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“Making and Breaking” at Linda Hodges

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I am excited to be part of the December show at Linda Hodges Gallery, curated by Dale Cotton. The artists gathered for this exhibition share my fascination with the aesthetics of the urban industrial landscape and its emotional undertow, the demolition of place and sense of home.

“Making and Breaking”

Dec 4, 2014 – Jan 3, 2015
1st Thursday Artist Reception, Dec 4, 6-8 pm

316 First Ave. S. Seattle, WA 98104
Gallery Hours: Tues. – Sat. 10:30-5:00
Tel: 206-624-3034
www.lindahodgesgallery.com

“Making and Breaking” is a group exhibition of paintings, sculpture, and photography devoted to things that are built and then erode, are altered, or destroyed over time. We are very much aware of this in the rapidly growing city of Seattle. Change is the operative factor, and technology, economic decision-making, and time are the implements that guide it. From Kevin Wilson’s steam shovels and Dan Webb’s wooden tools, to the weathered and abandoned barns of Daphne Minkoff and the proliferating housing developments depicted by Ryan Molenkamp, to Dara Solliday’s Regrade images, each artwork tells a story of growth, destruction, and change.”

Other artists in the show include: Patti Bowman, Laura Hamje, Daniel Hawkins, Jeff Mihalyo, Michael Paul Miller, Daphne Minkoff, Ryan Molenkamp, Jeff Scott, Dara Solliday, Timea Tihanyi, Sylwia Tur, Thuy-van vu, Dan Webb, Kevin Wilson, Dane Youngren

Below, one of the prints I will be showing. This piece is part of a series looking at the construction projects at the University of Washington. I stood for many hours on the University Bridge studying this dormitory as it went up. The complex is now finished, but I dearly loved the tarps and scaffolds: the “making” phase revealed, and here frozen in time.

Invisible Children, Archival Pigment Print
Invisible Children, Archival Pigment Print, © Iskra Johnson

“Any Day: Artists on Death” | August Exhibit at Gage Academy

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Gage Academy hosts an unusual exhibit this month guest-curated by talented artist Elana Winsberg:

“Any Day is dedicated to the sensitive exploration by artists who are compelled to make work illuminating the many facets of death, life before death and life after death.” The exhibit runs through September 19th, and the opening is Thursday August 14, from 6-8 PM.

Gage Academy of Art

1501 10th Avenue E.
Seattle, WA 98102
(206) 323-4243

When I was asked to be part of the exhibit I initially told Elana I had nothing to offer on the subject. Ha. This must be denial at a pretty strong level, since I have done several bodies of work on the theme, both from a personal and political perspective. With a little bit of coaxing I submitted a piece from “What Does Heaven Look Like” and two others of a more personal nature from “Drawings in Dust.” This is a great opportunity to show among artists I admire greatly. Participants include Mitch Albala, Josie Furchgott Sourdiffe, Sam Hamrick, Emma Jane Levitt, Kathy Liao, Greg Lundgren, Memuco, Pamela Durga Robinson, Kurt Vance, Margaret Swanson Vance and Elana Winsberg. Greg Lundgren will present a lecture on ritual, legacy, memorial and the role of the contemporary artist Thursday, September 18 at 7:00PM. Greg is an innovator in the field of contemporary memorials and monuments and this will be a lecture not to be missed.

You will have to attend the show to see my three drawings, (suspense….) but here are some additional ones from the series I did on mourning and loss, using the vehicle of the decoy as a resonant object.

Cygnet_charcoal_dust_pigment_drawing
Cygnet, charcoal dust and powdered pigment, 13″ x 21″

[Read more…]

Iskra at Zeitgeist: “Excavations”

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Iskra-At-Zeitgeist-Invitation

Here is the official cyber-invitation to my show at Zeitgeist opening First Thursday, April 3 from 6-8. Hardhats optional. No host bar (Zeitgeist serves beer and wine). Feel free to print and share!

Blending traditional media with digital photography, the exhibit offers a personal homage to sense of place in the wake of Seattle’s relentless building boom. Ranging from depictions of the Alaska Way Viaduct to construction sites and iconic ruins, these prints explore the paradoxical beauty of disruption. Many of the images are composed from walls that have been painted over or destroyed in the past year. Others incorporate the ragged surfaces found on construction projects and in the streets, in a collage of photographic, drawn and painted surfaces. Read more about the evolution of this body of work and preview pieces here.

 

Man Pushing to the RIghtSee you there!

 

Homage to Nabokov’s “Speak Memory”: Ex Libris 100 Books Exhibit, Seattle

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        “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between the eternities of darkness.”         

“Come with us by all means, but do not chase butterflies, child, it spoils the rhythm of the walk.” — Speak Memory, by Vladimir Nabokov

Speak Memory Nabokov Typographic Study
Typographic Study for “Speak Memory” © Iskra Johnson

When I was invited to participate in the exhibit “Ex Libris: 100 Artists, 100 Books” I had no question about which book I would choose to interpret. Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak Memory: An Autobiography Revisited has murmured in the back of my mind for twenty years as an unsolved koan. In my work as a book title designer I have designed a dozen hypothetical covers as portfolio exercises, and always I felt I could do another hundred without exhausting the timeless incantation of the words. I knew that this time I wanted to focus on shadow and light, the beauty of sensory experience and tactile surface. [Read more…]

Year End Reflections, “Keeping Safe the Love Affair”

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Drive-By Viaduct In The Evening
Glimpse 3, The Viaduct in Evening © Iskra Johnson

I started this New Years’ Eve morning with an early visit to the Painters Keys, where Sara had posted an exceptionally lovely letter for the new year. If you don’t know about this site, do visit; it is an endless source of inspiration for painters and and artists in all media. Sara’s reminder via Corot to “never lose the first impression” stayed with me all morning as I returned to a series about the Alaska Way Viaduct after a long time away. The creative process (or at least my process) is one of continually losing the glimpse, and then looking for the way back. Sometimes getting lost is a necessary, if bracing, part of the journey.

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It has been a wonderful year in art. I have been fortunate to be included in some terrific exhibits at Prographica, Bainbridge Arts & Crafts, Seattle Architecture Foundation and SAM Gallery (ongoing.) Studio visits with collectors and a recent purchase of one of the Duwamish prints by King county for their Portable Works Collection have rounded out the year. Ahead are two shows this spring, which I will be posting about soon. I feel very grateful for my artist groups that provide encouragement and critique, including my salon, Painters Under Pressure which is ending its first decade (!), and the unnamed but equally wonderful group of self-employed designers and artists I have met with each month for over a dozen years. We are a rare tribe, and I couldn’t persevere without them.

I’ll close with part of the letter from The Painters’ Keys, as I am completely smitten with it and I can’t put it any better:

When Claude Monet noticed the village of Giverny from a train window, he  made a decision to live out his days there. He later said that everything he ever earned went into his Giverny garden. “I love you because you are you,” he wrote to his work. Artists and their subjects are the star-crossed lovers of the world. They recognize each other on impact. Making the discovery on human steam, fueled by the spirit to get up and down the ladders, makes the most eventful love affair. “What your heart thinks great is great. The soul’s response is always right,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson.

As our year closes, we consider resolutions, or mark our moments of recognition……. As a community, we might just keep safe each other’s love affair.”