New Members Show
May 7 - 30, 2026
First Thursday Art Walk - Thursday May 7th, 5-8pm
Welcoming four artists to our collective, this new members show features work by Robert Bickel, Kathy Bussert-Webb, Xin Lu, and Shima Star. Each of these artists brings a dynamic new perspective to the collective alongside their selection of works on display.
Robert Bickel
Painter Robert Bickel works out of his studio in Federal Way, Washington, striving to merge the language of architecture with that of nature. Layering hard-edged, geometric line work over realistic sea and sky scapes, his work conveys the tenuous boundary between nature and science and portrays the beauty of cold sculptural geometries, challenging us to see the world a little differently.
Many years as a senior designer for architectural firms and working in interior design has inspired Bickel to pursue an aesthetic with notable references to the architectural principles of line, form, spacial proportion, and contrast. “The daily process of conceptualizing design ideas inevitably lead to me seeing the world composed of points, lines, and forms moving in space. The human brain visually processes particular realities within our physical world, subjective ones which are not rooted in absolutes but rather in abstracts. This is why doing ‘art’ is so satisfying; reinterpreting the abstractions of our visual world onto canvas.”
Shima Star
Shima Star is a Seattle-based interdisciplinary artist whose work engages with her personal narrative, social commentary, and transnational experience through color, form, and pattern. Born in South London, England, she draws from a multigenerational heritage that spans India, Africa, and Britain. Her practice incorporates visual traditions and symbolic layering to explore continuity, transformation, and historical context.
The first in her family to pursue formal arts education, Shima earned a distinction from the University of the Arts London. She has received public art commissions from the cities of Bellevue, Kent, and Kirkland in Washington State, and has collaborated with the Bellevue Arts Program and Shunpike’s Amazon Storefronts initiative. Her work has been exhibited in solo shows in London and Seattle, and in group exhibitions across London, Chicago, New York, Seattle, and Rhode Island. Shima’s work has also been featured in the Rutgers University Arts Magazine, Bellevue Arts Museum, and Amazon.
Xin Lu
Xin Lu is a Seattle-based painter whose work centers on structural composition and spatial construction. Through interlocking planes, calibrated tonal relationships, and deliberate color organization, she builds flattened yet dynamic pictorial fields in which figures and architectural elements coexist within a shared framework. Her paintings resist illusionistic depth, instead emphasizing the integrity of the picture plane and the tension between geometry and human presence. Narrative appears in her work, but without dramatic resolution; multiple presences inhabit the same structure while maintaining distinct internal rhythms.
Born in China and now based in the United States, Xin approaches space with an awareness of layered cultural histories and shifting systems of perception. Her practice increasingly explores how historical and cross-temporal spatial narratives can be reinterpreted through a contemporary structural language.