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Past and Future:
The March exhibition will introduce the work of two Seattle artists whom gallery Director Daniel Kany has worked with from the time of their
first professional gallery exhibitions: Reilly Jensen and Nancy Callan. A few years later, both artists have ascended well into the professional
art world with numerous solo exhibitions and inclusion in museums and major public art venues. Through May, the gallery will continue to
present a few works by several gallery artists each month as part of an ongoing series of "introductions."
Reilly Jensen's newest oil paintings -- the Evacuation Plan series -- employs stencils to play with notions of order and disorder.
In Evacuation Plan M, the field is dark and flames jut out through the smoky chaos. Figures, fleeing the fire, run every which way
through the remnants of an architectural drawing. The effect is hysterical: the stencil figures—standard "exit this way" images developed
with the purpose of clarity—become individual members of a panicking mass and the architectural plan—a type of drawing used to communicate
data clearly—becomes a thing truly impossible to navigate. Jensen’s wit cuts deep and refuses to stop. She hints at the flow of people,
smoke and flames as well as the viewer’s gaze. She reminds us of a world in chaos and war and yet plays with it. She reveals personal
fears regarding terrorism and atrocity and yet finds a way to remind us that so many of us share these concerns. Jensen's experience
is personal but she understands that without using a common language, no message can be understood.
Nancy Callan's pop wit is only surpassed by her skills as a glassblower. She plays at times with sculptural forms, candy colors,
classical blowing techniques and popular culture. Her newest works reference patterns--even plaids--that she reveals in blown glass.
To achieve such patterns in glass is extremely difficult and yet Callan is willing to minimize the impressive side of the technical
achievement in service of the immediacy of the viewer's experience: fabric-like, the plaids appear as a found, complete surface. Part
of the play is subtle: Just as fabric is woven, Callan is essentially weaving hot glass on the end of a blowpipe in a way very few
people in the world can match. Moreover, she is combining traditional Italian techniques such as reticello (blowing one bubble of
glass inside of another to achieve crossing patterns) and incalmo (opening and joining two bubbles of glass to make one "double bubble").
The effect is gorgeous and Callan wants us to see the joyous, playful side of the works. Callan, who hails from Boston, is one of the
most talented glassblowers working in Seattle and leads the team of Lino Tagliapietra, widely considered the most talented and innovative
glassblower in the world.
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