For more information about the artists who have exhibited at a project space
visit the blog page and the artist’s website.
At the blog page you can scroll down to see all the posts or to narrow your search, select an artists’ name under the “categories” heading in the right hand column of the webpage.
To be directed to an artist’s personal webpage click on the artist’s name under “links” just below “categories”.

PREVIOUS EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS 

May 4th – May 31st, 2013

Unframed: Five Artists

Amanda Knowles
Barbara Robertson
Gene Gentry McMahon
Harriet Sanderson
Ingrid Lahti

Closing Reception
Friday May 31st, 6:00-8:00 PM

By Appointment
aprojectspace@gmail.com

This month a project space presents the work-in-progress of five artists. The exhibit focuses on how ideas develop and the process of art making.

Unframed brings together work by: Amanda Knowles, Barbara Robertson, Gene Gentry McMahon, Harriet Sanderson, and Ingrid Lahti. The pieces are at various stages of development for each artist.

A work-in-progress can provide both answers and questions. It can lead to a resolved piece or it can remain a sketch that provides information for a larger body of work. Creating a sketch, a mock-up, or a rough draft is a place of exploration and experimentation. These investigations are transition points where detours return to discarded concepts or send ideas on a new trajectory.

Some pieces will only exist in the studio, as part of the process of making art and other pieces will be resolved for an exhibition. Unframed offers a chance to view five artists’ ideas and their work at a point between inception and completion.

Amanda Knowles work is based on structure: the stripped down structure of an idea, the structure that science lends to our understanding of the world, the infrastructure of a system or the structure of a building.

The pieces at a project space began as photographs; the materials have changed, the context is obscured and images have become three-dimensional layers. The original references are abstracted to focus on ideas of the structural form itself.

Barbara Robertson creates mixed media work that incorporates digitally generated imagery with traditional methods of drawing, painting and printmaking. Inspired by recent scientific inquiry in the fields of physics and astronomy, her current work explores her imagery through animation and sound and provides opportunities for Robertson to collaborate with artists of diverse disciplines.

Inspired by maps and systems of navigation, Adrift is a video animation made from scans of Robertson’s drawings and prints. The sound score was created in collaboration with sound designer Johanna Melamed.  Click Vimeo to see a clip of the piece.

Snap!, Barbara Robertson’s new body of mixed media on paper opens at Davidson Galleries Thursday June 6, 2013.

Gene Gentry McMahon’s work is informed and fueled by the evolving cultural, social and political milieu of our times, with a specific interest in fashion, costuming and masking, and in how we choose to ‘present’ ourselves. More recently, her focus has expanded to include a passionate interest in, and concern for our present environment resulting from the manners, mores and politics of our culture.

McMahon states: “These collage works began as an attempt to bring some order to a collection of random scraps by creating an encyclopedia of my favorite poses, for use in drawing and painting. However, I became obsessed immediately with the process of altering and reassembling the images to make new more layered narratives.”

Harriet Sanderson’s work addresses the physical body as the primary maker of experience and identity; and the powerful influence of chronic illness, aging and disability on self-identity.

From Sanderson: “The pieces in Unframed employ non-traditional printmaking methods and come from experiences of being bedridden for long stretches. The work speaks to the real fact that being imperfect is no fun, but a propensity for play can make it more tolerable.”

Ingrid Lahti employs common materials, both natural and man-made, whose histories inform the artworks.
Lahti says of her work: “My installations bring viewers’ attention to the way perception is embodied, rather than restricted to vision and the intellect. Galaxy, is composed of map pins attached directly to the wall; shadows and reflections add a sense of layering and depth. The natural metaphors, that underlie Galaxy operate to elicit a fuller perceptual response from viewers creating an experience of the work that is transient, yet unique and mutable.”

There is a ‘Storefronts Seattle‘ project by Ingrid Lahti  in Belltown at One Pacific Tower, 2006 First Ave through June 2013

Litany: New Video Work by Erin Elyse Burns

March 9 – April 5, 2013

Screenings with performances by Jeremiah Cawley
Wednesday April 3rd and Friday April 5th, 6:00-9:00 PM

Reservations are strongly suggested. Please go to Brown Paper Tickets. Select the date and time you would like to attend.

a project space will present two very special screenings of Litany by Erin Elyse Burns in performance with her collaborator, Jeremiah Cawley; Wednesday April 3rd and Friday, April 5th.

A review of ‘Litany’ by Jen Graves in The Stranger.

View a short trailer of ‘Litany’ on Vimeo
‘Litany’ is an immersive multi-video projection installation that explores mental imagery inspired by composer John Cage’s 1980 vocal work entitled ‘Litany for the Whale’. The Cage piece has a call and response structure written for two voices reminiscent of religious chants. Jeremiah Cawley will be in Seattle from London to perform the John Cage score within the video installation at a project space. During the live performance Cawley will respond to his own recorded voice audio-taped in a 15th century London cathedral.

The video installation imagery draws on winter in the Northwest, and analogies of the mind during meditation. It complements the sound score through a series of vignettes and visual pairings that build on each other including: steam, fog, smoke whispers, screams,  light and line.

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, April 3rd and Friday, April 5th.
a project space will offer a unique and intimate experience for about 30 people at each performance.  These are the only public performances of ‘Litany’ with a live performance by Jeremiah Cawley.

Reservations are strongly suggested. Please go to Brown Paper Tickets. Select the date and time you would like to attend.  We have scheduled two performances each evening.  There will be an opportunity for the audience to talk with the artists during a presentation between shows. To arrange a studio visit in March, please send an email to Erin Elyse Burns at hello[at]erinelyse.com.

a project space  welcomes Erin Elyse Burns for a month-long residency. Burns will develop an immersive video environment which will explore mental imagery inspired by composer John Cage’s 1980 piece entitled “Litany for the Whale.“

In collaboration with London and Seattle-based musician, Jeremiah Cawley, the residency will include live musical performances on Wednesday, April 3rd and at the closing reception on Friday, April 5th.

Beginning Thursday March 7 4Culture’s media gallery, e4c will feature Burn’s video Heat Whispers Filmed within both harsh and dramatic desert environments, Heat Whispers is a meditation on the physicality of pace and the experience of place.

Erin Elyse Burns’ artwork occupies territory between image, performance and artifact. She constructs experiences that embrace struggle and the potential for failure, yet simultaneously evoke a sense of the picturesque, the humorous, the vulnerable and the absurd. Concepts of private ritual, identity, physicality and curiosity about the process of learning persist within her work.

Burns uses both still and video cameras to transform expectations of authenticity, document and reality. She often casts herself as a subject in her work, exploring the desire to be both seen by and in control of what the camera witnesses.

Burns’ other recent projects include: Hungry Ghosts, a site-specific music and art collaboration with Seattle composer Nat Evans at the 100 Acres Sculpture Park, Indianapolis Museum of Art. Burns also creates curatorial projects, the first of which, Of Light and Land, was a small group video screening at the Tashiro Kaplan Artists Lofts in Seattle Washington. Her second curatorial project at the Sierra Arts Foundation in Reno, Nevada was a group exhibition entitled, Trespasses as Whispers.

Raised in  in Reno, Nevada Erin Elyse Burns earned her BFA from the University of Nevada in 2004. She completed her MFA at the University of Washington in 2009. In 2006, Burns was a United States Artists Fellowship Nominee. She has lived and worked in Basel, Switzerland and Berlin, Germany and has exhibited her work widely. Burns resides in Seattle where she is adjunct photography faculty at the University of Washington and North Seattle Community College.

The Topography of Memory: New Installation Work
by Jen Mills

February  8 – March 1,  2013

Closing Reception
Friday, March 1st 6:00 – 8:00 PM

a project space is pleased to present The Topography of Memory: New Installation Work by Jen Mills.
Jen Mills creates poetic objects, installations and videos that offer a narrative balanced between the known and unknown, the seen and the remembered. She continues to explore of how forms presented in multiple can create various landscapes that simplify and distill a sense of place where the evidence of past actions is revealed.

The residency begins with an opening Friday February 8th, and closes with a reception of the completed installation on Friday March 1st.

During her month-long residency at a project space Jen Mills will develop several ceramic works using a basic vessel shape to build a variety of topographies; several small arrangements and a large wall installation.

Mills says about her work:
“I create objects and installations drawing upon the language of the common and utilitarian to engage the viewer as both participant and witness. These vases, bowls and vessels form patterns and topography of the familiar, and are an entry point into my work, as each person has a relationship with and a memory about the everyday. The patterns and topography in my work are grounded in the landscape of my childhood. Colorado is a land of opposites where the Great Plains abruptly meet the Rocky Mountains: snow falls and hides what is underneath, making all things soft and mysterious. Recurring motion leaves traces and patterns in the landscape, like Richard Long’s line in the field, where the action is not witnessed and the body is felt, but is absent. This quiet sensibility is echoed in my work.”

Jen Mills has an MFA in Ceramics from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and a BA in Religion and Art History from the University of Puget Sound. Her work has been exhibited  widely in galleries and alternative spaces locally and nationally. She is a recipient of an Artist Support Grant from Jack Straw Productions. She has been a visiting artist and lecturer at Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, Wichita Sate University and Western Washington University. She has taught sculpture and ceramics at South Seattle Community College and currently teaches at Seward Park Art Studio.

The SODO Series–
An Evolution of Place

by David W. Simpson
A Residency and Site-specific Work
November 7 – December 16, 2012.

Closing Reception
Sunday December 16th, 6:00 – 8:00 PM 

Celebrate the completed installation
Join us at a project space to celebrate the exhibition of David W. Simpson’s completed site-specific installation.

a project space has been a studio for David W. Simpson during a six-week residency. Open Studio events have provided a unique behind the scenes chance enter the studio and experience how the artist’s ideas evolved as the work progressed.

This Sunday December 16th a project space transforms from a working studio to an exhibition space. The completed site-specific installation unfolds as the topography of an imagined industrial landscape. This Sunday is the only evening the completed piece will be open to the public.

Note: Photographs documenting various points in the process are on the blog page and Facebook

Over the past seven years David W. Simpson has employed an archeological perspective to his work, extensively using natural and man-made detritus found in landscape. His work is informed by the process of collection and the unique pieces of material he discovers. Simpson transforms discarded pieces of metal, plastic, wood, and sticks, into large-scale structures and a wide array of works on paper and ephemeral experiences.

David W. Simpson is represented by Lisa Harris Gallery

A painting performance by Liz Roth

24 x 24: 24 portraits in 24 hours

A Reception  This Friday August 24th 6:00-8:00 pm

Liz Roth painted a portrait an hour during two consecutive twelve-hour days from 12 noon to 12 midnight. The entire performance was time-lapse recorded.

Come to the closing reception! 
The completed 24 paintings and the time-lapsed video of the performance will be on exhibit. Watch the documentation of the artist in action as each painting evolves, A time-lapsed hour long portrait unfolds in a minute of video. Join Liz and some of the recipients in a discussion about the two day performance.

Liz has performed 24 x 24 painting marathons in Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Japan.
Visit her website for more information.

Dont forget to Like ‘A Project Space’ https://www.facebook.com/AProjectSpace

Rick Bidlack has posted new video of Clang and A Manner of Speaking
installed at a project space on YouTube. Visit the blog page for more information

The reception for Clang (version 5) and A Manner of Speaking was terrific.

To view the exhibit contact the artist and make an appointment.

Visit the ‘blog’ page to see a slide show of images from the opening.
Click on the ‘follow’ button to the right and sign up on the site to avoid the ads.

Rick Bidlack is a musician and composer who uses computers to create multiple ‘musician robots’ that generate unique and infinite musical structures with rhythms based on mathematical chaotic systems. The music produces corresponding abstract images projected on to screens. Clang (version 5) is an autonomous interactive performance of music and animation, and in A Manner Of Speaking several ‘robots’ chat about phoneme colliders.

The exhibition will be open to the public during the Friday reception only. Contact the artist for an appointment to view the work after May 18th.

Clang (2009-2012) Continuously running room installation.

Computer, projector, audio system, touch-screen pedestal, scrim.

The name Clang is an homage to Arnold Schönberg’s (1874-1951) concept of Klangfarbenmelodie (tone color melody), in which “melody” is created not by changes in pitch, but by changes in tonal color.  (In music, tone color, or timbre, is that quality which distinguishes one instrument or voice from another.)  Clang is a computerized application of this technique.

Visit signalsandnoises.com for more information and to download Mac and Windows files of Clang.

A Manner of Speaking (2012) Continuously running 3D assemblage. Computers, monitors, speakers, porch swing, music stand, chair.

A Manner of Speaking evolved out of a fascination with linguistics, specifically the various phonemes – the smallest units of sound  that construct human speech. In A Manner of Speaking, several ‘robots’ sit in a conversational grouping and chat with one another, employing phonemes to their own devices

Bidlack has been working where music and computers intersect for thirty years.  His work creating  immersive virtual environments in collaboration with other artists (especially Canadian artist Char Davies) has been exhibited in some of the world’s leading museums and galleries; including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal, the Ricco-Maresca Gallery in New York, the National Gallery of Canada, the Barbican Gallery in London, and the Banff Centre for the Arts.   Bidlack’s compositions for solo instruments and small chamber ensembles have been performed at new music festivals throughout the Americas, Europe and Japan.   He was a co-recipient of the Hollywood Drama-Logue Critics Award for his work in sound design for the La Jolla Playhouse.

The reception for Lake Washington Palimpsest was lovely.
To view the exhibit contact the artist and make an appointment.
Visit the ‘blog’ page to see a slide show of images from the opening.
Click on the ‘follow’ button  to the right and sign up on the site to avoid the ads.

a project space presents Lake Washington Palimpsest an exhibition by Ellen Sollod of large format carbon digital prints from pinhole photographs, and  a sound installation commenting upon the environmental impact of the Montlake Cut on Lake Washington.

Ellen spent two years exploring Lake Washington and the effect upon its shores, wetlands, and tributaries of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal and the digging of the Montlake Cut completed in 1917. Like a palimpsest, different environmental histories were written and erased, and new ones inscribed atop and around the Lake.

The Lake was lowered nearly nine feet; the shoreline reduced by 8 miles; 1000 acres of wetlands lost; and the Black River disappeared. Ellen uncovered these layers in an exhibition that charted the history of the massive project and its ripple effects over decades, with large-scale pinhole photographs and field recordings made over two years, complemented by mapping and wall text.

The exhibition juxtaposed the poetics of place to the historic truths of the alteration of the Lake. A blog chronicled her laborious process of creating the work.  It includes the history, sound samples and selected photographs. A limited edition book compiled all this and more into a visual and verbal exploration. It reveals the environmental consequences of this audacious intervention on this iconic northwest landscape.

Lake Washington Palimpsest was previously exhibited at Museum of Northwest Art (NoMA), La Conner, Washington, supported in part by 4Culture Special Projects, Allied Arts Foundation, Jack Straw Productions Artist Support Program 2009.

The work by Brian R. Jones presented in ‘Three Consonants, One Vowel’ is from a series that begins with the definition for alembic: 1. a vessel with a beaked cap or head, formerly used in distilling, or 2. anything that transforms, purifies, or refines.

The minimal wall mounted forms are abstractions of letters that transform as objects, and as narrative when they are dismantled and reassembled. Functional pottery is the point of departure for Jones, and leads him on an investigation to explore the pot’s transformative ability to function as a reservoir and an initiator of memories. Jones received his MFA degree from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

This exhibition coincides with the 46th NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) Annual Conference in Seattle, March 28 – March 31, 2012.

a project space is conveniently located between the Washington State Convention Center downtown Seattle and the Seattle Design Center primary venues for exhibitions and conference events.
Click here to make arrangements to view ‘Three Consonants, One Vowel’ at a project space Wednesday-Saturday during the NCECA conference.

Barbara Robertson has been an artist in residence at a project space where she has developed ‘Gray Map’ to include multiple projections and sculpture. The latest version of ‘Gray Map’ will be presented at a closing reception Friday, March 23rd 2012.

View more photos and updates of Barbara’s work-in-progress on the ‘posts’ page.

The inaugural exhibition for a project space is Gray Map, a video animation by Barbara Robertson. Collaborating with sound designer Johanna Melamed, Gray Map explores media art in an architectural space.

In the context of a project space, viewers have the opportunity to be immersed in a wall-sized projected animation and sound score. Robertson and sound designer Johanna Melamed composed a score using collaged and sampled fragments from numerous musical genres combined with collected environmental sounds.
Gray Map, presents an opportunity for viewers to experience Robertson’s work from a different perspective and consider how the visual relationships change in movement and time and to reflect on the media and technologies that enable the experience.

Barbara Robertson is a visual artist who creates mixed media work that incorporates digitally generated imagery with traditional methods of drawing, painting and printmaking. Inspired by recent scientific inquiry in the fields of physics and astronomy, her current work explores her imagery through animation and sound and provides an opportunity to collaborate with artists of diverse disciplines.

Click here to make arrangements to view the work after January 12th.

Barbara Robertson and sound designer Johanna Melamed spoke about their work in an interview on KING FM. New Work in Animation is on view at Johnston Architects through December before moving to a project space.  Listen to their interview here on the  KING FM Arts Channel page.