Author Archives: gallery110

About gallery110

Gallery 110’s mission is to provide dynamic opportunities to established and emerging professional artists in an environment that encourages creative expression, experimentation and collaboration. As a nonprofit organization, the gallery fosters artistic and professional connections between its associated artists and the arts community at large through creative dialogue, the presentation of challenging and enriching curated exhibitions, public opportunities and collaborative projects.

Arriving Somewhere

November 2 – December 2, 2023

Artist Angshuman Sarkar‘s photography exhibition Arriving Somewhere presents a documentary exploration of the American landscape through the eyes of an immigrant artist. The exhibition features photographs that capture the beauty and complexity of the American landscape, from natural formations to the topological landscapes shaped by human activity.

Consisting of two main sections, “natural landscapes” and “topological landscapes”, Arriving Somewhere is a series of photographs documenting the natural beauty of the American landscape (including geological formations, canyons, and deserts) with a second section exploring the impact of human activity on the landscape (industrial zones, urban areas, and transportation infrastructure).

Arriving Somewhere highlights the complexity and diversity of the American landscape, prompting reflection on the impact human activity has had on the environment. Sarkar’s photographs invite viewers to consider their own relationship with the natural world and to reflect on their responsibility to preserve and protect it. In addition to exploring the natural and human-altered landscapes, Arriving Somewhere also considers the political and cultural divisions that can arise from these changes. Washington state is a microcosm of the American landscape in general, it has clear demarcations of red and blue areas. Arriving Somewhere explores these divisions through photographs of two contrasting areas in the state: rural eastern Washington, which tends to be more conservative and Republican-leaning, and the urban western Washington, which tends to be more liberal and Democratic-leaning.

Designed to immerse viewers in the landscape, Sarkar’s work creates a contemplative atmosphere, inviting viewers to slow down. Using Washington as a case study, Arriving Somewhere offers a documentary exploration of political and cultural divisions that can arise from changes in landscape, while also reflecting on the beauty and complexity of the natural world and our impact in it.

Arriving Somewhere will be on display at Gallery 110 from November 2 – December 2, 2023. Gallery hours are Thursday – Saturday from 12pm – 5pm and by appointment. Please join us for the First Thursday Art Walk on November 2, 2023 from 4-8pm.

 

Rajaa Gharbi, Selected Works

November 2 – December 2, 2023

Featuring original acrylic paintings and prints from several previous solo exhibitions, artist Rajaa Gharbi‘s exhibition, Rajaa Gharbi, Selected Works is largely inspired by a sense of realism and the need for collective, life-nurturing visions and practices.

Gharbi’s works are never about just one or two themes. Among her earliest and indelible art influences and “training” grounds were her mother’s clothing designs, her father’s storytelling feats, her native city’s omnipresent visual worlds of hand-weaving arts, first centuries BCE monumental representational mosaic “paintings”, and the vestiges of a bygone Roman Empire. Visual storytelling and ancient scripts have held her focus since childhood. There, the first waves of infinite geometric designs and limitless color palettes permeated her psyche. Hopping around or staring at the fallen or still standing marble statues of all sizes, texts hand-engraved on steles, and very young olive trees cracking life open right through ancient fallen columns in her native Carthage, Tunisia and across North Africa are still among her sources of inspiration. She is also inhabited and taught by the geographic and human landscapes of the American Northwest.

Gharbi has painted to communicate and travel through “time” and “space”, and to cross real or imagined boundaries since childhood. In the past she has described her painting work as semi abstract or surrealistic, but the truth is her work shouldn’t and doesn’t fit in any already established category. Gharbi pays homage to great artists from the South and the North and the East and the West who have preceded her, and finds inspiration wherever and whenever her brush and concepts find grounding form and pigment.

In her exhibition, Rajaa Gharbi, Selected Works, the title themes I Will Catch You No Matter Which Angle You Fall, Birds in an Alpha City Scape, Gathering for Food and Light, and Every Eye Was Born a Bird are connected thoughts – a throughline present in these works and in many other paintings. Gharbi painted objective and nonobjective forms in non-linear space arrangements; her piece, They used to call her Simorgh, a mythical bird covers the sky while it holds conversation with its human children as they hang down from under her wings or watch various kinds of “passages” and cross some. Much of what Gharbi works for in her paintings is the creation of space for the invisible, and the best aspects of the human and non-human to become “seeable”, “feelable”, and to live joy on their own terms.

Rajaa Gharbi, Selected Works will be on display at Gallery 110 from November 2 – December 2, 2023. Gallery hours are Thursday – Saturday from 12pm – 5pm and by appointment. Please join us for the First Thursday Art Walk on November 2, 2023 from 4-8pm.

 

Recover, Transcend, Repeat

November 2 – December 2, 2023

Artist Ingrid Sojit is drawn to deep philosophical questions. Employing a broad range of visual symbols, she explores these questions in pictorial form. A series of oil paintings, mixed media collage and paper collage, Recover, Transcend, Repeat engages viewers in a visual discussion on the nature of change, resilience and transcendence.

Sojit’s symbolic lexicon ranges from representational to abstract. A bird can represent freedom or the ability to rise above difficulties, the color red may symbolize strength, vigor or love, while a faint blurred broken line can convey exhaustion or psychological trauma. In June of 2020, Ingrid decided to set aside paper collage, a medium she had employed nearly exclusively over the previous five years, and returned to oil painting. The pandemic provided a safe and private space to experiment, and she decided to make art about how she imagined her own afterlife, a theme inspired by the reality of the unfolding deadly pandemic. While working on the afterlife series, Sojit began to understand that this series was just one branch of a broader theme which had been present in her work for some time. The cycle of trauma, transcendence and recovery is at the core of all biological life. Imagining an afterlife was Ingrid’s attempt to understand the role of death within this cycle.

Representing change in two dimensional art can be challenging. While change is an inherent dimension in temporal and kinetic art forms, in two dimensional art change is often conveyed through symbols, references, or the guided movement of the viewer’s eyes. Recover, Transcend, Repeat is symbolic with varying degrees of representationalism. Recognizable objects, suggestive shapes, evocative colors and gestural forms are employed in a way that illustrates transformative change. Transformation is viewed, not as a unique and spectacular event, but as a fundamental aspect of life in all its forms and at every stage.

Is growth simply a matter of embracing change by actively engaging in multiple cycles of recovery and transcendence? Do strength and perseverance naturally emerge when this cycle has been completed? Does death abruptly end the natural cycle of trauma, followed by healing, followed by transcendence? Or is death the most dramatic version of the same cycle?

Recover, Transcend, Repeat is an exploration of these philosophical questions and will be on display at Gallery 110 from November 2 – December 2, 2023. Gallery hours are Thursday – Saturday from 12pm – 5pm and by appointment. Please join us for the First Thursday Art Walk on November 2, 2023 from 4-8pm.

 

Memoriae Botanicum

October 5 – 28, 2023

A-M Petersons‘ exhibition Memoriae Botanicum explores the fluidity and dynamism of our local cityscapes. Over the last five years Petersons has been collecting botanical specimens from the homes on her street, rendering each as a black and white ink drawing on 4×6 postcard sized paper. This documentation has gone through bursts and droughts as she navigates life’s priorities and tragedies, elevating each of her findings to a format that is most often associated with travel documentation and small-scale storytelling.

Neighborhoods, streets, and city blocks showcase the economic climate and architectural trends of the day; dwellings and front gardens mirror the impulses of their inhabitants. Seattle is changing rapidly, buildings are being razed to make way for new construction. Entire neighborhoods are altered, often with their unique personalities lost forever.  During daily walks in Petersons’ neighborhood, she witnesses local landscapes being permanently altered by this new construction. Contemplating the changes in our landscape, she notices the displacement of modest homes also destroying the unique and historic “greenscape” of these neighborhoods. Most new homes are unveiled with a footprint that swallows the previous garden or with perfectly manicured, monochromatic front yards. Established heirloom plants, trees, and flowers are uprooted forever.  Since she’s started the project, already a couple of homes have been razed and gardens uprooted, emphasizing Memoriae Botanicum‘s historical significance, however small and hyper-local.

Petersons’ is drawn to the established gardens of Seattle, curious to understand the botanical imprint that previous generations have left on our local landscape and capture existing gardens before they disappear.

Memoriae Botanicum will be on display at Gallery 110 from October 5 – 28, 2023. Gallery hours are Thursday – Saturday from 12pm – 5pm and by appointment. Please join us for the First Thursday Art Walk on October 5, 2023 from 4-8pm.

 


“SHADOWS” OR “REALITY”?

October 5 – 28, 2023

Artist Katherine Loveland‘s six abstract macrophotographs of nature provide witnesses a greater sense of an image through varied perspectives, colors and compositions. Nature is much richer than our cursory first impression. A rose is just a rose, or is it?

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave challenges us to wonder: is our vision of nature “real” or a “shadow”? What exactly is truth? In “SHADOWS” OR “REALITY”?, Loveland’s photographs represent reality, and the artwork labels and name of the object represent the shadow. Loveland’s work emphasizes how nature is richer than a superficial and predetermined view typically provides, and how viewing nature in depth allows us the opportunity to embrace a complex reality.

“SHADOWS” OR “REALITY”? will be on display at Gallery 110 from October 5 – 28, 2023. Gallery hours are Thursday – Saturday from 12pm – 5pm and by appointment. Please join us for the First Thursday Art Walk on October 5, 2023 from 4-8pm.

 

The Impossibility of Knowing

October 5 – 28, 2023

Artist JW Harrington‘s exhibition The Impossibility of Knowing refers to the strength of memory and imagination, compared to what is “real” or “observed”. Powerful and curatorially acclaimed, Harrington’s series of oil and acrylic paintings feature solid shapes, figures, or silhouettes interacting with mirrored outlines against shadowed backgrounds. What seems substantive is augmented with its past, future, mirror or shadow. Harrington’s figures seem to be doubled, each interacting with its respective complement. The Impossibility of Knowing‘s interplay creates visual dynamism as subjects are pulled in opposite directions and interact with their outlines.

Harrington’s fundamental motivation is to generate compositions that may give a viewer pause; in the abstract compositions, because of the overlapping of figure and outline; in the (more prevalent) figurative compositions, because the figures seem aware of its existence, future, or eventual absence. Some of The Impossibility of Knowing’s compositions also emphasize Harrington’s additional motivation – helping normalize brown faces and skin on gallery walls. Indeed, many of the figures and scenes reflect his experiences and family.

The Impossibility of Knowing will be on display at Gallery 110 from October 5 – 28, 2023. Gallery hours are Thursday – Saturday from 12pm – 5pm and by appointment. Please join us for the First Thursday Art Walk on October 5, 2023 from 4-8pm.

 

In Search of Identity

September 7 – 30, 2023

Artist Li Turner attempts to sort out the gender question in In Search of Identity. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time. Consequently, this term is used broadly to denote a range of identities that may not correspond to established biological ideas of male and female. Turner’s series of watercolor paintings explore identities that stray from the more stringent biological definition.

From a biological stand point, gender interacts with but is different from sex, which refers to the different biological and physiological characteristics of females, males and intersex persons, such as chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs. Gender, in contrast, refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behaviors and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy, as well as relationships with each other. In Search of Identity explores how gender identity refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth.

In Search of Identity highlights different genders and explores the intersections between gender’s social and economic inequalities as well as how gender-based discrimination overlaps with other factors of discrimination.

In Search of Identity will be on display at Gallery 110 from September 7 – 30, 2023. Gallery hours are Thursday – Saturday from 12pm – 5pm and by appointment. Please join us for the First Thursday Art Walk on September 7, 2023 from 4-8pm.


On the work of Li Turner
A review of In Search of Identity written by Saundra Fleming
August 25th, 2023 / Seattle, WA

A social critic for contemporary moral subjects, Li Turner finds herself squarely in the art
historical realms of Honore Daumier, William Hogarth or Barbara Kruger – racism and sexism
are her targets. She has stated that she hopes to focus our conscience onto all forms of
prejudice, ageism and stigmatization. How does she do this?

Her works can be seen as an articulated form of “Technicolor” and the intensity of her palette
seems to reflect her continual effort to delineate, and unambiguously so, a transformation of
morality into artistic products. You want to access the exceptional clarity she provides in her
watercolors and gouache paintings because one senses she is holding your hand and steering
us through a kind of mine field that has nearly always threatened our humanity.

There is no avoiding Li Turner’s message. Ethics and art woven together are her focus.
Scapegoating and stigmatization are the things to shine a spotlight upon. And the ambition of
this work is no less than to support each of us in a evolution of the spirit!

– Saundra Fleming
8/25/23
Seattle, WA

 

Under Audit

September 7 – 30, 2023

Artist Tabitha Abbott’s current body of work answers the age-old question: What happens when a young artist is immersed in the world of regulatory corporate auditing?

As the oldest of five siblings, Abbott’s upbringing was marked by constant movement across the American Midwest, attending thirteen schools across four states while completing her primary education. While a career in art had always been her goal, seeking financial security Abbott went on to pursue an M.S. in Accounting at the University of Wyoming. A primarily self-taught oil painter, Abbott refined her craft while simultaneously building her career, working full-time for esteemed financial institutions such as the prestigious accounting firm EY, the renowned brokerage and investment firm Charles Schwab, and the media conglomerate The Walt Disney Company.

In Under Audit, Abbott playfully acknowledges her career in corporate IT auditing through a captivating series of colorful, insect-inspired oil paintings. The work captures the profound influence regulatory corporate auditing has had on her development as an artist. Abbott’s artistic vision intertwines audit-related themes like evidence gathering, objective documentation and reporting with the organic subjects that inspire her — using her fascination with insects and oil paint as the medium of expression.

By integrating the values and themes adopted from her time in the heavily regulated world of American corporate IT audit, Abbott’s work takes on the unique and compelling perspective of artists influenced by non-creative fields. The resulting pieces are a delightful fusion of precision and whimsy, offering the viewer audit-quality documentation that is symbolic of the artist’s conflicting worlds.

Under Audit will be on display at Gallery 110 from September 7 – 30, 2023. Gallery hours are Thursday – Saturday from 12pm – 5pm and by appointment. Please join us for the First Thursday Art Walk on September 7, 2023 from 4-8pm.

 

 

ダブル • Daburu

August 3 – September 2, 2023

Gina Ariko and Marie Okuma Johnston‘s collaborative exhibition ダブル • Daburu features oil and acrylic paintings that explore their bicultural identities and experiences between the United States and Japan. Daburu is the Japanese hepburn spelling of double, a rising identity of mixed-race Japanese. Traditionally, mixed-race Japanese have been called “hafu” or half, which only places value on the Japanese side of identity rather than embracing the entirety of a person’s experience. The title of Daburu is also a play on the double feature of the artist’s stories, identities, parallels, and bicultural experiences.

During the reception of the Emerging Artist Program in 2022, both artists had discovered they had family, childhood memories, and close ties to the City of Kitakyushu, Japan. Upon further conversation and development of a friendship, Ariko and Johnston realized they had a unique opportunity to showcase their bicultural identities and experiences of being “too Japanese” or “too American” through this collaborative exhibition at Gallery 110.

Gina Ariko’s figurative work is inspired by old family photos, at once familiar and distant, and the way these shared memories can almost start to feel like dreams. Gina loves lingering in those hard-to-grasp moments, and creates work that stirs feelings of comfort and curiosity in others. Gina also features Japanese household objects and pattern work into her paintings to highlight and share her heritage. For this exhibit, Gina is intending to paint artwork based on her street and interior photography as an homage to her feelings of belonging and homesickness from Kitakyushu, Japan. Marie Okuma Johnston’s work explores their Buddhist and Shinto spirituality and the internal conflict between their bicultural identities. Their artwork features traditional Buddhist and Shinto figures, objects, and architecture within Westernized and Modernized settings. As a way to pay homage to her childhood alternating between the U.S. and Japan, Marie’s art takes inspiration from underground art and cartooning to create feelings of playfulness and whimsy. In ダブル • Daburu, Marie’s work depicts the legends, Shrines, and Temples of Kitakyushu and the energy of the Wards of Kokura and Moji. 

Gina Ariko and Marie Okuma Johnston’s exhibition ダブル • Daburu allows visitors to reflect on the ways in which we process memories and experience cultural identities. ダブル • Daburu will be on display at Gallery 110 from August 3 – September 2, 2023. Gallery hours are Thursday – Saturday from 12pm – 5pm and by appointment. Please join us for the First Thursday Art Walk on August 3, 2023 from 4-8pm.

See the Preview highlight here.

 

Gallery 110 at the Seattle Art Fair

July 27 – 30, 2023
Booth B18

Gallery 110 is proud to be a part of the Seattle Art Fair this year. Come visit us at booth B18 and see the work of ten member artists:

Michael Abraham
Kurt Erickson
JW Harrington
David Haughton
Bonnie Hopper*
Marie Okuma Johnston*
Julian Peña*
Kathy Roseth
Li Turner
Brian Vu*

*Winners of the 2022 Gallery 110 Emerging Artist Scholarship Competition

Additionally, Present PerfectFinding Form in the Invisible and the New Members Show are on display at Gallery 110 from July 6 – 29, 2023. The gallery is open to the public from 12pm to 5pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays and by appointment.