As the opening draws near and the pieces are being installed in the gallery for the show, the true nature of the theme (Un/Re) Attached unfolds. The process of disassembling and reassembling our own and each others work has brought a cohesion at each level that has stayed very true to the (Un/Re) Attached theme.  It has been especially rewarding to work on the installation elements and break out of the 2-D paintings on white wall gallery model. Photography has also played some very interesting roles in the process.

“Torsion”, mild steel, 76″ x 24″ x 32″ by Miguel Edwards

“Torsion represents a collision between gravity and leverage.” says Edwards.

“Penumbra 1002″ by Miguel Edwards

Above is a piece from Edwards, Penumbra series.

“Thank you for letting me sage” by John Osgood

There is actually a longer story behind “Thank you for letting me sage”, but the short story of this piece is the spiritual search for answers from a loss of a powerful attachment bond between mother and daughter.

“A Turn Towards” by John Osgood

“A Turn Towards” is inspired by the search for a new direction… a fresh start so-to-speak.

Exhibition Synopsis:
Seattle artists, John Osgood and Miguel Edwards come together to present (Un/Re) Attached, an exhibition that explores the natural—and sometimes unnatural—actions of breaking, healing, losing and gaining that we perform every day. Through sculpture, paintings, photography and site-specific installation they consider the ways we tear ourselves apart and build ourselves back up in the cycle of reinvention and experimentation.

This is more than a two man show, but a true exploration of honest and inspired collaboration, as Osgood and Miguel exchange pieces back and forth between one another, thoroughly blurring the lines of painting, photography and installations.

Collaborative Installation by Miguel Edwards & John Osgood

Time Chaos and intuition have been co conspirators of Miguel Edward’s artistic endeavors as he explores primarily sculpture and photography while keeping his Un and Re attachments both in balance and in flux with side jaunts and explorations in Video, LEDs, Glass and installations.

John Osgood’s paintings exaggerate the characteristics of their subjects, revealing their inner worlds in exuberant color and sinuous lines. For this exhibition he uses painting, sculpture and installation to explore the stresses and catharsis that arise from the constant gaining, losing and taking that we undergo.

Picture Perfect introduces a number of new artists to our gallery. So that you can get to know them a little better, we’ve asked them some questions to see what makes them tick. To see more of RAWKSON’s work, visit our Online Store.

Bherd Gallery: For viewers new to your work, what is the primary feeling or message they should walk away with?

RAWKSON: When viewers look at my work I want them to smile and get creeped out, feeling as if they just heard an old childhood ghost story. But overall, I want them to feel like a big kid again. A lot of my plush toy art is based on old spooky stories my elders would tell me, or comes from characters of my own stories that I have created. Misfits toys that were once loved but were abandoned or lost due to life’s circumstances.

Rat Deuces by RAWKSON

BG: What is one unique and intriguing thing that you would like viewers to know about you as a person / artist?

R: I’m so shy people think because I have a big personality, that ‘how could I be shy?’ I hide when I see a camera or a large group of people, but I overcome that by forcing myself to be social and put myself out there.

Kebo 88 by RAWKSON

BG: What is the process of creating your 3D work? Do you begin with an overall concept and then fabricate it, or does the final look take shape as you go?

R: When working on a piece I just crank up the music and create my thoughts. I become obsessed until what is in my head is figured out in the form of fabric, paint or any kind of medium. What kind of music I listen to while working depends on my mood: if I am amped The Plasmatics will be blasting, or if I am mellow the sounds of a whale’s blow hole will do.

BG: There is a specific character who seems to pop up frequently in your work, a stitched-together animal with button eyes and a heart on its chest. Does this character have a name/title? What does it represent for you?

R: LOVE 13 is a little bear that I work with a lot. He comes in the form of a voodoo doll or just a little bear. He is based on a story I created about a misunderstood witch who made [the bears] for the townspeople. The witch named the little bear LOVE 13, love because the witch never had [love], and ‘13’ because it was misunderstood like herself. Overall the little bear character represents love, hate, innocence, even and a forgotten childhood.

Love 13 in Gray by RAWKSON

For Picture Perfect, a couple of my pieces I will be showing will be F**k Off Forever and Love Me Forever, which are basically voodoo dolls that represent love and hate. There’s also and Jackie Voodoo—a little girl character that I created that is teased due to her pet spider that lives in her hair. More pieces will be shown at the show…I’m just waiting for that last bit of inspiration to come my way, be it by horror film, music, old ghost stories, memories of my past childhood or just life.

Picture Perfect introduces a number of new artists to the Bherd Gallery. We’ve asked them some questions to see what makes them tick. To see more of Jeff’s work, visit our Online Store.

Bherd Gallery: For viewers new to your work, what is the primary feeling or message they should walk away with? An overall sense, or concept?

Jeff Leake: My primary question is how do we view or relate to the natural world around us both in terms of our history and culture. I tend to express this by referencing past modes of representing the natural world such as Victorian natural history displays, Dutch landscapes, and with these paintings Aesop.

“Boardwalk” by Jeff Leake

BG: What is one unique and intriguing thing that you would like viewers to know about you as a person / artist? This could be background, heritage, inspiration, the music you work to, even your favorite color!

JL: I’ve always been a somewhat quiet person myself. A few (hopefully) interesting things about me though, I dropped out of school when I was sixteen after which I spent most of my time hanging around the edges of the underground music scene in the east bay during the mid eighties. I think because of this I have a bit of the outsider in me which may explain some of my tendency towards viewing culture from its fringes. Aside from my misspent youth, after I finished grad school I moved to Kentucky for about seven years during which I gained a real appreciation for quiet spaces and the landscape.

BG: Nature clearly takes the spotlight in your paintings, with the human element deep in the background. But that human element is always present. Why do you choose to include hints of civilization in your vignettes? Do you pair a specific type of animal with a specific city-scape, or is the setting whatever catches your interest?

JL: Usually the way these come together is more organic than planned, I often start with the animal and then let the landscape grow around it (I enjoy the idea of being able to create a world for myself) These paintings have some more identifiable architecture in them than I have done in the past but the connections with those particular animals comes more from my reaction to how they appear as I’m working on them and how the landscape is developing around them than any particular metaphor. I do collect lots of images (of buildings, ships, trains, zeppelins or whatever really) and as I develop the paintings I constantly sort through these images until I come across one that feels right.

“Gallego Flour Mills” by Jeff Leake

BG: Weather seems to be a constant presence in your paintings, especially the three pieces for the “Picture Perfect” exhibit. Is the looming weather a message in and of itself?

JL: I tend to view the weather and landscape in these as characters in a narrative, so often the weather is the antagonist much like how the Dutch used it in their landscapes (a more secular version of the dominion of heaven over the earth). Also one of the things that I loved about living in the Midwest were those incredible thunderstorms that would come through they had a fascinating power and an almost attractive ominous quality to them.

BG: You’ve mentioned Aesop’s Fables as an influence. Does your work stand as a modern addition to the Fables? Is there a moral or cautionary bent to them?

JL: For me the connection with Aesop is more about our history of relaying complex ideas about our cultural values through this kind of anthropomorphism. It’s fascinating to me that this is a tradition that spans most cultures throughout history even up to our present but also it kind of feeds back into how we view our relationship with our environment, culture and history. That said I do try to create a sense of tension between the different elements in the paintings for me though this is more a sense of unease than anything as declarative as moral values.

Interview courtesy of Sarra Scherb, guest writer for Bherd Gallery.

“By the Yard” is an exhibition that asked artists to create a piece that would be offered for sale by the inch. Visitors would be encouraged to choose their favorite sections and cut them out. How do artists and buyers feel about this experimental idea?

Bherd Studios Gallery: What was your first reaction when you heard about the “By the Yard” concept? Did you have to consider your decision to participate, or were you immediately on board?

Ryan Molenkamp: I was a bit skeptical, after all, who would want to cut up any art work that an artist has slaved over?  Even if it meant a more affordable piece for them?  But if the pieces were created with the mindset of being cut up, it could really be interesting, and interesting experience for artist and collector.
BSG: How did you approach the creation of this painting, knowing that its eventual form would be out of your hands? Was it a different process than usual?

RM: I have a few different approaches I take with my work: some pieces are a lot more abstract and some more representational.  For this piece, it made a lot more sense to think of an abstract landscape, that could be cut up and still be interesting, in sections.  I also thought it would be interesting to do a kind of light-to-dark composition, as the piece was going to be on a long board – one end could be light and transition to more dark shapes and such on the other end.  This might create some interesting decisions for people in how to cut the work up.

Cut Up Place #1 by Ryan Molenkamp

BSG: Some artists feel a deep emotional attachment to their works, extending to the people who buy them and the places they end up. Others consider the work its own entity once it leaves their hands. What’s your perspective? Is it different for this exhibit, or could it change as the work is portioned out?

RM: One of the main reasons I wanted to do this show was it would force me to think about my work less preciously. I definitely feel like my pieces go off and have a life of their own, but it’s one that I set up and had some control over to start with, and where the clear intend of the work, how it is viewed, is obvious, even when the artist isn’t around.  Of course sometimes you make a painting and someone puts a terrible frame on it and that can be quite upsetting (it’s only happened to me once, that I’m aware of).  But this project forced me to think that I really don’t have any control over what people want to do with this work, even what compositions they choose.  It helps me loosen up a bit more about what happens to things I make.  I like that.

Molenkamp has done his own cutting in his time. With a 2011 installation.
Photo by Carey Rose.

BSG: This exhibit is an experiment for everyone: gallerists, artists and clients, and no one is sure what will happen. What do you hope happens to your piece? Would you rather be present for it, or would you rather not know?

RM: I’m curious what will happen, I definitely want to see how it is cut up, or if it is at all.  Certainly a part of me wants someone to come in and just love the whole piece and buy the entire thing, but that really isn’t in the spirit of the show. So I hope it gets divide up into some nice pieces and several folks go home with a piece of the puzzle.

BSG: You wrote that you like how this exhibit takes the preciousness out of the work–can you expand on this thought? Does letting the buyer alter the work change its value, its message or its context? Does this alteration blur the line between art and artifact?

RM: In my case, with the abstract landscape, I’m thinking more that this is almost a collaboration I’m doing with strangers. I’m allowing people to cut up my work, wherever they see fit, which essentially means they are creating a new composition, they pick and choose what they like the most  – they get to take part in the process of making the final image.  The image they will have to take home.  It becomes less about me and  what I made, and becomes more about this object I have created having a final form that I don’t get to control.

I imagine it’s a bit what it must be like to have novel you wrote turned into a screenplay by other hands – I’m forced to  give up my original vision for the work.  Although, in this case, knowing the nature of the show created the vision from the get-go—so it will be  pleasurable experience.

Thanks to Ryan Molenkamp for participating in “By the Yard” and for answering our questions and thank you so Sarra Scherb, our guest writer, for interviewing Ryan!

We’ll see you at the opening, September 14^th at our new space at Greenwood Ave and 85^th Ave (located above Chase Bank).

In case you missed the artwalk last week, we had to publish these photos of the amazing mural that Solace worked his tail off producing over a month long project called “That Time of the Month”.