Downtown Eugene is full of art tonight as First Friday ArtWalk has galleries open and showing their wares from 5:30 to 8 pm Friday, April 7. For a primer to all the fun, start at Farmers Market Pavilion, 85 E 8th Avenue, where you can pick up a free ArtWalk guide.
A couple highlights:
Karin Clarke Gallery, 760 Willamette Street, has an opening reception during the ArtWalk for Myth/Reality, the gallery’s largest exhibit yet of work by the late Oregon artist Rick Bartow, with paintings, pastel drawings, prints, and sculpture from the estate. Jordan Schnitzer Museum Curator Danielle Knapp will talk about Bartow’s work at 6 pm.
Across the street at White Lotus, 767 Willamette, see Contemplate, a show of new paintings by Eugene painter Jon Jay Cruson; the acrylic paintings are highly abstracted and imagined landscapes from his travels in eastern Oregon and Washington. A reception is 1 to 3 pm Saturday, April 8.
New Zone Gallery, 110 E. 11th Avenue, is offering three shows that will be open for business during the ArtWalk and running through April. They include Just Imagine, paintings by Gene Carey that embrace the idea of “slow art”; Getting Out of My Own Way, stitched cloth art by Mischelle Pennoyer; and Realms of Form, Feeling and Fantasy, photos and multimedia work by Barbora Bakalarova.