A program of the City of Auburn, The Vault Gallery is one of Auburn's newest art exhibition spaces. Artists are selected through an annual application process to create art installations in a small gallery within the Postmark Center for the Arts, dedicated to immersive and/or site-specific installations. The Vault Gallery provides a $1,000 artist stipend to support the creation of new work and site-specific projects for three-month exhibitions. The Vault Gallery is located at 20 Auburn Ave, in Auburn WA 98002, within the main gallery of the Postmark Center for the Arts.

For information on this art opportunity visit our Call To Artists page.

Current Exhibition

Maria Olga Meneses
The Floating World in Textiles
July 17 - October 5, 2026

We are excited to introduce The Floating World in Textiles by Maria Olga Meneses at the Postmark Center for the Arts Vault Gallery, on view July 17 - October 5, 2026.

"The printed pictures made in Japan from the late seventeenth century though the beginning of the twentieth century revolutionized visual culture by making it possible for ordinary people who were not part of the ruling elite to enjoy professionally produced art in their homes. Sold in stores to the general public at very affordable prices, woodblock prints chronicled the urban entertainment culture of the time, known as the Floating World (ukiyo). Artists of the school called ukiyo-e (literally “pictures of the Floating World”) depicted current fashions and amusements like Kabuki shows in paintings, book illustrations, and prints, but the term is mostly associated with the woodblock prints. The artists and publishers strove to make commercial products that would appeal to the widest possible range of potential customers, and in the long run they were even more successful than they had ever dreamed. In the mid-nineteenth century, the prints began to find an appreciative audience outside Japan as well, and today they are enthusiastically collected and enjoyed around the world.

Images of fashionable people, especially women, were the main subject of early ukiyo-e prints and remained one of the most important throughout the history of the field. Many, though by no means all, of the women in the prints are high ranking courtesans of the Yoshiwara, the legal, licensed brothel district of Edo, who wore a specialized costume featuring layers of elaborate kimono, many hairpins, and a sash called an obi tied in the front instead of the back. Also seen often in prints are geisha, who though associated with the Yoshiwara were not sex workers but rather professional party entertainers skilled in music and dance, and ordinary women of various social classes, often beautifully dressed for some special occasion. Attractive young men are also sometimes included in the category of prints knowns as bijin-ga, literally 'pictures of beautiful people.'

These pieces are some of my own interpretations of the ukiyo-e but instead created using traditional vintage natural hand printed, dyed, silks, cottons and wool Japanese textiles from my own collection of the sixties and seventies instead of the traditional woodblocks."

This work will be on exhibition through July 10, 2026 and available to view during the Postmark Center for the Arts’ open hours.

Past Exhibitions

Reed Peck-Kriss
Footsteps in Shallow Water
April 17 - July 10, 2026

"Footsteps in Shallow Water is an exploration of light, texture, and presence. Rendering the landscape in forged aluminum, and offering the viewer space to imagine and empathize with the unseen traveler who has so recently stepped through the space, and to reflect on their own motion through the world, and the steps that they leave behind." - Reed Peck-Kriss

Reed Peck-Kriss is an architectural and sculptural blacksmith, whose work draws on aspects of form, connection, and composition to reflect and examine aspects of the natural world, and explore the inherently distortionary nature of representative art.

Kelly Haejung Paik
Contained Radiance
January 16 - April 6, 2026

"This installation begins with a single form: the Korean moon jar, a vessel that holds more than volume. At the center stands a sculptural version built from polyurethane, its surface woven with strips of tinted hanji—Korean mulberry paper—and painted in colors that echo the surrounding paintings. Color is embedded within the structure through this woven patchwork rather than applied as surface decoration.
Each surrounding painting takes this same vessel and pulls out a single color, amplifying it through layered brushwork. The paintings echo the soft tones woven into the physical vessel, transforming them into saturated declarations. The vessel forms emerge dimensionally against flat backgrounds. Some paintings show the jar resting quietly on a pedestal. Others bring in koi fish, drawn from Asian decorative traditions, their fluid bodies suggesting energy held within or released from the container." - Kelly Haejung Paik

 Rachel Barnes
Sitting with the Dream
October 13 – January 5, 2026

Rachel Barnes is a fiber artist based in the greater Seattle area, specializing in vibrant, tactile rug installations designed for vertical display. Her work blurs the line between visual art and immersive experience, inviting audiences not just to observe, but to physically engage with each piece. Through bold color palettes and varied pile heights, Barnes creates richly dimensional surfaces that beckon to be touched—offering a multisensory encounter that is both playful and profound.
Driven by a fascination with the emotional resonance of color and the narrative potential of texture, Barnes explores themes ranging from dream symbolism and fantastical realms to the untranslatable nuances of language. Her collections often reflect a curiosity about the invisible or overlooked—transforming abstract concepts into tangible, touchable forms.
Barnes’s artistic mission is to weave color and texture into the fabric of daily life, fostering creativity, sparking connection, and embracing the beautiful chaos of shared human experience.

Tatiana Garmendia
Allegory of Persistence
July 23 - October 9, 2025 

Artist Statement:
"Shadow, Reality, and the Truth We Refuse to See.

A spotlight illuminates a 3D-printed model of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, casting its shadow onto the wall. But what do we truly see?
The title invokes Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where prisoners mistake shadows for reality. When one escapes and glimpses the truth, he returns—only to be dismissed.
Sexual violence is often treated the same way. Its legacy, like a shadow, is ever-present yet obscured. We fail to grasp its full weight—not just for survivors, but for all of us. This piece is a meditation on the myths we accept, the truths we reject, and the persistence of what remains unseen." - Tatiana Garmendia

Roldy Aguero Ablao
ININA to Glimmer or Glow
April 19 - July 6, 2025 

“In the Pacific, seafarers would look towards the stars to help guide them on their journey, listen to the ocean for safety and directions. Master navigators would share that before any journey across the ocean, one would have to believe in the destination they are heading to, even if they cannot see it. In this immersive installation, people are invited to enter a space of reflection and journey, a celestial canoe filled with hope and intention. Like stars in the sky, the space will be adorned with images and motifs of the Mariana Islands, symbols that glow and glimmer, offering the community a place to sit and reflect on their past, present and future journey.” - Roldy Aguero Ablao

Amanda Jenkinson
Tentative
January 15 - April 11, 2025 

“I am 26 years old at the time of creation and exhibition of this piece, Tentative. The inspiration for this soft sculpture is quite personal.
Its concept had been floating in my mind for many months, and foundationally coincided with an emotional journey involving my relationship with the potentiality of motherhood. My age is important here, as I have been firmly placed between two immediate, diverging paths.
Choosing whether I should or should not have kids has been existentially confounding to me. I have many desires that lie in each direction, and many fears, and many mixed emotions. Creating this soft sculpture from start to finish over the course of this internal discourse was a meditative exercise.
Embedded in the hand-sewn patches of this piece are pomelo membranes. These skins are representative of the body, of a tree bearing fruit, and of a fruit bearing seeds. Sewn in as quilt patches on a patterned skin, this amorphous sculptural form alludes to my nebulous thoughts on the topic of motherhood.” -Amanda Jenkinson