Catherine Grisez has a new show opening at Seattle’s Traver Gallery, and it’s a doozy. Her previous work has focused on themes such as meticulously constructed music boxes which crack open to sing tinny tunes pinged by little golden mallets, and complicated faberge eggs which leak and pool delicate threads of gems and chain.
Her newest show, Lick, highlights wearable ‘jewelry’ crafted to resemble gaping, seeping wounds. Modeled by friends, fellow artists and even the gallery owner himself, beautiful strands of pearls and gems leak out of slits, crevices and punctures in a distinctly organic way. These wounds repel and surprise, then invite a closer look to the intricate threading and beading which mimics the processes of our far slimier, messier bodies.
“Steamed” Alyssa Monks, 2009.
The first time I saw Alyssa Monks’ work I naturally assumed the medium was photography. Ok, water droplets, vapor, breath, fine and dandy, not earthshattering stuff. Imagine my surprise when I read these were in fact paintings: jaw hit floor. Check out the archive of her work and you’ll see just how incredibly photorealistic these oil paintings are. Each is more stunning than the last.
“Just Before the Junction” Kate Protage, 2008.
On a more local note, a number of us visited the 619 Western art collective for the monthly art walk this evening, and I had a chance to revisit the studio of one of my favorite local painters. Kate Protage (whose works are so badly represented in digital form) paints the urban landscape as if through a veil of tears: puddles of color, stars of light, long contrails of headlights swoop across street and skyline rendered in inky darkness. Protage’s large canvases bring a slice of night and noise inside and allow part of the speeding, wild city to interact with the quiet of the civilized room. Too bad they’re so out of my price range…
Posted by various vapor, assembled. on Tue Apr 27th at 2:18PM