Blvd, Roq La Rue, The Dali Lama And Suite 100
Some of the best galleries in Seattle reside on a strip on 2nd avenue in Belltown. On this Second Friday, the afternoon was perfect, maybe it was the Dali Lama’s visit? The day was beautiful with green finally showing up on trees and paintings showing up on gallery walls.
Damion Hayes, the gallery director for Blvd Gallery explained his artist for April, Ghost is a Graff icon from NYC. Coming of age during the late 70’s and early 80’s, he was apart of the early history of Graffiti. Ghost developed a style has had a broad influence. The surreal combined with bright twisted characters. Essentially the forerunner of the style where cartoon and splashy backgrounds combine. My favorite was “Picking Boogers”. Dig it, literally.
Roq La Rue Gallery featured Amsterdam native Femke Heimstra and New Yorker Travis Louie. Femke a surrealist with detail that is amazing. Louie combines the hyper-real with the fantastic. They still had a few pieces from the previous show with a huge painting of “Battle Cat” from He-Man.
Studio 100 Gallery’s Curator, Monica HW Choy, keeps bringing talented artists to her openings. Monica knows the Cascadian art scene well, having curated shows in Portland before moving to Seattle. Currently Studio 100 is showing “Happily Ever After II”. Last May the first “Happily Ever After” was a combining and retelling of tales and fables with contemporary imagery. This HEA II show features 18 whimsical artist’s from all over the country.
