Gallery B612 04. Urban Life

Gallery B612

Urban Life Art Exhibition

Marcus Shriver

2023

Issue 04

Urban Life Art Exhibition September 14th - October 26th, 2023 On September 14th, 2023, Gallery B612 held their fourth Artist Reception celebrating the works of 11 artists totaling 30 art pieces, and featuring 2 performing artists.

The artists were able to attend the reception and connect with the fellow art community of local artists, art collectors, and friends alike.

The works seen in here in Issue 04 are available at Gallery B612. If you would like to get in touch with any of the art pieces seen here, please contact the Gallery B612 Team.

1915 1st Ave S Seattle, WA 98134

Email: info@galleryb612.com Phone: (206) 476 - 7385 www.GalleryB612.com

Gallery B612's Story Initially founded in mid 2020 under Prince and Fox, LLC, Gallery B612 aspires to be a gathering place for artists, dancers, fashion designers and creatives from all walks of life. To this date, the gallery has featured a Solo Exhibition from founder and curator, MiYoung Margolis and served as a gathering place and rehearsal space for MMDC and Dare to Dance.

Gallery B612 is a literary reference to Asteroid B612 in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's book titled, The Little Prince. Gallery B612 is our "art planet," our gallery and studio, in the Seattle SODO neighborhood.

We believe it's important to provide space for artist to share their voice in a physical representation where others can view and discuss the pieces as well as mingle with others in our community. In our modern American world, there are less and less public spaces for people to spend their free time. Here, we will hope to provide safety and connection for the Seattle community.

At Gallery B612, you can find original works of MiYoung Margolis, as well as juried exhibitions of work by local and international artists.

Gallery Founder Co-Founder & Curator Assistant Curator

Jeffrey Margolis MiYoung Margolis Aleen Caeli

Artists 1

Jay Alexander

2

Laurie Ragan Anderson

3

Brian Brenno

4

Elliot Grace Harvey

5

Steve Jensen

6

T. Lilja

7

Monir Malekpour

8

Tom McIntire

9

Morgen Sellier

10

Marcus Shriver

11

Hong Zhao

Performing Artists 12

Che Sehyun

13

Michele Wylen

Jay Alexander grew up in the Midwest and uses painting as a creative outlet to balance his background in the sciences. He is based in Seattle, Washington.

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Jay Alexander

The Delights of Urban Life (2023) The cool tones dominate this painting and give it a wintery feel. Pink and orange undertones give it visual interest and a sense of habitability.

Acrylic on Canvas 36 x 48 x 1.7 As a contemporary artist, I create abstract paintings with geometric elements emphasizing composition. My work explores the relationship between color, form, and space, and seeks to create a sense of balance and harmony through the use of bold forms and shapes. My recent work explores an impressionist interpretation of cityscapes. In these works, forms dissolve into one another like the way fog or mist fleetingly changes the view of a landscape.

Where Did You Go? (2023) This work resembles a modern house, but the cold tones make it seem empty. One focal point is the orange form meant to represent the room where a person sits, alone.

Acrylic on Canvas 36 x 48 x 1.7

Downtown Again (2023)

An Attraction (2023)

This early work explores negative space as counterbalance to the activity of the city in the foreground.

The bright forms of neon signs float behind the glare of lights on a misty evening.

Acrylic on Canvas 48 x 36 x 1.7

Acrylic on Canvas 40 x 30 x 1.7

Ms Ragan was born and raised in Seattle, WA, growing up in the vibrant inspiring neighborhood of the University district. Ms Ragan has adamantly pursued art throughout her life, engaging in mediums such as drawing, painting, sculpture, paper mache’, pottery, macramé, batiking, tie dye, copper enameling, embroidery, photography, poetry and music.

Also a professional stage performance artist, Ms Ragan performed singing, dance and magic extensively in Seattle, Bumbershoot and the greater Northwest. Now retired Ms Ragan has been creating, showing and selling her watercolor paintings for the past 5 years.

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Laurie Ragan Anderson

Paris Courtyard (2023) Original watercolor painting, sealed with waterproof wax, framed in black matting and solid handcrafted raw cedar.

26 x 20 x 1

Seattle Coffee Break (2023) Original Watercolor Painting, sealed with waterproof wax, framed in black matting and handcrafted solid raw cedar.

26 x 20 x 1

Ms Ragan enjoys the uncontrolled journey of expression that watercolors provide. She appreciates the excitement and passionate reactions from her viewers, and she seeks a twist, emotion, idea, vision and subject, that viewers will find refreshing and a thrilling visual experience. She always seeks to create something new and adventurous and to exude a wild, improvised, unlimited variety of style, color, topics, mood, and techniques.

From abstract to realism, Ms Ragan utilizes watercolor techniques such as "wet on wet", “impasto” and "wash and line”. She hopes her viewers enjoy her paintings as much as she does creating them! Ms Ragan also sells her painting at very reasonable prices, because she believes everyone should be able to purchase and enjoy art!

Winter Retreat (2023) Original watercolor painting, sealed with waterproof wax, framed in black matting and solid handcrafted raw cedar.

26 x 20 x 1

City Edge (2023) Original watercolor painting, sealed with waterproof wax, framed in black matting and solid handcrafted raw cedar.

26 x 20 x 1

Brian Brenno is primarily know as a glass artist, beginning with a stained glass class at Vashon Allied Arts in the late 1970s as a teenager. He received a BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts in 1985. After college he studied glass sculpting with Pino Signoretto, at the Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA . and glass blowing with Dick Marquis, Haystack Craft School, Deer Isle, MA. Brian worked on Dale Chihuly’s glass blowing team for 10 years before starting a studio on Vashon in 1997.

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Brian Brenno

Dick’s (2023) Made from cut up pop and beer cans nailed to wood. Part of my Seattle Icons Series 13 x 9 x 0.5 I am primarily know as a glass artist, while not in the glass studio I have always worked on projects using recycled materials. In 2011, inspired by contemporary folk art I had seen in exhibits at the Mia Gallery in Seattle, I began a series of images made from cut up pop and beer cans, nailed to plywood.

Cans provide an amazing palette to create with. I build an image from a photo, the cans are cut into mosaic pieces, then nailed piece by piece, layer by layer to create the image. Cans allow me to create images in a kind of sculptural way, instead of a painterly way. Unlike a painter I cannot blend, tint, or change colors to create depth, light, shade or form. I like the challenge of using a can’s, color, pattern, text and surface to create depth, light, shade and form. I also use a can’s ability to take texture and lift off the surface to become 3 dimensional, helping me tell the visual story. My current series is based on historic images of disappearing Seattle Icons.

J&M Cafe (2023) Made from cut up pop and beer cans nailed to wood. Part of my Seattle Icons Series 9 x 13 x 0.5

Nordstrom’s (2023) Made from cut up pop and beer cans nailed to wood. Part of my Seattle Icons Series 9 x 11 x 0.5

Elliott Grace Harvey is an artist and accountant based in Seattle, Washington.

Elliott Grace employs adaptive methods for creating art a disabled individual, they have carved out a personally significant artistic path, capturing the essence of their beloved neighborhood through vibrant representations of portraits and urban scenes. With a unique fusion of colors, their art showcases the places they hold dear, while also celebrating their identity as a gay and transgender individual.

4

Elliot Grace Harvey

Lost Lake (2023) Acrylic on Canvas 24 x 18 x 1

I began this series to explore crows (which I love) in urban spaces. I discovered quickly that reference photos were difficult to get, since the crows in my neighborhood didn’t let me get very close. I ended up with many distance photos that gave me a lot of freedom with composition, having to crop considerably. The resulting shows one of my favorite versions of urban scenes: city spaces that recognizable mostly to the locals.

City Crows No. 1 (2023) Acrylic on Canvas 18 x 18 x 1

City Crows No. 2 (2023) Acrylic on Canvas 18 x 18 x 1

City Crows No. 3 (2023) Acrylic on Canvas 18 x 18 x 1

City Crows No. 4 (2023) Acrylic on Canvas 18 x 18 x 1

Wildrose (2023) Acrylic on Canvas 20 x 24 x 1

Bell Street Park (2023) Acrylic on Canvas 20 x 24 x 1

Steve Jensen has been a working artist for over 40 years. His current body of work, “VOYAGER” are boats that are meant to symbolize a voyage or journey, perhaps it is the voyage to the other side, or the journey into the unknown. Steve comes from a long tradition of Scandinavian fisherman and boat builders. He grew up on and around his father and grandfather’s fishing boats in the Seattle shipyards.

From 2015 through 2022, Steve has solo exhibited at “SAM” Gallery, at the Seattle Art Museum, The Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Foss Seaport Museum, Tacoma, WA, Vashon Center for the Arts, Northwind Arts Center, Port Townsend, WA, Schack Art Center, Everett, WA, San Juan Island Museum of Art, Friday Harbor, WA, Gallery at the Park, Richland, WA and The Larson Gallery, Yakima, WA. This work was featured

by Channel 9 “Art as Voyage” Steve Jensen’s Nordic Heritage and Amazon Prime, “The Story of Art in America”, episode 10 Steve Jensen 2023

5

Steve Jensen

Lucky Copper Coins (2023) 12 x 12 x 3.5 The 225 pennies were found on the urban streets in Seattle on Capitol Hill. It seems I am the only person that will pick up a penny, most people walk by them as if they were nothing. I however, see them as a Talisman or good luck charm.

I now pass this good luck on to you with LOVE. They could also be interpreted as payment to the “Oarsmen” for one’s journey to the other side.

Journey for the Talisman (2023) 12 x 12 x 3.5

Copper Talisman (2023) 12 x 12 x 3.5

T. Lilja is a mixed media artist working in the realms of romanticism. They’ve shown and published in variety of space and medium, including a one-time Time Travel Museum in Seattle’s Central District (curated by Hollow Earth Radio). ‘Time’ as a method of connecting disparate themes and relating to family stories and historical conflict. Hip hop, another passion, for its power of association and ethos of making art with what you have.

6

T. Lilja

Weight, Words (2023) Digital collage on metal 12 x 12 x 0.1 Collage is a habit I developed out of frustration. For artists who work impulsively, the challenge is capturing thoughts before they're fleeting. By eliminating time spent rendering, everything becomes composition - comparisons and relationships. I tend to focus on history, but the truth's that my art is romanticism. A bit ridiculous maybe, but part of this is avoiding the active process of 'creating' or aiming for originality. If you're receptive to emotions (e.g. of a photographer or subject) the way you converse with images allows them to arrange themselves. Why you've made certain associations can speak to things you fear or long for - not unlike tarot or trying to make sense of dreams.

I was born in Tehran Iran ,a country of rich culture and ancient history.I had a passion for art and started drawings at a very early age.I took art courses by well known contemporary artists in my country, like Petgar, Minassian, and Navassi. I enjoyed their classes and techniques. I was able to create several excellent paintings during that time. Participated in several gallery showings in Tehran.

The 1979 revolution changed my country's peoples lives in a living hell,and i was not spared.

I brought my children to the United States to protect them from the savagery of the Iranian regime.

My husband who at the time was a general in the Air-force wasn't allowed to leave the country.

My three children and I had to start a new life in America,even though the US wasn't strange to me as I had lived and studied here before and considered it to be my second country.but life wasn’t easy.

As my children grew older and began to pursue their own paths, I seized the opportunity to rekindle my passion for painting. I enrolled in art classes, honing my skills and experimenting with different techniques with each brushstrokes. I found myself immerses in a world of colors, expressing my emotions and exhibitions. My life long inspiration has been in capturing the light and color of how I see the beauty in nature and people to paint. In my paintings, I try to Interpret my vision into something that means to my viewers feeling the need to interpret what the image means to them.

I hope viewing my art gives you half the pleasure that painting does to me.

7

Monir Malekpour

Traditional Gateway (2022) Traditional gateway in Yazd the city of culture and history in Iran Painting 23 x 128 x 2

Beauty Unveiled (2022) Painting 20 x 16 x 2

I'm a painter who is inspired by the beauty and mystry of the natural world. My paintings are a celebration of color, form, and texture, and immeditation on the relationship between light and shadow.

Raised on the East Coast of the United States, Tom lived in the Desert Southwest for nearly a decade but has spent most of his life in the Pacific Northwest.

Tom completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. Since moving to Seattle, Tom has continued drawing and painting. He has also worked as an actor and filmmaker. His short films have won several awards and received distribution deals. His feature screenplays have won multiple competitions and received live readings at festivals. He also had a comic strip, Good Golly Miss Magda, published as a regular feature in the 90s zine, Sacred City, published by Phil Rose in Seattle.

While recovering from a head injury several years ago, Tom spent a summer observing the crows, hummingbirds and squirrels from his deck as they made their wild lives in the green spaces between built structures. The recovery experience inspired him to pivot to focus more fully on his first love in the arts, painting, and to move away from activities that take place mainly at a screen and keyboard.

8

Tom McIntire

With backgrounds in film and painting, I overlay characters, locations and vibrant color in serious and absurd narratives. I manipulate place, time and repetition to present a filmic journey in a single frame.

The Red Blazer (2023) Acrylic on wood panels (8) 36 x 15 x 2 Consisting on 8 panels mounted on a found wire frame, this piece documents an early memory of an urban street scene with my parents. The wood in the background of the image is the wall, not part of the piece.

Rollaway: Breaking and Entering (2023) Acrylic on wood panel 16 x 16 x 1.5 Doris becomes ensnared in a sting operation. Inspired by my feature length drama script, Rollaway. The image attempts to capture the inside/outside/phone pic blurring of our urban lives.

Rollaway: To Protect and (2023) Acrylic on wood panel 16 x 16 x 1 Russell watches Doris' arrest.

Inspired by my feature length script, Rollaway.

Morgen Sellier is a queer, mixed race, multidisciplinary artist. Growing up, xe was blessed with family that always answered a child's "why?" That curiosity has persisted throughout xer life, manifesting in a particular love of STEAM and the natural sciences. Xe is based out of Seattle, and lives with xer partner and a very spoiled little dog.

9

Morgen Sellier

My art stems from curiosity: in new mediums, in nature, in social issues, in ourselves. Any and every learning opportunity has the potential to be synthesized into my work. Everything I make comes from the same well, but what I do with that water is as varied as the sources that feed it. Not every piece needs to join the canon of fine art to be personally important. My serious pieces are intended to educate or question, and I take pride in them--but I also take pride in making someone smile at a little ceramic frog.

Wild Life (2023) Mixed Media Collage 16 x 10 x 1.5

Historically, similar words have been used to describe urban wildlife and Seattle's unhoused population: pest, nuisance, health hazard. In the last ten years, I've noticed a change in how we view our animal neighbors. The reaction to unhoused humans, however, remains the same.

This piece is a digitally constructed blend of drawing and collage.

Marcus Shriver (he/him) is a Chicanx photographer utilizing 80’s and 90’s technology to interpret current events in a fashion that blends the past and the contemporary. His work focuses on history, place, culture, and displacement. Marcus’s experiences with displacement as an adoptee gleam throughout his work through themes of lost history and finding culture.

Shriver’s piece, Flower Park, a piece that highlights the cluttered beauty and complex interactions of cars and space in Beacon Hill, Seattle, was recently exhibited in Nepantla Cultural Art Gallery’s Chicanx Art Show in Seattle. He also enjoyed an out of state photo show in September having his piece, Sundrenched, a piece that shares the old glory of a street parked VW Beetle waiting to be used, exhibited in Black Box Gallery’s Focus: Shadow and Light photo show. Marcus’s piece, On Jackson’s Street, a piece focused on the ongoing gentrification of the International District in Seattle, was also included in Black Box Gallery’s Landscape and Architecture: 2022 photo show, annex.

Earlier in the year Marcus showed two other pieces, Sunrise Slowdown and Resting Ruby, in Nepantla Cultural Art Gallery’s Lowrider Art Show in celebration of the thriving lowrider culture that has sustained in Seattle’s Latinx community.

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Marcus Shriver

Bloom Rays (2023) 35mm Photographic Film Print 14 x 11 x 1 Size with frame is 16.5in x 13.5in This piece highlights the interaction of plants and the urban environment. Blooming flowers near destructive, invasive, yet often beautiful automobiles.

Fallen Petals (2023) 35mm Photographic Film Print 14 x 11 x 1 Size with frame is 16.5in x 13.5in This piece shows the intimate and unique interaction of man-made metals and plants.

Plant life in urban settings, often initiated and cared for my human hands, is a showing of care and beauty, but also of the invasive nature of contemporary human life in a city.

Scorched Petals (2023) 35mm Photographic Film Print 14 x 11 x 1 Size with frame is 16.5in x 13.5in This piece shows a corner of lively and tangled beauty in the often cluttered sector of urban life.

Anna Zhao was born & raised in Beijing, China. she'd always known that she wanted to paint even at a very young age but didn’t know what to paint and how.

As her younger self she left China for Australia to study and then embarked on a journey to the U.S. Her passion for art had grown bigger as she was exposed and surrounded by more art and beauty of nature in her life.

In 2015 she finally started painting. Eight years on, she consider herself a hardworking, self-made painter, she likes to think of her art as a symphony of colors, shapes, and textures that harmoniously dance across the canvas.

11

Hong Zhao

"Inner Strength" was created using an uncomplicated design and a minimalist palette of black, white, and gold.

This combination aims to convey a message of the power and resilience that we all possess.

Connection (2023) Mixed Media 14 x 11 x 0.7 Titled "Connection," this artwork goes for a laid-back vibe with its mellow, neutral colors. The mountains in the piece symbolize togetherness and the human spirit.

Inner Strength (2023) Mixed Media 36 x 24 x 1.5 "Inner Strength" was created using an uncomplicated design and a minimalist palette of black, white, and gold.

This combination aims to convey a message of the power and resilience that we all possess.

Lady In Red (2023) Mixed Media 16 x 12 x 0.7 Titled "Lady in Red" draws its inspiration from one of my dreams. The interplay of neutral colors with a striking red hue serves to symbolize the contrast of emotions.

Che Sehyun is The Future Ancient cultural worker in light (video, photo & design) and vibrations (music, spoken word & storytelling) who focuses to center our cultural futures and collective liberation towards an indigenous future.

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Che Sehyun

Che delivered deep cultural story telling and a heartfelt original song about his grandmother on the evening of the Urban Life Artist Reception.

Filipina-American songstress, Michele Wylen has been known for her upbeat, positive, confident music, which has been featured in TV shows like The Kardashians and Selling Sunset. But now, she is working on an album that shows a more vulnerable side- Eternal Dream, set for release in Spring of 2024, is all about her healing journey.

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Michele Wylen

On the evening of the Urban Life Artist Reception, Michele delivered intimate original confidence-boosting set of 5 songs off her new series dedicated to expressing her inner growth and strengthening soul.

Gallery B612 Prince and Fox, LLC.

This artist issue was created for Gallery B612's Summer In Seattle Art Exhibition for the days of September 14th - October 26th, 2023.

Located at 1915 1st Ave South, Seattle, Washington 98134.

Designed by Aleen Caeli

www.galleryb612.com