art shows & news

Until July 16th, 2009, the EMP|SFM (Experience Music Project | Science Fiction Museum) in Seattle will be hosting American Letterpress: The Art Of Hatch Show Print, a new exhibition organized by the Smithsonian. The EMP will be the first place to hold this, which will provide an incredible look into the role of American letterpress printing in promoting music events since the late 1800s. It will feature 126 historical and contemporary posters of all different types and styles. Go check it out… although you obviously have plenty of time!

(HAPPY HALLOWEEN!)

Murphy Design has now published Limited and Standard Editions of Ray Caesar’s slightly deranged and surreal works. Volume One is a hard cover book that contains more than 250 images over 178 pages. It also comes with six collector cards. The collection contains many new and unseen images that offer a glimpse into Caesar’s compositional process.

Standard Edition : $54
Limited Edition (500 copies): $650

Artists of all different styles are constantly posting their work on REDEFINE’s MySpace site, and once in a while, an artist posts something interesting.

Philippe Jusforgues‘ collage works place awkward images of oddly-positioned humans atop vintage images of interiors and exteriors. The viewer gets the impression that every image has a deeper meaning lurking beneath the surface.

These images are from his fourth series, Série Noire.

JEREMY GREGORY
With chalkboard paint, colored pencils, and colors that really pop off their black backgrounds, Jeremy Gregory’s works are always guaranteed to appeal to a wide array of individuals. The last time I came across one of his shows at Snowboard Connection, he did something few artists do, but more should: he shared his deepest animated secrets, in the form of about five sketchbooks completely scrawled with his thoughts, cartoons, and quick sketches. And this is what keeps Gregory’s work interesting. Whether he’s traversing through books about circus sideshows or sharing his sketchbooks, he’s always doing something subtle that sets him apart from the others.

For the Observations & Perceptions show at the Fulcrum Gallery in Tacoma this month, Gregory’s approach shall be no different. Here’s what he had to say about his display for :

“My part of the show will include an installation made to look like a workshop… there will be small illustrations representing the song “What’s He Building in There?” by Tom Waits. Also, I’m doing portraits of sex offenders that are located within 1 mile of the gallery.”

Sounds like a jolly good, mind-bending time.

Click here to view Jeremy Gregory’s artist gallery on REDEFINE Magazine.

ELISE RICHMAN
At this show, you can also expect some abstract paintings by Elise Richman, whose works which recall alien landscapes not unlike a wickedly colorful bacterial colony.

You might also expect sculpture and installation pieces, possibly involving glass, by Galen McCarty Turner, Oliver Doriss, and Conor McClellan.

Of Montreal is a band that has seen success as the result of good music (arguable), but also good marketing (possibly also arguable, but not as much).

First, their music video for “Wraith Pinned To The Mist And Other Games,” featuring cutsy-wootsy pop art animation, garnered wide attention from the web nerds. Then, the same song was used, slightly altered, for a obnoxious yet hypnotic Outback Steakhouse commercial.

And now comes of Montreal’s wonderful new shenanigan for their new album, Skeletal Lamping… Blik Surface Graphics inspired by the album artwork!!

A true of Montreal fan benefits hugely from this offer, as purchasing one $40 set also gives a code to download the whole album digitally. So, after doing the math, if each song is purchased at $0.99 apiece digitally and there are 15 songs, the graphics pretty much only cost $25. Which is not bad at all, especially when one considers that these are these are extremely intricate packages with many pieces.

The David Barnes package (click here to view) has 105 movable and reusable pieces, and the Gemini Tactics package (click here to view has 55 movable and reusable pieces.

Compare that to something like this Lacy Sunday package by Jan Habraken, which only comes with 4 colors in three packages, and you REALLY get an idea of what a good deal this is. If you’re an of Montreal fan.

Or maybe you just like their graphics and want to sell the code for the album download.

Urging people to vote with posters is not a new thing, but urging people to vote with limited edition silk-screened wood boards does seem a little more unique.

Olympia artist Nikki McClure’s artwork will be showcased on the traveling train art tour, Vote For Survival. On October 10th, they will have a reception at the wonderfully indie San Francisco zine shop, Needles & Pens. From October 18th to November 12th, the tour will be at the famous Giant Robot shop in Los Angeles.

But best of all, for all of those individuals who will not be in California, Olympia shop BuyOlympia will have four of the prints available for purchase on their website.

Each print is signed and numbered by Nikki McClure, and the 1/4″ thick Fir boards are printed with thick, rich inks. With eyelets in the top two corners of the boards, they are easy to hang and display without framing, and, at 30 limited edition copies per piece, the pieces will be original artworks owned by few other individuals.

Seattle’s Suite 100 Gallery has put together a group show entitled Mecha/Organic for the month of October. It’s an exhibition that “combines, divides, and defines the line between mechanical and organic.” To work on that theory, they’ve gathered about a dozen artists of all different styles and genres. These are three of my personal favorites from the bunch.

SI CLARK
An illustrator who grew up in a small village in the Cotswolds but now lives in London, Si Clark now mixes influences from his childhood countryside surroundings with his present urban living situation. His pieces are well-polished and sometimes gritty combinations of traditional and digital mediums.

A piece by Si Clark.

KIM E ALEXANDER JR.
Who knew that graphite and colored pencil drawings on frosted mylar could be so exciting? Kim E Alexander Jr. explorations of form and shape capture movement and pay careful attention to detail. Expect exciting new pieces from him at this group show.

Kim E Alexander Jr.’s Small Reservoir piece.

LITTLE RED GIRL
Erin Kendig, or Little Red Girl, seems like a rather new player on the Seattle art scene, but her work has thus far been whole-heartedly embraced by the community. Her best pieces showcase organic, flowing shapes and expertly play on white space, using only watercolors and inks that are minimally necessary.

Little Red Girl’s tree-head.

This Saturday, Tim Zimmerman, a photographer who has graced the pages of the nation’s best snowboard publications, will be showing his work at Seattle’s Snowboard Connection. Stop by the pre-show for free beverages and signings by Travis Rice and Mark Landvik.

Coming in three days is a show in Escondido, California, that features the works of three technically proficient artists all bonded by an unconventional, twisted flair. Here’s what you can expect in Distinction Gallery’s upcoming show.

First, there’s Scott Brooks. His warm-colored works feature warped characters who walk the fine line between human and alien. Brooks plays on this ambiguity and feeds the visual palate of folks who might like slightly bizarre things along the lines of William Burrough’s Naked Lunch. There’s something engaging and interesting about Brooks’ way of throwing the head of a man upon the torso of a chicken in The Last Humpty Dance and his way of putting disgusting items like human organs into a bright menagerie of organs in Renaissance Man (shown below).

Andy Haynes was previously featured in REDEFINE with his slightly surreal character paintings. His newest pieces have headed in a different and similarly exciting direction. In One Hour of Awareness (below), a hodge-podge of items float across the painting, creating a sci-fi environment of weightlessness and a feeling of a hyperreality. This piece and others are set in nearly futuristic states, but others fall back on humanity’s more tribal, natural roots, creating an interesting dichotomy between two polarized periods views on human existence.

The last artist in this mix is Marie Barr, who, compared to Haynes and Brooks, has arguably more grounded works. It’s a quality that makes her works accessible to individuals of all ages. In addition, whereas the other two primarily use oil on canvas, Barr’s works use watercolors, inks, pastels, and other soft, enveloping mediums, including teas. The results are highly stylized character studies imposed on textured backgrounds, as seen in Things Learned Young (below).

We wrote about the Free Sheep Foundation months ago, but their music and art combining antics just keep getting more frequent, more relevant, and more unpredictable.

Here’s what their upcoming October calendar looks like… just to give you a wee little taste of what is to come (not to mention the October 1 and 2 events that have already passed).

OCT 3 - GUTTER DANDY GALA, 9PM - 2AM, $5-$10 SUGGESTED
(Girl punk bands and window installations!)
MUSIC: Orkestar Zirconium, Hot Grits!, Scratchmaster Joe, motrecraft
ART INSTALLATIONS: Garek Druss, Static Invasion, scntfc, NKO, No Touching Ground, dk pan, Karn Junkinsmith, Wen Marcoux

OCT 10 - GALLERY OPENING, FT. FORT
(Video projections, new window installations, and a blanket/chair/sofa fort!!!)
ART INSTALLATIONS: Gretchen Bennet, Laura Corsiglia, Sirkullay, Mark Johnson
VIDEO: Mike Min

OCT 10 & 11 - SILVERING PATH
(3 dance/visual/art collabos, featuring… way too much stuff…)
MUSIC: Jeffrey Huston, Joshua Kohl
DANCE: Haruko Nishimura (Degenerate Art Ensemble)
ART/SCULPTURE: Mandy Greer, Colin Ernst
FILM: Ian Lucero
DRESS: Anna Lange

Just one amazing crochet sculpture piece by Mandy Greer!

* BRAIN EXPLOSION *
Be there or be square. These are some exciting times in the Seattle arts scenes.