January 8 - February 14, 2009

Recent work by Brian Cypher, Jessica Drenk & Alan Bur Johnson

We’re starting the New Year with an intriguing exhibition by three artists new to the

gallery, Jessica Drenk and Alan Bur Johnson, both based in Arizona, and Pacific

Northwest native Brian Cypher. The three artists each have a talent for transforming

mundane everyday objects  into beautifully subtle work. Their employ of repetitive imagery

gives the work a hypnotic rhythm which is easy on the eye and unites the show.

Brian Cypher’s original monotypes are quietly cool. They possess a great sense of

motion which is easy to say but hard to achieve in 2-dimensional work. This is confident

work. The wide ribbon imagery in the monotypes have laid-back ease, enhanced by a

minimal color palette of black, white, brown or deep blue. Brian took first place for his

monotypes in Seattle’s Columbia City Gallery’s national juried show in September 2008.

                                                                                                     Photo: Jenny Jenkins

We’re presenting selections from two bodies of work by sculptor Jessica Drenk,

Porcelain Skins and Reading Our Remains. In the former, Jessica took household

items - cotton balls, q-tips, mop heads and gauze and dipped them in pure white

porcelain sculpture. The work from Reading Our Remains is part of a 130-piece

installation of altered book sculpture designed for and originally exhibited at the

University of Arizona Library. The sculpted books are primarily altered with wax.

In 2006, Jessica was awarded the prestigious International Sculpture Center’s

Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture and graduated

with an MFA in 3-D from the University of Tucson, AZ, in 2007.

                                                                                                     Photo: Jenny Jenkins

In the Swarms series, Alan Bur Johnson arranged hundreds of photographic transparencies

of insect wings and brain scans - which are remarkably similar visually - into wall-

mounted sculpture. The work glides into motion with the smallest breeze and the effect

is pure magic. Alan was a long-time Seattle resident and earned a BFA in printmaking from

the University of Washington.

Pulse, Photographic Transparencies,

metal frames, dissection pins, 70"x28"x2",

Alan Bur Johnson, 2008, $3,200

                                                                                                     Photo: Jenny Jenkins