Purchasing

December 2009 Exhibitions

First Thursday reception: December 3, 6-8pm

Mortensen. Autumn Sunset, 1979. Reduction woodcut. Edition of 130. 22 x 30 inches.

Gorden Mortensen Reduction Woodcuts, 1974-1983

Gordon Mortensen (b. 1938, American) is one of the best known reduction woodcut print artists working in the U.S today. He works from watercolor studies to understand the color dynamics needed for the woodcut. The artist uses up to sixty-four colors and takes as long as three months to create the woodblock image. Although the final outcome has a painterly feel, it is unmistakably a woodcut with rich layered colors and wood grain textures. His early images mostly represent the upper Midwest landscape, and areas around where he lived in North Dakota. His color preferences in these early works is more muted compared to the brighter colors he favors to present his current home in California.

• View previous work by Mortensen

Dijkstra. Looner Diep, 2009. Reduction woodcut. Edition of 34. 12-1/2 x 27-1/2 inches.

Siemen Dijkstra Recente Houtsneden (Recent Woodcuts)

Siemen Dijkstra’s (b. 1968, Dutch) recent large reduction woodcuts, on view at Davidson Galleries during the months of December and January, reveal the artist’s mastery of the process and his passion for the lowland vistas of his home province, Drenthe, in the Netherlands. It is a land of woods, fens and moors. He likens the cutting of the blocks and layered printings, to his experience of the landscape. Dijkstra sees a relationship between the low relief surfaces of the woodcut and the flat landscapes he lives with.

The reduction woodcut process uses the same block of wood over and over, unlike the traditional woodcut method that employs separate blocks for each color. The artist cuts and prints the woodblock in stages, printing a different color on the same sheet of paper after each cutting. As successive areas of the block are cut away (reduced, hence reduction woodcut), inked and printed, the image builds in subtlety and complexity. Dijkstra and Mortensen both make effective use of the process to express their respective landscapes. Through January 30, 2010.

Keinen. Chrysanthemum, Chestnut Mannikin. Color woodblock, 1891. Oban diptych, 12-1/2 x 8-3/4 inches each.

Imao Keinen Kacho Album: the Four Seasons

Kacho-ga, or “bird and flower pictures,” are among the most enduring and popular subjects of Japanese prints. Active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, print artist Imao Keinen’s most celebrated work was his four volume set Keinen Kacho Gafu (Bird and Flower Album by Keinen) published in 1891. Keinen Kacho Gafu is a collection of Japanese bird and plant portraits illustrating over 100 different birds in carefully selected, seasonal settings. Davidson Galleries is proud to present an exhibition of the entire series of Keinen’s Bird and Flower Album through December 24.

• View Kacho-Ga works

We are closed December 25 & 26 and January 1 & 2.
Open by appointment Dec 29 - 31.

Showing November 6-28, 2009

First Thursday reception: November 5, 6-8pm

Robert E. Marx Recent Paintings

Abigail’s Reverie, 2009. Oil on linen. 42 x 34 inches.

Rochester artist Robert E. Marx’s recent paintings on linen are rich and varied. Small to medium in size, these thoughtful images address the “exclusivity of the institutions of church and state, abuse of both spouse and child, and our own and others’ personal fears and insecurities.” The distended and sometimes bound figures he portrays wear symbols of subjugation such as masks, chains, hats that cover ears and eyes, and clothing that restricts movement. Marx mourns the autonomy humans give up and sees many people as scared, willing pawns. Some of his figures gaze out with a hollowness, a vessel drained of heavy emotion. Others challenge the viewer with an intriguing ambiguity of intent.

Marx’s painting process is fluid; it involves a constant reworking of his subject and his surface, painting and completely repainting each successive layer. The result is a subtle but complex surface where line and color is animated by the barely-visible underpainting. Marx works with a paintbrush thick with oil but employs crisp lines. He often works into the wet paint by etching with metal stamps or drawing with a sharp point.

Marx’s long and illustrious career includes recognition as a master printmaker, an illustrator of more than a dozen books, a distinguished professor of art, and a Fullbright scholar. He has had over 40 solo exhibitions of his prints, sculptures, and paintings around the world. His work is included in the permanent collections of numerous public and private institutions including the Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Corcoran Gallery, National Museum of American Art, Dallas Museum, Los Angeles County Museum, Philadelphia Museum, Whitney Museum, and the Seattle Art Museum.

View previous work by the artist.

Jonelle Johnson New Works

Finger Printed Circular, 2009. Intaglio. 12 x 24 inches.

Northwest print artist Jonelle Johnson’s new body of monotypes and intaglio prints continue the artist’s interest in pairing and grouping images in a way that reveals contrasting and harmonious relationships. Johnson does not attempt to deliver a literal, didactic message, but prefers to see her work as vehicles to transmit feelings and ideas. Recurring images, which are a part of the artist’s daily life, include boats, birds, and botanical shapes. Also included in this body of work are figurative images, a new area of interest for the artist.

Johnson uses intaglio and monotype printmaking methods because of the unexpected results that can occur. These “surprises” inspire the artist to explore new avenues and enhance the dialogue between the artist and the printed image. The unique intaglio process that Johnson has developed gives her the ability to improvise and adjust gestural elements when making the plates. With her monotype method the artist layers colors until the image finds resolution.

Jonelle Johnson is a native of Washington State. She received her MFA in Printmaking at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu HI. This is Johnson’s fifth exhibition at Davidson Galleries.

View previous work by the artist.

Showing October 2-31, 2009

First Thursday reception: October 1, 6-8pm

Karen Kunc Order

Wild Remnant, 2009. Woodcut. 18 x 18 inches.

Order presents new prints created in response to living in and conceptualizing on natural and human processes that affect environment, that contrast ways and means, and outcomes for life.  Karen Kunc (b. 1952) observes and responds to visual sensations of iconic sources – gridiron scaffolding, repetition of window frames, decaying fragments; she conceptualizes patterns - of channels and pathways as flowing movement or pulsing energy; sounds evoke concentric rings suggestive of rhythmic growth or expansion; aerial perspectives offer viewpoints of suburban sprawl and mining wastelands.  The artist considers the imbalances of architecture over nature, of human efforts related in scale to mountain ranges.  Kunc’s images are comparative metaphors, as she finds beauty and strangeness in equal measure, as poignantly meaningful concepts on dwelling, gathering, cultivation, networks, encroachments.  Her overarching question - on how things come about  - is envisioned here as the natural and unnatural order of things.

Within the last several years, Kunc has deliberately provoked her senses by living and working in New York, Vancouver, Italy, Egypt, all around the country, and in Nebraska, her home.  She has been evolving the ongoing “Urban/Rural Divide” series, and has moved beyond.  Her series leads her to understand that the “divide” is never so clear-cut, and the inevitable order of life is fluid, with shared concerns and sympathies.  Therefore, her visual metaphors continue to be related to life cycles, webs and linkages, even as “Darwinian” order prevails.

Karen Kunc is the Willa Cather Professor and Professor of Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  She has done many artist residencies around the world and has received numerous awards.  Kunc’s work can be found in many public collections including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Univeristy of Washington, Seattle Washington, and the Jyvaskyla Art Museum, Finland.

View previous work by the artist.

Please email or call 206 624-1324 for more information.

Zha Sai Rhythm of Shadows

Undulated Shadow, 2007. Reduction woodcut. 14 x 11 inches.

Rhythm of Shadows is an exhibition of ten reduction woodblock prints by Chinese artist Zha Sai (b. 1974.) These images seek to capture the artist’s impression of the natural environment of the her home in Wuhan, a large city situated on the banks of the Yangtze River in Hubei Province, an area known as the “Thousand Lakes Place.”  Zha Sai enjoys the meditative, repetitive quality of and concentration required in carving reduction woodcuts.

Zha Sai was born in Wuhan, studied at the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts and is currently a Professor of Printmaking at the Institute.  This is her first exhibition at Davidson Galleries.  Concurrent with this show the artist will have exhibitions at Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle; Pacific Northwest College of the arts, Portland OR; and Gonzaga University, Spokane WA.

Please email or call 206 624-1324 for more information.

Eugène Grasset Les Mois

Decembre, c. 1900. Color wood engraving. 8 x 6 inches.

Swiss-born graphic artist Eugène Samuel Grasset (1845-1917) was one of the leading figures in the Art Nouveau movement in Paris.  Best known for his iconic posters and his contributions to graphic design—an italic typeface he created in 1898 is still used by designers around the world—Grasset also designed furniture, ceramics, tapestries, and postage stamps.  In 1894, Grasset was commissioned by the French department store La Belle Jardinière to create twelve original artworks to be used as a calendar.

Grasset’s delectable wood engravings, depicting beautiful young women in seasonal costumes and gardens that change with the seasons, were issued as a fine art portfolio called Les Mois (The Months) by the Paris publisher G. de Malherbe.  Davidson Galleries will be presenting an exhibition of all twelve original plates from Les Mois during the month of October.

Please email or call 206 624-1324 for more information.

Showing September 4-26, 2009

First Thursday reception: September 3, 6-8pm

Leslie Williams Cain

In the Foothills and Along the Bottoms,
Recent Works from the Walla Walla Valley

Winter Stubble, 2009. Pastel on paper. 16 x 54.

This exhibition of pastels on paper by Leslie Williams Cain features a body of work produced during the past year, a time of great personal transitions and upheavals for the artist. The images mark moments when she could pause and catch her breath. In these times of respite the artist sought the companionship and friendship that her home, the Walla Walla Valley, offers her. She found herself “walking its ridges with the wind, or standing ankle-deep in its streams,” and feeling the weight of life falling away.  During these walks she recognized that movement is a constant, in nature and in one’s own life.

Cain’s pastels capture the shifting light on the land, the wind blowing in the grasses, and ripples moving on the water’s surface. The artist works and reworks her images, first sketching lines, then kneading the pigment into the surface to create broad planes of color. This process is repeated several times and completed with a bold overlay of line. Cain’s large scale works draw the viewer into the landscape, offering a moment to pause, reflect and lose oneself in the beauty of the fleeting moment.

View previous work by the artist.

Paula Barragan Mitad del Mundo

Mamey, 2004. Intaglio. 4-3/4 x 4-3/4. Ed. 50.

Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the Earth) is the first exhibition at Davidson Galleries of works by Equadorian artist Paula Barragan, and consists of over twenty intaglio prints made in the past ten years. The artist takes profound pleasure in the process of discovery that occurs while she is making art, whether it is drawing, painting or making prints. In her intaglio prints, Barragan creates rich, textured surfaces, reminiscent of woven textile patterns, using an open-bite process that deeply etches the plate. The translucency of the thin Japanese handmade paper that she prints on gives the work a luminous quality.  Her images range from abstract patterns that one might see in nature, such as the swirl on a snail shell or the angular lines of an animal’s rib cage, to crude folk-like drawings of humans and creatures. Barragan feels that her images express life situations and stories, the lines and color reflect delight and misfortune in every moment.

Paula Barragan received her BFA at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. She also studied printmaking and painting in San Francisco and Paris.  Barragan’s work has been exhibited throughout South America, Spain, Germany and New York. Her work can be found in the Museum of the Central Bank of Ecuador and in many private collections.

*Special reception and walk-through with Paula Barragan, sponsored by Seattle Print Arts and Sev Shoon Art Center as part of the Visiting Artist Program, September 3, 5 - 6 pm.

Trish Maharam Story Maps

Shapes of an Inner Landscape (detail), 2008.

Silk, cotton thread. 18 x 20 inches.

Seattle artist Trish Maharam hand-stitches cotton thread on layers of mostly transparent silk to create delicate, ethereal embroidered works that evoke topographical maps of fields and water. She describes this new body of work as Story Maps, which “represent a place as it is perceived by an individual or a by a culture moving through it. They are records of specific journeys, organized around the passage of the traveler, and their perimeters are the perimeters of the sight or experience of that traveler.” Maharam has been making art all her life.  She has worked in a variety of mediums including writing, drawing, and most recently has focused on working with hand-stitching fabric. This is Maharam’s first exhibition at Davidson Galleries.

Showing August 7-29, 2009

Opening reception: First Thursday, August 6, 6-8pm

Lee Chul Soo Visual Poetry

Note: Unfortunately, the artist cannot attend the opening, so the 5pm introduction and preview has been cancelled.

The Season for Plum Flowers. Woodcut, 2009. Image: 12 x 20 inches.

Translation: In early spring, when a plum tree that survived the long winter blooms redolent flowers, a farmer, who, after surviving the long winter, plows the thawing field and smiles at the life that survived the cold weather. Life in spring and the farmer are friends this way.

Visual Poetry, an exhibition of new work by Korean master woodcut artist Lee Chul Soo, demonstrates the artist’s ability to create visual and verbal poems that express universal messages. They reflect his life as a rice farmer, Zen Buddhist practitioner, and keen observer of daily events taking place locally in his home village, and at the national and global levels. Lee’s poetic reflections express the relationships humans have with their natural environment, their families and neighbors, and with all people around the world. Lee Chul Soo draws compassionate and humorous analogies between nature and humanity. In “Face to Face” three small insects stand up to a large praying mantis, willing to sacrifice their lives; and in “Don’t Worry” two parents walk through an “unusual wind,” trusting their children will follow.

A Gift. Woodcut, 2007. Image: 9-1/2 x 7 inches.

Translation: I hear that some people send a parcel containing a bomb…

Lee Chul Soo was born in 1954 and at an early age, without formal training, began his artistic studies. His first major exhibition was in Seoul in 1981. He is widely respected for his work as printmaker for the Min-jung Art Movement (Democratic Art Movement for the People) in the 1980’s. At that time, his bold, graphic work addressed major Korean social and political issues. Mr. Lee’s artistic focus shifted when he and his family moved to a small rice farm in the countryside in 1987. Now, most of Lee Chul Soo’s woodcuts are characterized by their minimalism and laconic prose. On his farm the artist grows most of his own food, writes poetry, and makes woodcut prints by hand in the traditional way, on handmade Korean mulberry paper.

Lee Chul Soo’s woodcuts have been exhibited in Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, throughout Korea, and in 2003, Davidson Galleries was honored to exhibit his work for the first time in the United States. Visual Poetry is the third solo exhibition of Lee’s work at Davidson Galleries.

• View previous works by Lee Chul Soo

Please email Cara or call 206 624-1324 for more information.

Robert Connell Sense of Place

Drawbridge. Acrylic on canvas, 2009. 24 x 30 inches.

Sense of Place by Seattle artist Robert Connell is an exhibition of sixteen new works on paper and paintings on canvas selected from his oeuvre of the past two years. The works depict the white skies of the Northwest region and the bold natural or man made architectural silhouettes against it. Connell travels extensively around the Pacific Northwest, drawing mountains, forests, lakes and ponds; and most recently has been spending more time locally studying the Seattle skyline and the city’s residential and industrial neighborhoods. For the works on paper, Connell begins working on site, drawing with sumi ink describing the composition with negative and positive spaces. Later, in his studio using a brayer he rolls on gouache to create thick textured planes of color.

Connell’s approach to his paintings on canvas is similar to that of his work on paper. He paints a white acrylic background, followed by a black silhouette to create the structure of the composition. He then applies acrylic with a brayer to achieve similar colors and textures to those of his work on paper. Using this unique approach to painting on paper and canvas, Connell records the sense of place found in the natural and urban landscapes of the Northwest not in a photographic way, but through an interpretation influenced by medium, memory, and emotion.

• View previous work by Robert Connell

Please email Cara or call 206 624-1324 for more information.

Leonard Baskin Native American Portraits

Whitehorse. Lithograph, 1974. 32 x 20 inches.

In the early 1970s, the National Park Service asked Leonard Baskin to provide illustrations for Little Big-Horn National Park, which was then called Custer National Park. As he dove into his research, the artist was struck deeply by the wisdom, courage, and plight of the Native Americans and began a series of large format lithographic portraits of nineteenthcentury chiefs. Cast against the historical backdrop of renewed interest in the American Indian Movement, Baskin’s exquisitely drawn portraits stand out as a poignant example of his artistic activism and a complex reflection on our collective history. Davidson Galleries is proud to present a selection of Baskin’s Native American Portraits through the month of August.

Please email Emily or call 206 624-6700 for more information.

July 3 - August 1, 2009

Opening reception: First Thursday, July 2, 6-8pm

West Coast Drawings VIII

Curated by Norman Lundin

Bill Vuksanovich. Two Sides of the Same Coin. Pencil on paper, 2001. 30 x 44 inches.

Davidson Galleries and Koplin Del Rio (Culver City, CA) are pleased to present West Coast Drawings: Drawings VIII. A multimedia group exhibition curated by Norman Lundin on display concurrently at these two West Coast locations.

This exhibition continues a tradition that began in 1991 at Koplin Del Rio gallery of hosting summer group drawing exhibitions. Conceived from the gallery’s distinct interest in works on paper, the original concept was to curate an in-house exhibition including many of the gallery artists, as well as invite artists from outside the gallery’s regular program. This show is the eighth variation on the original “Drawings” concept and will expand the geography of the exhibition to a venue in Seattle, Davidson Galleries, with an exchange of artists between the Northern and Southern West Coast. By broadening the scope of the exhibition, both geographically and conceptually, the gallery hopes to continue the enhancement of people discovering drawings.

As part of the complementary dual format, Norman Lundin, exhibiting artist and Professor of Art, Emeritus at the University of Washington, curated the exhibition. Works chosen for the show are rooted in classical representational traditions, but veer outside the expected in both media and style.

D.J. Hall. Cake Time. Graphite and mixed media on paper, 2008. 24 x 18 inches.

Participating artists:

Davidson Galleries
David Bailin, Sandow Birk, Hilary Brace, Shay Bredimus, Wes Christensen, Melissa Cooke, Fred Dalkey, David Fertig, Kim Frohsin, Moira Hahn, D.J. Hall, Grant Hottle, Ira Korman, David Ligare, Tim Lowly, Robert Schultz, Fred Stonehouse, Bill Vuksanovich, Michelle Wiener.

Koplin Del Rio
Juliette Aristedes, Fred Birchman, David Brody, Sally Cleveland, Eric Elliott, Gary Faigin, Ann Gale, Philip Govedare, Michael Howard, Katina Huston, Etsuko Ichikawa, Mark Kang-O’Higgins, Philip Levine, Zhi Lin, Margie Livingston, Norman Lundin, Brian Murphy, Ed Musante, Linda Thomas, Kimberly Trowbridge, Evelyn Woods.

Please email Sam or call 206 624-7684 for more information.

Claus Seligmann Works on Paper

December 1971 #2. Tempera on board. 18 x 20 inches.

Davidson Galleries is proud to introduce the paintings of Claus Seligmann. As a professor of architecture at the University of Washington (1964-2006), Seligmann taught design, architectural theory, criticism and semiotics courses. His classes addressed theories of architectural history, symbolization, “meaning” in architecture and theories of culture in environmental architecture.

Seligmann applied his theoretical interests to his paintings, creating images generated by “transformation processes.” According to the artist, “transformation process refers to a code or set of rules, which systematically and progressively modifies an initial set of figurative elements. An image generated in this way often has potential for infinite growth.” His images were based on the regular subdivision of a square grid. The simplicity of the grid allows the artist to explore the complexity of the transformation processes.

Seligmann, born in Leipzig (1927), was raised and educated in England, where he received his diploma of architecture from the School of Architecture at the Polytechnic, London. He was a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers in Britain.

Please email Cara or call 206 624-1324 for more information.

M.J. Anderson The Probability of Resemblance

Wonder. Red suriya travertine , 2008. 20 x 14 x 9 inches.

In this exhibition of new work, M.J. Anderson continues working in collaboration with stone, marble and travertine. Anderson travels annually between the Northwest and the quarries of Italy to select her materials and to rough out her sculptures which are later completed in her coastal Oregon studio. Her contemporary use of marble and stone acknowledges classical sculpture while presenting a unique vision of womanhood. Her work explores the imperfections of the human figure and seeks to represent beauty beyond image. “These works continue my fascination with the torso as essence of human spirit. Each straightforward frontal pose, without drama or contortion, acts as vessel of distillation for the honesty of emotion within each figure.”

M.J. Anderson has received numerous grants and awards including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Her work has been the subject of numerous one-person museum exhibitions. She has exhibited with Davidson since 1993.

View previous work by Anderson

Please email Sam or call 206 624-7684 for more information.

June 5-27, 2009

Opening reception: First Thursday, June 4, 6-8pm

Amanda Knowles Grids, Circuits & Vertices

Flutter I-IX. Mixed media on paper, 2009. 33 x 44-1/2 inches.

Grids, Circuits & Vertices is an exhibition of new work by Seattle artist Amanda Knowles.  The core of the exhibition is a series of two-dimensional images created using a variety of print processes such as intaglio, screen printing, and gum bi-chromate to assist with transfers. She often employs graphite and acrylic paint and combines separate panels with stitchery. This new body of work also includes a cutout steel sculpture and cut paper assemblages.

Knowles’ work is based on a language of appropriation; employing, as well as subverting the visual language of science.  The artist continues to utilize imagery from engineering, math and physics - diagrams whose primary purpose is to explain or demonstrate. The ideas are balanced between the organizational structure of scientific explanation and a more decorative reality, where the original context is obscured.  In pulling these images from the scientific bedrock and placing them on an artistic plane the artist hopes to draw an emotive or intuitive response instead of leading the viewer to think about the world in terms of reason and logic.

Amanda Knowles received her MFA in Printmaking from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She currently teaches printmaking at a variety of locations in Seattle including Sev Shoon Art Center and North Seattle Community College. In 2008 Knowles received an Artist Trust GAP Award (Grants for Artist’s Projects) and a Purchase Award - Portable Works Collection from the City of Seattle and 4Culture. She has received numerous other awards, artist residencies, and grants including the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award. Knowles’ work can be found in many public and private collections.

View work by Knowles

Please email Cara or call 206 624-1324 for more information.

Ajay Garg Divine Love

Radha and Krishna Playing the Flute.
Gouache on paper, 2002. 10-5/8 x 7-1/4 inches.

A native of Rajasthan, India, contemporary miniaturist Ajay Garg uses a magnifying glass and a single-haired brush to produce masterful paintings that resonate with the rich history of visual storytelling in India. Garg began studying traditional miniature painting at the age of ten with Asha Devi, and has since become one of the most prominent artists working in the traditional style.  Garg uses gouache, watercolor, and gold paint on found paper to create kaleidoscopic wonderlands of people, animals, plants and patterns—all brought to life through his painstaking attention to content, composition, and exquisite detail.

View work by Garg

Please email Emily or call 206 624-6700 for more information.

May 8-30, 2009

Opening reception with the artists:
First Thursday, May 7, 6-8pm

John Grade New Works

Artist talk and walk-through: Saturday, May 16, 2pm

left: Float (Brighton) (detail). Graphite on paper, 2009. right: detail from related sculpture. Cast rubber, 2009.

This exhibition of new work by Seattle artist John Grade presents graphite and charcoal drawings, photographs, sculpture, installation pieces, and his recent work in lithography.  These works connect ongoing projects first introduced at Grade’s 2008 Bellevue Arts Museum survey with upcoming exhibitions and installations scheduled in the U.S. (Seattle, San Francisco, New York), France and England.  Through these various media, Grade explores material realms of transition.  The works document the fleeting moments between two formal states and the agents of transformation that make these changes occur:  water, wind, insects, sand, the sun, and the body.

The exhibition will feature an installation in which Grade has cast hundreds of lips of family members, friends, associates and acquaintances.  The lighting on the piece shifts from the front to the back, illuminating it in different ways to reveal changing textural surfaces and transforming the literal realism to virtual abstraction. At first, the viewer might only focus on the details of the individual lips, then, surmises the criterion for inclusion.  After spending time with the piece, allowing for the light changes, the viewer sees the surface undulate like a landscape, suggesting a surface much like the slot canyons the artist has frequently included in his work.  Gradually the viewer may lose all sense of anything literal and will only see the abstract patterns and shapes the changing light creates.

The artist hopes that the shifting perception from literal to abstract will encourage the viewer to look for similar transformations in the rest of the work.  What appears abstract becomes recognizable and specific to the viewer’s understanding.  Drawings that may at first appear to be only abstract patterns and forms can morph into maps or diagrams.

Grade received his BFA from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.  This is his seventh solo exhibition at Davidson Galleries.  The artist has had two solo museum exhibitions, in 2004 at the Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID and in 2008 at the Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA.  Grade has received numerous award, and artist residencies.  Many of the drawings in this exhibition were begun earlier this year during a residency at the Macdowell Colony in New Hampshire and during site visits to Utah, Nevada and locations in England.

View work by Grade

Please email or call 206 624-7684 for more information.

Kevin Fletcher Monotypes

Comes a Time in Everybody’s Life, You Can’t Go Home No More. Monotype, 2008.

The Davidson Galleries Contemporary Print and Drawing Center is pleased to present the recent monotypes by California painter and print artist and photographer, Kevin Fletcher.  Fletcher has developed unique imagery informed by architectural and industrial spaces photographed in his travels.  His monochrome images vacillate between realism and abstraction.  Clear radial lines and implied light sources create an “unfussed formal complexity” that is graphically dynamic and yet often delicate.  Many images depict industrial scenes that are in a state of disrepair and decay but still posses power and bold vitality.  These images often have a theatrical flare.  The viewer is led into a highly constructed space that at times feels surreal and unnatural. Fletcher has given himself the task of documenting the constant death and regeneration of urban, and perhaps metaphorically, social constructions.

The artist’s monotypes are made by inking a plate completely with black ink.  He then removes the ink with varying sized matboard chips, rags, and his hand.  When necessary the artist will add lines and marks with rollers after the initial printing.  Fletcher often utilizes the ghost image that remains on the plate after the initial print is made.  He will reapply ink to the plate to create an entirely new image.

Kevin Fletcher received his BFA from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio in 1978 and his MFA in etching and lithography from Syracuse University in 1981.  His work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and Europe.  Fletcher’s work can be found in many permanent collections including the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium; the University of Wurzburg, Germany; the University of Wisconsin, Syracuse University, the Portland Art Museum, and the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Saturday, May 23: Kevin Fletcher will give a monotype workshop at Sev Shoon Art Center.
For more information, visit www.sevshoon.com.

View work by Fletcher

Please email or call 206 624-1324 for more information.

Ten Years, Davidson Galleries’ current exhibition by Ben Beres, has been recommended by the Stranger:

Ben Beres’s first big show of tiny-print, text-based etchings at Davidson Galleries only takes up half the gallery, butit would be a four floor retrospective if beres didn’t work in near-microscopic scale. His plates are shaped, not rectangular, and each print is a singular color (mixed, not bottled) covered in a scrawl of words and teensy images. At the opening, Beres worked the room, preselytizing: “Prints are amazing. More people should be doing prints.” His works spoke the same thing, even louder. - Jen Graves

The exhibition continues through February 28th.

On January 24, Joslyn Art Museum opened Wood, an exhibition celebrating the history and unique characteristics of the woodblock print, with work by contemporary printmaker Karen Kunc.

Dozens of artists from the United States and European nations, as well as Japan, Holland, the United Kingdom, and Scandinavia, are represented. The Wood exhibition inaugurates a series of three annual exhibitions — Wood, Metal, and Stone — highlighting the history and aesthetics of woodblock prints, intaglio, and lithographs.

The exhibition continues through May 24, 2008. Visit joslyn.org for more information.

Concurrent with her upcoming show at Davidson Galleries (Pyrograph, February 6-28), Etsuko Ichikawa will share her work with Chicago at Function+Art. Moment/Memory opens February 6, with a live demonstration at Chicago Hot Glass Saturday, February 7, 3:30-5:30PM. Visit functionart.com to RSVP and for more information.

50 Years, a retrospective exhibition of prints spanning five decades by Sidney Hurwitz will be on display from February 13 - March 29, 2009 at the Stone Gallery of Boston University. The show kicks off with an opening reeption February 12 from 6-8pm.

Contemporary artist Rosalyn Richards will exhibit her large format graphite drawings, with Chinese artist Deng Guo Yuan, at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in Dec 2009. The show will then travel to Vanderbilt University in spring of 2010.