Grand Gesture is an exhibition of work featuring national and global artists Sabine Marcelis, Soo Sunny Park, Jennifer Steinkamp, Holly Ballard Martz, and Barbara Earl Thomas. Each artist was curated from the Port of Seattle's Public Art Collection to showcase their individual works. This exhibition was curated by Tommy Gregory, SEA Public Art Program Sr. Manager and Curator and produced by ARCADE as a part of ARCADE's 2027 publishing of the Port of Seattle's Public Art Monograph.

Open Hours:

Thursdays and Fridays from 2-6pm 
Saturday, July 18th and Sunday, July 19th, from 2-6pm
Seattle Art Fair: July 23rd - 26th 
Closing August 6th, Pioneer Square Art Walk: 5pm -9pm

Curatorial Statement:

By definition, public art is an act of collective faith. The belief that we should invest in the adornment of our shared spaces; investment in public art is, in and of itself, a grand gesture. By bringing together nationally, internationally, and locally recognized artists to showcase works representative of their pieces in the Port collection, Grand Gesture helps define what we value and what is worth placing in the cultural trust of this moment in history. Additionally, these artists represent the significance of the Port of Seattle’s Public Art Collection - they are individually, and as a collective, momentous.

The experiential and material quality of the work in Grand Gesture fluctuates between the largest of scales and the most intimate of details. The delicacy and expertise required to generate these art works is rivaled only by the socio-cultural commentary expressed and the inclusion of each artist's personal experiences.

Each artist's unique and individual voice is represented through their selected works; functioning as individual biomes for the viewer and also a collective collaborative showcase playing off of one another. Grand Gesture is a reference to the work itself: the gesture of the artist and the materials, but also the international and local nature of the show's curation.

About SEA Public Art Collection:

The Port of Seattle Public Art Collection comprises over 100 contemporary art works spanning site-specific installations, permanent acquisitions, and rotating temporary exhibitions. Established in 1972 as the first airport public art program in the country, this collection has always and continues to prioritize female artists in the public art space, featuring several of the Pacific Northwest’s most celebrated women in contemporary art . By commissioning a multitude of nationally recognized and international female installation artists, Seattle is further positioned at the forefront of global arts and culture institutions - led in part by the Port of Seattle’s Public Art Collection.

Additional Details:

Grand Gesture was produced with support from Railspur, the Populus hotel, Forest For The Trees, and Lumiere Group. The exhibition will run July 2, 2026 - August 6, 2026. Normal Gallery Open Hours are Thursdays and Fridays from 2-6pm. Additional hours are Saturday, July 18th and Sunday, July 19th, from 2-6pm. We will be open for Seattle Art Fair: July 23rd - 26th.  Email leah@arcadenw.org to schedule a private viewing of the exhibition.

Sabine Marcelis is a Rotterdam-based artist and designer working across product, installation and spatial design. Her practice explores light and colour as material, creating unexpected sensorial experiences. Her work is collected by museums worldwide.

Holly Ballard Martz is a multidisciplinary artist whose sculptural and installation-based work bridges conceptual inquiry with a deep reverence for craft. Known for her meticulous fabrication and material sensitivity, Martz transforms familiar objects—textiles, domestic tools, vintage ephemera—into intricately constructed pieces that challenge cultural norms and power structures. Martz’s work is held in public and private collections including the Gates Foundation, the University of Washington, the City of Seattle, and the Port of Seattle.

Over the last fifteen years, my work has moved toward casting light as a sculptural material. I reconfigure boundary materials—fencing, plastic, glass, sheetrock—to expand and explore a variety of liminal spaces between inside and outside, sculpture and drawing, vision and perception, objects and their shadows.

Barbara Earl Thomas is a Seattle-based visual artist whose active career spans more than 40 years. A skilled painter who now builds tension-filled narratives through papercuts and prints, she places silhouetted figures in social and political landscapes, drawing from mythology and history to challenge the stories Americans tell about who we are. Her work is held in the collections of the Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland Art Museums, Wichita Art Museum, Corning Museum of Glass, Kemper Art Museum, Chrysler Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Microsoft, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Washington State, Port of Seattle, and City of Seattle public collections.

I am fascinated by the incorporeal in nature and science. If anything, this is a consistent current in my artwork. There is so much more in the universe than what we sense and feel; I believe we are surrounded by sentience in all lifeforms. I use the tangible invisible forces in air and the uncanny forms and motion of plants to communicate this.