Gallery 40

The concept - the space has legitimacy because of the artwork in it, and not that the artwork has legitimacy because of the space it is in.

Gallery 40 is a installation designed to examine the idea of what it means to be a gallery and to promote the concept that sharing what we learn through the artistic process is an important part of the creative experience. This 40 sq. ft. mobile art “gallery” will be promoting the work of new and emerging artists at various Seattle Art Walks from June through October.  In an effort to support Seattle arts, 25% of all commissions will go to a local arts non-profit of the artist’s choosing.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the amazing artists for having the courage to take a chance on Gallery 40 and to thank everyone who came out to support and encourage us. Between June 3^rd and October 14^th 2010, Gallery 40 held seventeen shows including more than thirty-five artists.  In five months we shared the work of painters, photographers, graffiti artists, musicians, writers, sculptors, installation artists and more.

I believe if you create a piece of work you have an obligation to show it, to be part of the creative conversation and so I built Gallery 40. My hope is that the discussion continued as a result of the artwork shared. The next time you walk down a street and see a piece of art hanging on a wall or hear some music coming from an alley, I hope you stop and pay attention, listen and perhaps wonder. Imagine that piece of art in a gallery or that music in a concert hall.  The person who created it put their soul into their work and had the courage to participate in exposing it to the world, they deserve a moment of appreciation.

In the end, Gallery 40 was never a gallery at all. It was just a 4’x10’ sheet of plywood, some old caster wheels and a few car batteries. It was your imagination and love of creativity that made it a gallery, and therefore made it a special place to share, support and participate in the conversation about ideas and art.

Thank you,

Todd Jannausch

The Gallery 40 artists-

June -

Caleb Thompson/Todd Jannausch

Nova Dead Rats

Hart Miller Boyd

PRINTstant Messaging

July -

Baso Fibonacci/Zach Rockstad

Monarch Duo

Counsel Langley

Daniel Carrillo

August-

Writing On The Wall

Lauren Klenow

Erin Sweeny

September-

Serrah Russell

Kimberly Trowbridge

The artists of Creative Activities and VSA Washington

Amanda Manitach

October-

Erin Shafkind

Tracy Boyd

Gallery 40 is proud to present the work of Tracy Boyd Thursday 10/14. We will be located outside of Vermillion Gallery on 11th Ave between Pike and Pine from 6-9.

“The world is full of people who have stopped listening to themselves.” – Joseph Campbell

I create work with human imagery as the focal point because I have a personal relationship to it. I am obsessed with the beauty and ugliness of mankind and the world in which we live. Painting is a very physical and emotional process for me. Through trial and error, the painting evolves through many phases to completion as I search for and recognize the most damaging, loving, and recognizable “being” in it.

I see my art as a statement challenging the dominant institutions and systems of my life in contemporary America. Through grand scale and subtly disturbing imagery I am looking to address the theme of power and entitlement. I primarily paint men probably as a result of having worked in the corporate world. In my studio I have the control to create them and expose the aspects of a person beneath the persona.

Gallery 40 is proud to present Erin Shafkind this Thursday 10/7. We will be located outside of the TK building near the corner of Prefontaine between S. Washington and Yesler from 6-9.

“Art no longer wants to respond to the excess of commodities and signs but to a lack of connections”

-Jacques Ranciere, ‘Problems and Transformations in Critical Art’, 2004

Growing up in Los Angeles with a single mom, McDonald’s every Tuesday, and lots of television, I have been greatly influenced by popular imagery and modern mythology. I always felt that there was something else, something intangible that I needed, but more and more I wonder if this is a product of growing up in American Corporate culture that strived to create illusion so we would consume. Do I know what I want? What makes me happy?

Participation and community play a large role in my art making process and I work in a variety of mediums to express my ideas. Collaboration is becoming more vital as I continue to examine my place from the microcosmic to macrocosmic.

Post on the Wall is a way to create connections through play, and to work off puns from Facebook. Gallery 40 will be transformed into an interactive space where participants can become the Post on the Wall of the gallery. I plan to photograph any guest on October 7^th and the images will later be available on flickr.

Presenting Gallery 4×10 at NEPO HOUSE this Saturday 9/25.

NEPO House address: 1723 S Lander St, Seattle, WA 98144
corner of 18th Ave S and S Lander St, two blocks east from Light Rail: Beacon Hill Station

NEPO 4 is about learning. Inspired by the plight of guinea pigs, our brave artists stepped into the role of model organism and subjected themselves to all kinds of experiments (voluntarily or not). The role of our show is to make their failures and successes public, “with the expectation that discoveries made in the organism model will provide insight into the workings of other organisms”. These new discoveries will be presented in the style of a Natural History Museum, where exhibits will contain live humans (performances), objects and missing objects (some exhibits may be temporarily shut down due to lack of funding).
Warning: The museum serves as a metaphor for our art world, and world in general – it might reflect it’s current state!

Gallery 40 is proud to present the work of Amanda Manitach Thursday 9/23. We will be located outside of Vermillion Gallery on 11th Ave between Pike and Pine from 6-9.

“THIS LITTLE PIG WENT TO MARKET”

My mama had the remains of her childhood pet pig in a 16 ounce wide mouth ball jar for my entire childhood.  It always remained on our kitchen bar or counter, it was stuffed with a creamy melange of rancid fat and sour striated muscle.  It was the leftovers from the slaughter, a keepsake.

I am working towards recreating a diorama of baroque pork, castrating the carnival pig, celebrating the demarcation of time-interval and entropy via the metronomic holler of the open-mouthed squeal.

www.amandamanitach.com

www.myheroesdiedofsyphilis.com

Gallery 40 is proud to present the artists of Creative Activities and VSA Washington at the Georgetown Art Attack this Saturday 9/11. We will be located out side of Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery at 1201 South Vale Street (at Airport Way S.) from 6-9.

Creative Activities working jointly with VSA Washington are proud to display works by multiple artists from the Seattle Center Artists Studio. The show highlights the diversity of styles, mediums and perspectives created by artists with disabilities living in Seattle. This is an opportunity to see and experience their unique and stimulating new works.

Please join us this Thursday as we present the work of Kimberly Trowbridge from 6-9 outside of Vermillion on 11th Avenue between Pike and Pine.

LOVERS IN THE BOWER, ARCADIA

Lovers in the Bower series is part of a larger body of current work based in Arcadia. Traditionally, Arcadian paintings depict shepherds and nymphs in a pastoral, Eden-like setting, often frolicking or lounging in post-coital bliss. Arcadia has been an excuse for artists throughout time to paint the nude and the landscape simultaneously.

In the 17^th century, Nicolas Poussin painted his shepherds discovering a gravestone that read “Et in Arcadia ego” (“Even in Arcadia I exist”), as if spoken by the voice of Death. Over time, Arcadian paintings have become synonymous with a momento mori, a reminder of our fleeting, temporal existence.

These allegorical images allow me to speak broadly and intimately about the human condition.

Gallery 40 is pleased to welcome Serrah Russell this Thursday 9/2. We will be located outside of the TK building near the corner of Prefontaine between S. Washington and Yesler from 6-9.

“And here we are, now and eternally, in this present time. We have not travelled away from the original moment, for we could not even if we tried. Each moment is here with us, being altered, touched, and acted upon.  Choices have been made and our only option in each present
moment is to react to past reactions, to alter alterations and to continue in the path of time with these objects keeping us as living time machines.”

Gallery 40 is pleased to welcome Northwest native Erin Sweeny back to Seattle. We will be partnering with Print Zero Studios in Georgetown on Friday 8/27 from 6-10 for the final evening of Print Exchange.

You (     ) Take It With You

In creating photographs, we attempt to capture the fleeting moments of our lives – turning them into a two dimensional world to be carried with us into the future.  To photograph is likened to holding one’s breath, stepping outside the moment in order to preserve it.  These images and other mementos are the tangible evidence – and an attempt to encapsulate our experience.

My work uses a variety of media to explore questions related to intimacy and authenticity in our current modes of interaction.  Immersed in sea of imagery and an exploding virtual stream of status updates, what do we now hold onto for ourselves?  What things, tangible and intangible, do we try to package and take away — and in the end, what resonates most?

-Erin Sweeny