Animalia is a show of animals, sometimes literal and sometimes mythical, and of the imagination. The exhibition, on view at Seattle Municipal Tower Gallery April 5 through July 5, features artworks by 17 artists in a variety of media, including painting, print, tapestry, sculpture, photography, drawing and mixed media.Featured artists include Rick Bartow, Xavier Viramontes and Claudia Cave-Sumner.

“With a sense of humor, Claudia Cave-Sumner’s drawing Pig Lid portrays a woman opening a box decorated with pig imagery, while a stylized pig pops from beneath the lid. Rick Bartow’s pastel and graphite-on-paper drawings are fraught with animal iconography deeply seated in his Native-American culture, where beast is made up of both animal and man,” explains city curator Deborah Paine, who selected the artworks from the city’s Portable Works Collection managed by the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs.

Image: Claudia Cave-Sumner, Pig Lid, 1982, graphite, colored pencil on paper, 24″ x 24″. Photo courtesy of the artist.