams and Noelle Whitaker. Most recent in Williams’ curatorial endeavors is ‘Interrogating The Anthropocene’ an exhibition of all video works, on view and open to the public through April 2026 at Museum House, a residential building located in First Hill.
Instagram: @Sainteliss
Ilana Zweschi
Ilana Zweschi is a Chicago based artist represented by Foster/White Gallery in Seattle. Her work is held in the collections of Meta, Microsoft, and the Port of Seattle, and she received the DASH artist grant in 2022. She has exhibited nationally, with notable group shows including Tiger Strikes Asteroid in New York, Museum of Museums in Seattle, and Out of Sight: A Survey of Contemporary Art in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has been published in New American Paintings, interviewed by Youngspace, and featured on the opening page of the Culture section of Seattle Met.
Zweschi graduated summa cum laude from Skidmore College in 2011 with a BA in Art and Mathematics minor. In 2014 she earned an MFA in painting from the University at Albany, SUNY, where she received the Departmental Thesis Award.
Website: www.ilanazweschi.com | Instagram: @ilanazweschi
Curator
Gayle Clemans
Gayle Clemans is an art historian, curator, and writer with frequent contributions of art criticism and journalism to The Seattle Times and Glass: the UrbanGlass Quarterly. Her essays appear in a variety of publications, including journals, exhibition catalogs, Smarthistory, and the award-winning book, The Map as Art. With a BA from UCLA and a Ph.D. in modern and contemporary art from the University of Washington, Clemans is now professor at Cornish College of the Arts at Seattle University, where she teaches art history and critical arts writing.
Clemans also conducts material research and art-making, which grounds her in the creative practices she researches and writes about. In the realms of speculative fiction and creative non-fiction, Clemans writes short stories and novels that gravitate towards symbolism, institutional critique, and the importance of locating deeply personal experiences within larger socio-historical contexts. In the end, it’s all about the creative practices of people and the stories woven around them.
Website: gayleclemans.com | Instagram: @gayleclemans
The Paramount 3rd Mezzanine Gallery
Artists and pieces
Angelina Villalobos Soto
“Jupiter” 2022
Website/Contact: onesevennine.myportfolio.com, IG: @onesevennine, onesevennine@gmail.com
Aramis Hamer
“Royal Jelly” 2016
“No Turning Back” 2020
Website/Contact: aohamer.com, IG: @aohamer, aramis@aohamer.com
Ari Glass
“Creation” 2020
Contact: IG: @thesoufender
Tariqa Waters
“No” 2019
“Crowd Pleaser: Kaelau AOAE” 2018
“That’s All Folks: 9 Coleman-Harvey” 2018
“For Harriet” 2020
Website/Contact: Martyrsauce.com, @martyrsauce, contact@martyrsauce
ARTWORK AT The Neptune THEATRE
Greetings From steHuGiA
When I was approached to create a painting to acknowledge the ancestral inhabitants of the Seattle area, I immediately thought of using lashootseed, the language spoken by the Natives of the region. The traditional place name, steHuGiA, refers to an area just south of the Neptune Theatre. The name translates to “carry a canoe.” The place name, described in UW alum Owen Oliver’s (Quinailt/Isleta Pueblo) booklet, “Indigenous Walking Tour at the University of Washington,” tells the story of the area around the theater. When the Montlake cut was made, the water around Lake Washington fell by approximately nine feet and the area where Natives would portage, or carry, their canoes from Lake Washington to Portage Bay dried up, leaving the land open to development. Through this painting, I wanted to acknowledge the people of the area by acknowledging the land. I combined traditional name, steHuGiA, and with words commonly seen on tourist postcards to come up with the wording for this painting: Greetings From steHuGiA. Because this painting commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Neptune Theatre, I wanted this design to have an aesthetic of the period. I researched historical maps of the area and found a map depicting a bird’s eye view of Seattle circa 1925 and immediately fell in love with it. The map, from the Kroll Map Company located in Belltown, became the background in this painting. Once I had the postcard motif with the antique map backdrop, I needed a way to tie everything together. My inspiration came from a song that was given to my drum group from the Makahs in Neah Bay:“Thanking the Creator for the Light of Day.” I placed a giant sun in the upper corner shining down over the city and a female in the bottom corner, basking in the sunlight, thanking her creator for the sunlight and the warmth.
Joe (wahalatsu?) Seymour, Jr.
https://joeseymourart.com/
“Carry A. Canoe”
Questions?
Please contact us at stgece@stgpresents.org.