Well, whuddaya know? Tonight's the First Thursday artwalk over on the west side, and, as always, I've combed through press releases, foraged the internet, and whittled down the array of openings to a promising, digestible handful. Click on through the jump for the relevant deets, plus lots of pretty preview images. Onward!

Chambers@916 brought in Sang-ah Choi's Fab:topia, an exhibit employing both installed and painted works to explore "the subject of the American utopian landscape... as an entry point to approach the broader theme of consumer culture." 916 NW Flanders, 6-8:30 pm.

PDX Contemporary will host Johannes Girardoni's Light Matters, an exhibition combining "found wood, plywood, wax, pigment, light, enamel and plexiglass" to synthesize "reductive investigations at the intersection of sculpture and painting." Herein, Girardoni attempts to capture "the continuously shifting relationship between reality and image." 925 NW Flanders, 6-8 pm.

Hellion Gallery, the all-Japanese space curated by Matt Wagner (previously of Compound Gallery), is hosting two exhibitions. The first, ECHO (pictured above), features Kashima's "elegant and meticulous illustrations of angels, demons and images of contemporary women in kimono."

The second show at Hellion, After the Quake, showcases "a series of paintings and drawings by students from Maioka elementary school in Yokohama Japan." According to the press release, the students were prompted to "draw how they were feeling" about the March 11 earthquakes. Proceeds from the sale of their work will go directly to the Japan's Red Cross. 19 NW 5th Ave, Suite 208, 6 pm.

Augen Gallery is also hosting dual openings. Augen Drawing Invitational features "new works on paper" by Bruce Conkle, Jess Fogel, Meghan Mitchell, Karen Purdy, Leonard Ruder, and Naomi Shigeta. Pictured above is Meghan Mitchell's "Greeting."

Also at Augen, A Decade of Prints features— you guessed it!— ten years of prints by Chris Johanson. 716 NW Davis (DeSoto Building), 5:30-8:30 pm.

Grass Hut's Sloth 'n' Moth is group show that takes on the aforementioned titular animals as subject matter. Participating artists include "Nicole Linde, Amy Ruppel, Ayumi Piland, Bwana Spoons, Tim Root, Masako Miki [pictured above], Cupco, and Gargamel gang." 20 NW 5th Ave #101, 6-9 pm.