Renaissance Unmasked art exhibit comes to Shack

The exhibit from the Onyx Fine Arts Collective features work of Black artists from the Seattle area

A collection of art from Pacific Northwest artists of African descent is now showing in Snohomish County at Everett’s Schack Art Center.

The exhibit will be available until Feb. 17 and is free for all ages.

The center is at 2921 Hoyt Ave., Everett.

The collection comes from the Seattle-based Onyx Fine Arts Collective, a Seattle-based organization that runs an annual juried exhibition.

“Onyx is a nonprofit, all volunteer organization. We don’t own or buy the artwork we display,” said Earnest Thomas, president of the organization.

Artists of African descent from the Pacific Northwest submit each year to the exhibit. This year there were 93 submissions and 72 pieces accepted.

Thomas said the organization only has limited exhibition space and therefore can’t accept every piece of art every year.

This year’s exhibit is titled ‘Renaissance Unmasked: The Re-Birth of Black Brilliance.’

Local Black artists have contributed a number of different art pieces to the exhibit.

“I’ve come to find that artists’ own experience will be brought out in their visual communications,” said Thomas, who is an artist himself, although not a formally trained one.

“It helps to bridge the communications gap in our communities,” he said.

There is often a preconceived notion that Black artists will only produce pieces that simply portray Black people, said Thomas.

“Go with an open heart and an open mind,” he said. “There is a huge range to the art styles.”

Pieces at the exhibit range in their medium, subjects and the colors that they use, said Thomas.

The exhibit comes to Everett in a partnership between the local center and the Onyx Fine Art Collective.

“We were approached by the Shack Art Center and they asked if we wanted to travel our exhibit down to their center,” said Thomas.

The collective was started a little more than 16 years ago after the two most prominent Black artists from the Seattle area passed away in the same year.

“This begged the question about who else in the African American community was doing artwork in Seattle,” said Thomas.

They found a couple of Black women at first but hoped to promote the broader community.

“We thought there must be more than two artists out there,” said Thomas.

From those beginnings the organization expanded each year, to eventually having more than 500 participating artists on their mailing list.

More information on the Onyx Fine Arts Collective is available at onyxarts.org.