The City of Auburn Art Galleries offer a look at the diverse work created by outstanding artists who live and work in the region. The galleries display rotating exhibitions featuring two-dimensional and small three-dimensional works by emerging and established artists from all around the Puget Sound region. The works are selected to highlight an array of artists and art works that demonstrate vitality, technique, and diversity in medium and subject. For more information on the artwork below, view the searchable document City of Auburn Art Galleries (PDF).
The Postmark Center for the Arts
Address: 20 Auburn Ave, Auburn, WA, 98002.
Hours: Open Wednesday 12:00-4:00, Thursday 12:00-6:00, and Friday 12:00-4:00.
Quarterly exhibits.
Current Exhibitions
"RENEWAL: Historic Roots and Artistic Growth"
Juried Art Exhibition
September 16 - January 1, 2024
24 Selected Artists. Featured photo by Kathleen Fruge Brown
The City of Auburn’s new art center gallery in the historic 1937 post office building will feature a group exhibition titled “RENEWAL: Historic Roots and Artistic Growth” in summer 2023, which seeks to showcase artworks by PNW artists representing imagery and ideas of trees, branches, and similar growth through nature.
Featuring 24 original artworks by artists: Diane Davis, Amanda DeSilver, Jan Dove, Ryan Dunn, Kevin Ebi, Rebecca Elyanow, Pete Fleming, Kathleen Frugé Brown, D'Arcy Heiber, Lynn Kamola, Janice King, Vanessa Lanza, Corbie Leiker, Steve Lloyd, Jannelle Loewen, Donald MacDonald, Mary Mann, Steven Markussen, Yoshi Nakagawa, Eric Shellgren, John Smither, Jeff Sweet, Suze Woolf, and Xin Xin.
Wishing Trees
A Community Art Project
September 16 - January 1, 2024
Greg Bartol, Steve Nagode, Steve Ray, Anita Schuller, and Frank Whylie.
Starting in summer 2017, the City of Auburn began a community art project called the “Wishing Tree.” The wishing tree ritual has multiple sources, among which is an Armenian tradition dating back to pre-Christian times. Participants would write a hope, dream, wish or desire on pieces of cloth or paper and tie them to the tree. Wishing trees have been found all over the world in places like Glasgow, Hong Kong, Finland, New York and San Francisco.
For Auburn’s Wishing Trees, the community has been welcomed to draw and write wishes on leaves that are being displayed from metal trees as a work of collaborative community art. The goal of this project is to bring people together and create a work of public art that expresses the uniqueness and diversity of our growing community. Our hope is that each unique leaf can celebrate the wish and character of each individual participant, as well as collectively representing the beauty, wishes, and unity of our community.
This grove of beautiful metal Wishing Trees, created for Auburn’s inaugural exhibition at the new Postmark Center for the Arts, were created by the following talented local artists: Greg Bartol, Steve Nagode, Steve Ray, Anita Schuller, and Frank Whylie.
Auburn Community and Event Center Gallery
Address: 910 Ninth St. SE, Auburn, WA, 98002.
Hours: Open Monday - Friday, 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM.
Bi-monthly exhibits.
Current Exhibition
Maryna Kantsyr - August 29 - November 1, 2023
Line by Maryna Kantsyr
”Ideas for my paintings usually came from interactions with the outside world, that become an idea of some kind of logic or just emotions that transform to colorful lines and objects” says our chosen artist Maryna Kantsyr, who finds it natural to transfer her thoughts and emotions into blocks of shape and color. “Sometimes I just start with a line and an idea comes after, sometimes I start with one idea and find out that it's transformed to a different idea. A mix of feelings finds harmony on canvas. So I do not have a recipe for how I create art - I just do. And everything - my feelings, thoughts, interaction with people end up on my canvases. But they are mine and I can transform all this into an art - and you can see your story, your feelings or thoughts in my art. Or there are titles and descriptions that can help you to understand it.”
Upcoming Exhibition
Brett Polonsky - November 1- January 2, 2024
Artist Brett Polonsky has experimented with different techniques in his work but has most recently focused on creating artwork in oil and oil pastel on canvas. “I love the fluidity and texture of oils,” writes Polonsky, whose work is typically rather abstract, but with some “visually identifiable elements.” The artist will also be exhibiting a small series of sculptural work, which he describes as being “in a constant state of experimentation… from stone carving, to fiberglass, to found objects, to welded metal, creating 3D work has limitless possibilities.”
Cheryl Sallee Gallery
Address: 808 9th St SE, Auburn, WA, 98002.
Hours: Open Monday - Friday, 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM.
Bi-monthly exhibits.
Current Exhibition
John Woodard - August 29 - November 1, 2023
Artist John Woodard was born in Seattle and studied under influential Pacific Northwest artist Jacob Lawrence at the University of Washington. Woodard hopes that, like Lawrence, his artwork relies on “close attention to the tension between negative and positive shapes.” The series on display for this exhibition feature a process called watercolor resist. Woodard “begins with oil pastels on watercolor paper and then applies a watercolor wash, creating texture as the watercolor pulls away from the wax in the pastels. This technique marries the quality of painting with the immediacy and spontaneity of drawing.”
Upcoming Exhibition
Senior Show - November 1 - January 2, 2024
With works ranging from watercolor to acrylics and subjects such as landscape, wildlife or abstract textural compositions, this annual exhibition features the artistic talents of Jo Anne Iwasaki’s Senior Center student artists.
Auburn City Hall Gallery
Address: 25 W Main Street, Auburn WA, 98002.
Hours: Open Monday - Friday, 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM.
Ongoing exhibits.
Ongoing Exhibition
This gallery hosts a photographic exhibition featuring images of the City's Public Art Collection. The Auburn City Hall Gallery occasionally features special exhibitions.
For our site-specific galleries, head to The Vault Gallery or Art on Main. For information on application process please visit our Calls to Artists webpage.