The best of Seattle-based cartoonist Myra Lara's work, to me, reverberates with a certain brand of modern anxiety. Sometimes she'll draw a strip in which everything looks to be molded out of balloons: large, round loops that look simultaneously inviting and fragile. Other times, she'll draw super-cramped cityscapes that your eye can get trapped in.

It's not all emotionally fraught, of course: Lara paints gorgeous, calming portraits made up of chunky blocks of color that are as calming as her other works are tense.

But right now, the world is a pretty tense place, and this Thursday, Lara kicks off an art show at Push/Pull Gallery in Ballard that is devoted to Seattle as it is right now: politically turbulent, socially uncomfortable, and economically unequal. It's called "Everyday Cry-sis: Existential Dread in the Technocractic City."

Her description for the event explains its themes:

When the neighborhood Prius has the tasteless Malthusian slogan "Seattle is Full", you know you're in the technocratic city. When superyachts are "sustainable" but your commute is not, you know you're in the technocratic city. When police are thanked during private "community" Pride events but queer and POC spaces are still overpoliced, you know you're in the technocratic city.

The text for the show concludes with a promise to help attendees discover a "coping mechanism." But can there be any answers?

One of the things I like most about Lara's work is that she aspires to more. Her recent zine "In This House We Believe in the Just City" lists the causes and effects of Seattle's exclusionary housing policies, but she also takes time to list all the rights that every American in the 21st century should enjoy, including health care, education, and housing. She rails against predatory housing loans and extols the power of human-scaled urban planning. In her work, there's no condemnation without a celebration of a basic human right.

We've all seen too much darkness in Seattle lately. A media organization owned by Sinclair has announced that the city is dying and warned that, unless we ship our unhoused population to a prison island, we will all drown in shit and have everything taken from us in a barbaric crime wave. Our artists are being forced out and while there's always room for another pricey restaurant, some of our favorite neighborhood locations are closing. It's time to break down the systemic fear and loathing and make room for something better. If anyone can visualize a better path forward, it's Lara.

Push/Pull, 5484 Shilshole Ave NW, 789-1710, http://pushpullseattle.weebly.com/, 6 pm, free.