Multidisciplinary exhibits on display in April First Friday shows

Spring is in the air, and soon all the snow and mud will be replaced by splashes of color. Stop by Homer’s art galleries and take in First Friday Opening Receptions to see what artists have been up to this winter.

Art Shop Gallery

202 W. Pioneer Ave.

New work by Dan Coe

First Friday Opening Reception, 5-7 p.m.

Art Shop Gallery hosts new original acrylic paintings on wood by Homer artist Dan Coe. A professional artist and sign painter, Coe works out of his private studio in Anchor Point with his wife, Nancy. Specializing in hand-painted signs and commissioned fine art, he draws his inspiration from the unparalleled beauty of the southern Kenai Peninsula. Find his work on Instagram @dancoeart and at the Art Shop Gallery.

Bunnell Street Arts Center

106 W. Bunnell Ave.

Multidisciplinary work by Tor Lukasik-Foss and photography by Jenny Irene Miller

First Friday Opening Reception, 5-7 p.m. Artist talks, 6 p.m.

Bunnell Street Arts Center presents multidisciplinary artist Tor Lukasik-Foss of Ontario, Canada and photographer Jenny Irene Miller of Anchorage. The shared exhibit opens on First Friday and are part of Lukasik-Foss and Miller’s monthlong artist residencies at Bunnell. Lukasik-Foss will present an installation booth, “I Am Not Psychic,” where he’ll take appointments and host “readings” at Bunnell, perform music, and share his creative process. Miller will exhibit photographs and host a cyanotype workshop.

Tor Lukasik-Foss: “The majority of my creative work over the past two decades has explored the subtle mechanics that inform how people connect to each other, and how people connect to place. In particular, I am fascinated in social anxiety as a disruptive, paradoxical yet also generative energy, one that both separates people as well as leads them to incredibly creative strategies of connection.”

Jenny Irene Miller: “I’m an artist who uses photography. My art practice is grounded in all of this: place, storytelling, Indigeneity, queerness, and familial and community relations. Photography provides a space for me to practice a form of careful observation that runs deep in the Inupiaq culture I come from. My art practice considers photography’s ability to share stories, to recall people and memories, and how it has been used as a weapon in the colonial project.”

Tor Lukasik-Foss hosts a talking booth, book by appointment. On April 21, he will host a live and on-air concert. On April 16 and 23, Miller hosts cyanotype Workshops . For more information, www.bunnellarts.org.

Creative Fires Studio and Dean Gallery

40374 Waterman Rd.

New and current work

First Friday Opening Reception, 5-7 p.m.

The Dean Gallery presents original metal art, hand carved wood panels, bronze sculptures, and prints on wood, metal, and paper by Jeff, Ranja, and M’fanwy Dean. Jeff will be also be featuring a new 36” heat-colored steel and reclaimed redwood wall piece titled “Salvage Rights.”

Fireweed Gallery

475 E. Pioneer Ave.

Acrylic paintings by Emily Camacho

First Friday Opening Reception, 5-7 p.m.

Fireweed Gallery hosts “Mood Lighting,” vibrant paintings on canvas by Emily Camacho. Exhibiting an acrylic study of the beautiful ordinary in Alaskan life, Camacho is inspired by light, color, and the sheer wonder of this planet. A Michigan-born transplant, Camacho has lived in Homer for a year, captivated by the beauty of Alaska. A collector by nature, she immediately started finding places, experiences, and moments in and around Homer that became this, her first show in Alaska. In it, she celebrates everything from her first glimpse of the Northern Lights, to a night playing pool at the Salty Dawg and the return of the Sand Hill Cranes, eager to show pieces of Alaska from the everyday perspective of a local.

Grace Ridge Brewing

870 Smoky Bay Way.

Paintings by Oceana Wills

First Friday Opening Reception, 5-7 p.m.

Grace Ridge Brewing presents “Little Experiments” by Homer’s Oceana Wills.

While her primary medium is gouache on paper or claybord panels, she continuously experiments with other mediums. Recently, her work has shifted from depictions of women in the fishing industry to place-based observational nature studies, merging techniques of scientific illustration, nature journaling, and landscape painting. She experiments with an instinct to curate and collect inspired by the cabinets of curiosities, painting plants and animals that are commonplace, their wildness obscured by familiarity. With the slow turn from winter to spring, her work for this show has grown more whimsical, eclectic, and experimental and she chose to create series of small pieces to explore themes that come up in her work and she returned to painting and sculpting the human figure, sometimes self-portraits and sometimes from imagination, contextualized within a nature scene, exploring the idea of being small and vulnerable in the environment, how it would be magical, but also frightening.

Homer Council on the Arts Planning Clinic

355 W. Pioneer Ave.

Jubilee: Celebrating Youth in the Arts

First Friday Opening Reception, 5-7 p.m. Artist’s talk, 5:30 p.m.

Homer Council on the Arts hosts their annual exhibit, “Jubilee: Celebrating Youth in the Arts.” In this exhibit, artwork in a variety of mediums from Homer’s talented and creative youth will be on display for the month of April. HCOA hosts art at the hospital — “Chasing the Sun Down” by Lorna Branzuela on display through April 30.

Pratt Museum & Park

3779 Bartlett St.

Historic Quilt Collection

First Friday Reception, 4-6 p.m.

Pratt Museum & Park showcases a selection of quilts from their historic quilt collection.

Ptarmigan Arts Back Room Gallery

471 E. Pioneer Ave.

First Friday hours, 5-7 p.m.

Ptarmigan Arts invites the public to stop in and find out how their artists are capturing spring in its essence through a variety of mediums.