American Painting Today was an exhibition of paintings by 93 artists from the greater Seattle area organized by artist Matthew Offenbacher for V2, a temporary arts space on Capitol Hill. The exhibition included 122 paintings arranged on 224 feet of walls.

This is a time of intense precariousness for so many people, and for the civic life of our city and country. When I came up with the title for this exhibition months ago, I thought it would be an amusing comment on how art made here is marginalized relative to art made in places like New York or Los Angeles. After the election, it suggests something else. Who are we as an American community? What do we value? Where are we succeeding? Where are we failing? How are we going to do the work that needs to be done?

“I know as an activist that one of the things you have to do when you’re organizing is make space for individual agency, make space for people who don’t easily join. What’s interesting is to create spaces where very different desires can meet without agreeing.”
– Gregg Bordowitz, Grey Room 24, 2006

With work by Julie Alexander, Juan Alonso-Rodríguez, Sean Barton, Gala Bent, Kelly Björk, Susanna Bluhm, Alexi Brown-Schmidt, Lisa Buchanan, Buddy Bunting, Laura Castellanos, Jaq Chartier, Claire Cowie, Timothy Cross, Carole d’Inverno, Sue Danielson, Linda Davidson, Pat De Caro, Tom DeGroot, Nathan DiPietro, Susan Dory, Gary Faigin, Sasha Ferré, Denis Fitzpatrick, Edwin Fotheringham, Neal Fryett, Ben Gannon, Karen Ganz, T. Michael Gardiner, Emily Gherard, Klara Glosova, Preston Graves, Robin Green, Cable Griffith, Peter Gross, Francisco Guerrero, Patricia Hagen, Laura Hamje, Alfred Harris, Victoria Haven, Colleen Hayward, Harold Hollingsworth, David Hytone, Barry Johnson, Claire Johnson, Leena Joshi, Ken Kelly, Philippe Hyojung Kim, Amanda Knowles, Paul Komada, Terry Leness, Margie Livingston, Sara Long, Michael Lorefice, Ray Mack, Molly Magai, Marisa Manso, Sherry Markovitz, Rachel Maxi, Mark Takamichi Miller, Philip Miner, Jeffry Mitchell, Ryan Molenkamp, Abraham Murley, Brian Murphy, Tuan Nguyen, Sarah Norsworthy, Nicholas Nyland, Helen O’Toole, Matthew Offenbacher, Shaw Osha, Michael Ottersen, Doug Parry, Forrest Perrine, Mary Ann Peters, Trung Pham, John Radtke, Andrew Rubinstein, Peter Scherrer, Ann Leda Shapiro, William Shields, Jennifer Beedon Snow, Whiting Tennis, Gillian Theobald, Kate Thompson, Kimberly Trowbridge, Catherine Uehara, Claude Utley, Joey Veltkamp, Margaret Watson, Brad Winchester, Robert Yoder, Claude Zervas and Ellen Ziegler.