As the city emerges from winter cold, a host of young artists emerge during Spring Gallery Night and Day.The Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD) offers its senior exhibition featuring 145 design and fine art students. Exciting new Latino artists display their work at Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, and the Hotcakes Gallery showcases another six MARN Mentor 2008 award-winners.

MIAD’s “2008 Senior Exhibition” features the vividly colored paintings of Brad Conklin, Katie Donoghue’s combinations of photographs and light boxes, Benjamin Rothschild’s sculpted metal toys, Julia Schilling’s dye-on-metal drawings coordinating with cast aluminum sculpture, Boris Ostrelov’s interactive mixed-media pieces, and Colin T. Dickson’s 31/2 Miles to the Center of Somewhere. The latter, an 18 x 18 ft fabric installation constructed of thousands of cotton tubes hung from honeycombed wood and fastened to the ceiling, is an impressive work that requires walking through. Opening Friday at 5 p.m.

Photographer Nicole Rodriguez and Martin Morante, along with painter Monica Sirimarco, are only three of the many artists represented at Walker’s Point’s “Artistas Latinos Emergiendoen Milwaukee.” Gallery weekend offers a last chance to view this diverse multimedia presentation showcasing Latino artists on Friday, 5-9 p.m. and Saturday, 12-5 p.m.

Opening April 18, Hotcakes hosts the second of three MARN Mentors show that represents mentors alongside their “mentees.” This show features Kevin Miyazaki, Mel Trittin, Fahimeh Vahdat, Caroline Morrell, Jason Yi, and Ashley Morgan. May 4 marks the final display of award artists, and on May 25 Hotcakes Gallery will close. Show your support for Hotcakes and the MARN mentoring program at the opening reception on Friday, 5 p.m.

Also this weekend, Tory Folliard Gallery— now a well-established member of the Historic Third Ward’s thriving arts district—hosts its“20th Anniversary Celebration.” This festive exhibit, which opens April 18, features 66 artists that Folliard embraced and encouraged through the years and who now pay tribute to her dedication to the arts community.Along with serving anniversary cake, commemorative buttons that read “Love Thy Artists”will be given away at an opening reception on Friday from 5-9 p.m.

Woodland Pattern Book Center, a newcomer to Gallery Nights, portrays ecological concerns through artistic mediums with their “Seeing Green: Art, Ecology, and Activism inMilwaukee.” A poetry reading held in their gallery amid these environmentally aware visuals stimulates community discussion on Friday, 7-9 p.m.

The Peltz Gallery exhibits a collection of watercolors and etchings by Warrington Colescott, offering a preview of the artist’s upcoming retrospective at the MilwaukeeArt Museum. The artist will be present at the opening reception on Friday, 6-9 p.m., and on Saturday will give a 1 p.m. gallery talk following a free French breakfast at 11 a.m.

Other exhibitions to visit this weekend include Milwaukee Street Gallery’s “Four-Sided Show,” opening Friday at 4 p.m. and featuring Gary Gresl, Janet Roberts, Todd Burton, and Devin Sommerville; Fashion Ninja’s “Hand Bag Expo,” an exclusive three-day event starting Friday, 7 p.m.; and Luckystar’s “Wish You Were Here,” portraying the finer side of the postal service with an intriguing mail-art exhibit that includes pieces from six countries.This surprising show opens Thursday, April 17 at 6 p.m., and runs through Gallery Weekend for one week only until April 26.