al a n l au quieter days
al a n l au quieter days SEPT
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ABOUT
ARTXCHANGE
GALLERY
ArtXchange Gallery is a contemporary intercultural art gallery that inspires cultural exploration, the expansion of global community and the exchange of ideas through art. We exhibit art from around the world that reflects the diversity of influences shaping the Seattle community and contemporary global culture.
In his new exhibition, quieter days, painter and poet, Alan Lau, showcases a master artist’s reflections on solitude and remembrance. This series of abstract paintings on paper weaves ink, paint and pastel into layered, rhythmic patterns. Like a jazz musician, Lau’s compositions are often impromptu dances with a brush. These elegant abstractions are both macrocosms and microcosms, skillfully weaving a poetic web of connections between his own life, the ever-evolving Seattle community, and the larger world. Lau’s style is rooted in the Chinese Literati tradition and Northwest Modernism. The Chinese calligraphy he learned from his grandmother as a child and the patterned abstractions he did in art school in the 1960s inform his work, as does the traditional brush and sumi-e painting he studied during the 1970s at the Nanga School in Kyoto, Japan with mentor Nirakushi Toriumi. Lau’s work is rooted in traditions yet infused with contemporary style and free in his own interpretations. As Lau has written, “The spirit of the tradition looms behind me not as a role model but as a continuing renewable source of encouragement to push ahead.” In quieter days, Lau reflects on his recent years – time spent walking through a gentrifying neighborhood to his small Ballard studio, solitude as his wife cared for family members in Japan, and the glimpses of memory that surface during these times alone. The title of each piece gives the viewer hints into Lau’s state of mind – evocative phrases that range from melancholy to whimsical. Lau often says his art “is not for people who like precision.” He creates mystery and depth, as if looking into a pool of water that shifts and shimmers beyond what the eye can see. Alan Lau has enjoyed an extensive career that defies quick summary. He is a painter, poet, journalist, and creative organizer who has been a key figure in Seattle’s Asian-American cultural scene for decades. His visual artwork has been exhibited since the 1970s at numerous venues including Francine Seders Gallery, ArtXchange Gallery, and a long list of regional and international museums and collections. In 2014, he was awarded the Mayor’s Arts Award by the City of Seattle and was the recipient of a major award by the Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation in 2015.
quieter days by Alan Lau Most of the studios I have inhabited in this city have been “glorified closets” that fit my dwindling pocketbook more than being ideal choices. I’ve moved whenever the rent tripled or before the impending doom of a wrecking ball cleared the block for more condos or new, skinny townhouses. Most of the work you see here stems from a period of solitude when I had run out of excuses not to go to my studio. My wife had often been gone for months tending to an aging mother in Kyoto. I was left alone to my own devices. I would descend the hill from Seattle’s Phinney Ridge, dragging my sleepy self towards Ballard and turn left at the pizza joint with the wood-fired oven. I’d meander through tree-lined neighborhoods, peruse portable lending libraries of books parked on sidewalk corners. Then there was always the big house on the corner in disrepair, no doubt deserted by an artist who could no longer afford the rent. Atop the roof were sculptures of animals and in the yard, scarecrow figures of people. I knew demolition was not far behind and sure enough, months later a new series of row houses dotted that landscape. I could always count on that little thrill of pleasure bumping into the childlike charm of a ceramic sculptural installation by Jeffrey Mitchell parked in an unassuming location to brighten my day. As I got closer to the neighborhood near my studio, houses gave way to an industrial corridor on the fringes of gentrification and an undercover
divide of roads leading to the Ballard Bridge and points beyond. Here you would find small companies who could afford the cheaper rent and more homegrown breweries than you could imagine with the occasional food truck parked in the driveway. My tiny studio was upstairs in a brown nondescript warehouse, a warren of subdivided spaces cut into makeshift rooms on two floors overlooking a parking lot. Around me were office supply and sporting goods chain stores, a donut shop, a porn shop, an exercise studio, a yoga studio, an eye clinic, and off shoots of retail and social services. Coming to this studio (whenever I could breach the physical and psychological distance) was like what my late painter friend Frank Okada would call in his unromantic, laconic manner - “going to the office.” I’d sit in my upstairs studio and just let my mind wander and my hand roam freely across the white silence of paper and the shaping of memory when the heat of summer ebbed into the chill of early autumn drizzle until the wind swept most of the leaves away. What gradually emerged was an evocation of distant thoughts, a line here, dots on a distant horizon, an evening spent in a rural home in Krakow, the haunting fragment of a few blue notes once heard in a Kyoto jazz coffee shop or the remembrance of the taste of fragrant, green tea. quieter days then, is an unofficial record of solitude and the shaping of memory when the bright light of summer drew its shades down to rest under the thin blanket of autumn’s early rain. Perhaps you’ve been in that space before? All I can say then is, “Welcome, welcome to this place.”
when the polar bear slips on ice Mixed media on rice paper 27.5 x 52.75 in
winter scaffolding #2 Mixed media on rice paper 16 x 12 in
the rock’s splash, the water’s foam Mixed media on rice paper 12 x 8 in
at night in the playground we make up our own colors #1 Mixed media on rice paper 19.25 x 24 in
Next page: Detail of at night in the
playground we make up our own colors #1
winter scaffolding #5 Mixed media on rice paper 16 x 12 in
Left:
lost in the orange grove Mixed media on rice paper 12 x 8 in
Right: detail
squash flower ball, Mixed media on rice paper, 12.5 x 8 in
winter scaffolding #4, Mixed media on rice paper 16 x 12 in
walking this stone path strewn like broken teeth Mixed media on rice paper 19.25 x 24 in
the sun’s golden bracelets Mixed media on rice paper 12 x 8 in
at night in the playground we make up our own colors #2 Mixed media on rice paper 19.25 x 24 in
sitting in a garden of tea Mixed media on rice paper 27.5 x 52.75 in
Alan Lau in his studio holding
sitting in a garden of tea
at night when spring meets a bough of plum blossoms Mixed media on rice paper 27.5 x 52.75 in
Next page: Detail of at night when
spring meets a bough of plum blossoms
Infinitely Present: The Art of Alan Lau by Christine Deavel At the end of every winter an evening comes when the air carries the year’s first warmth. Its shimmering touch and budding fragrance exhilarate no matter how many years we’ve lived. This moment has been repeated for millenia, yet it is ever fresh, a timeless thing, like Alan Lau’s painting “at night when spring meets a bough of plum blossoms,” alive with fluttering lines of young color over a drifting, primordial darkness. Indeed, all the paintings in quieter days , this vital exhibit of his recent work, are timeless, awakening us to a present lit by the infinite. In doing so they remind us that we are not alone, that what we inhale was exhaled eons ago, that the transformed carbon that is our bodies will continue its transformation forever.
The very tools of their making link these paintings, their maker, and so us, to the ancients. With ink made of soot, Japanese brushwork blooms and sweeps in tones from deepest black to palest gray over fibrous rice paper. A centuries-old song rises in Lau’s work and is transformed by his unmistakably contemporary voice. Jots of color, brisk circles, swoops and slashes, lithe curves—he has picked up the world’s old tune and made jazz. As with many of Lau’s earlier paintings, these pieces can be considered abstract, but their titles hint that the world is in them, and so it is. Here, he shows us, are “ice fractures or where light puts its windows,” there, “the shadow in my woods.” In fact, we don’t just look at an Alan Lau painting—we are invited to enter it. We stand inside its weather, the spreading clouds of sumi ink, the pastel bracelets of sunshine.
the shadow in my woods, Mixed media on rice paper, 12 x 8 in spider’s garden, Mixed media on rice paper, 11.75 x 8.25 in
But standing is not sufficient. Each painting is in motion and we must move with it. He leads us to the place “where river meets thicket,” and we are drawn into the painting’s slipstream of tangling and untangling dark lines and aquamarine wash, a river whose beginning is unseen, its end impossible to know. The painting, like the others, fills the paper to its utmost edge and, we now sense, extends beyond it. Lau’s work tells us that art, the timeless thing, goes on beyond this moment, beyond us—we only need to keep searching for it, and when we cannot continue the search, others will take it up.
where river meets thicket, Mixed media on rice paper, 6.25 x 27.5 in
this is where she left her mark, Mixed media on rice paper, 26.25 x 38.25 in
And so here we are, autumn approaching in the year 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic, profound economic upheaval, and a nationwide reckoning with the racism that riddles the United States of America. The quieter days when Alan Lau walked to his studio to paint these pieces seem not only a lifetime ago, but vanished. And yet, and yet—his art tells us otherwise. Not that all will be painless and just. It never was, after all, the paintings show— villages are bombed, we find ourselves lost, we lose others who leave just a mark behind. But, his art says, we are not separate and solitary, we will endure. All along, we have been the ash that makes up the inkstick. Alan Lau’s paintings give us back our infinite selves.
Christine Deavel is a playwright, poet, and essayist living in Seattle.
when they bombed our little village Mixed media on rice paper 27.5 x 52.75 in
ice land Mixed media on rice paper 24 x 19.25 in
Next page: Detail of ice land
leaving the pond Mixed media on rice paper 12.5 x 8 in
Next page: Detail of leaving the pond
little winter birds, Mixed media on rice paper, 12 x 8 in
along the sea wall, Mixed media on rice paper 12 x 8 in
the cave dwellers Mixed media on rice paper 12 x 8 in
Left:
darker petals in these woods, krakow Mixed media on rice paper 52.75 x 27.5 in
Right: detail
ice fractures or where light puts its windows Mixed media on rice paper 26 x 42.5 in
ancient butterfly Mixed media on rice paper 11.75 x 8.25 in
sunflower prayer Mixed media on rice paper 12 x 8 in
night’s fragrance #2 Mixed media on rice paper 6.25 x 27.5 in
clouds over water Mixed media on rice paper 27.5 x 52.75 in
alan lau BORN 1948
Oroville, CA
EDUCATION 1976 B.A. University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 1972-74 Studied Sumi-e with Nirakushi Toriumi (Nanga School), Kyoto, JAPAN AWARDS 2015 $25,000 Individual Support grant from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, New York, NY 2014 Seattle Mayor’s Arts Awards: Cultural Ambassador, Alan Chong Lau, Seattle Center, Seattle, WA 2000 Sustaining Artist Purchase Award, Seattle Arts Commission, Seattle, WA 1999 25th Anniversary, Asian Pacific American Community Voice Award, Seattle, WA 1999 George Tsutakawa Memorial Artist Award, Seattle, WA 1997 Artist Trust Tenth Anniversary Presidents’ Award, Seattle, WA 1983 Creative Artist Fellowship for Japan, jointly sponsored by the Japan U.S. Friendship Commission, The National Endowment for the Arts and the Agency for Cultural Affairs of the Japanese Government COLLECTIONS Betts, Patterson and Mines, Seattle, WA Bogle & Gates, Seattle, WA City of Seattle, Portable Works Collection, WA Group Health Foundation, Seattle, WA Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, OR Hyatt Regency, Bellevue, WA King County Arts Commission Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA Portland Art Museum, OR SAFECO Corporation, Seattle, WA Seattle Arts Commission Portable Works, WA Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA UW Medicine, Seattle, WA Weyerhaeuser Company, Auburn, WA Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA Wing Luke Museum, Seattle, WA CURATORSHIP 2013 Leaves from A Different Tree: Paintings & Mixed Media Work by Lucia Enriquez, Kanetaka Ikeda and Mark Miller, M. Rosetta Hunter Art Gallery, Seattle Central Community College PANELIST 2013 Inside Art, Local Artists on Imagery & Art, Town Hall, Seattle with Barbara Earl Thomas, Stephanie Hargrave, moderated by Brangien Davis, Nov. 19 Chinese American Heritage Societies Conference, Chinese American in Washington State Heritage Project, Seattle, April 19-21 2005 What Do We Do Now: Food, Roundtable series moderated by Jon Boylan, Seattle, WA
SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2020 quieter days, ArtXchange Gallery, Seattle, WA 2019 Alan Lau, Gallery at Shoreline Community College, Shoreline, WA 2017 Farmer’s Market, ArtXchange Gallery, Seattle, WA 2016 Beauty in the Decay, ArtXchange Gallery, Seattle WA 2012 things to come from those now gone, images from the eroding road, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA. 2010 if only we knew-landscapes from the sound of memory, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA 2009 i came to the ruins, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA 2005 Rolling in the Dirt, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA 2002 Works on Paper, East Bay Municipal Utility District, Oakland, CA 2001 Pierce College Fine Arts Gallery, Lakewood, WA darkness that plays with the light, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA 2000 Blues and Greens: A Produce Worker’s Journal, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA 1998 Calling Back to Pygmy Women, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA Planting Seeds with Alan Lau, Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle, WA 1995 The View from Lotus Pond Studio, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA Works on Paper, Bittermelon Suite, Upstairs Gallery, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA 1992 The Ruined Map, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA 1991 New Work, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA 1989 two places/phinney ridge and shimogamo 1988-89, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA 1988 Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA 1985 By the Roadside, Sketches of Village Japan, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2019-20 A Circle Around the Sun, ArtXchange Gallery, Seattle, WA 2017-19 Familiar Faces & New Voices: Surveying Northwest Art, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA 2018 Quiet Days, Blackfish Gallery, Portland, OR 2016 What’s New at TAM? Acquisition Exhibition at Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA 2014 The Way of the Brush, Lake Shore retirement home, Seattle, WA 2013 Equipollent: The Artists of Inside Art, Standing Visits Project, Seattle, WA Observations from the New Gold Mountain, Kirkland Art Center, Kirkland, WA 2012 Northwest Collection, Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Northwest Art, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR 2010 Happy Birthday, Francine!, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA 2008 Pacific Currents, Archer Gallery, Clark College, Vancouver, WA 2007 Mushiboshi, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA Artist Talk and Exhibition, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Seattle, WA 2005 Past Present, Archer Gallery, Clark College, Vancouver, WA 2004 Eric Ansel, Bruce Campbell, Alan Lau, Ted Murphy, Upper Jewett Exhibition Corridor, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Random 2004, M. Rosetta Hunter Art Gallery, Seattle Central Community College, WA Seattle Perspective: City of Seattle Portable Works Collection, Washington State Convention Center, Seattle, WA 2003 Variations of Abstraction: Selections from the City of Seattle’s Collection, City Space, Seattle, WA 2002 The Drawn Image, Gallery II, The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA Northwest Masters, Selections from the City of Seattle’s Portable Works Collection, City Space, Seattle, WA 2001 Figure Structure Nature, Asian Pacific American Art from the Seattle Arts Commission, The Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle, WA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS, continued 2000 Bumberbiennale: Painting 2000, Seattle Center, Seattle, WA 1999 Multicultural Exhibits, Art Gallery, North Seattle Community College, Seattle, WA 1998-00 The View From Here: 100 Artists Mark the Centennial of Mount Rainier National Park, Seafirst Gallery, Seattle, WA; Citizen’s Cultural Center, Fujinomiya, JAPAN; Yakima Valley Museum of Art, Yakima, WA; Museum of Northwest Art, LaConner, WA 1998 Edward Cain Galleries, Port Townsend, WA 1997-98 Kimchi Xtravaganza, Korean American Museum, Los Angeles, CA 1997 Working Papers, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA. 1996 Painterly, Archer Gallery, Clark College, Vancouver, WA Beyond the Rock Garden, Craft Forms for a New World, Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle, WA 1995 Exhibition of Chinese American Contemporary Artist, Seafirst Gallery, Seattle, WA Art Works for Aids, Seattle Center Pavilion, Seattle, WA Asian New Year Traditions, Wing Luke Asian Art Museum, Seattle, WA 1994 Reflex Five Minutes Max Drawings, Fuel Gallery, Seattle, WA 1993 The Floating Map, Pictures from Another Coast, Eye Level Gallery, Brighton, ENGLAND 1992 ”Homage” Japanese Sensibilities/Northwest Focus, Bellevue Place, Bellevue, WA 12th Northwest International, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA 1991 25th Anniversary Exhibitions: The Middle Years II 1981-1985, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA Heritage: An Exhibition of Art by Asian Americans, State Capitol Building, Olympia, WA 1990 Northwest Annual, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA Works on Paper and Canvas: Multi-Cultural Perspectives, Washington State Capital Museum, Olympia, WA 1988 Annual Art Exhibition, Seattle Urban League, Seattle, WA (Also 1984, 1982, 1981, 1979) Sumi Neo-Tradition, Bumbershoot Festival, Seattle Center, Seattle, WA Drawings, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA 1987 Sumi Paintings and Asian Calligraphy Exhibit, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA 1986 Poetry in Art, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA 1984 Works from the Seattle City Light Collection, curated by Howard Fox, Seattle Art Museum, WA 1983 Harborview Medical Center Ethnic Portable Collection, King County Executive Office Gallery Area, Seattle, WA 1982 200+1 Competition (Honorable Mention), Seattle, WA 1980 Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA Made in America, Wing Luke Memorial Museum, Seattle, WA Annual Wing Luke Auction Exhibition, Wing Luke Memorial Museum, Seattle, WA 1979 Crossing the Phantom River, Glover Hayes Gallery, Seattle, WA Wing Luke Invitational Art Exhibition, Wing Luke Memorial Museum, Seattle, WA Works by Northwest Artists, Asian American Artists Gallery, The Bon, Seattle, WA 1978 Living in the World, Santa Cruz City Public Library 1977 Images from Home, Santa Cruz City Public Library 1976 Imprints, Santa Cruz City Public Library 1974 Annual Kyoten, juried show, Kyoto City Museum, Kyoto, JAPAN (Also 1973) Sasuraiten Kyoten, Kyoto City Museum, Kyoto, JAPAN PUBLISHED WORKS (Poetry) No Hurry – Poems from Japan. Seattle, WA: Open Books, 2007 Blues and Greens, A Produce Worker’s Journal. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000 Take Out #4, Take Out Publications, Portland, OR, 1999 Songs for Jadina, Greenfield Review Press, Greenfield Center, New York, 1980 The Buddha Bandits Down Highway 99, with Lawson Fusao Inada and Garrett Kaoru Hongo, Buddhahead Press, Mountain View, CA, 1978
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Smith, Rich. “Mayor’s Arts Award: Alan Chong Lau.” CityArts (Aug 2014) Pollman, Lisa. “Artists Shed Stereotypes.” The Seattle Vine (Sept 2013) Kangas, Matthew. “Alan Lau at Francine Seders.” Art ltd (Sept/Oct 2012): 39 Farr, Sheila. “Alan Lau Retrospective: Dances With Brushes.” Seattle Met (Aug 2012) Farr, Sheila. “alan lau: an artist’s geneology.” alan lau: i came to the ruins, Francine Seders Gallery, 2009 Clemans, Gayle. “Shadows of the past.” The Seattle Times (Oct 2009): B8 “Conversations: Alan Chong Lau, Seattle poet, visual artist, and greengrocer.” WaterRidge Review (Oct 2007) Enriques, Lucia. “Literati in Seattle.” Catalog essay, rolling in the dirt at Francine Seders Gallery, 2005 Farr, Sheila. “Alan Lau: the flow of life in ink swirls.” The Seattle Times (June 2005): 43 I Bock, Paula. “Peas, poetry, and art.” The Seattle Times (June 1997): F 1, 3 Hackett, Regina. “Artists dig in with incisions, inclinations, evocations.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Oct 1991): C13 Carlsson, Jae. “Round Up.” Reflex (Jan/Feb 1990): 24 Fox, Howard N. “The City as Collector: Selections from Seattle’s Public Art Collection.” Seattle Art Museum, 1984 Kendall, Sue Ann. “Japanese influence elusive element in Northwest Art.” The Seattle Times (Oct 1981): F10 ILLUSTRATIONS 2017 The Illustrated Wok – Hand Drawn Chinese Recipes from Around the World, The Cleaver Quarterly Ampersand – Issue No. 6, published by Forterra 2012 The Hakka Cookbook: Chinese Soul Food from around the World, by Linda Lau Anusasananan (sister) and forward by Martin Yan. Berkeley Los Angeles London: University of CA Press 2007 No Hurry – Poems from Japan, by Alan Lau. Open Books, Seattle, WA Paintings for online literary magazine Origin, Series 1, 2, 3, 4. Longhouse, Publishers, Guilford, VT 2003 Now Now by Cid Corman. Modest Proposal Chapbooks, Pittsburgh, PA 2002 Kyoto Journal 51, Kyoto, JAPAN 2001 the despairs by Cid Corman. Cedar Hill Publications, Mena, Arizona Alan Chong Lau, Longhouse Publishers & Booksellers, Green River, VT 2000 Lau, Alan Chong. Blues and Greens, a Produce Worker’s Journal. University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, HI Bose Corporation advertisement appearing in Parade, The New Yorker, Smithsonian Magazine, and New York Times Book Review 1995 On a Bed of Rice, by Geraldine Kudaka with a foreword by Russell Leong, Anchor Books, NY, NY 1994 Litany by Russell Leong in Tricycle, The Buddhist Review, Fall. 1993 Cover art for Bearing, Dreams, Shaping Visions, edited by Linda Revilla, Gail Nomura, Shawn Wong, and Shirley Hune, Washington State University Press, Pullman, WA 1991 Amerasia Journal, Volume 17, Number 1, published by Asian American Studies Center, UCLA 1990/93 Walking into the Wind, a book of poetry by the Japanese monk Santoka, as translated by Cid Corman at Cadmus Editions, Tiburon, CA 1990 Chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum Literary Society, Number One, Spring 1987 Winter Light by Kirtland Snyder on Innerer Klang Press 1982 International Examiner, the Journal of Seattle/King County’s Asian Communities 1979 Wing Luke Museum’s Invitational Art Exhibition Catalog 1978 The Buddha Bandits Down Highway 99, by Garrett Kaoru Hongo, Alan C. Lau and Lawson Fusao Inada (Buddahead Press) Crossing the Phantom River, by James Mitsui (Gray Wolf Press) 1975 Oral-Ha, poetry reading live from Honyarado by Katagiri, Arima and Akiyoshi on the URO label
Cora Edmonds Gallery Director Lauren Davis Assistant Director Summer Ventimiglia Client and Gallery Specialist Lauren Brown Gallery Assistant and Graphic Designer Cover: ice land Back: ice land Š September 2020 No part of this publication may be reproduced without consent from ArtXchange Gallery and the artist All images courtesy of the artist and ArtXchange Gallery
5 1 2 1 S T AV E S , S E AT T L E , W A 9 8 1 0 4
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a r t x c h a n g e
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5 1 2 1 S T A V E S , S E AT T L E , W A 9 8 1 0 4
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a r t x c h a n g e
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a r t x c h a n g e g a l l e r y