August 2020 Virtual Art Walk at Make.Shift gallery:
“On The Edge of Reality”
Make.shift Gallery is excited to present “On The Edge of Reality.” This is a multi-media group show with an incredibly vibrant lineup of work. This show features four regional artists with a variation of mediums, themes, and styles.
Natalie Niblack is a multimedia artist based out of Skagit River. She uses this setting to observe the fragility of the landscape. “Her work reflects a pervading sense in accelerated change in our culture- change in the climate, environment, politics, and war. She asks the viewer to recognize the consequences of our relationship with the environment, and the choices we have collectively made that are inevitably, and perhaps irrevocably, altering the world around us.”
Elissa Buchalter is a Denver born, Seattle Painter. Her “paintings explore memory, time, and place through the reconstruction of personal experiences using collage to construct vivid and richly pigmented worlds.” She often floats between the realms of dream, imagination, reality, and memory. “Adventurous, curious and insightful by nature,
Yingri Guan pays attention to global commonalities and differences between every existence.” She is originally from China and studied in Singapore, but has now brought her talents to Seattle and the surrounding region. “By analyzing and interpreting different patterns and forms, she creates physical visualizations through generative design and digital fabrication to promote understanding about deep and hidden connections.”
Natasha Marks is a mixed media artist residing in the Seattle area. In this exhibition she “centers around the exploration of texture and pattern within pop and street culture through the unique combination of mixed media mediums such as: decorative papers, fabric, plastic, glass, acrylic paint, and live plants.”
For more information about the Art Walk or Make.Shift please visit our website at makeshiftproject.com or contact Gallery Director, Gabrielle Olson, at gallery@makeshiftproject.com.
Natalie Niblack
Natalie Niblack
“History Lesson”
Graphite on Paper
$5,000
Natalie Niblack
“Riot”
Oil on Wood
$800
Natalie Niblack
“Below the Waves”
Graphite on Paper
$2,000
Natalie Niblack
“Lynchburg”
Oil on Wood Panel
$1,500
Natalie Niblack
“Watershed”
Oil on Canvas
$5,000
Natalie Niblack
“Funnel Cloud”
Graphite on Paper
$3,000
Natalie Niblack
“City Explosion, Twilight”
Oil on Canvas
$2,300
Natalie Niblack
“Oil Train Explosion, Night”
Oil On Canvas
NFS
Natalie Niblack
“Civil Discourse”
Porcelain, wood, silkscreen, glass
$1,500
Natalie Niblack
“Fire”
Oil on Linen
NFS
Natalie Niblack
“Folly”
Graphite on paper
NFS
Natalie Niblack
“McDonalds”
Oil on Wood Panel
NFS
Natalie Niblack
“Estuary”
Oil on Canvas
NFS
Artist Statement: My current painting, drawing, and graphic work reflect a pervading sense of accelerated change in our culture- change in the climate, environment, politics, and war. It addresses the experience of living in the Anthropocene, where everything around us is impacted by human activity, and is a product of our collective consent and participation. I am attempting to codify the viewpoint of a world that is based on monetary value and utility, and the inevitability of complicity and participation in it. The convenience and unavoidability of driving, using plastics in almost every product, consuming foods from every ocean and continent, has recreated our landscape into one of mindless consumption and an excess of waste. While driving my diesel car over the tracks of a major railway for oil and coal near my home, I simultaneously know about the fossil fuel industry and it’s attendant callous disregard for the environment, when broken pipelines and devastated watersheds are an acceptable risk, simply collateral damage. It is this disconnect between our collective actions and their consequences that fuels this body of work. It asks viewers to recognize their participation in the climate emergency, and that the choices we have collectively made is inevitably and irrevocably altering the world around us.
Bio: Natalie Niblack is a visual artist working in drawing, oil painting, printmaking andceramics. She lives on the Skagit River on Fir Island, north of Seattle. From this viewpoint, she has been able to observe the pressure of conflicting demands on a fragile landscape since moving to Skagit Valley in 2000. Her work reflects a pervading sense in accelerated change in our culture- change in the climate, environment, politics, and war. She asks the viewer to recognize the consequences of our relationship with the environment, and the choices we have collectively made that are inevitably, and perhaps irrevocably, altering the world around us. Niblack taught visual art at Shoreline Community College from1996 to 2016. She received an MFA from Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland in 1993. She has shown her work in solo and group shows internationally, nationally and regionally.
Website: natalieniblack.com
Elissa Buchalter
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“Drifting Wood”
Oil on Canvas
$2,500
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“Big Wilma Style”
Oil on Canvas
$2,500
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“Surya”
Oil on Canvas
$2,500
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“AAMANAARYUM!!!”
Oil on Canvas
$2,500
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“Tourist Trapped”
Oil on Canvas
$2,500
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“Beary Nice”
Oil on Canvas
$2,500
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“Midnight Honey”
Oil on Canvas
$2,500
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“Oh, That’s Just Greg.'“
Oil on Canvas
$2,200
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“OtterPOP”
Oil on Canvas
$2,200
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“My Words Just Blown Away”
Oil on Canvas
$2,500
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“Ladybug Vortex”
Oil on Canvas
$2,500
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“Welcome”
Oil on Canvas
$4,000
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“Smelling Snow”
Oil on Canvas
$4,000
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“Anam Cara”
Oil on Canvas
$4,000
Elissa Buchalter
(She/her)
“Accumulate, Purify, Release”
Oil on Canvas
NFS
Artist Statement: My paintings explore memory, time, and place through the reconstruction of personal experiences using collage to construct vivid and richly pigmented worlds. Bright tones of chroma punctuate muted modulations of subtle pastel hues in vibrating active environments which reference personal specific occurrences and locations.
Forms layer and combine assembling new patterns that function as composites of tangible and fantasy. Through drawing I have built up a visual vocabulary of specific forms that communicate my inventive recall of deeply personal experiences. I collage these forms and characters in a process that layers and complicates, creating a space that is strangely nameable yet foreign; one that floats between the realms of dream, imagination, reality and memory.
Memory and emotion are inextricably linked to one another. Emotional states facilitate recall of experiences. My paintings evoke and conjure the reactions and perceptions experienced through the materiality of paint application; Thin washes of color allude to cool and misty fog or thickly caked on pigment reminiscent of sticky mud. Densely packed with explosive colors and patterns the viewer experiences chaos and calm.
My paintings capture unpredictable and unfamiliar emotions; unexpected moments of opaque shapes suddenly shifting to transparent structures or bizarre combinations of seemingly unappealing yet pleasingly unnameable colors. My paintings focus on moments of wonderful strangeness and overwhelming discomfort. I work with the past in the present to construct a future in a process of remembering, forgetting, and fabricating.
Bio: Born in Denver, Colorado, Elissa Buchalter holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. Awards include a residency at the Burren College of Art in Ireland, a Fulbright Research Grant to India, where Ms. Buchalter studied Buddhist Thangka painting and art as a meditative tool, and the New York Studio Residency Program located in the DUMBO neighborhood of New York City. Group Exhibitions include Cranbrook Art Museum and Mercedes Benz Financial Services World Headquarters. Her work is published in Juxtapositions Magazine, Open Doors Report on Student Exchange journal, and the Mercedes Benz Experiencing Perspectives Catalog. She has lectured at the Fulbright South and Central Asia Conference, Poornima University, and Jodhpur Institute of Engineering and Technology. She currently lives and works in Seattle, Washington.
Website: www.elissabuchalterpaint.com
Yingri Guan
Yingri Gaun
(She/her)
“Cava” Series includes 4 individual pieces
Mixed Media
$20,000 for Entire Series
Through combining mathematical formulas, cave mineral structural formation angles, mineral composition data, a series of vector images were generated through computational design. Yingri Guan visualizes cave patterns through generative designs. She transforms these data into three-dimensional installations.
Yingri Guan
(She/her)
“Diatom” Series includes 3 individual pieces
Mixed Media
$24,000 for the entire series
This piece is inspired by the phenomenal contributions diatom algae bring to our world. Diatoms are light-absorbing molecules that convert light energy from the sun to chemical energy through photosynthesis.
In the process, carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere, converted into sugar, and oxygen is released. In addition, diatoms are a major source of food for aquatic life on earth. Therefore, this piece aspires to celebrate diatoms as essentials organisms to our whole ecosystem.
Artist Statement: Adventurous, curious and insightful by nature, Yingri Guan pays attention to global commonalities and differences between every existence. By analyzing and interpreting different patterns and forms, she creates physical visualizations through generative design and digital fabrication to promote understanding about deep and hidden connections. Working at the intersection of art, design, and technology, she seeks to bring truth to the surface.
She has spent the better part of a decade actively designing products that simply delight, programming experimental media and exhibiting art. She has exhibited work in China, US, Italy, and India.
Bio: Made in China, polished in Singapore and currently living in US, Yingri Guan is a multidisciplinary artist and designer based in San Francisco Bay Area. She is currently working as a designer at Tile, Inc. When not designing, she brainstorms and makes art. She is also into traveling, reading, snowboarding and cooking.
Website: https://yingriguan.com/
Natasha Marks
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“The Smoke of a Factory in the Distance”
Suede, faux snake skin, outdoor linen, gesso as a hardening medium, acrylic paint
$1,500
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“The Void”
Decorative paper, watercolor texturizer, gesso, waxed canvas, embroidery string, oil paint, acrylic paint
$1,500
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“This is a Black Issue”
White denim, gesso as a hardening medium, acrylic paint
$1,200
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“Two Conflicting Thoughts Colliding”
Heavy body acrylic, molding paste, house paint
$1,500
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“What Happens Beneath: The Color Palette”
Heavy body acrylic, molding paste, gold leaf, sponge
$800
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“A Southwest Horizon”
Canvas, suede, white denim, gesso used as a hardening medium, acrylic paint
$1,500
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“What it Looks Like to Rebuild”
Gesso, decorative paper, watercolor texturizer, acrylic paint, gold leaf
$500
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“Almost Touching”
Thick body canvas, soft denim, gesso used as a hardening medium, decorative paper, acrylic paint
$400
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“Final Point of Deterioration”
Gesso, decorative paper, watercolor texturizing medium, oil paint, acrylic paint
$1,200
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“Gemini”
Waxed canvas half circles hand stitched into stretched canvas, acrylic paint
$1,200
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“Repetition of Insanity”
Acrylic paint, Golden medium, texturizer
$400
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“Growth Within Trauma”
Ink on Cardstock
$150
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“Staring Into the Faces of Judgement”
Ink on Cardstock
$150
Natasha Marks
(She/her)
“The Release of Judgement”
Acrylic paint, spray paint, Golden medium
$500
Artist Statement: My name is Natasha, and I am a Mixed Media artist. I like to work with a mixture of materials usually consisting of heavy body acrylic paint, spray paint, several types of fabric, decorative papers, gesso, texturizing mediums, and cement or molding paste. I am a tactile learner, and when I paint, I get messy. I like to feel the fabrics, dip them in gesso, squeeze them across canvasses, watch as paint and cement create layers and texture. I love to use my hands and often I will paint a primer on a canvas just to create a bottom layer texture that I can later paint over. I find texture and thick layers so sexy. My goal with every piece is to invoke the viewer’s desire to touch. Sometimes I will draw designs in the suede I use or add fur to the top layer of a piece, just to provoke the viewer even more. Pre-COVID when I showed my work, I brought with me a sign that said, “please touch the pieces gently”. Often time artists do not want you to touch their pieces, but I am interested in the way people can experience a piece that they are able to first see and then feel. As art is a representation of a piece of the artist, I am hoping that by being able to touch the art, viewers can more keenly feel the emotions I was working through while creating. I have found as I explore art, that I have an almost stoppable desire to use my full body to create. I have included a few pieces from a previous series of singular line drawings where I was exploring my body dysmorphia and hatred of my body. I struggled to see myself for who I really was, and I made art to represent what it looks like to be clouded by your own judgment. This new collection of abstract works is a representation of what healing looks like for me. Now I use every part of that body I so hated to create the very art I am proud of showing you today.
Instagram: www.instagram.com/jucieejelly