Slideshow: July Gallery Goods
A poignant comment on Lady Liberty, art nouveau made new again, and a water-snake lies in wait.
Posted by: Aaron Scott and Anne Adams on Jul 11, 2011 at 03:00PM
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Photographer Greta Pratt’s The Wavers manages to be witty, satirical, personal, and socio-economically sympathetic, all at once. Her premise? Detail-rich, arresting portraits of the people Liberty Tax hires to wave on street corners dressed as the famous statue. Pictured: Ramone Williams
View Slideshow » Illustration:There’s a lot going on in Thomas Wood ‘s idiosyncratic, whimsical Marine Bouquet, and this screen image doesn’t do it justice. An actual glimpse at the gallery piece reveals chitons, anemones, a slumbering octopus, and a skiff at sea. If you love marine life but are unmoved by the usual washy wave-scapes, you’ll enjoy the way this piece brings the ocean’s bounty forth in crisp detail.
View Slideshow » Illustration:We can’t help noticing that this painting, Hibiki Miyazaki ‘s Last Day of Summer, is oddly compatible with the cryptic fantasy writings of the artist’s near-namesake Haruki Murakami (Wind-Up Bird Chronicle) and also Gothcore superband The Cure’s single, “Last Days of Summer.” Free association rarely works this well—nor do seemingly “unfinished” paintings usually satisfy the way this one does.
View Slideshow » Illustration:Is there such a thing as art nouveau, nouveau ? If so, we’re looking at it in Joshua Mays. His masterful use of swirling floral 2-D shapes earns a Mucha comparison, even as his nuanced, golden 3-D shading evokes another classic: Maxfield Parrish. And somehow, it all comes together with a postmodern rock-poster flair. We hope these gorgeous underground—and underpriced—works, currently on display at Backspace, will hit another gallery wall soon, where they’ll get the attention they deserve free from the danger of coffee spatter.
View Slideshow » Illustration:AJ Power ‘s Naga lurks in the farthest corner of Compound Gallery , looking as though she were waiting to swallow Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott . A beautifully large canvas from the Seattle artist better known for his small-scale winsomely weird human-bird hybrids.
View Slideshow » Illustration:Since we opted not to brave the line that curled around the block beside Upper Playground, we can’t know which, if any, of Alex Pardee ‘s graphic pen-and-ink pieces were on-view. What we do know is that he was hosting a book release for his latest, Awful/Resilient (cover pictured), and the kid’s got a following.
Last week, Culturephile suggested some works you might go see at first Thursday. Today, we offer a recap, with a few snapshots of works we did see, that stood out.
Click through the slideshow (left) for some of the Pearl’s current gallery gems.
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