BY KAREN BOSSICK

A gumball machine at Sun Valley’s Roundhouse Restaurant, mizuhiki cord sculptures made out of hand-tyed awaji knots, a revised look at the American West…Friday’s Gallery Walk includes a plethora of art you won’t want to miss.

Ketchum galleries will open their doors for art and libations from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 7. And this Gallery Walk is well worth the stroll.

***Gumballs at Sun Valley’s historic Roundhouse Restaurant? That’s what Utah-based Ben Steele gifts us with in his new exhibition “A Day in the Sun,” which can be seen at Gilman Contemporary Gallery, 661 Sun Valley Road. Steele’s oil paintings are meticulous, juxtaposing the familiar with unexpected. They typically combine vintage toys, pop culture and art history, being both playful and provocative as they walk a fine line between reverence and irreverence.

Nick Veasey, a British artist, asks us to see the world through X-Ray, something he happened on when asked to take an X-ray of a soda can on the set of a British TV show. And you can see his works at Sun Valley Contemporary Art.

His “Roundhouse Gum Balls” depict vintage-style skiers gathering at Roundhouse Restaurant on Bald Mountain with Sun Valley’s bright blue sky and creamy white peaks in the background. “Sun Valley Vodka Bar” showcases the iconic red barn on Sun Valley Road adorned with an image of a martini and a portrait of Marilyn Monroe in her Idaho potato burlap sack dress. And “Sun Valley Ski Inn” features a neon-lit roadside sign at dusk with Bald Mountain in the background.

***Works of Thom Ross, long a favorite in the Wood River Valley with his images of the Wild West, will be featured at Hemmings Gallery, 340 Walnut Ave., as a preview of his upcoming solo exhibition this coming July.

Ross’ colorful paintings of cowboys and Indians go beyond the stereotypical storytelling of the American West to show its complexities, its beauty and its darker sides. “History is never as a simple as it seems,” he says.

A Santa Fe, N.M., artist, Ross has created some large-scale site installations, including the 2005 “Custer’s Last Stand,” which depicted a reenactment of the Battle of Little Bighorn with hundreds of individually painted life-sized plywood sculptures at Medicine Tail Coulee in Montana.

“Moondance, Butch & Cassidy,” painted by Thom Ross, can be seen at Hemmings Gallery.

The gallery will also host “TERRAIN,” a group exhibition that features artists’ attempts to navigate external and internal landscapes. Participating artists include Jan Freeman Long, who will include collage pieces from her “Signpost series,” and Adam Shaw’s oil paintings from his “I Stood Still and Was a Tree” series.

Also included is Hallie Maxwell, a Japanese American artist based in Idaho and current resident at the James Castle house in Boise. A descendant of survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, her work studies such themes as generational trauma, loss and disconnection from cultural identity.

Among her works are Mizuhiki cord sculptures from hand-tied awaji knots--a traditional symbol of a wish to be tried to someone forever.

“My work tends to be very repetitive so I’m really interested in how by making something over and over again, you are connecting to tradition,” she says.

Douglas Aagard’s oil painting “Gold Nuggets in a Blue Sky” can be seen at Kneeland Gallery.

Also featured is Frances Ashforth, who says, “Our landscape defines us…My hope is that my work, my simple memories on paper, will install the desire to respect and remember what the land continues to give us in all its variety, grit and beauty.”

***Sun Valley Contemporary Gallery, 320 1st Ave. N., will feature a variety of artists creating in a wide range of mediums.

Among them, Jim Budish, who depicts the “Joie de Vivre” he believes exists in all living beings—humans and animals alike—with his minimalist sculptures. His sculptures have received widespread acclaim, earning “Best of Show” and “Best of Sculpture” at 16 nationally recognized exhibitions. And they’re prominently featured in public and monumental installations across the United States and Europe.

Also, Kenneth Harrison, an Alberta, Canada, plein air artist who portrays Canada’s natural beauty in modernist style.

Kenneth Harrison’s “Beautiful Bow Valley,” which can be seen at Sun Valley Contemporary Gallery, depicts the area around Banff, Canada, in a manner visitors don’t see with their own two eyes.

Nick Veasey uses X-ray technology to reveal the hidden structures of everyday objects, fashion and even the human forum as he explores such themes as transparency, truth and the unseen beauty within. By stripping away color, texture and surface illusion, he challenges viewers to see the world differently.

T.S. Harris captures the nostalgia of mid-century Americana with striking, sun-drenched paintings that feel like memories frozen in time. Her work is inspired by vintage photographs and the golden age of Hollywood, each painting telling an unspoken story.

***Kneeland Gallery is continuing to highlight the artists it has represented over the years as it settles into its new space at 411 N. Leadville Ave. It will have a salon-style wall of small paintings ideal for gift giving, as well as larger works from such artists as Ovanes Berberian, Andrew Bolam, Robert Moore, Lori McNee, Shanna Kunz, Andrew Skorut, Mark Gibson, Caleb Meyer and Douglas Aagard.

***Gail Severn Gallery, 400 1st Ave. N., is exhibiting a new exhibition called Specimens” that features the work of six artists using bird feathers and painted renderings of flora and fauna to invite viewers to reflect on how human actions shape, threaten and sometimes preserve the ecosystems around us. The artists creating thee works are Joseph Rossano, Chris Maynard, Maggie Shafran, Kiki Smith, Anne Siems and Lynda Lowe.

Also new is “The Quiet Between” which invites viewers to re-imagine the rural landscape through a contemporary abstract lens. The exhibition featuring the works of Michael Gregory, Theodore Waddell, Laura McPhee, Victoria Adams and James Cooks, turns barns and towering mountains into ephemeral impressions.

***Sun Valley Museum of Art, Fifth and Washington streets, continues its “Snow Show,” depicting the works of such famed artists as Catherine Opie, who has done a study of Norway’s mountains as they’re impacted by climate change. The show is leading up to the 2025 Audi FIS World Cup Finals being held in Sun Valley March 20-27.