Northwest Emerging Artists
Published 7:00 am Saturday, October 24, 2009
Among the 17 local artists represented in the second Seattle City Light Portable Works collection, the droll landscape photographs of Adam Satushek and the tweaked Audubon-style bird paintings of Justin Gibbens are standouts. The real eye-grabber, though, probably cost $10 in materials and took an hour to assemble. Recreation, by Evan Blackwell, consists of a dozen cheap white patio chairs he got at Goodwill, then cut in half and assembled in a star-shaped array. It’s both conceptual and found, a fine example of doing something interesting with the least promising materials. The objects are pure throw-aways; they promise relaxation but can only stand a few years of actual sitting. The sun’s UV rays make the plastic brittle, and they end up in a landfill. Hung indoors, Recreation will endure as long as the PVC–possibly a millennium. By which time, we hope, lawn furniture will be made of better stuff. And artists are looking for other weird discards of the future. BRIAN MILLER
Mondays-Fridays, 5 a.m.-7 p.m. Starts: Oct. 1. Continues through Dec. 31, 2009
