Suite 100 Gallery to Move Next to Roq La Rue

Suite 100 Gallery is moving 1 block north and next to Roq La Rue Gallery, in the space lately vacated by BLVD Gallery. The first show in the new space will open January 9th, as part of the monthly Belltown artwalk.

Even though it is only a one block move, it's a good one. No longer will we need to weave our way through clusters of smokers and clumps of pan handlers which gather on the sidewalk one block south -- a block with Mama's Mexican Kitchen, Lava Lounge, Bad Juju Bar, Noodle Ranch, Shorty's, and Buddha Bar between Roq La Rue and the starter location for the Suite 100 gallery.

The new gallery space is two to three times larger in square footage than the old Suite 100 space, so curators will need to step up their game to use it to their advantage. I hope they consider creating a few dividers to break up the wide open space; the BLVD gallery always felt a little too open. (Picture a large living room where all the furniture is anchored against a wall. Would you want to stay very long? )

The first show in the new space looks promising. "Local Aesthetic" will feature artwork from three local artists: Greg Boudreau, Ryan Molenkamp and Troy Gua.

Starter location, buh-bye


New space, hello-o-o-o

(Not a great picture, but the only exterior shot I have.)

Roq La Rue launches new show and new website

After taking a month off to remodel the gallery, re-work the website, and travel to Europe, Roq La Rue's Kristen Anderson is once again bringing Pop Surrealism art to Belltown. The September show opens tonight and features new work by robot-loving Brian Despain and by visually-apocalyptic social commentator Victor Castillo.

September 2008 Opening:
Friday, September 12
6pm - 9pm
Detail of Detpain's "They Talked of Tin" (image from Roq La Rue)

Five Belltown Gallery Openings on Friday 7/11

I am SO looking forward to hitting Belltown Friday night and catching the opening of five new gallery shows. I am particularly excited about the shows at the Roq, the BLVD, and the new Free Sheep Foundation space. All spaces open at 6 pm and have varying closing hours (as early as 9 pm at the Roq.)

Roq La Rue: 10th Anniversary Group Show
Showing work from 24 artists, including Mark Ryden, Femke Hiemstra, Brian Despain, Travis Louis, Scott Musgrove, Liz McGrath and Shag. I'm curious to see who will show up at this anniversary show. The sport of people-watching can get interesting here. Of course the art is always mad fab interesting too.

BLVD Gallery: “Pneumonia, Isolation, and Disorder” by Deuce 7
Deuce 7 is a graffiti artist from Minneapolis who is also part of a burgeoning underground subculture of Freight train hoppers. In 2007 Deuce7 made a trip to NYC to do graffiti and experience the Mecca of Street Art. After 2 short weeks he had taken the city by storm and was profiled in the Village Voice with the tagline “Is a guy from Minnesota the new king of New York street art?” A very impressive achievement for a previously unknown graffiti artist from the midwest in a city renowned for it’s dislike of intruding outsiders.This will be his first solo show of drawings and paintings on the West Coast.

Stylus Salon and Gallery: Group Art Show curated by Ghost Gallery
2321 Second Avenue
Five local artists are showing works here. I am not familiar with this space or any of the artists, so I can't vouch for whether this will be worth crossing the street from an art appreciation standpoint. However, the announcement for Friday's show opening promises a full bar, food, and music so if the art isn't great you can at least get a little somethin' somethin' (nosh or drink) while you stroll around the salon.

Free Sheep Foundation
3rd and Battery (24oo 3rd ave)
Friday is the first opening of this temporary space leased by the Free Sheep Foundation. The FSF(?) is headed up by the mastermind behind the Bridge Motel project and The Belmont wake: D.K Pan.

The show includes installations from ntg, garek druss, dk pan, static invasion & scntfc, karn junkinsmith, and nko, as well as a collection of "exquisite corpse" works created during a collaborative art-in of street artists and their peeps. Friday's show opening will also include musical performances by Aubrey Birdwell, Locate, and Heavy Teeth. ( Sorry, I have no idea what style of tunes to expect.)

Suite 100 Gallery: Oceanic
Suite 100 Gallery specializes in themed group shows. Expect to see a variety of artists and styles and media when you check out their monthly show. July's Oceanic show is subtitled "nautical adventures and underwater realms" and is curated by the popular artist Ninjagrl.

This gallery stays open late so I usually make it my last Belltown gallery stop of the evening before eating some yummy goodness at the Buddha Bar Thai restaurant next door. However, now that the McLeod Residence is open to all, their lounge may be the new final stop in Belltown before tripping and skipping my way home.

Artist HiIary Harkness: "The world is known in its detail"

NY artist Hilary Harkness creates narrative artwork which makes me want to write a story or ten. There's plenty to be seen in her Escher-like compositions heavily populated with female figures in all sorts of, um, questionable situations and activities.

Jerry Saltz, critic for The Village Voice, wrote about her figures, "Whatever they're involved in, they ooze a bitchy demonic kinkiness, which makes looking at these paintings slippery fun." (#)

Hilary Harkness has been criticized for her representation of women, however this 2004 interview illuminates her approach and viewpoint on the subject matter, composition, and style of her body of work.

"I use sex and power to pull the viewer in; from there, I explore the issues in more detail, sometimes in twists-and-turns and sometimes to the point of their own banality. I also think the manner in which I paint them is important: slow, small, detailed. This allows me to investigate these issues of sex and power in a more detailed, articulated, and maybe thoughtful manner. I hope to infuse these issues with meanings deeper and more idiosyncratic than typically found in the culture at large. I cannot separate how I paint from what I paint, the paintings are not just about one or the other, and hopefully the how and what contrast and combine in a way that creates something interesting, charged."

I would love to see Hilary Harkness' art in person and up close. Roq La Rue in 2009? (I'm dreaming, I know. )

Hilary Harkness is represented by Mary Boone Gallery in NYC, where you can find her work hanging through June 28th. Report back if you go!

Not so Innocent: Fuco Ueda artwork

Japanese artist Fuco Ueda produces beautiful images of Japanese girls that are innocent, sexy, and dangerous all at once. You can view several original works at the Roq La Rue Gallery this month.

Fuco paints using acrylic and powdered mineral pigments, and finishes her work with shell powder. The result is simultaneously soft and crisp, like her subjects.

"The heroines of Fuco Ueda’s paintings are often on the brink of danger. These beauties are at once victims and agents. But whether the threats are self-inflicted or not, they make for fierce and beautiful narratives." [#]




Is she smelling the chrystanthemum, or metaphorically tasting the flower?
Fierce indeed!

The Roq was lucky enough to get a show commitment from Fuco before she signed on with Tomoko Kogure, of Tokyo's Gallery Kogure. I chatted with Tomoko on Friday but she didn't reveal much of her plan for Fuco. Here's hoping Fuco doesn't end up in an artist stable and just one of many. Fuco's work is too good to be sidelined. All of the her pieces for the Roq show have been purchased.

I talked with Fuco Ueda for a few minutes through her friend who translated for us. Nice. Shy. Surprised that I knew of her work from a year ago and that I had been eagerly anticipating her show in Seattle.

Get yourself down to the Roq La Rue in the next couple of weeks to see this work in person. It is lovely, lively, and a bit sexy-dangerous -- in a metaphoric way.

p.s. It is safe for kids: the sexy-dangerous vibe will go right over their innocent little heads.

Faux relatives from Travis Louie

Travis Louie creates warm and playful portraiture of imaginary beings, after the style of Victorian photographs. The Roq La Rue Gallery in Belltown is hosting the largest show to date of Travis Louie’s artwork (through May 3rd).

His technique, "transparent layers of acrylic paint over a tight graphite drawing on a smooth flat surface," produces works which resemble old photographs from the Victorian era. Each piece in the show is ornately displayed in turn-of-the-century convex glass, enhancing the atmosphere of perusing the portraits of long-gone relatives. Travis Louie also provides a backstory for each subject. He clearly has genuine affection for these creations.

Also showing at Roq La Rue this month are works by Femke Hiemstra. She produces little treasures which reward those who take the time to look closely.

Monkey Boy (Travis Louie)

"Albert was a happy monkey boy. He worked for an organ grinder, dancing in a trance like state with a tin cup in his hand. Quite often he would climb up a lamp post and do a back somersault off of it. When someone tried to put buttons in his cup instead of coins…he chased them down and made them eat them. He was not to be trifled with."

Harvey (Travis Louie)


"Harvey was mostly rabbit, but also part badger. After many years of teasing, He decided to relocate to Australia. The teasing didn’t stop, but the accent Was enough to make it more tolerable. He acquired a dueling scar and joined A cult made of mostly mining workers who happened to be part badger."

La Cérémonie (Femke Hiemstra)

Friday gallery openings: toys, Parskid and birds

Hooray! New shows open on Friday March 14th at the trio of hip galleries on 2nd Avenue in Belltown.

Roq La Rue Gallery is featuring a series from Robert Burdon (San Francisco) titled "Toybox." His inspiration for the series was the discovery of a box of toys he had owned as a child. His paintings are of those toys, or of other toys he very much wanted to own. "These large canvases are covered in baroque-like patterning and gilt framing, and a small box containing the actual toy accompanies each piece (referred to by Robert as a "reliquary" of sorts.)"[#]

BLVD Gallery (next door to the Roq) is featuring the urban contemporary works of Parskid (Seattle) and Chip7 (New Jersey). I am looking forward to checking out what Parskid's been working on. His contribution to The Belmont was quite amusing. (right) This show at the BLVD received early press from Juxtapoz mag online.

And third, the Suite 100 Gallery brings together artists from Seattle and Portland, showing works with a common theme of "Feathered Friends." The Suite 100 Gallery is located a block south of Blvd and the Roq.

Its been three months since I last hit the opening nights for the three galleries. Two galleries took January off and I was out of town for the Feburary openings. (But I did make it down to see Roq's and Blvd's Feb shows a couple of weeks ago.)

I am so looking forward making the rounds on Friday!