A bunch of good art shows opened last night. We’re going to review Lauren Grossman at Howard House and Matt Sellars at Platform in next week’s issue, so I won’t go into those here. But there’s also Keith Tilford at James Harris, Matisse and Louise Bourgeois at Greg Kucera, and Jennifer Harrison at Garde Rail Gallery. I’ll start with Harrison, and since I didn’t see that show yet, I can’t say much, except that in reproduction, the paintings—all of houses crowded up against one another—look likable:

Tilford’s ink drawings are based on scenes of crowds he found on the Internet, and they’re like the particles that would remain of people on a street after a nuclear bomb has hit and just before the human dust falls to the ground. All the flesh is gone, and just these millions of little pieces, made in rapid gestures, remain. The scenes are creepy, too, like they’re full of zombies. (Check it, Brendan Kiley.) Up close, they’re incredibly detailed abstracts. I’m going back to see them again. Here’s one:

And of course, the Matisse prints—just what you think they’ll be, full of curvaceous female nudes that seem tossed off compared to the detailed, heavily worked textiles they wear and sit on—and works, mostly on paper, by Bourgeois, the sculptor working on the nude fountain for Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park, which is supposed to open later this year. Bourgeois is mostly known for her three-dimensional works, but I like her on paper, too. In this little show, she gets her perversity and her rectitude across perfectly. All three of these are hers: