Additions opens June 5. Three artists. Two join the program.
The gallery has a standing policy about what earns a place on the walls: the work has to hold the room. Not compete with the space, not fill it — hold it. Three artists open June 5 in Additions, the first Friday of the month on Bainbridge Island. Two of them join the permanent program. One is invited.
Ross Collado is a self-taught painter working in Seattle. He came to painting late, from a background in community work and design, and it shows in his surfaces — there is an emotional directness that trained painters sometimes spend years trying to recover. His oil paintings are semi-abstract: figures of landscape, gesture, and color field pushed to the edge of recognition. The titles tell you what to feel. It Gets Better, It Always Does. You Belong Here Now. He is not being sentimental. He is being honest.
Tamera Abaté works in encaustic — wax, fire, and pigment, built in layers that have to be fused under heat before the next layer can begin. A single painting can represent thirty passes. What this creates in the finished work is a surface that looks both ancient and alive: translucent in places, opaque in others, holding light inside the material rather than reflecting it off the surface. Her North Cascades landscapes are the most formally ambitious work in the show. Sanctuary, at 65 by 30 inches, anchors the west wall.
Julie Devine is invited — the invited position is reserved for artists whose work serves the show rather than the roster. She brings oil on canvas, semi-abstract Pacific Northwest landscapes, and a Verbascum series painted in 2026 that has no precedent in her earlier work. The Verbascums are close to abstraction: garden shapes reduced to color, light, and the specific weight of a blousy summer afternoon. They sit well against Collado and Abaté. The room works.
The exhibition is on view through July 1. All works available. First Friday reception June 5, 6–8 PM.