Here's the Best Art We Saw in Metro Phoenix During February 2017

February's best art turned up in all sorts of places — from a funky bungalow in Roosevelt Row to a pedestrian-friendly waterfront in Scottsdale. The month's best offerings included sculpture, photography, painting, and more. Here's a look at the best works we spotted, by both emerging and established artists.

Les Luminéoles
Porté par le vent
Light-infused kites by the France-based arts collective Porté par le vent infused the sky with color and light during Scottsdale Public Art's Canal Convergence 2017. Their balletic movement and primordial feel left viewers along the Scottsdale Waterfront mesmerized and enchanted.

Rebirth
Bryan David Griffith
Flagstaff artist Bryan David Griffith created his 2016 piece Rebirth using aspen leaves in encaustic beeswax and embers from a fire site. It's featured in his "Rethinking Fire" exhibition at Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, which continues through April 9.

Architectural Flaws
Leter91
This work by Phoenix street artist Leter91 was part of "Archives," the last exhibition at J.B. Snyder's the Allery. Every piece in the show was painted on a drawer repurposed from a Frank Lloyd Wright archive. This piece is especially poignant within the context of Phoenix's rapidly evolving urban landscape.

Heech
Parviz Tanavoli
Recently installed in the Phoenix Art Museum lobby and visible from the street, thanks to a wall of glass, this 2002 piece by Iranian-born Parviz Tanavoli was created with painted fiberglass. It serves as a powerful reminder of the interplay of art and immigration at the heart of global culture.

Paradisaeidae
Jessica Palomo
This work was featured in Jessica Palomo's "In Lieu of Flowers" exhibition at ASU's Harry Wood Gallery. Using mark-making and abstraction, Palomo addresses the "ruptured reality" that ensues after losing a loved one and its impact on emotion and identity.

Read on for work at SMoCA, another ASU gallery, and the Heard Museum.
Spiral Undulation
Danielle Wood
This 2015 Danielle Wood sculpture, created with porcelain and underglaze, reflects her use of the ocean as a metaphor for the unconscious. It was featured in the recent "Mud Works MMXVII" exhibition at Shemer Art Center, featuring artists who participated in the ASU Art Museum 2017 Ceramic Studio Tour.

Unthinking A & B
Dorota Lagida-Ostling
This well-traveled artist, who was born in Poland and later moved from Australia to Arizona, actually started out as a ceramicist. But she also paints and photographs, as evidenced by this piece, which was recently featured in her acrylics and mixed-media show at V. Tixi Gallery in downtown Scottsdale.

Sunken Trace at Mile Post 41.5
Deeply eroded section of the original Trace Trail, 2012
Krista Elrick
An ASU alumna steeped in research about John James Audubon, Elrick spent a decade traversing and photographing places the famed artist and naturalist wrote about in his journal. This pigment ink, laminate on archival paper photograph is one of several featured in the "Retracing Audubon" exhibition that continues through March 4 at Northlight Gallery.

Orchestrating a Blooming Desert
Steve Yazzie
Heard Museum visitors got to see several works by Phoenix-based Navajo artist Steve Yazzie, including multimedia works and giant mural panels featured in his "Black White Blue Yellow (BWBY)" exhibition. But this 2004 oil painting, representing an earlier stage in his evolving career, is one of many striking works featured in the museum's "Beauty Speaks for Us" exhibition that continues through April 2.

The Snake That Swallowed Its Tail
Christian Widmer
These symmetrical slices of life, comprising photographs that capture shifts in both modern life and technology, are part of a series called The Snake That Swallowed Its Tail. They're featured in the "I Remember Not Remembering" exhibition that continues through April 30 at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.

Editor's note: This post has been updated from its original version to include the proper title of Jessica Palomo's artwork.