Jan. 24 Art Walk Awards Finalists

The Art Walk Awards are bigger than ever, awarding $1,250 for first place, $500 for second place and $250 for third place. The 10 finalists below are eligible for these awards. Presented by Blue Moon, the Art Walk Awards will take place on from 7–11 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 24 at 1927 Events in downtown Seattle. Email promos@cityartsmagazine.com to RSVP or by clicking RSVP on our Facebook event. This event is 21+.

THE PROCESS

All nominations for the Art Walk Awards are voluntarily submitted by galleries that participate in the Art Walk Consortium, which collects the nominations. City Arts staff selected nine of this month's finalists and one was selected from the among the nominees by popular vote as a People's Choice finalist. Everyone who attends the Art Walk Awards event will be able to vote for the winners.

THE FINALISTS

All of the finalists below will show their competing work at the Art Walk Awards on Jan. 24. Read below to learn more about the artists or click through the slideshow at the bottom of the page for additional information about each piece and its nominating gallery.

Juan Alonso
In September 2011, Juan Alonso returned to his native Havana, Cuba, for the first time in 45 years. During his eight-day trip he took more than 800 photographs, a project that led him to win a City Artist grant from Seattle’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, and he has so far printed 50 of the Havana images in editions of 25. “Lavamanos” was taken in the house where Alonso lived until he left Cuba in 1966 at age 9. “Humanity is the driving force in my work,” he says. “The human condition, our fragile existence on this planet, the way we relate, love, isolate and unnecessarily damage ourselves and the world we live in are fascinating topics.”

The Collagemonauts
Marty Gordon, Tim Manthey and Craig van den Bosch began collaborating in 2011 after a collage exhibition at the Fremont Abbey Arts Center brought them together. Soon they started work on three collaborative journals modeled after the Exquisite Corpse technique invented by the Surrealists. Each artist initiated a journal, rotating it among one another at the end of each month for several months—a process that led to larger collage pieces and their moniker. "'Magmadonna' is an amalgamation of raw indigenous female goddess power combined with modern day technological potential unleashing a potent psychosexual hypnotrance,” says van den Bosch.

Dominique™
A self-proclaimed “blunt anarchistic iconoclast,” Dominique™ likes to cut up magazines and says this about Homo: “The pictures were quite clear about what they wanted; they wanted to be together.” Dominique™ studied math, physical and education at the University of Illinois and once upon a time run a photocopied collage zine called Catalyst Komics. After hitchhiking to Seattle, Dominique™ studied typography, stereo optics and Wilhelm Reich, and published The Standard Artist Stamp Catalogue, a five-year project comprised of fake postage stamps.

Anita H. Lehmann 
“When I see the landscape, I am always drawn toward the edges,” says Lehmann, an artist, teacher and architect trained at the University of Washington and in Rome. “The edges are at the flank, occupying the center of attention only by accident and not very comfortably. At the approach roads, we only pass through on the way to somewhere else.” Lehmann works predominantly with pencil and crayon, which she prefers because, “Color, temperature, movement, and character are evoked in a few, swift strokes. For me as an architect and illustrator, the drawn line evokes the honest nature of a place.”

NKO
NKO is visual and performance artist, curator and designer. He is also a cofounder of Free Sheep Foundation and Black Sheep Book Arts (both with DK Pan) and New Mystics (with No Touching Ground). NKO regularly works with experimental theatre company Saint Genet, and has been a longtime volunteer at the VERA project silkscreen studio. The Architecture of Endlessness appears on the east façade of Red Wall surrounding Sound Transit’s Link Light Rail construction site on Capitol Hill. The 24’ by 240’ painting took five weeks to complete. The mural features repeating geometric forms in a sentimental, surreal tableau and was created in collaboration with New Mystics member and professional sign painter Japhy Witte, aka Sign Savant.  

Richard Morhous
"I wonder where that stair goes? Look how the light bends through those trees! What great shadows those buildings throw!" These are the sorts of thoughts that inspire painter Richard Morhous. “I have always been interested in the quirks of memory and the abstract visualization of reality,” he says. “Stroll” is a look at the urban environment and part of a recent series that showcased the artist’s newfound emphasis on line. Born in South Dakota, Morhous studied at the University of Washington and the Prahan Institute in Melbourne, Australia. He has exhibited with Lisa Harris Gallery since 1987.

Caroline Roosevelt
People’s Choice finalist Caroline Roosevelt uses ink, watercolor, gouache on paper, canvas and found material to create figurative works. She has also worked as a storyboard artist and an illustrator, and studied art at Connecticut College and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. “Shannon” is part of a series based on personal photographs taken from 2009–2012. “I studied late night scenes and memories in a more lucid light and looked to bring them to life in a different setting,” she says.

Deborah Stachowic
Deborah Stachowic is a Georgetown-based teacher and longtime watercolor artist dedicated to painting flowers, still lifes, scenes from Europe and other non-representational work. Stachowic was inspired to create “Burst of Energy” because she “wanted to convey the energy and feeling behind the movement associated with the act of painting.”

Jerry Wingren
Jerry Wingren sculpts Alaskan yellow and Western red cedar forms. Born of Swedish parents in Ketchikan, Alaska, he was exposed to Tlingit native art, and later spent time in Germany and Japan. His elegant, minimalist sculpture is focused on external forms with a keen sensitivity to the natural world. Suspended totems float above the viewer, while freestanding work strikes a note of elemental purity. “I want my sculptures to swim, fly, and float without being fish nor bird,” Wingren says. “Sculpture can be so heavy.” He has been represented by Lisa Harris Gallery since 2002 and has exhibited in Seattle, New York, Berlin, Denver, Santa Fe and Taos.

Allyce Wood
Allyce Wood is a member of SOIL Artist Run Gallery, a teen art instructor and a friend to PrintZero in Georgetown. She studied printmaking and sculpture at Cornish College of the Arts and environmental sculpture at Glasgow School of Art, and currently exhibits locally and in the U.K.. “Covering” is part of a series titled Microslimes—explorations into spore-adhesion, root coverage, and blooms of fungus and slimes. “I made it my aim to showcase an environment completely stripped of its original resources," Wood says.