Iskra Fine Art

You are here: Home / Archives for Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past

Prographica’s “Bleak Beauty” Reviewed in the Seattle Times

by Leave a Comment

Well this is exciting! It is a rare and wonderful thing to have work reviewed in a real live paper newspaper. Check out Michael Upchurch’s piece here. It is good to see Norman Lundin’s Prographica get the appreciation it deserves, and I am pleased to be mentioned. Here are two of the pieces he discusses, from my Construction/Reconstruction series. The show continues through March 9th, open Wednesday – Saturday 11-5.

Construction_Site_With_Baroque_Sky
Brooklyn With Baroque Sky, Digital Mixed Media Collage
The_Blue_Stair_Mixed_Media_Collage
The Blue Stair, Digital Mixed Media Collage, 18″ x 24″

 

Postscript: I had some time today to visit Dianne Kornberg’s work online. Her pieces in “Bleak Beauty” are all gelatin silver print photography, but she has a an entirely different body of work on her website. It is intense, adventurous, and technically brilliant. I love her printmakerly sense of surface and color. Take a look at Dianne Kornberg’s body of work here.

I also am very drawn to Steve Costie’s fine graphite drawings and have been enjoying seeing his work in exhibits around town. His work is very rigorous and at the same time poetic within its constraints. His sensibility and interest in structure feels very congruent with my own. His work inspires me to keep following the architectural muse.

Additional artist website links: Sandow Birk, David Bailin. Both of these artists draw like angels, with a deep and highly skilled apocalyptic vision. Very real, very reflective of the darker sides of the world today.

“Bleak Beauty” at Prographica Opening this Week

by Leave a Comment

Bleak Beauty At Prographica

 Invitation courtesy of Prographica

January and February can be harsh times in the turning of the year. The New York Times just had an article titled “January is the Cruelest Month” about our internal clocks and the moon and how we can blame it on the world, the moon and the weather, and it’s all real and not just human weakness. (What a relief. I thought it was just me…..) This exhibit takes bleakness and turns it on its head to show you its stark, resilient and imaginative beauty. As well as a work in charcoal, above, I will be showing five prints in various degrees of contemplative and exuberant color. Hope to see you there!

Iskra Fine Art Upcoming Shows and Publications

by 1 Comment

I am starting the year with numerous shows all within the next three months. I will post reminders of openings here as they come up, but for those who want advance notice, here is the list of what’s up between now and April. I hope you will be able to stop by and see the work in person!

Prographica Fine Works on Paper: “The Bleak View”: I will have five prints and a drawing in this show. A perfect theme for this time of year in the Northwest, when you either find the loveliness in 100 shades of gray or die trying. The show runs from February 2-March 9, opening TBA.

The Elegant Scaffold Construction Site Photograph
“The Elegant Scaffold,” Photograph, 16″ x 16″, © Iskra Johnson

Bainbridge Arts & Crafts, on Bainbridge Island: “New Media: Digital Art”: I will have four pieces covering a range of botanical and industrial themed-work in this invitational exhibit. The show runs from March 20- April 22, opening reception April 5.

The Reeds Transfer Print
“The Reeds,” 1/2 ev, 22″ x 30″ paper size, 16″ x 21″ image size

Painters Under Pressure at Phinney Gallery: A group show with my print salon.  The show runs from April 3-May 1, opening reception April 12 from 7-9 PM. I expect to have a variety of sizes and themes for this exhibit, possibly including new experimental typographic prints from The Wailing Wall. This will be our first group show in many years, and I am very excited about it. If you would like to keep up with PUPs do check out our Facebook page.

EXIT/NoExit, experimental typography
“EXIT/No Exit,” experimental typography, © Iskra Johnson

Additionally,  SAM Gallery will have four of my new large prints from Construction/Reconstruction on display in February as part of the rotating collection. It has been exhilarating to see how scale changes the work, particularly when the themes are architecture and space.

In the world of publications, I am very excited to be in two books this year. Tom Hoffmann’s Watercolor Painting will have its official launch party at Gage Academy Friday January 18, 6-8 PM. In conjunction with the book signing the Steele Gallery at Gage will be exhibiting Tom Hoffmann’s work along with that of contributors to the book in “Watercolor: Thoughtfulness to Spontaneity.” I will have a piece on display from my series of expressive botanical paintings.

This past summer I explored the wildly inprovisational world of cyanotype, and an image from that series will be published in Jill Enfield’s upcoming “Jill Enfield’s Guide to Photographic Alternative Processes: Popular Historical and Contemporary Techniques” from Focal Press. I will post a link to the book when it is published, in June. You can read about my experience with cyanotype here, in the post “Three Days in the Sun….”

Because so many shows are happening in a short period of time I will send this summary out to those who are on my email mailing list as a separate newsletter, but suggest you follow me here at my blog or on the Iskra Fine Art Facebook page for updates and reminders. I will limit the number of individual event invites as I know people are overwhelmed by email these days.

Happy New Year, keep the creativity flowing!

 

Iskra in “Walk the Line” at Ida Culver

by Leave a Comment

Please join me for the opening reception of “Walk the Line” curated by June Sekiguchi this coming Wednesday. I will have two new prints on exhibit from the series “Construction/Reconstruction.”

November 14, 4:30-6:30

Ida Culver House

12505 Greenwood Ave. N, @ 125th Street, Seattle 98133

Wine, hors d’oeuvres and entertainment will accompany the art.
Complimentary parking provided.

“Walk the Line presents unique perspectives of expressing qualities of lines in abstract and figurative works in drawing, painting, photography and sculpture.”

Duwamish_Platform_collage
Duwamish Platform, Digital Mixed Media Collage, 16″ x 16″

Recent additions to this series can be seen in a new print portfolio here.