SEDONA, Ariz. — Scottsdale abstract painter Kay Nari will paint a work from a blank canvas in front of visitors during First Friday at Tlaquepaque Arts & Shopping Village on Friday, Nov. 6, from 4 to 7 p.m., at Creative Gateways Gallery (Suite B125). The free demonstration lets collectors watch Nari’s signature method — layer over layer of acrylic and ink, built up until color and texture carry the emotion — as it happens, with the artist talking through her choices.
Born in Seoul and raised from age 11 in Los Angeles, Nari trained at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, graduating with honors in 2000, and spent her first career as an editorial illustrator for magazines, publishers and record companies; her work for Warner Bros. Records appeared in Art Directors Annual No. 80. She moved to the Phoenix area in 2012, worked alongside art directors, galleries and interior designers at an art production company, and now paints from her own studio and gallery in Old Town Scottsdale. Her canvases — florals, abstracts and landscapes in a modern contemporary idiom, influenced by Sargent and Monet as much as by her contemporaries — have hung at Creative Gateways Gallery since 2025, where they are among the gallery’s most asked-about works.
Nari approaches each piece as an open exploration, letting intuition, layered process and emotional response shape it, with the goal of work that is “engaging both up close and from a distance.”
The demonstration runs the full three hours; visitors can come and go, watch a passage take shape, and return to see where it landed. The finished painting remains at the gallery.
The next day, Saturday, Nov. 7, Tlaquepaque hosts a free Cultural Gathering for Native American Heritage Month (11 a.m.–4 p.m.) — Yavapai storytelling by Elder Rafeal Bear and traditional Bird Singers from across Arizona — organized by Waldine Fox and sponsored by Tlaquepaque, Sedona Precious Metals and Rowe Fine Art Gallery, Creative Gateways’ sister gallery in the village (Suite A102). Lana Nguyen’s solo exhibition Layered remains on view at the Creative Gateways Showroom in West Sedona through Nov. 26. All events are free and open to the public; details at SedonaArtGalleries.com.
Creative Gateways operates three galleries in Sedona: Creative Gateways Gallery and Rowe Fine Art Gallery at Tlaquepaque, and the Creative Gateways Showroom in West Sedona. The family traces its roots to 1973, when the Tlaquepaque gallery opened as Kuivato, one of Sedona’s first glass-art galleries.
