Gallery 110
March 2009 Exhibition
March 5-28, 2009
Preview Reception: Wednesday, March 4; 6-8pmFirst Thursday Opening: March 5; 6-8pm
Main gallery:
Sarah Dillon and Jason Sobottka
URBAN MIGRATION:
Understanding of the natural world and how it collides with a man made environment is rooted in the opinions, politics, cultures and social experiences of human beings. Realizing our own imperfections allows us to de-centralize and see reflections of ourselves in life around us. We then find the wisdom to parallel natural order rather than contradict it, and discover truth through experience – humor, mystery and stories waiting to be told.
Sarah Dillon embraces the notion of looking through a window, watching everyday events that tell stories about life around us, or perhaps more specifically tell stories about us. Through her newest series of paintings, prints and mixed media assemblages of sewn collage and drawing, Dillon has developed an artistic language through seemingly ordinary narrative subject matter presenting her contemplation about social reinvention, social interaction, urban habitation, the political climate, migration, immigration and freedom of passage as well as the idea of encapsulation or immersion in an environment. As a final thought, contentment and/or confusion to be where we are. In this new series, Dillon projects these thoughts on the common, often overlooked and sometimes comical urban creatures of similar pattern, adaptation and survival; birds.
Jason Sobottka’s mixed media imagery centers on personally significant animals and landscape references. The initial inspiration for most images comes from the memory of a particular place or the animals associated with that location. As memory is deeply personal, so too is every person’s relationship with the natural environment and the animal kingdom; therefore, Sobottka’s animals cannot be "complete" or fully rendered. Instead, they are the memory of an animal, the skeleton of an animal that once lived or the silhouette/stencil of an animal that is now missing. Sobottka’s maps and landscape references are topographical representations of personally significant places: The Puget Sound, the Rattlesnake Wilderness in Montana and the suburban neighborhood landscape. To a certain extent, Sobottka is exploring a correlation between the ambiguity of memory and the fluctuating nature of understanding.
Image above:
Images:
Top left: Sarah Dillon, Under the Viaduct, Graphite, ink, charcoal and gesso on sewn maps and collage, 2009
Bottom right: Jason Sobottka, Nisqually Wildlife Refuge: Stellar Sea Lion.
Acrylic, housing materials and real estate sign.
2009
2 original works on paper by each artist: Sarah Dillon and Jason Sobottka will be raffled off during the opening. Purchase your raffle ticket during the preview opening or on First Thursday to participate, or call the gallery: 206-624-9336 to purchase an entry over the phone. Tickets are $5.00
Loft gallery:
Ann Maki
WATER: PAST AND PRESENT
Fiber artist Ann Maki has a long interest in the way that rocks are shaped by moving water over time. This environmental process inspired a series of fiber works which will be on exhibition in the Gallery 110 Loft. Capturing the lines and shapes found in the dry creek beds and sandstone walls of Zion National Park, these two-dimensional abstract assemblages of hand-dyed fabrics, fibers and machine stitch are explorations of the process and effects caused by the movement of water as it travels through a landscape.
Above: Ann Maki, Sandstone II, hand-dyed fabric and sewn fiber, 11 x 18 1/2 inches