Fortune and Her Misgivings: Becca Fuhrman and Mira Soutos
Opening June 13, 2026, 6-9 pm
On view June 13 - 27
Hours by appointment
Email winona@winona.biz for location, and to set up viewing hours <3
Consider how much better it is to be alive. How much nicer it is to be thinking and breathing and crying and screaming than to be doing something that precludes those activities. Consider, even in the face of the heinous things we witness, we could instead have been nothing at all. “A miracle is just an accident, with fancy trappings,” critic Susan Sontag wrote in her journals. “Change—life—comes through accidents.” Accident after accident, we have brought about horrible, awful, unthinkable things. But we also brought sweet, funny, enjoyable things too, even if by mistake.
Experiencing unluckiness and misfortune means we have something to lose. Artists Becca Fuhrman and Mira Soutos remind us of this. Fuhrman’s mustard, teal, and ruby tones on canvas and wood ground concepts of freedom and autonomy in earthly experiences. A swimmer leisurely floats along an unseen river, her body rendered in paint and “cut outs,” a technique in which the Seattle-based artist reveals the wood’s winding surface, merging the sharp lines and high-contrast colors with the wood’s grainy texture. Another swimmer, forlorn to find herself kneeling on the pool's concrete bottom—again—searches for someone over her left shoulder as her right breast casually slips out of the structured black suit. These scenes float in and out of focus, like holding on to the hazy memory of a hot, sticky day. It is possible that one day we may find we are no longer free, have misplaced our wildness. Fuhrman’s work reminds us to hold onto those freedoms, as they are not givens in our lives
Through visual puns and a macabre sense of humor, Mira Soutos emphasizes the real possibility of loss and the ridiculousness—and ubiquitousness—of being the loser. A fabric duck catches a fish who catches a worm who’s on a fisherman’s hook, evoking a Taoist sentiment that every stroke of luck may bring an unforeseen consequence. However, Soutos’s lens on the subject presents life’s unpredictability not as forces in balance, but as a series of uncontrollable accidents unamenable to karma. A spring fawn made of foam stands frozen in the gallery, her eyes literally fixed on the car materializing beyond the wall—a tragic, if cartoonish, disaster. Still, the Bellingham-based artist is not a pessimist. The situations unfolding in Soutos’s papier-mâché and mixed-media underscore that we’re along for the ride of pain, suffering, joy, and farce. Sometimes—often—the two sides surface simultaneously.
Fortune and Her Misgivings opens on June 13th from 6-9 pm at Winona Gallery in north Ballard. The exhibition will be on view by appointment June 13th - 27th. Email winona@winona.biz to receive the address before the opening.
About the Artists:
Mira Soutos is a multidisciplinary artist based in Bellingham, WA. Mira earned her BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA. Working in mixed media, her work emphasizes accessibility through the use of found materials, as well as viewer access points such as humor and tropes from American media. Her work highlights the humor that can often be found in the midst of unfortunate events.Becca Fuhrman is an interdisciplinary artist known for her vibrant large-scale paintings that showcase her sustained interest in materiality and emotion. Born in Boise, Idaho, Fuhrman moved to Seattle in 2009, where she studied at the University of Washington, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture in 2015. Trained in art and architecture, Fuhrman’s interests lie in understanding and illustrating the personal narratives that exist between people and their environment, blurring the lines between inner and outer worlds. Exploring what it’s like to be alive - the beauty and the chaos - is central to her work. Capturing emotional landscapes, often centered on feminism, water, and place, she seeks to provoke curiosity and connection in viewers. Highly considered colors and patterns are deployed to heighten sentiment, build worlds, and create tension.