PORTABLE ART COLLECTION

Prepared by City of Bellevue Arts & Culture Program

2021

PB 1 CITY OF BELLEVUE PUBLIC ART COLLECTION

BELLEVUE ART COLLECTION’S MISSION ABOUT THE PORTABLE ART COLLECTION The City of Bellevue seeks to be a vital In 2020 the Bellevue Arts Commission platform for cultural exchange and creative purchased 21 new works for the Portable inspiration. The City turns to living artists Art Collection. The goal of growing the to enrich the collective experience of collection of portable artworks is to diversify Bellevue’s public places through permanent the collection by adding a range of visual art commissions and a growing collection of mediums and artistic voices. Portable art movable artworks funded through the Public will also increase the number of artworks Art Program. A segment of the collection is accessible in city-owned buildings in devoted to artworks that raise the discourse Bellevue neighborhoods. Prior to this call, on the defining aspects of the City’s Portable Art Collection contained Bellevue’s civic life, exploring the diverse only a handful of artworks, one or two being identities of our residents, converging added every few years. cultures, international connections, technological currents and interplay between nature and the urban experience that make Bellevue’s environment unique. Bellevue’s art collection helps document the dynamic moments and complexities of Bellevue’s cultural life and is an important resource for future generations. Pictured above: Truth by David Middlebrook

2 LIST OF AVAILABLE PORTABLE ARTWORKS

Artist Title Size Medium Page Humaira Abid Portraits of refugee girls – 3, 4 6.25" x 9.25" & Limited edition prints of artworks 4 and 5 9" x 12" & made with gouache and pigments 7.75" x 6.25" on handmade wasli paper Juan Alonso- Desert Compilation #4 (Lazo) 30" x 22" Acrylic on watercolor paper 5 Rodríguez Denise Emerson Point No Point Treaty 18" x 8" Size 11 seed beads, leather, 6 Necklace simulated sinew, and chip beads (coral, howlite and onyx) Denise Emerson Point No Point Treaty Earrings 0.25" x 1.5" each Size 15 seed beads and leather 6 (2 total) backing Season Evans Tower: II (Anxiety) 78" x 87" Cotton quilt 7 Dan Friday Street Canoe 44" x 9.25" x Wood skateboard, acrylic 8 1.25" Malayka Gromally Young Woman, Applying for 25" x 19" Ink, watercolor, gouache on 9 U.S. Citizenship handmade paper made in India from recycled clothing Malayka Gromally Mother with Son, Applying for 19" x 25" Ink, watercolor, gouache on 9 U.S. Citizenship handmade paper made in India from recycled clothing Aaliyah Gupta Map 1 32" x 33.5" Mixed media on duralar 10 Soo Hong Bunny World 40" x 30" x 1.5" Acrylic and oil stick on stretched 11 canvas Lauren Iida Refined: The Appearance of a 23" x 15.50" Hand-cut paper, watercolor and ink 12 Cham Waffle Maker Lauren Iida Undecided: The Appearance of 21.50" x 16" Hand-cut paper, watercolor and ink 12 the Taxi Driver’s Wife Ken Kelly Untitled 6254 10" x 12" Oil on panel 13 Eunice Kim Nature Stories with Forest (9) 12" x 12" each Reclaimed wood monoprint, hand- 14 #1, Path (16) #4, Current (9) (4 total) cut paper, collage #2, and Skyline (9) #1 Shaun (Qwalsius) stiqayuʔ (Wolf) Panel 24" x 18" Giclée print on cradled aluminum 15 Peterson backing with acrylic facing Kristen Ramirez Habitat Nostalgia 30" x 22" Gouache, watercolor, ink on paper 16 Juliana Kang Border Crossing 22"x 30" Gouache, silver ink, fabric, collage 17 Robinson Preston Singletary Boxfront Quartet 18.5" x 15" each Serigraphs 18 (4 total) Fox Spears Hummingbird’s Journey II 22.25" x 15.25" Monotype print (oil-based inks on 19 BFK Rives with graphite) Ko Kirk Yamahira Untitled Cyan 20" x 20" Partially unwoven canvas 20 KAshmitao Kirk Y Gulatiamahira Simply Respect 30" x 48" Acrylic and molding medium, canvas 21

Please note that the below measurements (H x W x D) may not include frames or display cases. All artworks requiring frames will be framed and secured to the wall in such a way to prevent theft. All artworks will come with labels identifying the title, artist, artist’s residence, medium, and purchase year.

2 3 Desert Compilation #4 (Lazo) 30” x 22” Acrylic on watercolor paper

Portraits of refugee girls – 3, 4 and 5 6.25” x 9.25” & 9” x 12” & 7.75” x 6.25” Limited edition prints of artworks made with gouache and pigments on handmade wasli paper

HUMAIRA ABID

BIO Humaira Abid gathers the ordinary objects painting. I have always had the impulse to from everyday life and transforms them push boundaries – of traditional mediums, into something extraordinary. Her turned materials and concepts - to create something and carved wood sculpture and paintings— entirely new known for their exquisite detail—depict I use everyday objects as symbols in my human relationships, societal repression, work and present them in unconventional and the consequences of keeping basic ways to create new meanings. I use my work truths from being discussed and shared. The to talk about social issues and stereotypes, beauty and seductive virtuosity of her work particularly taboos and overlooked issues. offset her political, ironic, provocative, and I feel as an artist, it’s our responsibility to even scandalous objects and installations. educate and be a voice for these things. With Humaira Abid was born, raised and got the added layer of my global perspective as education in Pakistan. She immigrated to an artist who works in both Pakistan and the United States in 2008 and now lives and the United States, I often explore themes works on the Eastside. from women’s lives that are rarely openly Her works have been exhibited in museums acknowledged in the world of fine art – and galleries and documented in publications miscarriage, family, relationships, violence around the world and reviewed by local, and freedom. national, and international news media. Abid My work is conceptual, but also rooted in craft is the recipient of numerous honors, most and technique. I believe that a work of art is recently the 2019 Artist Trust Arts Innovator successful when concept and execution are Award. in balance. Two documentary features focused on Abid I chose wood as my primary medium to and her work, produced by the KCTS9 branch bring a woman’s voice and point of view to of PBS and Seattle Channel, were both this male dominated medium. Currently, I nominated for Northwest Emmy Awards. The often blend South-Asian miniature painting, artist is represented by Greg Kucera Gallery, created painstakingly with brushes as small Seattle. as a single hair, with carved sculpture and installation to create surreal environments STATEMENT Against the wishes of my family, that contain many shades of meaning and I went to the National College of Arts (NCA) in symbolism. Lahore and studied sculpture and miniature 4 Desert Compilation #4 (Lazo) 30” x 22” Acrylic on watercolor paper

JUAN ALONSO-RODRÍGUEZ

BIO Cuban-born Juan Alonso-Rodríguez is city’s Public Art Advisory Committee. a self-taught artist and arts activist with a career spanning over three decades STATEMENT The act of creating is a in Seattle. His work has been exhibited necessary form of meditation for me. It is the throughout the US and is included in the serenity I seek. permanent collections of the Tacoma Art My work is an on-going exploration of Museum, Portland Art Museum, Microsoft, abstraction based on forms both found Swedish & Harborview Hospitals and in nature and those conceived by human General Mills, among others. He has created ingenuity. public works for Century Link Field, Sea/ I am influenced by the organized balance, Tac Airport, King County Housing Authority, pattern and perceived symmetry found in Epiphany School, Sound Transit, Chief nature as well as that of architecture that Sealth High School and Renton Technical lives in harmony with the natural world. College. His awards include, the 1997 Neddy I am often inspired by traveling to new Fellowship, a 2010 Seattle Mayor’s Arts environments and discovering unfamiliar Award, the 2016 DeJunius Hughes Advocacy landscapes, particularly when the newness Award, the 2017 Conductive Garboil Grant, a of a place accentuates its uniqueness. 2019 Artist Trust Fellowship and the 2019 The works submitted with this application Washington State Governor’s Arts Award for were inspired during two recent art an individual artist. Juan is a former Seattle residencies in a desert setting. Arts Commissioner and also served on the

4 5 Point No Point Treaty Earrings 0.25” x 1.5” each Size 15 seed beads and leather backing

Point No Point Treaty Necklace 18” x 8” Size 11 seed beads, leather, simulated sinew, and chip beads (coral, howlite and onyx)

DENISE EMERSON

BIO I was born in Shelton, WA near the to two tribes that are rich with tribal Skokomish reservation, and raised in symbolism, stories and history gives me Seattle. My mother was Skokomish and my ideas and cultural identity that I can use to father was Navajo. I took all art classes while create and express the cultures I belong to in school and practiced art at home drawing, with art symbols, colors, and text. sewing, and painting. At the age of ten I was From my parents talking to me about being introduced to Native American beadwork. Navajo and Skokomish, I created posters for My beadwork became more sophisticated my room as a teenager. I continued to create when attending the Institute of American Native art with beadwork, painting, and Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM. I learned to back, drawing. After finishing the graphic design fringe, and edge my finished beadwork. At program at the University of Washington, the same time, I was taught to design bead I moved onto digital art and using Excel to art onto graph paper and color pencils. create bead art designs. I began researching Returning from Santa Fe, I continued my and studying historical photos for my art art at community colleges. One of my designs. The designs on historical objects professors talked to me about applying for and historical photos became a part of my the graphic design program at the University design compositions. The photos could be of of Washington. I did. people, rugs, ceramics, and beadwork. They During the graphic design program, I created become a part of my art whether it’s beading, art on the computer. This has become one digital art, and future tile art. Currently, I am of my favorite forms of creating art. researching and studying Plateau tribal flat bag bead art. Those designs are becoming STATEMENT Being born into and belonging line art in Illustrator. 6 Tower: II (Anxiety) 78” x 87” Cotton quilt

SEASON EVANS

BIO Season Evans is a self-taught quilter has made her home in various cities and and highly influenced by the traditional quilt uses those experiences to adapt traditional patterns she saw as a child. She uses quilts patterns to create a new narrative. The as objects and as storytellers, exploring place shapes and patterns used reflect her home and identity, with the goal of connecting and community while the method and traditional craft and contemporary life. materials used recall traditional quilt making An award-winning quilt artist, Season has influences. exhibited in galleries and museums in the Season uses quilts as objects and as US and abroad. Her work has been featured storytellers. Using craft as a means in Vogue, Selvedge, and Arkitip as well as of storytelling carries the weight of its other quilting, home, and art magazines historical context. The quilt making process and anthologies. Season also lectures and strengthens her relationship between the teaches quilting workshops around the material and this context. She is fascinated United States. She currently lives in Seattle, by the essentials of the materials and WA with her family. the root of pattern. It is also a continually evolving process which allows Season to tell STATEMENT Originally from Southeastern stories, exploring place and identity, with Pennsylvania, Season is a self-taught quilter the goal of connecting traditional craft and and highly influenced by the traditional quilt contemporary life. patterns she saw as a child. Since then, she

6 7 Street Canoe 44” x 9.25” x 1.25” Wood skateboard, acrylic

DAN FRIDAY

BIO Dan Friday is a member of the Lummi when making my totems. It is a pleasure Nation and a Seattle based glass artist. He seeing inanimate objects taking on a life has spent the last twenty years working for of their own. The more narrative work is artists such as Dale Chihuly, Paul Marioni, usually a personal expression or a means Preston Singletary, and many others. He has of processing a life event, often with an taught at the Pilchuck School of Glass, and underlying statement. has had residencies at the Museum of Glass When I saw glass blowing for the first time, it in Tacoma, WA, and the Dream Community felt as though I grew an inch! That is to say, in Taipei, Taiwan. Friday is a recipient a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. of the Discovery Fellowship through the I had finally figured out what I wanted to be Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, when I grew up. This was no small feat for and his work can be seen in galleries across someone who, as a youth, was rebellious the United States. and misguided. Glass altered my life. In spite of my colorful STATEMENT Creativity was fostered in me by past, and by the grace of a loving community, my family from an early age. Living without I found my passion in glass. Living as an TV and knowing our rich cultural heritage of artist may not be directly saving the world, the Lummi Nation, meant that making things but perhaps we are saving ourselves and with our hands was a regular activity. hopefully, in the process, making the world I typically work with simple themes and a better place. forms, and often employ subtle silhouettes

8 Mother with Son, Applying for U.S. Citizenship 19” x 25” Ink, watercolor, gouache on handmade paper made in India from recycled clothing

Young Woman, Applying for U.S. Citizenship 25” x 19” Ink, watercolor, gouache on handmade paper made in India from recycled clothing MALAYKA GROMALLY

BIO I work in the contemporary art field as STATEMENT My father and maternal a figurative painter, curator, and commission grandfather were immigrants. I grew up on portrait artist. My paintings are included in my family’s stories of war and hardship. the City of Seattle Portable Works Collection As a child, I vicariously experienced their and the Port of Seattle, as well as the challenges adapting to American culture. City of Kent, Safeco Insurance, and Sage In 2017 I participated in protests against Bionetworks. I’ve exhibited work in group anti-immigration laws. Inspired, I began exhibitions and two-person exhibitions a 4Culture Art Projects Grant to paint (with husband Tom Gormally, a sculptor) immigrant women. The paintings in my at the Blanden Memorial Art Gallery (Iowa, submission include portraits of members of 2019) and the Spaceworks Gallery (Tacoma, the Ethiopian Community in Seattle, and of 2017). In 2017 I was awarded a 4Culture people applying for United States citizenship Art Projects Grant to create portraits of at the International Rescue Committee. immigrant women in King County, WA, My work focuses on the genuineness of and I have continued to paint portraits of individuals and human connection. Robert immigrants. I’ve created portrait paintings C. Morgan best encapsulates this in his for over 100 collectors in the United States catalog essay about my work: and Europe, including individuals who have “In Malayka’s drawings, we sense a human served as board members for the Seattle Art volition on the part of her subjects to become Museum, the Henry Art Gallery, and the Palm accepted for who they are – not as statistics Springs Art Museum. I run a small business but as a people with the same concerns curating art for corporate properties. anyone would feel no matter what destiny they have been given.” 8 9 Map 1 32” x 33.5” Mixed media on duralar

AALIYAH GUPTA

BIO Aaliyah Gupta makes art and works in Norton, MA; Jacksonville State University towards social change, and is happiest when in Jacksonville, AL; Core Gallery in Seattle, she can do both of these concurrently. WA. She received an MFA in painting from Born and raised in Kolkata, India, Aaliyah Stony Brook University, NY. comes from a long line of spirited, rule- breaking women who pursued their passions STATEMENT We use maps to figure out despite the odds. She has exhibited where we are going: my “maps” tend to ask nationally and internationally, lived in New us where we have been. My new work is an York and Copenhagen and is firmly rooted in exploration of cartography and memory – Seattle and part of the Equinox Studios the maps we hold on to in our hearts but no community. longer exist, fragments that we try to piece Aaliyah has received residency fellowships together to preserve the landscapes of our from Jentel Artists Residency, Willapa Bay memory. How layers of history lie buried AiR, Ucross Foundation and Vermont under our streets, invisible and forgotten. Studio Center. Selected exhibitions include How maps are drawn and redrawn with every EKSRummet in Copenhagen, DK; Site: war, fire, or folly. How repairs are possible Brooklyn in Brooklyn NY; COCA in Seattle, but never perfect because seams will always WA; Redline in Denver, CO; Wheaton College be visible.

10 Bunny World 40” x 30” x 1.5” Acrylic and oil stick on canvas

SOO HONG

BIO Soo Hong was born in Seoul, Korea. my daily life. In many countries, people often She is an international artist working feel displaced or vulnerable because they primarily in abstract painting. From her early don’t understand the status of their minds childhood, she confronted local people and and how to express them clearly. The state of their incomprehensible languages while ambiguity intrigued me, leading to produce living in the US, Italy and the UK. Visual abstract imagery. sense was her way of understanding her My painting process consists of analyzing, surroundings, which led her towards art and interpreting and understanding my own design. She earned her Master’s degree experiences. I fill the open space with bright at Central Saint Martins College of Art and colors, peculiar shapes, chromatic gradation Design in London, UK. Soo Hong had solo and fine gestural lines. Sometimes I exhibitions in Seattle, Shanghai and Seoul, challenge my painting by peeling, scumbling, and her work has exhibited globally in New and pouring, looking for unprecedented York, London, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, textures. This process implements a stream Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong. She of unconsciousness and an automatism received awards from D&AD, London,UK and technique, creating innate freedom. The Refest, Seoul, Korea and was an ArtistTrust surface is blended with vivid colors on a GAP recipient in 2019. Currently she lives in neutral background, often added with solid- Bellevue with her family. colored and contour lines. These elements generate a dreamlike atmosphere and STATEMENT Uncertainty and obscurity has convey illustrative traits. been everywhere and is still happening in 10 11 Refined: The Appearance of a Cham Waffle Maker Undecided: The Appearance of the Taxi 23” x 15.50” Driver’s Wife Hand-cut paper, watercolor and ink 21.50” x 16” Hand-cut paper, watercolor and ink LAUREN IIDA

BIO Lauren Iida was born in Seattle and STATEMENT I have always been a nomadic holds a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts person. My adventurous tendencies still (2014). She specializes in intricately hand- run through every fiber of my being. I have cut paper, often incorporating watercolor, always longed to connect with my Japanese ink wash and shadow play. Much of Iida’s heritage but because of lasting trauma work is influenced by Cambodia where she through the generations since the Japanese has been working on various non-profit and incarceration during WWII in the US and social entrepreneurship projects since 2008. subsequent loss of my family’s connection Other major influences include her family’s to its cultural heritage, I have largely been Japanese American heritage and her Pacific left to do this on my own, and mostly through Northwest home. my own research and artmaking. Iida has exhibited her work at venues I have lived between Seattle and Cambodia throughout the Pacific NW region including over the last twelve years and this series ArtXchange Gallery, the Mayor’s Gallery at reflects the mixed cultural impact I have Seattle City Hall, Tacoma Spaceworks, and from my biological and environmental Sculpture Northwest. She is the recipient influences, past and present. I am a sort of GAP Grant from Artist Trust, a Fellowship of documentarian, relying heavily on from the Art Matters Foundation, and her photographs I take around Cambodia to work has been collected and commissioned inspire my artwork. The result is a mix of for permanent public installation by the many characteristics of where I come from, City of Seattle, the City of Shoreline, The where I am today, and the multifaceted Washington State Convention Center, and culture I have created for myself. Sound Transit. 12 Untitled 6254 10” x 12” Oil on panel

KEN KELLY

BIO Born and raised in the deep South. Went force behind my choices and actions when I to art school at the University of Georgia am actually making a painting. While I do not in the late 70’s during the rise of the New consciously try to direct the associations or Wave/B-52’s era that started there, and readings that a viewer might take from my learned that the world was way bigger than work (that’s the viewer’s job), I do hope that I ever thought. Moved to Seattle in the early the paintings read as more than the formal 80’s after dropping out of graduate school elements that they consist of. Of late, my at the University of Arizona, and have lived, growing passion and involvement with the and painted, here ever since. wilderness surrounding our urban life here in Seattle has started to affect how I think STATEMENT I do not paint from a place of in the studio— the connection is indirect, content, or subject matter; my paintings nebulous, and probably not apparent to do not “reference” anything overt or pre- a viewer, but I think that I am increasingly ordained, nor do they address any issues or trying to somehow capture and suggest the topics within or outside of art. My paintings sense of beauty, awe, and wonder that the have always been intuitive, gut-level wilds beyond the city instill in me. This is explorations of visual perception and the pretty new for me, and it is definitely a work sensual joys of color, form and materials. in progress, but such constantly evolving You can therefore say that I am a formalist, yet motivations have always been what propels I don’t ascribe to formalism as a doctrine or a me forward. worthy end unto itself—it is simply the driving 12 13 Nature Stories with Forest (9) #1, Path (16) #4, Current (9) #2, and Skyline (9) #1 12” x 12” each Reclaimed wood monoprint, hand-cut paper, collage

Detail:

EUNICE KIM

BIO Artist and printmaker Eunice Kim is STATEMENT Nature Stories series finds internationally recognized for rigorous material and inspiration in reclaimed wood. minimalist aesthetic, innovative technique, When my spouse and I tore down an old barn and singular commitment to sustainable on our rural studio grounds, I fell instantly in methodologies. A first-generation immigrant love with weathered surfaces of old-growth who arrived in this country at age ten, she is timber that comprised the building. Working deeply informed by her early years growing with what nature provides and printing up in South Korea, as well as her current from actual specimens, I find and coax out life in the quiet forests of Cascade Mountain narratives from aged grains, knots, cracks, foothills in Seattle’s Eastside. and imperfections in the wood -- a process The artist has been widely exhibited best described as ‘meditation on seeing.’ throughout US and abroad, including Austria, Work is conceived on the premise that all Belgium, Bulgaria, China, Egypt, France, of nature may be found in a single example Poland, South Korea, Spain, and United of its expression. It invites reflection and Kingdom. She is a recipient of numerous engagement through universal language accolades, among them 4Culture Grants, of natural forms and tactile, minimalist Alaska Percent for Art Commission, Arts aesthetic straddling realism and abstraction Council for Long Beach Individual Artist that touches both the emotion and intellect. Grant, Flemish Ministry of Culture Residency During these difficult and tumultuous times, Award, Kala Art Institute Fellowship Award, Nature Stories encourages and inspires Puffin Foundation Grant, and Puffin viewers to slow down and see mindfully the Foundation West Grant. Her works are held beauty that is all around us. in public, corporate, and private collections worldwide.

14 stiqayuʔ (Wolf) Panel 24” x 18” Giclée print on cradled alumi- num backing with acrylic facing

SHAUN (QWALSIUS) PETERSON

BIO Qwalsius – Shaun Peterson is a STATEMENT Wolf has often been described renowned Coast Salish artist and a member to me through the teachings of our people of the Puyallup Tribe who has been practicing as a source from which we can learn a great his craft since 1996. Peterson was born in deal of respect. From Wolf we have learned Puyallup, Washington in 1975. He began to work together and have respect for those pursuing the art of his Native heritage shortly of rank and nobility. Wolf has also been after graduating from high school. He works a keeper of justice within the old stories in wood, glass, metal, and digital media, that continue today. However, it is seen embracing historical and contemporary throughout the world I hope to pay respect to influences throughout. In 2008, Seattle Art not just an “animal” but an ancestral leader Museum mounted “S’abadeb, The Gifts: through the art that I create in my life. Pacific Coast Salish Art and Arts”, a major The Moon is a recurring figure in my work exhibition of historical and contemporary and for good reason. It has long been an artwork which he contributed to. important part of our mythology. Long ago He has recently collaborated on a collection the Moon was born from a star being father of re-imagined Coast Salish myths with writer and a human mother who dared to venture Andrea Grant, entitled “Killer Whale-Wolf & into the sky world with her sister. The women the Isle of Women.” The Coast Salish people came back longing for their families where of the Northwest have historically believed the moon was raised as a child among that they were surrounded by supernatural the people known as dakwibaɬ (Changer/ beings interfering with the natural world. Transformer). There are many stories that In their culture, spirits were connected to put him as a central figure forever changing all living things. Their customs, beliefs, and the world in his time. I am often taken by our history were passed down orally through mythology when I admire the moon rising in stories, songs, and dances. This illustrated the twilight as night falls. collection is a modernization of some of these traditional Coast Salish stories

14 15 Habitat Nostalgia 30” x 22” Gouache, watercolor, ink on paper

KRISTEN RAMIREZ

BIO Kristen Ramirez was raised in Northern STATEMENT I am a visual artist who makes California. The son of a Mexican immigrant, her work that is inter-disciplinary, multi-media, father nurtured a Spanish/English bilingual and when possible, site-specific. I am and bicultural home. Ramirez’ art practices trained as a printmaker, but find comfort are intertwined and crisscrossed. She is both in experimenting across concepts and a studio artist and public artist who toggles materials, borrowing the tools from graphic between many media and practices. Ramirez design, urban planning, and anthropology. has a professional career in education and Over twenty years, I have worked comfortably arts administration, championing aspiring in studio environments, in academic artists and established artists alike. Ramirez classrooms, on the streets painting murals, has taught at the University of Washington, and in collaboration with other artists Edmonds Community College, Pratt Fine Arts working in community. I am an artist who Center, Path with Art, and Cornish College of has worked across both sides of the table: the Arts. She currently manages public art championing artist residencies on city draw projects for the City of Seattle’s Office of bridges as an arts administrator, teaching Arts & Culture and Seattle’s Department of Spanish-speaking youth printmaking skills, Transportation (SDOT). painting murals with adults experiencing Ramirez has received numerous awards, homelessness, creating visual art across including Individual Artist Awards from diverse media. I believe that public art is 4Culture, two Artist Trust GAP grants and a form of interdisciplinary, political, social, an Artist Trust Fellowship, an Amazon Artist and cultural communication and that artists Residency, and two Public Art Network Year- ought to be as essential to our lives as in-Review Awards. doctors, plumbers, and teachers.

16 Border Crossing 22”x30” Gouache, silver ink, fabric, collage

JULIANA KANG ROBINSON

BIO Born in South Korea, Juliana Kang STATEMENT My focus as an artist is Robinson received her MFA from the School to deepen my studio practice and fully of the Art Institute of Chicago. Past projects engage myself in creating work that further include an artist residency with COCA and embodies the spirit of unity or HanSan, The Women’s Studio Workshop, as well as Korean for “One Mountain.” HanSan is the exhibitions at the Euphrat Museum, the notion that the whole is more than the sum Asian American Women Artists Association, of its parts. A mountain is more than simply Diaspora Vibe Gallery, the Korean Cultural soil, plants and rocks just as we people in Center in Los Angeles and Method Gallery. a society are greater when unified, more She has received Nippon Steel Presidential than simply labels, nationalities or tribes. Award, LeRoy Neiman Foundation Fellowship My work draws from the visual language at the Ox-Bow School of Art and the ArtBridge of territorial markers such as flags, fences, Fellowship at Pratt Fine Arts. banners or mounds that represent barriers She has taught at the School of the Art and subvert them to create a new meaning, Institute of Chicago, University of California one of transformation and unity. at Berkeley, California College of Art and My goal is to create visual representations De Anza College. Recent participatory of this concept that spur viewers to ponder art installations include the Seattle Art the beautiful and complex way that different Museum’s SAM Lights, Seattle Asian Art parts can come together to unify and elevate Museum grand reopening and the Henry us beyond the self. I hope what I create Gallery. Public art commissions include spurs thought and discussion on the need projects with the Seattle Center, Seattle Office for unity in our society to combat divisions of Arts & Culture and Seattle Department of and territoriality in our world. Transportation. 16 17 Boxfront Quartet 18.5” x 15” each Serigraphs

PRESTON SINGLETARY

BIO The art of Preston Singletary has degree from the University of Puget Sound. become synonymous with the relationship Recognized internationally, Singletary’s between European glass blowing traditions artworks are included in museum collections and Northwest Native art. His artworks such as The British Museum (London, UK), feature themes of transformation, animal The Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA), spirits, and shamanism through elegant The Seattle Art Museum (Seattle WA), the blown glass forms and mystical sand carved Corning Museum of Glass (Corning, NY), the Tlingit designs. Mint Museum of Art and Design (Charlotte, Singletary learned the art of glass blowing NC), the Heard Museum (Phoenix, AZ), and by working with artists in the Seattle area the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, including Benjamin Moore and Dante DC). Marioni. As a student and assistant, he Singletary maintains an active schedule initially focused on mastering the techniques by teaching, lecturing, and exhibiting of the European tradition. His work took him internationally. In 2009, the Museum of to Kosta Boda (Sweden) where he studied Glass in Tacoma, WA, launched a major mid- Scandinavian design and met his future career survey of his work, entitled Preston wife. Throughout his over thirty years of Singletary: Echoes, Fire, and Shadows. glass blowing experience, he has also had In 2018 he will launch a new traveling opportunities to learn the secrets of the exhibition with the Museum of Glass, titled Venetian glass masters by working with Raven and the Box of Daylight, which will Italian legends Lino Tagliapietra, Cecco push the boundaries of glass as a medium Ongaro, and Pino Signoretto. In 2010, he for storytelling. was awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts

18 Hummingbird’s Journey II 22.25” x 15.25” Monotype print (oil-based inks on BFK Rives with graphite)

FOX SPEARS

BIO Fox Spears is a lifelong resident of STATEMENT My art practice over the last the Seattle/Bellevue area and an enrolled decade has mostly focused on reinterpreting member of the Karuk Tribe (of California). traditional Karuk basketry designs into His fine art practice includes printmaking, contemporary art mediums such as painting, and photography. He has been monotype prints and paintings. I often developing and refining his monotype explore the relationship between geometric printmaking processes for the last decade patterns and organic shapes. These shapes through regular visits to Crow’s Shadow are often included to reference landscape Institute of the Arts near Pendleton, OR. elements like mountains or water. On He received a BFA in Design from Cornish occasion, representations of animals are College of the Arts in 2010. Additional shown in my art as well. nondegree coursework includes classes The pieces I make are a deliberate from the Institute of American Indian Arts, continuance of visual (and other) aspects of Pilchuck Glass School, and Artist Trust’s Karuk culture. Their creation and presence is Edge Program for Visual Artists. Fox has an inherent act of resistance against colonial received support and recognition from a assimilation, even though I am not usually variety of organizations that include the meaning for them to be politically charged. National Museum of the American Indian, the My art is made with these intentions: to Evergreen Longhouse, and Potlatch Fund. In thank and honor my ancestors, grieve and 2018 he was a participant in First Peoples heal historical traumas, and to contribute to Fund’s Artists in Business Leadership the creation of new Indigenous futures. Fellowship program.

18 19 Untitled Cyan 20” x 20” Partially unwoven canvas

KO KIRK YAMAHIRA

BIO Seattle-based artist Ko Kirk Yamahira, to enact the process, however there is one the finished painting is a beginning rather answer to the result of the process. than an end. Painstakingly removing Within the answer contains two opposing individual threads from the weave of the perspectives that has no hierarchy. The canvas, Yamahira deconstructs his paintings, point of view, both subjective and objective, turning surface into form. He has exhibited as well as the scale of the perception would in galleries in the United States and Japan, affect the location of the answer. I sense both individually and as a member of the the distance to the answer gets ever more artist collectives Art Beasties and SOIL. shorter as I repeat the inquiry. The answer certainly exists in the past and it could STATEMENT I consider that the subjectivity simply be overlooked. The past always has is formed through the repetitive process the potential for the new discoveries for of deconstructing the existing objects, and me. Since the inquiry originates within my ruminating on such process. There is no mind, thus the approach to look and find specific aim to find a meaning, neither in the the answer can change completely. It shifts creative act itself, nor through the creative while depending of my state of mind. So it process. The totality of the meaning can be is both firm, as well as transient. Creation of found in the continuation of the process. the artworks comes after my deconstructive Therefore the reason for the creative act process on already existing canvas, would be found in different inquiry. The separating vertical and horizontal threads. obsession of pursuit of the meaning is The totality of the meaning can be found in unlocked by the pure enjoyment of creative the continuation of the process. Therefore act. The obsession in turn would release the reason for the creative act would be the meaning of the search by forgetting the found in different inquiry. initial inquiry. There are innumerable ways

20 Simply Respect 30” x 48” Acrylic and molding medium on canvas

ASHMITA GULATI STATEMENT Over the past few months, I have been BIO Ashmita is driven by her passion to influenced by everything I have seen and interpret and draw out the unique beauty experienced around me. Watching the of natural and emotional elements that dramatic impact by the COVID-19 pandemic, surround us. She was born in Mumbai where I started a new series of paintings titled “It’s she spent her formative years and after 5 Still a Wonderful World”. years at University and a degree in art from Sir The highly textured painting above is part J.J. Institute of Applied Arts, she specialized of the same series and is titled “Simply in advertising and pursued a career in the Respect,” followed by great power of same, working as a visual artist for the next 8 the Black Lives Matter movement. I was years in leading advertising agencies both in passionate about actively expressing what I Mumbai and Bangalore, India. She moved to felt, in my own unique way. That we need to the US in the mid ‘90’s and took a break from all stand together no matter what the color her work. In 2005 she began experimenting of our skin because the color within us was with different mediums and styles on canvas the same. and was influenced by everything she saw, Our country has changed in the last six felt, and experienced around her. months. The passion and pride I feel towards In her words, “Artists are a product of their this movement and the sadness watching environment. We are sensitive to what we a pandemic ravage the country I love, visually see and feel around us which has combined with great hope for our future, is shaped much of what I do, and in return I the basis of this painting. bring a new point of view and an invigorated energy to my canvas”. 20 21 22