2024 The creative spirit continues to flourish at CORE gallery!
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January
CORE 2024 ARTISTS
Group Exhibition
Celebrate with us during the month of January as we showcase our CORE 2024 gallery artists in our annual group exhibition! Enjoy the creative spirit as we present another year of colors, textures, stories, and ideas within which to find inspiration. It's going to be another great year!
October
Stories We Tell Ourselves
Jessica Dodge
If it’s true that one of an artist’s most important tasks is to hold up a mirror to the world, this past year (or past several years) have been a fractured looking-glass indeed.
One of the defining characteristics of this current era, in my observation, is the way our differing narratives shape how our realities unfold; the way they bump into each other, repelling or entrancing others as we try to navigate the digital commons we all share,
The internet burps out memes, day dreams, news, nightmares and grand follies, sometimes this flotsam seems to be the only thing we all have in common, even if we’re looking from different ends of the telescope.
This show is made up of my response to some of the stories and nonsense, troubling tales and hard truths that caught my attention over the past year and sparked a response from me.
Many years ago, after we needlessly invaded Iraq, I deployed a circus full of characters to play out metaphoric scenarios in the spirit of the jester who can speak more truthfully behind their jolly mask.
Today, we are faced with, I believe, a variety of real dangers, like the degradation of our precious environment, and the struggle to preserve our ongoing ability to speak truth to power. Sometimes these ideas, fears and hopes are expressed across that vast (and yet too intimate) digital landscape in ways that seem almost comical , or absurd, as we humans so often have done.
So, once again, I’m sending in the clowns and performing beasts to gambol about for your entertainment, along with a few other non-carnival stories of uncertain origin, in order to to hold up that jaggedy mirror for us to see ourselves in.
October
Mid-life Crisis
Rob Droessler
A mid-life crisis can mean different things to different people. The stereotype of the mid-life crisis is the person who buys the fancy car they have always wanted or gets a divorce to marry someone younger in a vain attempt to recapture their youth. Some people go through a period of depression. Some try to act like they did when they were younger. Some get plastic surgery. I think everyone has some form of a mid-life crisis.
For me, the title "mid-life crisis" is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. My mid-life crisis is more about the inevitable changes that happen to many of us. Getting old has been a struggle for me. Not being capable of some of the physical activities of my youth, like squatting next to a pottery wheel for long periods of time while helping a student. Throwing my back out while sleeping, has been a favorite sign of aging. Realizing that there are fewer days ahead than behind as I watch my grandparents pass away one by one and watch my parents’ age. Realizing that the medium I have spent my life mastering just doesn’t bring me the joy and excitement it once did.
My mid-life crisis is about transitions. I have moved away from clay as my primary medium. Even though I still love to work it and instruct others about it I have fully embraced 3D printing and mixed media. My “fancy sports car” is my top-of-the-line 3D printer. My “trophy spouse” is the modern technology I am working with. I have spent the last year learning Fusion 360, a CAD (computer-aided design) software, which has become my main tool for creating objects that I then use to craft sculptural forms. I have also been using these skills to craft items which I sell online. I have even been dabbling in industrial design and have created some patent-pending projects.
This new exhibition is mostly work from my new life as a “3D print artist.” I am still exploring familiar themes in new, exciting ways. I choose to work with textures, colors, shapes, and lines. Inspiration comes from truss structures and nature. I like to look at how the shadows of a truss structure can fall over or interact with different surfaces. Bridges are some of my favorite things to use for inspiration. Some of my pieces were inspired by things like barnacles, which have such fascinating textures and shapes. Others were inspired by water and the way it looks in the wind, how it flows in a mountain stream, or breaks across the beach.
This show has many pieces built with old tool and parts boxes that have an amazing patina from use and age. I have been using 3D printing to create parts that I then put together. These printed elements are, in some pieces, mixed with other elements to create the work. I use paint to further expand the complexity of some of the pieces.
This show is a deeply personal one for me. Historically I have kept me, the artist, and what I create separate from me, the human. With this work I let my personal life influence the direction of the new work. I have enjoyed creating these works immensely. They are weird and emotional, and hopefully, other people enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed creating them.
September
BE WELL
Michelle Smith-Lewis
BE WELL
A love letter to myself and to the ongoing journey of sadness, joy, betrayal, and hope.
For many years I have shared my thoughts, feelings, and remembrances using a variety of 19th century photographic processes to document a simple subject: botanicals.
My main source of inspiration is my garden. It is my sanctuary… my love. It is where I reconnect with nature, the soil, and the feral child I once was.
Be Well is a group of images that are from the past and present, and which hint at the portal to my future. The work represents the conclusion to the lengthiest chapter of my life and the commencement of a new one. You bear witness to my grief, love, doubt, and to the courage to move forward.
My light is shining brighter… Be Well.
September
SYMBIOTICA :
microcosm of beauty thriving through community
Andrea K. Lawson
The tenacious world of symbiotic beings held me transfixed. Would I make it out of the parking lot? With so many intricate colors, shapes and forms of lichen, we spent hours investigating a single rock before heading onto the main trail. This extraordinary experience while on a Native Plant Society Walk inspired me to transform my new observations into textured prints.
My intaglio print series, Symbiotica refers to the symbiotic relationship between algae nd fungus which form lichen. Neither plant nor animal, lichen are a unique life form that live on clean air. These magical beings photosynthesize and fix nitrogen from the air, making them harbingers of our environment, acting as guides, warning us about the health of our planet. Lichen provide food and housing material for other forest species.
Symbiotica is a metaphor for community and forming relationships for a better world. One has to look carefully to find lichen on the forest floor, on sidewalks, rocks, an old building, city railing, or on the bark of a twig in the park. To find fascination in unlikely places and appreciate the beauty around me, my fellow beings, in myself and my artwork is part of the inspiration of lichen.
August
BLUE in GREEN
Androu Morgan
A collection of paintings loosely connected by notions of water, rain, tidal pools, and oceans.
August
Artist Talk:
Sunday, August 18th
PURE:
Abstract Photos of Industrial Things
Tara McDermott
I’ve primarily been a landscape photographer for the last 20 years. Just recently, I’ve started to take the odd minimalist/abstract image of agricultural infrastructure dotted throughout rural locations I’ve travelled. There is not much else in Eastern Washington – farmland crops (both sown and fallow), scrubland, and farming things. Over time, my focus has shifted to these simple shapes, the ubiquitous plastic water tanks, large tarped mounds of hay awaiting export, and centralized grain silos visible for miles due to their grandiose scale. Once I started looking, there was a lot to see, and I found beauty in their utilitarian function.
It became oddly satisfying abstracting these vernacular objects, machinery, and architecture. My favorite thing is to photograph a monochromatic composition, such as a blue object against a blue sky. While reviewing images for this series, I felt like I was looking at images of children’s toys – basic shapes and primary colors – but created for an adult’s sensibility.
Industrialization is everywhere in rural America. I’ve only just scratched the surface, and look forward to continuing this series.
July
PHANTASMAGORIA
Drew Dyrdahl
Two artists, one theme.
Delve into the ethereal world where reality intertwines with imagination
at the captivating Phantasmagoria - an extraordinary collaboration between
visionary fashion designer, costumer, maker, artist, Drew Dyrdahl, and
photographer, maker, and artist James Cheng.
This art exhibition transports you through a labyrinth of macabre, soft
sculpture, wearable masterpieces, eerie experimental photography, and
mixed media arts that blur the boundaries between what is seen and unseen.
With each piece embodying an enigmatic allure,
Phantasmagoria invites you to question -
are these creations real or merely figments of a vivid dream?
July
PHANTASMAGORIA
James Cheng
Two artists, one theme.
Delve into the ethereal world where reality intertwines with imagination
at the captivating Phantasmagoria - an extraordinary collaboration between
visionary fashion designer, costumer, maker, artist, Drew Dyrdahl, and
photographer, maker, and artist James Cheng.
This art exhibition transports you through a labyrinth of macabre, soft
sculpture, wearable masterpieces, eerie experimental photography, and
mixed media arts that blur the boundaries between what is seen and unseen.
With each piece embodying an enigmatic allure,
Phantasmagoria invites you to question -
are these creations real or merely figments of a vivid dream?
June
BOOK(s) OF LIFE
Žanetka K. Gawronski
I am interested in what is often overlooked, yet with a second glance is revealed to be precious. There are moments in a day that quietly slip by without notice, the time in-between memories. These quiet, in-between moments are filled with possibility and are large enough to contain the imagination. I hope to evoke a sense of quiet reflection in the viewer, perhaps tickling past moments they may have forgotten.
This body of work brings together years of experimentation, a delicious mix of materials, and my love of paper into stories captured over the last year. I wanted to create paintings that were portable, that fold into hardcover books to be carried with you and read again and again. It was truly delightful sculpting these paintings!
I appreciate you and the many stories you have safely folded inside, I hope these books tickle your memory and imagination. As the saying goes, one picture is worth a thousand words.
In loving memory of Judy, who saw the magic in everyone and John, a poet who put words to it all.
Pictured Above:
The entire collection of, BOOK(s) OF LIFE
June
REMNANT
Paul D. McKee
Paul D. McKee fabricates art out of remnants. Scraps from previous creations, mementos from the past, and debris from consumer culture are transformed into works that range from minimally formalist to deftly referential. Take-out containers serve as molds for Hydrocal casts or are pressed onto reused paper to create subtly dimensional prints.
McKee’s works of art are both memento mori and offerings of renewal and repurpose.
The accumulation of life experiences over the last ten years — including a bout with cancer, the witnessing of unnecessary death, moving his mother out of her home of forty years — have led McKee to consider what is lost and what remains. But the art is not entirely elegiac. Overtones of liberated tinkering infuse the installations, prints, and stand-alone sculptures. McKee is making what he wants to make, combining objects and media and fragments in unexpected ways that depart from his previous bodies of work. What lives on, however, is a wry sense of humor, a fusion of visual pleasure and conceptual play, and an interchange of reality and theatricality.
McKee has long been interested in blurring the lines between the real and the ideal, the familiar and the unfamiliar, often in order to expose heteronormative visions of home life and gender, representations of the American dream long exclusionary for the gay community. In his current work, McKee adds ideas about time, remembrance, ecology, and consumerism. From the frames around his prints, to the assemblages of wood scraps and plaster objects, McKee uses donated and found materials, along with vestiges and leftovers from his previous practices.
Artistic, industrial, and everyday detritus are combined with items infused with memory and meaning. And all of it becomes new. There is often a juxtaposition — or formal fusion — between what should be discarded and what might be recreated, what is “real” and what is simulated. McKee’s beautifully spare and texturally rich works of art keep us wondering what endures, what can be transformed or replicated, and, ultimately, what remains.
May
UNCANNY WORLD
Cindy Small
I give myself much more freedom to go down a rabbit hole when I draw. Maybe it’s because of the less “precious” materials? Maybe it’s because of the immediacy of the technique? Maybe it’s because I do not judge what the ideas are, or where they come from, or what they look like?
I think yes. That must be it. All of that.
The Odd (as well as the Odd Observation) have been mentally and physically pushed around through my daily sketchbook practice since 2009. Collage drawings of the “monster voyager” and vintage photo alterations of “navigators” were first created at Icelandic and Hungarian artist residencies. Both series continue on today in some form or fashion.
Overall, this exhibit is the struggle/love affair/noncompliance/and adaptability of ideas, drawing techniques, and sometimes far-reaching media coalescing, at any given moment, in my “Uncanny World”.
April extended through May
ANONYMOUS SORROW
Ann-Marie Stillion
Anonymous Sorrow on war, censorship and humanity
When the war began Oct. 7 in Israel I was a few days into creating the work for my exhibit at CORE Gallery April 3-27.
I began in early October with hearty support for Israel which soon turned cold as the death of civilians, mostly women and children mounted. The racism reflected in the media was deafening. By my count the dead could number 40,000 by the time my work went on the walls in six months. Also, weeks into the war everywhere artists and cultural institutions were being silenced, censored for their outrage and critiques. Both the famous and the unknown suddenly lost exhibit opportunities and jobs or found themselves doxxed or worse.
I still had another body of work in mind then but decided I could not be silent. Even if things got better by April my work could be a record of a terrible moment, I thought. Nothing got better and now ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians is before us.
I have worked diligently to manifest a collection I call hybrid poetics which combine the impression of inked wooden type of the historic letterpress layered over archival prints of digital photography - most in this exhibit is textual. Also, two beautiful large dye sublimation silks express the concept of ceasefire and liberation for all in the visual photographic language I have established the past few years. A compiled collection designed in collaboration with Editions Studio in Georgetown is also available.
In solidarity with Palestinians and Israelis fighting for a just future, I hope you will show your support by showing up and use my work as a jumping off to end the silence which has been lingering 75 years on.
Besides the opening on April 4 for Pioneer Square art walk at 6 pm, I will do an artist talk on Sunday, April 7 at noon which will be in the gallery and live streamed for art enthusiasts around the world. Seats are limited. Follow me on instagram for free tickets to the artist talk at @annmariestillion.
Artist’s profits will be donated to humanitarian efforts in Gaza.
Due to the important and timely nature of this work, this exhibition will be extended through May 25th.
April
DRIFTING SOULS
Uyen Tran Gjerde
Creating through chaos and revealing the true intentions of every artist will demand attention from all corners of the world.
March
EVERY DAY THERE IS
Teresa Getty
Meet the artist Teresa Getty at CORE on March 20th and 22nd for a casual meet and greet during gallery hours.
Through painting, Getty transforms the struggles of caregiving for a medically fragile child into sensitive almost tranquil experiences of wonder.
From every person I know, whether they are a friend, colleague, or a stranger, one thing holds true. Everyday there is a task to do, something to think about, some decision to be made or just a habit that defines them. Sometimes it is a tangle of obstacles, sometimes it is a desire to break free, sometimes it’s just an itch of yearning. However it may appear in their lives, or our lives, it is one thing that unites us all. We all have something going on that challenges us, that whirls our psyches’. My abstract paintings embrace that challenge of our lives hopefully playfully, but always with the curiosity.
While I work on each piece, I confront my own “every day there is” directly and then I open it up to play with the memories that arise, often I laugh and push and play with them, often that moment becomes buried as the paintings continue until their open end.
March
Character Development
Kate Harkins
These are portraits from life or invented people. Once created, the characters seek to speak for themselves and participate in the conversation we are having now, about the life and world we navigate and work to reinvent.
My mode of painting is to paint myself into a corner, creating imbalance, making and breaking images to find where the true flux begins. I grab any and all materials to create paintings that convey my passion about the subject. The more I play with a wide range of materials, like fabric, drawing, nail polish, and spray paint, the more the characters have room to enter and express themselves.
February
Special Event:
February 18th, 2-4pm
Meet the artist Lynne Conrad Marvet for an artist's talk and reception, followed by a question & answer session!
GOBSMACKED!
Lynne Conrad Marvet
Gobsmacked -- a feeling of being stopped in my tracks by the perceptual vividness of a fleeting moment.
There is much to be said for sensory experience as a way to feel our personal interconnectedness in a vivid and unmediated way. – Ogyen Trinley Dorje, Interconnected: Embracing Life in Our Global Society
When photographing, I am drawn to images that are impermanent, momentary, due to changing shadows, light and circumstances of the atmosphere and environment.
With my abstract mixed media art, I allow my chosen materials (paper, photo fragments, string, recycled materials of all sorts, found objects) to inspire my compositions. I work intuitively, often over several days or weeks while I continue to “listen” to what the images are conveying to me.
In Buddhist philosophy, there are no permanent, independently arisen objects. Everything we experience, especially our bodies, emotions, thoughts, and minds, are not real, lasting, or independent. All things are dependently arisen and interconnected. Ephemeral images attract me because they remind me that everything is transitory.
As our senses open, our heart is moved. This direct experience evokes affection and closeness, and that leads naturally to wanting to nurture and protect our planet. -- Ogyen Trinley Dorje
I hope my art moves you.
February
HOMESICK
Paige Pettibon
HOMESICK stands as a bittersweet visual expression, capturing the poignant essence of missing one’s homeland, echoing the sentiments ingrained in Indigenous American experiences.
Through the canvas of storytelling, I weave threads of cultural heritage and identity, drawing upon the rich tapestry of traditions and wisdom passed down through generations. It is a delicate exploration of holding the memory of the land within, intertwining nostalgia and a bridge that connects the heartache of displacement with the resilience of ancestral roots, inviting viewers to share in the tender dance of memory, culture, and the eternal quest for belonging.
