art shows & news

Works That Disturb is an exhibition that continues through March 27th, 2010 at the Alphonse Berber in Berkeley, California. It certainly features some disturbing, wonderful things.

Annie McKnight’s Untitled features bracelets made of… taxidermied mice.

“Kim Ye’s living sculptures connect artist and model, work and world in a collaborative act of animation. Crafted of silk, nylon, latex, wire and wood, Ye’s costume-like constructions appear in two incarnations during the exhibition. At the opening reception, live models step into the sculptures and confront spectators as artifacts from a post-human game of Pygmalion and Galatea. Afterward, like so many snake-skins, the works are displayed without their human centers - a metamorphosis that leaves them “unpeopled” and alterior. Like Yves Klein’s anthropometries or the plaster ghosts of Pompeii’s last inhabitants, Ye’s constructions effect an anthropomorphic apophasis; they invoke the human body only to affirm its impermanence.” - Alphonse Berber Press Release

Other works include Angie Crabtree’s Crucified Comfort, which shows Jesus with um, his penis out, and photographs on death and dying.

Langdon Graves gentle, somewhat off-kilter drawings.

Louie Cordero’s Having Reached Climax at Age 28 … I am a zombie — made of styrofoam, acrylics, and cement, 2006.

Amborama on Flickr.

Michael Kenna’s Quixote’s Giants, Study 2, 1998

Paul Ulrich

Halogen Gallery has paired up with The Greenwood Collective and Urban Light Studios to put together this really fun toy and paintingfinstallation show featuring some notable locals and non-locals. The show, entitled Thought Processor, is a rotating show. Here’s the Seattle round-up:

Untitled by Aaron Jasinki

Untitled by Augie Pagan

Now through March 4th, 2010!

Ah, Valentine’s Day — a dreaded holiday for some and the ultimate heart-warming day for others. In either situation, though, viewing some diverse art is a good remedy. Here are some good shows taking place on Friday the 12th, in Portland and Seattle. They’re group shows that show that it’s not just about selfish relationships on Valentine’s Day! Community love’s worth something, too.

SEATTLE - ARTIFAKT SHOW

Yet another event from Seattle art collective Artifakt

Damager by Grym.

Terror by BeeryMethod.

Lutjanus campechanus by Crystal Barbre. Oil on canvas. 42″ x 72″.

Matroyshka Dolls by iamintricate.

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PORTLAND - LOVE SHOW

For the fifth year in a row, the Portland Love Show will be taking place this year at the Olympic Mills Commerce Center (107 SE Washington St.) from 7:00pm to 12:00am.

Here are just some of our favorite pieces showing this year.

Inevitable by BMAC. 16″ x 20″, $100.

Love and Lust Contemplating Their Predicament by Chuck E. Bloom. 14″ x 18″, $950.

Tied by Kindra Crick. Encaustic mixed media. 10″ x 8″, $180.

last of the famous international playboys by John Gajowski. 17″ x 22″, $250.

There’s a lot of crap on Tumblr. Here’s our weekly update that sorts through the crap to bring you the best of the week. (Click here to add us on Tumblr.)

Rodney Smith’s elegant vintage photographs. He also has 3,000 pieces of stock photography, browsable by keyword! Amazing!

Mario Wagner fuses grungy textures with collage. This piece is Control the World for Sony Playstation / Vice Magazine.

Polish painter Jacek Yerka’s fantasy worlds are hazardly beautiful.

Jonathan Calugi’s style seems to give illustrations typographic treatment.

David O’Brien’s geometric explosions. What’s even better: the explosion is not just mere geometric shapes; it’s fucking little people! Actually, they’re called memes, and they represent singular ideas, symbols, or practices. You can read more about them on O’Brien’s website here. But see below for details:

Mutant Hands‘ Pea Stag. Sure, animals are played out, but at least this is a little different from your typical animal drawing.

Naoko Ito’s Ubiquitous takes the oft-used theme of urban nature and explores it in a new, spatially-challenging way.

Kathy Liao’s Making Face - Juicy Goodbye (with love) is a huge mixed media on canvas piece, at 70″ x 60″! Holy!

Andre Meca’s Explosions Of Colors And Shapes is pretty much exactly that.

For the year 2009, Christopher Davison made some really intense pieces. Let me start by saying that in Davison’s world, “small pieces” can be as large as 15″ x 20″. That’s HUGE. So let us move onto his large pieces — which, at 20″ x 22″ or 30″ x 20″, are rich with layers and detail. And then you’ll understand that Davison doesn’t mess around; he goes all out when it comes to art. Well, enough then! Drink it in!

The Law (Flashe, graphite, gouache, india ink on Rives BFK)

The Law, detail (Flashe, graphite, gouache, india ink on Rives BFK)

Purgatory (Flashe, gouache, acrylic ink, watercolor, india ink on Rives BFK)

With his most recent body of work, Adam Friedman combines traditional landforms with some truly interplanetary shit. His mixed media pieces initially come off a little like illustrations in a scientific textbook, but closer inspection reveals worlds where land is replaced by oceans and mountains by lava-like flows. It seems that physics as we know it doesn’t really apply to Friedman’s created worlds.

But let’s sum it all up with a quote Friedman himself uses on the front page of his website; the abstract concepts in this quote absolutely explain what is going on in these works.

“Grateful for our departure? One more expression of human vanity. The finest quality of this stone, these plants and animals, the (landscape) is the indifference manifest to our presence, our absence, our coming, our staying or our going. Whether we live or die is a matter of absolutely no concern whatsoever to the (land). Let men in their madness blast every city on earth into black rubble and envelop the entire planet in a cloud of lethal gas - the canyons and hills, the springs and rocks will still be here, sunlight will filter through, water will form and warmth shall be upon the land and after sufficient time… things (will) take a different and better course.”

Edward Abbey - Desert Solitaire, 1968

Friedman currently has a solo show up at the Eleanor Harwood Gallery in San Francisco. Check it out!

Be scared, oh yes, be scared… or be really, really impressed. This grotesquely dizzying installation by UK-based artist is really made of piles and piles of pigeon feathers, felt, glue, and polystyrene. Looking at it might give you the feeling of practically suffocating on the feathers, sure, but the amount of time and attention to detail must have made Sluice a humongous undertaking.

In any case, this is just the beginning, too. Kate MccGwire has worked with feathers for years, and she is an expert at site-specific installations. Visit her website for more.

Just as Seattle artist Robert Hardgrave changed his website URL from the playful farmerbobsfarm.com to a more responsible roberthardgrave.com, he’s stepping it up with his artwork. Last night’s show at Joshua Liner Gallery proved it. A classy gallery with a reknowned reputation, Joshua Liner Gallery has a show tonight that will bring in talent from all over.

Here’s just a few more of the things you’ll see if you go visit the gallery before February 6th, 2010:

Tomokazu Matsuyama’s Runnin’ Further Deep Study #3

Mars-1’s Further

Damon Soule’s Decadedense 2

Nome Edonna’s Inside Out

I got an e-mail yesterday alerting me of a sale going on now at Corduroy Boutique & Gallery until the end of the month. Expect lots and lots of surf-inspired materials there, but there were three artists that really stood out to me with their unique woodsy offerings!

Jenny Dougherty has used mixed media and paper to create some geometrically-savvy works. Shop for them here and here. (Not to mention the piece on the right is only $100!)

Using cut paper and found objects, Katrine Hildebrandt has put together an interesting series of scientifically-inspired works suitable for hanging on your wall! Purchase these pieces here or here, and she also has a series of very intricate paper cutouts that are worth taking a gander at.

Albie Rock has a hilarious blog, and on that basis alone, his hideously-adorable Yeti-like stuffed creatures should be admired. Not to mention… look how detailed they are! At $200.00 a pop, they’re pretty much a steal if you’re into one-of-a-kind collectibles. See four separate creatures here, here, here, and here.