The skull. As a subject matter for art, it’s a topic you can really wrap your head around.
And besides, what’s more adorable than a skull sock monkey?
So art featuring the skull, skeletons and bones of all sorts is the topic of a celebration of all that is calcified during The Bone Show at Lowell Art Works.
The free public opening for this articulated art show is from 4 to 9 p.m. Saturday at Art Works gallery, 5205 S. Second Ave., Everett. The show runs through Oct. 4.
The show’s curator and contributing artist Mike Capp said the skeleton will be well represented in paintings, sculptures and 3-D relief pieces, with added artistic treats such as skull candle holders and toy sock monkeys.
One of the contributors, Snohomish artist Justin Hillgrove, has gained a reputation for turning imps and monsters into cuddly creatures that are just darn adorable. Capp says visitors will be amused by what Hillgrove can do with skeletons.
“Justin can take a zombie and make that into a little stuffed animal and something you want to snuggle up to at night,” Capp said.
Capp said he got the idea for a show featuring bones from his love for “Day of the Dead” imagery and a former teacher.
“I had a life drawing teacher who drilled it into all of our heads that he was sick and tired of people associating the skull with death,” Capp recalled. “He would say the skull is the foundation of all life drawing. He would say we wouldn’t even exist, there would be nothing without the skull. And he harped on it 10 minutes before each class started.
“On the other hand,” Capp said, “the skull can also represent death. So you can come up with your own interpretation. The skull can’t be locked in. It’s expressive in all sorts of ways.”
Capp said the show will be family friendly. “There’s nothing too frightening,” he said. “Some of the art is a little bit on the darker side but nothing inappropriate.”
Photo exhibit: At WiseDesignz gallery this month, the photography of Dennis Bishop will be shown in an exhibit titled “The Pixel Garden.”
A reception to kick off the show is planned from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday during the Everett Art Walk at WiseDesignz, 2908 Wetmore Ave.
For Bishop, capturing the color and form of a garden is his passion. He has spent more than four years creating his collection with many of the pictures captured using conventional film cameras and printed as archival giclee prints. Bishop said he’s also showing a sampling of images that are “digitally painted to soften the effect and focus on form.”
More photos: Barbara Kalhor’s hand-tinted photography is on display through Oct. 15 at Autumn’s Framing &Gallery, 537 Main St., Edmonds.
Kalhor focuses on ordinary scenes that can change with the seasons but uses a special technique that evokes the past. She combines classic darkroom photography techniques with an eye for oil painting to create tranquil landscape images. Kalhor has been hand-coloring photos for more than 25 years and, in keeping with the tradition of turn of the century photographers who tinted their black and white images, she applies oil paint to the surfaces of her prints. Her end result is a muted palette that brings out a sense of time passing.
Exhibit extended: “Worlds Within Worlds” is the name of the realist art work that is on display at Rob Schouten Gallery, 765 Wonn Road, in Greenbank on Whidbey Island. The exhibit has been popular enough to extend through October.
Artists showing work during this exhibit are Gayle Lutschg, displaying ceramic sculpture; Schouten, showing oil paintings, etchings and giclée prints, and Katheryn Trenshaw, displaying acrylic paintings, etchings, woodcuts and raku ceramics.
Open house: Gale Johansen hosts a studio open house from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday at 224 Ave. B, Snohomish. Johansen will show mixed-media paintings, encaustic or wax-based paintings and 3-D “oddities.”
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