This month, AZ Gallery and Black Dog Café and Wine Bar are teaming up to showcase work from upwards of 50 neighborhood artists in the 1^st Annual Lowertown Art Show. The juried exhibition, which opened last weekend, features an eclectic assortment of some 85 works in a variety of media, all made by artists who live and/or work in Lowertown and downtown St. Paul.

Visitors will see everything from landscape photography to mixed media pieces, sculpture, drawing, painting, glass art and more. As I wandered through the show, I found a number of artists entirely new to me — like sculptor Jessie McNally, whose surreal winged horse, “Sora,” immediately drew my eye; or Matthew Rucker, whose name I scribbled down for follow-up later, after being smitten by his stylized, color-saturated painting.

There’s nothing in particular connecting one piece to another in the exhibition, no aesthetic conversation or narrative through-line among these works — but then, that’s not the point. For the viewer, it’s an intriguing but chaotic visual experience, hard to digest critically. Actually, that’s true of many group shows, now that I think about it. That’s not to say they’re not worth seeing, though — they are, if only for the thrill of discovering new talent.

Lowertown’s first annual art show is an exuberant send-up both to the individual artists and the diversity of creative vision for which this culturally rich area of the city is known.

The 1^st Annual Lowertown Art Show is on view through Jan. 15 at AZ Gallery and Black Dog Café and Wine Bar, both in the warehouse building at 308 Prince St., Suites #308 and #300 respectively, St. Paul, Minn. There’s an artist awards reception, with prizes given to select artists in the show, as well as live music by Jeff Ray and Hurricane Harold and the Red Dog Band on Saturday, Dec. 10 from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Black Dog. Find gallery hours and additional show information on the AZ Gallery website.