Chatwin Arts

Chatwin Arts is pleased to present Laura Hamje’s solo exhibition, Return to Romanticism, the artist’s third exhibition with the gallery.

In the summer of 2026, Hamje attended a workshop in the Italian countryside of Umbria working under renowned landscape painter Stanley Lewis. Hamje worked only on-site, a departure from working primarily from photos, expanding her practice by approaching her subject with greater intimacy and understanding through intense in-person observation. The workshop in Italy was an experience that Hamje says “has changed my understanding of painting forever, and shown me a path towards uncovering the depth in painting I had been seeking.”

Laura Hamje (b. 1986, Austin, TX) is a painter living and working in the Pacific Northwest. Hamje's work has been shown nationally in Seattle, Astoria (Oregon), Los Angeles and NYC. Her work is in the corporate collections of Perkins Coie, Weyerhaeuser, and F5 Networks. Hamje received her BFA from the University of Washington in 2008.

Return to Romanticism will be on view October 1 – 31, 2026, with an opening reception Thursday, October 1 from 5–9pm. Chatwin Arts is open Wednesday – Saturday from 11:30am – 5:30pm or by appointment. Hamje will lead an artist talk at the gallery on Saturday, October 10th at 2pm.

Guinevere Johnson is a Seattle-based artist with a focus on oil painting.

Her painting style revels in the emotional power of color and the mystical symbolism of garden flowers and landscape. Unifying the representational and abstract, she builds richly layered applications to make the materiality of oil paint a part of her subject. Since turning to studio work full time in 2009, Guinevere has collaborated with a broad range of designers and creatives drawn to her playful enthusiasm for beauty and the fantasy world she nurtures.

"In David Crosby’s song “Guinnevere,” seagulls circle endlessly over the bay, moving through an open landscape of wind and water. Written in the late 1960s, the song feels connected to a larger cultural fascination with freedom, transcendence, and breaking beyond the boundaries of ordinary life. The gulls’ endless circling suggests a different sense of time, not the straight, linear timeline of everyday existence, but something continuous and eternal.

As someone with the given name Guinevere, I feel a personal connection to the song. I painted this gull as a reflection of what that same sense of freedom means to me: stepping outside of ordinary time and finding a place where I feel completely unbound. For me, that place is art, a kind of silent harmony." - Guinevere Johnson

Silent Harmony is featured in our current show Shifting Light, which will be on view until September 26. The gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday, 11:30am - 5:30pm.

Pictured:
1. Guinevere Johnson
Silent Harmony, 2025
30" x 30"
Mixed media on stretched upcycled canvas
2. Photo of Guinevere, courtesy of the artist

Galen Ballinger is a self taught artist and musician working in Portland, Oregon. In both realms his work explores the possibilities of using simple tools and materials to uncover both their limitations and potential, as well as his own. Paintings are often worked on simultaneously and sometimes layered upon and manipulated for years before a final image appears.

When something catches his attention, he draws it further into focus, building outward from it with new figures, objects, and environments. The paintings move freely between abstraction and representation, often arriving somewhere unexpected—familiar yet strange, playful yet uneasy. His work embraces the tension between accident and intention, allowing each painting to develop its own internal logic and visual language.

Ballinger has exhibited throughout the United States and the Pacific Northwest, where he lives and works.

See Ballinger's paintings in our group show, Shifting Light, on view September 3 - 26, Wednesday - Saturday from 11:30am - 5:30pm or by appointment.

Pictured:
1. Photo of Galen Ballinger, courtesy of the artist.
2. Galen Ballinger
Lilies, 2023
24" x 16"
Oil on canvas in wood frame
3. Galen Ballinger
Windy Candles, 2025
24" x 48"
Oil on canvas in wood frame

Shifting Light is still on view until September 26. See the show in person Wednesday - Saturday, 11:30am - 5:30pm.

Pictured (left to right):

Jordan Horton
Poor Connection, 2025
14" x 11"
Oil on canvas

Zhanpei Fang
Stanford Bunny, 2025
6" x 8" (12.25" x 14.25")
Oil on aluminum, black floating frame

"In my work, I create structures that might have been, or approach becoming, something identifiable, but now leave you to work out their existence for yourself. In the deeper looking required by the absence of comfortable identity, noticing and creating become a personal adventure and discovery. Beauty and meaning can relax back into the still, wordless place from which they arise. This experience is what I cherish most about making art and what I hope to share with viewers.
I try to enter that same wordless place in the making, responding intuitively to materials, processes, and what emerges. I'm drawn to rough, discarded, ordinary media, casual connections, and structures growing, changing, or falling apart." - Matthew Harkleroad

Harkleroad's paintings, both playful and colorful, maintain an air of quiet mystery to them. While remaining confident in the depiction of his subject, Harkleroad paints what we don't know or easily recognize. This defiance of identity and recognition allows us to experience the painting as it is, a new world to encounter and explore, in all of its mystery.

Matthew Harkleroad's paintings are currently featured in our group show Shifting Light, which will be on view until September 26. The gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday, 11:30am - 5:30pm or by appointment.

Arizona native Matthew Harkleroad earned his BFA in sculpture from Arizona State University. This sculptural foundation in materials combined with an abiding love of drawing and painting continue to inform and inspire his surfaces, textures, and use of color. After moving to Seattle, Harkleroad earned his Masters in Teaching from Seattle University. He has been teaching art in Seattle ever since. Harkleroad shows his work regionally and nationally, with work included in the city of Bellevue, Washington's portable art collection.

Pictured:
1. Studio Photo courtesy of Matthew Harkleroad
2.Matthew Harkleroad
Lost Monument, 2026
20" x 16"
Mixed media on panel
3. Matthew Harkleroad
Between States, 2023
10" x 8"
Mixed Media on panel
4. Studio photo courtesy of Matthew Harkleroad

Jordan Horton's New Legs 2 is currently featured in our group show Shifting Light, which will be on view until Saturday, September 26.

Pictured:
Jordan Horton
New Legs 2, 2026
48" x 42"
Oil on canvas

Chatwin Arts will be participating in Walk Don't Run, an event fully run by volunteers where over 20 blocks of sidewalks are open for the public to walk through for this cultural arts event.

Walk Don't Run will be in your local seattle neighborhood September 19 from 11:00am - 7:30pm, with Chatwin Arts open from 11:30am - 6:00pm. See our current show Shifting Light as you pass through.

Shifting Light is now open. The group exhibition will be on view until September 26.

The gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday, 11:30am - 5:30pm or by appointment.

As our gallery is prepping for the upcoming show, and we are excited to see the light come through the fence on both paper and canvas at Chatwin Arts for our opening reception of Shifting Light. Our pioneer square press will be doing a special edition print run of selected works from the show which you can peruse in our print racks.

Shifting Light opens tomorrow on Thursday, September 3 from 5 - 9pm and will be on view until September 26.

Pictured:
Oscar Pearson
Search, 2025
63" x 56"
Oil on canvas

James Leong's Primrose Three is featured in our current James Leong retrospective which will be available to view in person until Saturday, August 29th. Our gallery is open from 11:30am - 5:30pm.

Pictured:
James Leong
Primrose Three, 1975
23.75" x 18"
Mixed media on paper on synthetic canvas