NEBULUST: A Carnival of Phototronic Contortions by WYNIA

April -May 2023

STILL HUNG UP

July 20 – August 20: two exceptional artists, each in their own right with significant points of view. Together, Deborah Faye Lawrence and Nancy Kiefer’s STILL HUNG UP present a powerful juxtaposition, a deeper more meaningful commentary of our time.

“Hats off to BONFIRE Gallery for another cutting-edge exhibit with two of the most outrageous artists in Seattle. Deborah Faye Lawrence and Nancy Kiefer both push the boundaries of what is acceptable, but in strikingly different ways.....BONFIRE explodes with feminine energy with STILL HUNG UP. These intense artworks show us how to resist the multiple abuses of women’ rights worldwide.” – ART ACCESS, Susan Noyes Platt

“It's safe to say that in our youth, "Still hung up" was a lament we employed to express regret about relentless gushing over the ill-suited targets of our adolescent attraction to a parade of unlikely, ill-fitting lovers. We, like many others, were mesmerized by the emotional yank that kept us downcast, moody, and captive in a discomfiting nest of mismatched chemistry: Unrequited Love. Nowadays the term "Still hung up" means we are madly in love with the pictures we create! Things are less vague, because at this age our picture-making devotion is focused on efforts to communicate something intensely specific, less ambiguous. Significant, more meaningful and MAJOR. Deeper. Magnificent!” – Deborah Faye Lawrence and Nancy Kiefer

Gallery Hours: Thursday through Saturday Noon – 5 PM

To view the exhibition outside of gallery hours: please contact the artists for an appointment as follows: nkieferart@me.com; or deborahfayelawrence@q.com

Jane Richlovsky ‘ANDY’S AMBITION’

“Andy Warhol famously declared that he wanted to be a machine. To me, that conjures a human and a tool performing a task together, making an intimate, intricate dance, the repetitions of their movements creating new rhythms and patterns that neither could have created on their own: The intersection of the mechanical, the hand-made, and the organic. I generated the patterns in this installation in collaboration with screens, squeegees, and hand-cut Tyvek stencils; and joined forces with a vintage sign-maker saw to make their 3-D progeny.” Jane Richlovsky

First Thursday Reception: June 2, 2022, 6-8 PM

Gallery Hours: Thursday through Saturday Noon – 5 PM and by appointment 206.790.1073

Michelle Kumata ‘REGENERATION’

When: February 2 – April 2, 2022

“My parents, along with many of their friends, were born in Minidoka, an American concentration camp in Idaho. They were too young to have memories of that time, but still, our community continues to be affected by stereotypes, cultural erasure and oppression.

What is the legacy of the incarceration? How does it materialize in later generations? How do we address this, and find resolution?”

‘REGENERATION’ is a very special exhibition of the Sansei artist’s paintings commemorating the 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066 which resulted in the forced removal and incarceration of over 120,000 Nikkei from the United States West Coast.

Michelle Kumata’s timely inspirational exhibition, ‘REGENERATION.’ looks forward in a mixed-media exhibition exploring untold stories, current issues, and future resolutions.

This exhibition is supported in part by a Seattle Office of Arts & Culture CityArtist Grant.

To further explore: www.michellekumata.com

Intagram: @michellekumata

OPENING RECEPTION: February 2, 2022, 6-8 PM

FIRST THUIRSDAYS: February 3rd & March 3, 6-8 PM

Gallery Hours: Thursday through Saturday Noon – 5 PM and by appointment 206.790.1073

C. T. Chew ‘Non Sequitur’  

When: October 6 – November 27, 2021

“In March of 2021 I decided to celebrate my Covid vaccination and my release from space aliens in the White House by creating an artwork every day. I wanted these new pieces, digital collages, to be simple yet shiny, beautiful, and thought-provoking. I also just wanted to have some fun, although forced to stay up past midnight on several occasions with an unresolved artwork clutching at my throat really cannot be considered fun.”

Internationally acclaimed artist, teacher, and human, C. T. Chew has been creating otherworldly art, rugs, stamps, tapestries, portraits, and other curiosities since prehistoric times.

To further excavate: ctchew.com

OPENING RECEPTION: October 6, 2021, 6-8PM

FIRST THURSDAYS: October 7th & November 4th, 6-8PM

Gallery Hours: Thursday through Saturday Noon – 5PM and by appointment 206.790.1073

Mance Engine’s ‘Gifts of Distraction’  

When: August 4, 2021 – September 25, 2021

"If there's any real truth, it's that the entire multidimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs." Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

In absurdist philosophy, the Absurd arises out of the fundamental disharmony between the individual's search for meaning in a seemingly meaninglessness universe. According to Albert Camus, we have three ways of resolving the dilemma: escaping existence, leaps of faith, or accepting the Absurd, and living in spite of it, by making our own meaning.

Sisyphean to its core, the very concept of an art practice is an exercise in the Absurd: to create with vigorous passion and single-minded focus, an object of art, only to abandon it upon completion to move on to the next, with the recognition and determination that nothing is eternal or sacred, but should still, nonetheless, exist.

The works in this installation - a collection of sculptural curiosities, assemblages, modified ready-mades, and collages - make no lofty claims or social statements. They do not try to explain or solidify eternal ideas. They were not created or compiled to carefully try to build a legacy that shall stand the test of time. They are, in true Absurdist nature, wrought out of passion, to simply be.

Inspired by food, death, art history, mythology, nostalgia, and sex, the works may, individually, hold meaning for the artist, or they may not – that is not the point. Accepting the Absurd, and living in spite of it, by making our own meaning - that’s the point. Or is it? Maybe we can just have fun looking at art and being together again. Maybe that can be enough.

Creative Seattle recluse Mance Engine invites you to make your own meaning in this playful, arresting and sometimes NSFW (or Kids) debut exhibition.

INSTAGRAM @manceengine  
Contact Mance Engine: ManceEngine@gmail.com 

OPENING RECEPTION: August 4, 2021 6-8PM

FIRST THURSDAY RECEPTION: August 5th  6-8PM

FIRST THURSDAY RECEPTION September 2nd  6-8PM

Gallery Hours: Thursday - Saturday Noon to 5PM and by appointment 206.790.1073

‘Sweetest Reflections’ by James Reinhardt exhibits a collection

When: June / July 2021

Seattle artist James Reinhardt exhibits a collection of polished stainless steel sculptures, screens and objects in an experiential storefront installation titled: ‘Sweetest Reflections’. 

Sweetest Reflections illustrates what we encounter each time we face the mirror. Expecting a straight reaction, we have become reliant on seeing the correct, if not too true an image in return. The goal of the art works is to question that assumption and ask, “What is it you are looking for?” James Reinhardt 

This installation can be viewed socially distanced from the sidewalk and gallery entry vestibule 24/7. BONFIRE Gallery is open by appointment by calling 206.790.1073.

Mance Engine’s Gift of Distraction opens on August 4th in the interior gallery space with regular hours Thursday – Saturday Noon – 5:00 PM and by appointment.

‘We Are One’ by Lawrence Pitre

WHEN: March / April / May 2021

Seattle artist Lawrence Pitre exhibits paintings from his ‘We Are One’ series that depicts life in Seattle’s multicultural Central District:

“Family should and must begin with unity. At the root of the word community, it’s about our shared humanity, our connection – how we act and are with each other. Everywhere we look there are TV shows, articles, pictures, poems, reflections, memes about the importance of community, proclaiming ‘we are one.’ If we are going to create community and begin to open our understanding of Spirit within all people and claim ‘we are one,’ then the question becomes: How do I need to be for you to know love. How do I need to be if you are to be happy and know abundance. In our great uniqueness as individuals we see that what connects as individuals, we see that what connects us collectively is the creative force we call oneness – of which we are expressions. The experience of oneness only makes sense within the infinite diversity of life. The treasure of our uniqueness only makes sense in relationship to the whole.” Lawrence Pitre

The storefront installations can be viewed socially distanced from the sidewalk and vestibule 24/7. The Gallery is open by appointment and projecting new gallery shows later in 2021. Call 206.790.1073 for appointments.

‘A New Year 2021’ BONFIRE commissioned storefront by Jack Taylor, a Keith Haring inspired multi-media installation

WHEN: January / February 2021

The storefront installations can be viewed socially distanced from the sidewalk and vestibule 24/7. The Gallery is open by appointment and projecting new gallery shows later in 2021. Call 206.790.1073 for appointments.

‘The New Hope' by Troy Gua #TroyGuaArt

WHEN: October 2020 - November 2020

The storefront installations can be viewed socially distanced from the sidewalk and vestibule 24/7. The Gallery is open by appointment. 206.790.1073

Ancestral Heritage of an Unknown Artist

A multi-media installation by Tacoma Japanese American artist June Sekiguchi:

June Sekiguchi takes contemporary cut paper and wood elements to respond to her ancestral heritage by repurposing original, monumental scale Sumi paintings by an unknown artist.  She preserves the integrity of the painted line and cuts patterns into specific areas of the paintings. Sekiguchi feels the mystery of the paintings reflects her displacement from Japan and the mysteries of her relationship to her ancestry.

WHEN: August 2020 – September 2020  

ARTIST RECEPTION: August 29, 2020 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Join artist June Sekiguchi for a socially distanced reception as part of Hai! Japantown. Bring your mask please.

This storefront and gallery installation can be viewed from the street, sidewalk and vestibule day and night. The gallery is open by appointment 206.790.1073

The HINARMATSURI exhibition in BONFIRE’s storefront is part of a larger installation in each of the Panama Hotel’s storefront windows by Seattle artist and photographer Spike Mafford, Zocalo Studios.

When: March through July 2020 dependent on the pandemic timeframe. 

HINARMATSURI, the Doll’s Festival, or Momo no Sekku, the Peach Festival is a special day in Japan. Prized as harbingers of Spring, blossoms of the peach tree are thought to ward off malevolent spirits. This festival has evolved as an occasion to celebrate female children and pray for their continued health and happiness. 

HINAMATSURI traces its origins to an ancient Japanese custom called hinanagashi (literally, “doll floating”) in which straw hina dolls are set afloat in a boat and sent down a river to the sea, taking troubles and bad spirits with them. The HINAMATSURI Doll Festival holiday spread to other countries via the Japanese diaspora although it remains confined to immigrant Japanese communities and their descendants. These doll displays remain a thriving example of traditional Japanese craftwork and a celebration of Japanese culture. Photographer Spike Mafford’s iconic images of the doll’s faces and their display in the windows of the Panama Hotel continue the tradition for Seattle’s Japantown. (spike@zolalostudios.com)

Seattle artist Jack Taylor has created a multi-media installation of light using repurposed materials to move us into the new year 2020

WHEN: December 1, 2019 - February 29, 2020 | Illuminated daily from 7AM -10AM and 4PM -1AM

Artist Reception 2020 Celebration: Wednesday January 15, 2020 6-9PM

Jack Taylor is a graduate of Cornish College of the Arts in Costume and Performance Production. He has been the creator of numerous costumes and performances across the west and is currently costume designer at Seattle’s Lakeside School.

B & B: CONNECTING THE DOTS IS ONE DEFINITION

You can spend your life connecting the dots
And still not see the big picture.
One person’s spiritual splotch is another’s ketchup stain,
And the face of Jesus staring back from the Turin Shroud
Might as well be a piece of burnt toast to the atheist.
From one inkspot to the next is a slog of imagination
Best left to children or drinkers of Ayahuasca.

Signing on the dotted line may lead to disaster or salvation,
But up close, the picture is hard to discern,
Just another signature out of a lifetime scribbling your name
And trying to make it stick. In the encyclopedia,
It was enough to be a letter.
Between Bs, for example, gave bacon a place beyond slices of bread,
turned baskets from containers into place keepers.

Turning the page jumped from beaches to bikinis,
A pairing as natural as lemons and fish,
And as much proof of divine plan as the puzzle of an eye
Unable to look at itself. Follow the lines
Formed by connecting dots to see where you end up.

Image: Jazzy Photo

sweet, rotten, sweet

A video installation, plus live performance by Peggy Piacenza

WHEN Exhibit: March 7, 2019 – March 31, 2019: Installation Exhibit, Thur-Sun, 11am–5pm (11am–4pm on performance days) FREE

WHEN Performance: March 16–30, 2019: Performances, 3/16 5pm; 3/17, 3/23, 3/24 4pm & 6pm; 3/29 8pm; 3/30 6pm & 8pm Tickets: www.peggypiacenza.com   

First Thursday Opening: March 7, 2019 6–8pm

Community Conversation: Sunday March 10th and 31st 2019  4pm

PERFORMANCE TICKETS: are required, limited to 25 people per show, and offered on a sliding scale basis ($10-75)

Tickets: www.peggypiacenza.com

sweet, rotten, sweet is a visceral communal ritual examining what it means to see, be seen, and bear witness to the passage of time. In this video installation, Peggy Piacenza has crafted a visual and sonic landscape that utilizes dance and performance to illuminate the human struggle to find meaning within an absurd world. Reimagining past choreographic works that deal with the nature of touch and the inevitability of mortality, sweet, rotten, sweet aims to strip away extraneous layers in order to discover moments of stillness within an overstimulated, disoriented psyche.

The next step in a creative evolution, sweet, rotten, sweet re-conceives material from Piacenza’s recent work The Event, into a new realm of video installation and gallery performance.

In addition to the installation, there will be live performances throughout the month. Staged in an intimate setting, with 25 audience members and four performers, sweet, rotten, sweet uses an up-close and personal setting to awaken audiences to the present moment.

“Both deeply personal and vividly abstract, Piacenza’s dreamy, emotional landscape shows us that the lonely experience of our humanity is something we all have in common.”

—Kaitlin McCarthy, City Arts

“Piacenza seems to have erupted from some Dada burlesque; jarring, implacable, and completely compelling.”

—The Stranger

Conception & Choreography: Peggy Piacenza

Director of Photography: Doug Arney

Original Music and Sound Design: Paurl Walsh

Scenic Design: Danielle Blackwell, Ezra Dickinson, Peggy Piacenza

Performers in Video: Ezra Dickinson, Kim Lusk, Wade Madsen, Amelia Reeber

Light Design: Jessica Trundy

Peggy Piacenza is a longtime Seattle choreographer and performer who has toured nationally and internationally. Her work focuses on a wide spectrum of experience and draws from her explorations in improvisation, performance-related studies, and inter-disciplinary collaborations.

“[Piacenza] proved the connection between the absurdity of mortal life and the higher calling of the human spirit.”

—Seattle Dances

“Piacenza owns the movements and spoken words…with astonishing intelligence and mettle.”

—Seattle Dances

Along with Dayna Hanson and Dave Proscia, Piacenza is a co-director of Base, a new nonprofit organization dedicated to elevating risk and invention in dance, performance and multidisciplinary art. thisisbase.org

I Saw the Face of Hecate 
(HEH-ka-tee)

JULI ADAMS

When: August 1 – September 29, 2018

Opening Receptions: Wednesday August 1, 2018 6-8PM

First Thursday Opening: August 2, 2018 and September 6, 2018   6-8PM

‘Hecate’s ability to see into the “underworld” of the sleeping and the dead, made her comfortable and tolerant in the company of those most would shun out of fear or misunderstanding.’ -  GoddessGift.com 

“I Saw the Face of Hecate’ is about facing my deeply feminine journey into darkness where I found the treasures of the underworld. If you knew that the most powerful guide is already in you, would you go into your underworld to find her? Would you be willing to meet Hecate?”- Juli Adams

LIMBO LOUNGE

DAVE CALVER

When: March 22 through April 28, 2018

OPENING: March 22, 2018     6 – 8PM

FIRST THURSDAY OPENING: April 5, 2018   6 – 8PM

BONFIRE Gallery presents LIMBO LOUNGE, a graphic novel by acclaimed artist and illustrator Dave Calver. Limbo Lounge exhibits selections from some of the 420 art pieces published in the graphic novel, released February 6th and already on Amazon’s list of best-selling graphic novels: 

“This trippy, surreal, full color adventure brings us from the hot, swirling sands of hell to the colorfully bizarre “Limbo Lounge,” filled with the recently deceased as well as bored oddball interlopers from hell. Meet flower-headed freaks, Bud and Lou. Root for their friend, a spry, elderly nun, Sister Eunice, as she works remotely in Limbo continuing to rid earth of despicable dirt bags. And, by all means, avoid the knife-wielding little pageant-princess-gone-bad as she plots for anything she can get at anyone’s expense.”

Artist Dave Calver’s rich, evocative, surreal work has been widely featured from The New York Times and Vanity Fair, to Rolling Stone and Playboy. Taschen recently chose him as one of their favorite 100 illustrators in the world. Huffington Post’s review of Taschen’s ”100 Illustrators,” singled out Calver as their #1 favorite. Published internationally, Calver’s work includes film, sculpture and commercial works.  

“A Delightfully Strange Romp Between Life and Death…what is shown is absolutely stunning.”– Bleeding Cool

“Not just hipster doom and gloom, but about love and hope…a great, independent work that speaks volumes to the human experience…” - SCREAM, The World’s #1 Horror Magazine

“LIMBO LOUNGE mixes equal parts Tex Avery and Hieronymus Bosch. Vibrant, Expressionistic madness.” –DoomRocket

“Freaking amazing.” Roz Chast, The New York Times Bestselling Author; New Yorker Cartoonist

www.davecalver.com 

RESIST

ELLEN SOLLOD

When: January 21 through January 28, 2018

OPENING: January 21, 1-4PM.

Ellen Sollod presents RESIST at BONFIRE Gallery featuring Sollod’s projects: Ribbons of Resistance, I Resist/I Embrace and 100 Days/100 Postcards. Sollod began her Ribbons of Resistance project immediately following the 2016 Presidential Election. Over the last year as a demonstration against tyranny, she has given away by hand, by mail and at marches nearly 1500 black, embroidered ribbons. She also undertook her I Resist/I Embrace portrait project through which she has created photographic portraits of nearly 50 people declaring what they resist and what they embrace. Following the 2017 Inauguration, Sollod began the 100 Days/100 Postcards project through which she sent a postcard to the White House each of the first 100 days of the Administration. RESIST brings these projects together through photographs, prints and limited edition artist-books. Sollod will be giving Ribbons of Resistance away during the opening on January 21, the anniversary of the Women’s March. www.sollodstudio.com 

Inside Out

PAINTER GARY FAIGIN
OCTOBER 4 TO DECEMBER 2, 2017

The paintings of Gary Faigin, featured in BONFIRE Gallery upcoming show, “INSIDE OUT,” revolves around a fundamental tension between the domestic and the urban, the organic and the artificial, those aspects of quotidian life that are stubbornly persistent, and those that represent the cutting edge of change in our modern world. 

In many of the images, food is presented as our principal connection to the natural world, critical to our very survival but increasingly distant in its production. Integrated into traditional still life arrangements, fruit, fries, flowers and fish are presented in purposely incongruous settings, as the excesses of mechanical civilization come ever closer to imperiling the ability of the earth to support its living inhabitants.  Faigin emphasizes that our daily needs for food, shelter, and emotional comfort have not been transformed by the new technology of the Brave New 21st century.

In Faigin’s tower paintings, the viewer assumes a position of vertigo that represents a losing of balance, a feeling of being about to fall—a tactic meant to jog the viewer into heightened awareness. The theme of environmental degradation is ever-present, with the viewer’s vantage point akin to a bridge master or tower guard, filled with multiple highways, or an industrial complex, or a deep mining quarry.

In his train paintings, Faigin uses the venerable steam engine to grab the viewer’s attention.  Few inventions of the industrial revolution embody as much historical and cultural resonance as the train, one of the single most potent agents in altering our physical and cultural landscape -- trains shrank distances, swept away the Wild West, and made our mega-cities possible; trains led to war being infinitely more lethal, and resource extraction becoming infinitely more efficient. 

Faigin’s painted trains destroy landscapes, thrust open doors unexpectedly, and are relentless in their momentum and speed.  Early 20th Century artists were hired to paint trains in picturesque, uninhabited terrains whereas Faigin pictures them in the very landscapes which they have helped make ever more precarious. 

October 4 – December 2, 2017.

Opening reception: Saturday October 7, 6-8PM

Artist Gallery Talk: Saturday October 14, 2PM

First Thursday Open Gallery: October 5 and November 2, 2017 6-8PM

Deborah Faye Lawrence 

strumpet of Justice

BONFIRE Gallery in Seattle’s International District presents Strumpet of Justice, an installation of penetrating artworks by Deborah Faye Lawrence, an artist who has been registering her grievances against tyranny since 1980.  The exhibition features new and historic satirical works occasioned by today’s bizarre political climate.

When: August 2, 2017 through August 6, 2017 and by appointment through August 31, 2017 206.790.1073

BONFIRE Gallery will be open Noon to 5PM

Artist Talk and Opening Reception: Wednesday August 2,  6-8 PM with talk at 7PM. 

First Thursday: August 3, 6-8PM