PROOF THROUGH THE NIGHT

CO CURATED BY TOMMY GREGORY
AND JUDITH RINEHART

SEPTEMBER 28 - NOVEMBER 9, 2024

J. Rinehart Gallery is honored to be hosting the exhibition, Proof Through the Night, online and in the gallery September 28 - November 9, 2024.

A Collectors Preview Reception will be held on Saturday, September 28, 2024, from 5-7pm. The Public Opening Reception will be held First Thursday October 3, 2024, from 5-8pm.

Co-curated by Tommy Gregory and Judith Rinehart, Proof Through the Night brings together artists from different regions of North America responding to our current political moment. In an era of polarization and political upheaval, art is a powerful force to understand disparate stories and life experiences. Through the fiercely individual craft of each artist, viewers can perceive the humanity that we hold in common. If night is a moment of uncertainty, the impulse to create holds out proof that the voices of understanding will prevail. The works by the Artists in this exhibition are politically charged, often because of the race, gender, ethnic background, or sexual orientation of the artists themselves, but also because these artists address the divisions in America in thoughtful ways, through unique perspectives, and attempt to demonstrate through their work how connected we are as human beings across the various cultures that inhabit and shape the United States. 

Conceived over the last few years, Proof Through the Night is a continuation on the theme of Gregory’s exhibition Purple Like a Bruise, held earlier this year, in which artists from Washington State were invited to exhibit alongside artists from Texas in San Antonio. This incredible combination of artists from a historically ‘red’ state and a historically ‘blue’ state combine in a strong exhibition of works that compel viewers to address their implicit bias and confront misinformation. 

Texas-based Artists Joe Harjo, Jose Villalobos, Chris Sauter and Ed Saavedra, exhibit alongside Washington-based Artists RYAN! Feddersen, Holly Ballard-Martz, Susanna Bluhm, Paul D. McKee, Romson Bustillo, and Sean Hennessey with special guest artists Alex Sandvoss and Einar and Jamex de la Torre, courtesy of Koplin del Rio Gallery.

DARK TIMES

Dark Times brings together a collection of quiet forms and deeper palettes by a select group of our gallery artists. Works by Gala Bent, Lesley Frenz, Emily Gherard, Anne Hirondelle, and Lakshmi Muirhead come together through the moonless black using bold contrast with their materials. Soft abstraction, bold shapes, and inky atmospheres are at the center of the exhibition, exuding a moody sophistication. Dark Times is the inverse of luminescence, the pull of negative space, and the exploration of the unknown.

Dark Times will be on view online and in the Gallery September 5 - 24, 2024. An Opening Reception will be held First Thursday, September 5, 2024, from 5-8pm.

AVAILABLE ARTWORK

MEGGAN JOY
FEVER DREAM

J. Rinehart Gallery is delighted to announce Meggan Joy’s highly anticipated exhibition of five new and epic works, Fever Dream. Fever Dream opens the narrative of what loss, fear, or pain can yield. Even the dew-kissed wild things have Fever Dreams.

Fever Dream will be on view online and in the Gallery August 31 – September 24, 2024. A Collectors Preview will be held August 31, 2024, from 2-4pm. A Public Opening Reception will be held First Thursday, September 5, 2024, from 5-8pm.

Within Meggan Joy’s Fever Dream, figures whisper the components of the stories that tested us and, instead of condemning our faults, reveal that those moments left us the most exciting scars.

Primarily focused on digital collage, Meggan Joy combines fragments of the natural sciences with her narratives and allegories; often weaving in symbols and motifs from art history to create a new surreal vision.

Meggan Joy fabricates her staged imagery from the ground up, growing most of her subject matter in her garden, documenting the growth, beauty, and decay. Each piece is created by assembling thousands of individual photographs of botanicals, insects, and other wildlife - resulting in a final image that is bursting with life and layered with hidden details and anecdotes.

Joy was honored as one of Amazon's Artists in Residence in 2023, a finalist for the 2019 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize, and received the 2017 bronze award at the Moscow International Foto Awards in the Fine Art – Collage category. She occasionally shares her practice in collaboration with SIGMA lenses.

Joy’s work can be found in numerous private and public collections including Amazon Headquarters; Seattle WA, The Waldorf Astoria Hotel; Amsterdam, The Netherlands, The Thompson Hotel; Seattle, WA, Zielinski & Rozen Perfumerie x Les Perles du Palais; Courchevel, France, and The Coleman; Newcastle, WA. She lives and works in Seattle, WA.

AVAILABLE ARTWORK

ARIANA HEINZMAN
HABITAT FOR A FAKE PLANT

J. Rinehart Gallery is thrilled to announce exhibition, Habitat for a Fake Plant, from sculptor Ariana Heinzman. Her exhibition, Habitat for a Fake Plant, is an exploration in the absurdity of bringing and containing nature into man-made environments.  Confused by her own relationship with nature, Heinzman creates an alternate world where plants have acclimated to domestic life. 

Habitat for a Fake Plant will be on view online and in the gallery August 1 - 28, 2024. A Public Opening Reception will be held First Thursday, August 1, 2024, from 5-8pm. The artist will join us for a discussion about her work on Saturday, August 17, 2024, at 1:00pm

In this world, plant-like sculptures are wrapped in patterns reminiscent of tablecloths and wallpaper.  Sprouting leaves are flattened to shapes better suited to a room built with dimensional lumber. Plants have taken on anthropomorphic poses, lounging in this new environment where their purpose is decoration.

Drawing inspiration from Art Nouveau and The Arts and Crafts Movement, Habitat for a Fake Plant revels in the irony of glorifying the natural world in spaces created to be separate from nature. Heinzman's intention is to exuberantly admit to this absurd relationship.    

Ariana Heinzman is a ceramic based artist, creating sculpture, wall works, and functional objects that blend floral imagery, utilitarian objects, and the human figure.  Her work represents the dueling desires of succumbing to nature and controlling it. However distressing these conflicting desires can be, the work honors the beauty of this life with joyful patterns and forms that celebrate nature and human ingenuity.

Ariana Heinzman received her BFA in Ceramics from The Rhode Island School of Design in 2013 and has been creating and exhibiting her work regularly ever since. Heinzman’s work can be found in numerous private collections across the United States and is included in Seattle University’s Private Art Collection and The Port of Seattle at SEATAC Airport.

AVAILABLE ARTWORK

SEATTLE ART FAIR
BOOTH C09

JULY 25 - JULY 28, 2024

J. Rinehart Gallery is thrilled to be returning to the Seattle Art Fair, July 25-28, 2024!

Visit J. Rinehart Gallery, Booth C09, to see an exhibition of Seattle-based artists who have been gaining national recognition.

For our 2024 Seattle Art Fair installation, we look forward to exhibiting new work by multidisciplinary Filipino artist Romson Bustillo. We will be debuting his first foray into translating his impressive work into blown glass vessels, created during two prestigious residencies at the Museum of Glass and the Pilchuck Glass School this past spring. Romson is the Artist Trust Arts Innovator Awardee for 2021 and has exhibited locally at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and at the Bellevue Arts Museum. 

We are also delighted to be exhibiting a large-scale work by Joan Mitchell Foundation, and MacDowell Fellow, Emily Gherard. Gherard is best known for her process-based work built from the accumulation of repetitive marks, often referencing figurative works by old masters in contemporary abstraction. Her past year of residencies and workshops with the Joan Mitchell Foundation and the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation has taken her work into a new level, both conceptually and materially. Her work has been shown at The Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA, The Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA, and The Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA, and is part of the collection at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AK.

In addition to these highlights, we will be showcasing work by artists new to the gallery, including Julie Alpert, who is featured in the 2024 New Artists / New Collectors at Seattle Art Fair; Jan Hoy, Kippi Leonard, and Amanda Knowles. We are thrilled to debut new work by Jaq Chartier, and Kate Protage.

With an impressive selection of paintings, photography, sculpture, and contemporary printmaking by a diverse group of artists, we strive to make fine art accessible and attainable at all levels.

CLYDE PETERSEN
NAÏVE MELODY

J. Rinehart Gallery is thrilled to announce exhibition, Naïve Melody, a collection of new work from Northwest artist Clyde Petersen. This collection of limited-edition serigraphs features lyrics, poems, and prose accompanying hand-drawn images and photographs by Petersen and local collaborators. In Naïve Melody, Petersen searches for a home, hidden somewhere between collective queer history and individual memory. 

Naïve Melody will be on view online and in the Gallery June 29 – July 23, 2024. A Preview Reception will be held Saturday, June 29, from 2-4pm accompanied by a live performance by Petersen’s band, Your Heart Breaks, with special guest, cellist Lori Goldston.

A Public Opening Reception will be held on the Second Thursday (as 1st Thursday falls on Independence Day), July 11, 2024, from 5-8pm. 

Clyde Petersen (they/he) is a transgender Northwest artist, working in film, animation, music, installation, and fabulous spectacle. He re-creates lost worlds and documents queer culture that has been largely erased by AIDS, capitalism and gentrification. He works to offer alternate, more equitable realities and futures through the reexamination of overlooked histories of queer communities. His work is slow and patient, gathering new oral histories and building scale-model worlds to tell stories in.   

With Naïve Melody, Clyde brings a deep personal history to this examination of a wider queer history with anecdotes about his own childhood and awkward teen years, and the moments he looks back on as those that shaped his understanding of queer history, the legacy of his queer elders, his place in that history, and ultimately a better understanding of himself.  

Clyde has been honored with the first Amazon Artist in Residency Grant in 2018, The Cornish College of the Arts prestigeous Neddy Award, The Stranger Genius Award, the Artist Trust Arts Innovator Award among many others. His films have been screened at the Ottawa Int. Animation Festival, SIFF, SXSW, Georama: Tokyo Animation Film Festival, London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Walker Art Gallery, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle Art Gallery, PuSh: Vancouver, Bumbershoot, TWIST: Seattle Queer Film Festival, University British Columbia and the IFC Film Channel.  

In 2019, Clyde founded The Fellow Ship Artist Residency, a paid residency for queer and BIPOC artists to spend a week on Guemes Island in the Salish Sea. He lives in a wooden boat on land on Guemes Island, works on films, and runs the residency space. 

KIMBERLY TROWBRIDGE
FIELD AND FIGURE

J. Rinehart Gallery is delighted to announce the exhibition, Field and Figure, from artist Kimberly Trowbridge. Her exhibition, Field and Figure, approaches nature through the lens of Renaissance painting: the construction of characters interacting on a stage.

Field and Figure will be on view online and in the Gallery June 1 – June 26, 2024. A Preview Reception will be held Saturday, June 1, 2024, from 2-4pm. A Public Opening Reception will be held First Thursday, June 6, 2024, from 5-8pm. The artist will join us for a discussion about her work on Saturday, June 22, at 1:00pm

Within Field and Figure, Trowbridge combines color, shape, and rhythm to leap into the unknown, into the present relationships building on our surface. Field and Figure exists right in front of us, an observation of the figure as an invented construction.

Working plein air, Trowbridge unearths images that challenge perception and reveal structures describing the artist’s experience. The boundaries of the self are blurred and the connection to our environment is revealed as deeply intertwined.

Of her work, Trowbridge states: “Painting is a way of life, a continued effort to translate experience into a meaningful, visual document. Looking to the past gives us wonderful nuggets of wisdom, attitudes for entering, clues on the path through the deep forest of our own consciousness.”

Kimberly Trowbridge is a painter, an installation artist, a performer, and a lecturer on color theory. She received her MFA from the University of Washington (2006). Her first solo museum show at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (2021) was developed during her time as Creative Fellow at Bloedel Reserve (2018-2020), a 150-acre garden amid an old growth forest. She is a two-time Neddy Award Finalist (2014, 2016), and an Artist Trust GAP Grant recipient (2014). She is the Director of the Modern Color Atelier, a multi-year painting program at Gage Academy of Art, Seattle. Her work can be found in various private and public collections throughout the US, including Facebook (Meta), Microsoft Art Collection, and the King County Public Art Collection.

KIPPI LEONARD
1965

J. Rinehart Gallery is delighted to announce exhibition, 1965, from artist Kippi Leonard. Her exhibition, 1965, is a tribute to the aesthetics of the 60’s paying homage to the decade, and year the artist was born. 

1965 will be on view online and in the Gallery April 27 – May 25, 2024. A Public Opening Reception will be held, First Thursday, May 2, 2024, from 5-8pm. An artist talk will be held, Saturday, May 4, 2024 at 2:00pm

1965 initiates a conversation with the past, blending the vibrant hues of the era's fashion, industry color palettes, and interior design with shapes characteristic of mid-century modern design.

Leonard’s textured and bold compositional paintings reveal subtle nuances of unearthed moments. As one studies the work, the generous depth of layers within her paintings are revealed.

Washington native, Kippi Leonard, is known for elements of tension, tranquility, and depth. Now working from her studio in Cathedral City, California, Leonard works with a diverse palette of materials including oil paints, desert sand she gathers, cold wax, graphite, charcoal, oil sticks, and pastels.

She was a recipient of La Jolla Fine Art Festival, CA, First Place Painting Award, and Indian Wells Fine Art Festival, CA, Second Place Mixed Media Painting Award.

Leonard’s work can be found in numerous private collections across the US, Hong Kong, London, UK, Sweden, the Netherlands, Dublin Ireland, and Switzerland.

AVAILABLE ARTWORK

JAN HOY
FLUIDITY

J. Rinehart Gallery is delighted to announce exhibition, Fluidity, from long time sculptor, Jan Hoy. Hoy’s exhibition, Fluidity, combines the hard edged and the organic, celebrating form in the simplest possible way. 

Fluidity will be on view online and in the Gallery March 30 – April 24, 2024. Collectors Preview Reception will be held in the gallery Saturday, March 30 from 2 - 4pm. Public Opening will be held First Thursday, April 4 from 5- 8pm.

Fluidity lies in the realm of curvilinear abstraction. The clay is stretched and molded to hold the measurements of a square, moving through space in a continuous curving motion.

Hoy’s forms appear strong and heavy, while graceful and engaging. They exist fluidly through their pathways of circular direction.

Of her work Hoy states: “The joy of experimenting with a new idea is at the core of the exhibition. The work adheres to my love of keeping it simple, at least they appear simple. Making these forms in clay is very complex and labor of love, each piece taking months to create.”

Jan Hoy was raised in the Puget Sound area, and it is where she calls home. She received her degree in Fine Arts from the University of Washington and has pursued a career in art to this date. Her large-scale works have found homes in both private and public collections including the Sutter Hill Cathedral Hospital in San Francisco, CA, Lake Oswego, Oregon, The City of La Conner, WA, and The Permanent Collection of the city of Bainbridge Island, WA. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of NW Art, and the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art.

SAYA MORIYASU
OZEKITACHI 尾石達- STONE TAILS

J. Rinehart Gallery is delighted to announce exhibition of long-time Seattle artist, Saya Moriyasu. Moriyasu’s exhibition, Ozekitachi 尾石達- Stone Tails, brings together the heightened awareness of Japanese spirits escaping from the depths of oozing hot water, basking in their first daylight, and encountering humans within their thermal wonders.

Ozekitachi 尾石達- Stone Tails will be on view online and in the Gallery March 2 - 27, 2024. Collectors Preview Reception will be held in the gallery Saturday, March 2 from 3-5pm. Public Opening will be held First Thursday, March 7 from 5-8pm. An Artist Talk will be held Saturday March 16 at 2:00pm.

The term "Ozekitachi" (尾石達) combines "Ozeki" (尾石), which can be interpreted as "tail of the stone,” and "tachi" (達), a suffix often used to pluralize or indicate a group of individuals. In Japanese, adding "tachi" to a noun or name can suggest a plural form or indicate a group. The family is comprised of Onsen (hot springs), creatures, members of the Ozeki.

The indigenous Japanese Shinto religion, Kami (gods), or spirits inhabit every facet of existence. Moriyasu highlights ancient geology and origin of life through her depictions of thermal creatures. They break through the mineral deposits of the Onsen, imbuing them with unadorned simplicity.

Moriyasu’s creatures communicate by expelling their minerals upon awakening beneath the surface. Using clay sourced from the earth, Moriyasu encapsulates these entities through their mineral dried mouths and eyes. 

Of her work Moriyasu states: “During the road trip to my September 2023 residency at Mission Street Arts in New Mexico, a transformative journey unfolded, where the hot springs (onsen ♨ in Japanese) became a profound source of inspiration. I found myself enveloped in the wordless communication of the waters. Though incomprehensible in language, I felt the energy and presence of deities within the depths.”

Working in clay, wood, ink, and many other materials, Moriyasu’s work is often comprised of many small pieces that make up a larger piece. Her work can be found in the collections of the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, Wing Luke Museum, Whatcom Museum, Western Gallery, Western Washington University, NW Museum of Arts and Culture, and Washington State University, as well as countless private collections throughout the U.S.

MELANA BONTRAGER
PENTIMENTI

J. Rinehart Gallery is excited to announce exhibition, Pentimenti, from painter Melana Bontrager. Bontrager tells the story of what lies beneath and the marks that remain below the surface. Somewhat familiar and somewhat strange, the landscapes consider passage of time. The curtain is pulled back and the change of direction, the pentimenti, is seen.

Pentimenti will be on view online and in the gallery January 27 – February 24, 2024. A Collectors Preview Reception will be held on Saturday, January 27, 2024, from 3-5pm. The Public Opening will be held First Thursday February 1, 2024, 5-8pm.

Pentimenti tells the back-story of the process of creating. Through experimental mark-making, the artist documents the changes, or alters the course of any given painting.

Each piece in Bontrager’s exhibition is created from a well of personal experience, observation, musing, and wonder. These marks are made, covered, reworked, scraped to be revealed, and covered over again: ever-changing.

Bontrager’s hope is that beauty of these in-between places of pentimenti are found.

Of her work Bontrager states: “I’m interested in the fascinating, web-like link between all humanity, the places where we learn from each other when the experiences, choices, and philosophies touch, overlap, inform.”

Melana Bontrager has her BA in fine arts from Taylor University, Indiana and studied painting/drawing at Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy and at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. Her MA in Art Therapy from Hofstra University has contributed to the integration of emotion and intimacy in her creative process. Bontrager is included in numerous private and public collections throughout the US including The City of Everett, WA and The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, Seattle WA.

JAZZ BROWN
the calm before the song

J. Rinehart Gallery is delighted to announce exhibition, the calm before the song, from painter, Jazz Brown. Brown’s exhibition, the calm before the song, shines a light on the intangible and the tangible, the absolute and the relative.

the calm before the song will be on view online and in the gallery January 4 - 24, 2024. An opening reception will be held on First Thursday, January 4, 2024, from 5 - 8pm. An Artist Talk will be held in the Gallery, Saturday, January 20, 2024, from 2 - 4 pm.  

the calm before the song showcases the immeasurable and the interconnected dance. Inspired by the expression of yin and yang, the collection uses shape and song as metaphor, encapsulating the sum of the spectrum of visible light and the totality of material. Black is used to convey the absence of light and form, ebb. White signifies the unicity of vibration, flow. Brown’s geometric abstractions are made up of interconnected cycles effortlessly unfolding.

Jazz Brown is an autodidact who uses acrylic paint to create vivid, expressive compositions. His artistic approach presents intense vibration through contrasting hues, shapes, and textures. He is inspired by both the Minimalism art movement and the Bebop jazz offspring from the 1960s. Brown describes his technique as "consciousnesses on canvas." The simplicity of Minimalism and the improvisation of Bebop birthed a style now known as "cosmic decomposition." Themes of oneness in a world obsessed with duality became the motif. What started as angular in nature morphed into curvaceous interconnected silhouettes. His work is included in several collections including Microsoft, Facebook (Meta), The Seattle Convention Center, and SEATAC Airport.