A free exhibition bringing together two Southwest Washington artists is now open in downtown Vancouver. “Silent Gestures, Wild Blooms” features figurative sculpture by Russell Ford alongside painting and sculpture by KC Madsen, and is scheduled to remain on view from October through December 2026.
The setting is part of the story. The KC Madsen Gallery occupies the second floor of Clark County’s newly remodeled Joint Lobby at the Public Service Center, 1300 Franklin Street. The gallery is open to the public Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., turning a routine government visit into a chance to encounter regional art.
The remodeled lobby brings common services from the county Assessor, Auditor and Treasurer into one customer area. County officials describe the shared model as a way to reduce handoffs and make everyday transactions easier. Adding a gallery to that space gives the building a second role: it can function as a civic room where residents arrive for services and stay for culture.
Ford is a Vancouver ceramic artist known for figurative work. His regional artist profile lists a long record of exhibitions and art education, grounding the sculptures in a practice developed in the Pacific Northwest. In this show, the human figure is paired with Madsen’s floral environments and layered use of color, giving the exhibition a conversation between body, texture and growth.
The show opened with an artists reception on October 2, timed with Vancouver’s First Friday Art Walk. That connection places the new gallery within a larger downtown arts circuit rather than leaving it as an isolated display inside a government building. Visitors can treat it as one stop in an evening of galleries, or return during the quieter weekday hours for a closer look at how the works change across the room.
That pairing makes the show more than decoration for a renovated lobby. Sculpture asks viewers to move around an object and notice gesture from different angles; painting can hold color and movement on a single plane. Placing the two approaches together gives visitors an accessible way to compare how artists create presence with different materials.
For Vancouver, the practical appeal is simple: the show is free, centrally located and available during weekday hours through December. Its larger value is the arrival of another public place for local art downtown — one embedded in a building many residents already use and can revisit in detail.
