New artists! That's what a bunch of Seattle art galleries are admirably boasting this month, with their "Introductions" series of exhibitions typically tucked into the backs of the galleries for tryouts.

That said, I have to be honest: I haven't gasped in delight at any new discoveries of Seattle artists, but there's one guy at James Harris Gallery who managed to draw interest away from Jeffry Mitchell's show in the front room, which is saying something. His name is David Huffman, and he's very much not a "new" artist, except that he's new to James Harris Gallery and the greater Seattle audience (and was new to me).

He was born in 1963 and is based in Berkeley. A decade ago, he did this insightful interview about his work, which is based in re-processing black history.

Huffman invented characters called "traumabots," which then evolved as they traveled through years of his scenery into "traumanauts." Where they once had fixed smiles and vague facial forms, they now make more individual expressions, even if they still wear the spacesuits that turn them into aliens wherever they go.

Huffman's playing with the traditions of Afrofuturism, but he's also delving into Chinese landscape painting, cartoons and Japanese anime, and American symbols of race and racism. Two etchings at James Harris depict Egyptian pyramids—but made of stacked watermelons and basketballs.

Other landscapes are murky and askew in less direct ways; here's Ourobourous, named after the Greek symbol of the snake biting its own tail, which also represents infinity.

See more images here.