It is nearly impossible to imagine a world without Dr. Seuss's characters. They have been woven into the fabric of popular culture for over three quarters of a century. However, there was a time when they only existed in the far reaches of one man's mind...

These concept drawings transport us to the moment of creation and allow us to peer over Dr. Seuss's shoulder as they come to life.

This is a Special and very Limited traveling exhibit: August 13th - August 28th Only. All works will be available for order, even some very select Sold Out editions saved for this Exhibit.

Preview and Exhibition Opening Reception:

Saturday, August 13, 2022

5:00pm -8:00pm

We are proud to exhibit the Op Art paintings by Beijing artist Jin Chen.

With a studio in Shanghai and Beijing, Jin Chen divides his time between both the fine art world and the graphic design arena where he has worked in the field of advertising, design, media and PR.

Born in 1974, Jin Chen has been painting since childhood and holds a degree in Decorative Arts, graduating from Central Academy of Arts & Design in Beijing, China.

Using his talent as a fine artist he has spent most of his adult life painting and working in the design field.  Some of his design applications and keen graphic techniques have influenced his painting style to get to where he is today as a fine artist creating interesting Geometric Abstracts.

His Pop-Op images are reminiscent of Pop Art and Optical Art masters from Lichtenstein and Warhol to Vasarely and Frank Stella with his work falling uniquely into Geometric Abstraction.

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the United States in the late 1950's after a brief introduction in Great Britain. Pop art presented a challenge to the traditions of fine art by including imagery from the popular culture such as advertising and news.  American advertising had adopted many elements and characteristics of modern art and functioned at a very sophisticated level.

Op art, short for optical art, is a style of visual art that uses optical illusions. Op art works are abstract, with many better known pieces created in black and white. Typically, they give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibrating patterns, or of swelling or warping and often making the view a bit queasy.

The viewer's eye can be tricked or confused by the visual vibration created by the movement generated of juxtaposing complimentary colors and curvilinear lines and diminishing shapes until the mind catches up and then at the blink of an eye, you are caught off guard yet again.

Jin Chen has been able to assimilate his design fundamentals and graphic background into a fun and exploratory direction that is very unique and contemporarily popular with an entirely new generation of collectors.

We are pleased to offer the paintings by California painter Robert Minuzzo and Arizona painter Kim Walker as they offer you a glimpse into their artistic worlds and passions of fly fishing holes and desert flora.

The works included in this exhibit by Minuzzo are renditions of Rocks from the rivers he has visited to fish. An active fly fisherman, he was always captivated with the stunning natural graphics of the rocks which are magnified under water. They provide perfect models for his shimmering abstractions on canvas.

Walker's paintings are intended to be a reflection of the beauty and the comfort of the gifts found in nature and especially of those found in the desert.   Her feeling is that connections to nature are indispensable to all people.  Her artwork takes her on a spiritual journey as she seeks and collect natural elements, which she then incorporates into her mixed-media compositions.  Most works of art are done on either domestic or exotic woods from all parts of the world.  Walker treasures both the symbolic and the tangible connections of using these woods as the foundation of her paintings.  

Join us in revisiting some of our favorite artist's work for the month of July.

Bob Allan has been with us through two locations and continues to be a favorite by many and are happy to reintroduce him back to Kirkland.

Still living in Nebraska, Allan manages his between his art, writing books and a happy retirement.

Allan's work exudes physicality. He alternatively excavates and constructs forms to create a complex topography across the surfaces of his works that effectively project light and shadow. His confident and of the surprising combinations of various material, textures, patterns, shapes and colors are reflective of his own fascination multi-layered biography.

According to Allan, creativity is like a puzzle, the solutions to which fall secondary to the means to get there. In his own words, "The act of creativity is much more important than the finished work" This drives him to believe that many of his paintings are never finished, but rather simply await another design intervention or until the definitive finished point of being purchased by a collector to adorn their wall.

On occasion we will relocate an exhibit to our friends at Hallmark Realty to extend the viewing cycle of some of our wonderful artists. Feel free to drop in and take a look or buy a new home, Hallmark is located just across the street from us.

Please join us for our first exhibit back since February and the lingering Covid-19 restrictions.

We offer you a New and Timely exhibit in our Kirkland La Petite Galerie with "Welcome to the Neighborhood" as we seek the New Normal.

Bradley Caplis and Mark Skullerud, both are proficient painters of landscapes and architectural elements embark on a journey in a quest for the New Normal as they traverse neighborhoods across the Puget Sound and beyond in search of community and safe harbors during this very peculiar time in our history with "Welcome to the Neighborhood".

Under the current restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, we have obviously opted out of offering an Artist's Reception and have gone to an extended show length of two months to allow guests to comfortably come and visit at their leisure.

We have taken steps to make you safe and the wearing of face coverings are required as is the occupancy level of the gallery where we will allow 4 guests in at a time.

Should you ever want a serious private preview, it takes nothing more than a request and we are happy to lock the doors, put up an "Occupancy Full" sign, offer you a glass of wine or a cocktail and 30 minutes of time to pick your favorite painting.

By the opening day, July 11th, we will also be offering a YouTube video with artist interviews and a selection of the artwork available. Please check out our YouTube Channel:

I believe you will enjoy this exhibit and its sense of calmness and Deja vu that is so necessary and refreshing during all the turmoil surrounding us today. Please come out and support our artists and our business.

The Gunnar Nordstrom Gallery, in our new location in Kirkland are pleased to offer the newest works by Dimitriy Gristsenko in his first exhibit with us.

Dimitriy Gritsenko is a  talented, up and coming artist who was born in Seattle and grew up in Everett, the home town of one of Washington's most famous artists, Chuck Close.

After finishing public school, Dimitriy moved to San Francisco to study at the well-known Art Academy University of San Francisco.

It was in San Francisco that he developed his interest in the medium of oil and painting on canvas and linen. While he loves to paint the beauty of God's creation and his genres vary, he is currently focusing on the subject matter on cityscapes. San Francisco was a fantastic location to embrace his interest in cityscapes and the 24/7 life that keeps that city so electric. Seattle now provides a great backdrop for his newest works.

Working with a variety of tools to apply the paint, Dimitriy paints with passion, energy and confidence easily visible in his work and all the while finding the gritty life of the city as the perfect subject.

A local Seattle favorite subject is Pike Place Market with its often wet and reflective pavement, neon lights burning through the mist and bustling shoppers hustling to avoid the rain that embraces the Seattle lifestyle and upbeat culture.

Shelley Stroeve isn't a new artist by any means, but still is an emerging artist and has sold a lot of work in the Northwest and across Washington State. Her abstract images have a very general appeal to a large section of the population.

Through exploration of texture, depth and color, Shelley creates art that is at once transcendental and yet almost tangible. Her work encourages revolutionary thinking, contemplation of humanity and realization of how connections both physical and spiritual manifest our identity.

Her ingenuity is inspired by the fluidity of the Post-Impressionist Romanticism Movement, the dream like quality of Surrealism and all music that evokes passion and intense emotion, resulting in a diverse visual cadence that ranges from the subtle nuances of Fredrick Chopin to the intensity of Disturbs rendition of The Sound of Silence.

Shelley works with a wide variety of textual mediums and different types of paints including; oil, acrylic and watercolor dyes on canvas or artist panel with a scale ranging from 8 'x 8" to 6' x 4'. Many of her pieces are covered in epoxy resin.

Shelley studied Art History at the University of Washington, volunteered as an art docent for the Issaquah School District, raised two beautiful children and currently resides in Issaquah with her life partner Eric Lennier. Shelley lives a multifaceted life with exuberant passion for health and her family that spans five generations. She is an adventurer who has traveled to many interesting places including Brazil, Argentina and Turkey. She loves the water and is an avid wake surfer who enjoys the irony of being a young grandmother who is still carded on occasion.

Most days you can find Shelley doing what she loves, flinging paint, at her spacious art studio where she and Eric have designed a dust free clean room for resin application.

Dimitriy Gritsenko was born in Seattle and grew up in Everett, the home town of one of Washington's most famous artists, Chuck Close.  

After finishing public school, Dimitriy moved to San Francisco to study at the well-known Art Academy University of San Francisco.

It was in San Francisco that he developed his interest in the medium of oil and painting on canvas and linen. While he loves to paint the beauty of God's creation and his genres vary, he is currently focusing on the subject matter on cityscapes. San Francisco was a fantastic location to embrace his interest in cityscapes and the 24/7 life that keeps that city so electric. Seattle now provides a great backdrop for his newest works.

Working with a variety of tools to apply the paint, Dimitriy paints with passion, energy and confidence easily visible in his work and all the while finding the gritty life of the city as the perfect subject.

A local Seattle favorite subject is Pike Place Market with its often wet and reflective pavement, neon lights burning through the mist and bustling shoppers hustling to avoid the rain that embraces the Seattle lifestyle and upbeat culture.

Caplis,  a native of Michigan uses remembrances of his childhood as a source of  inspiration for his paintings. Growing up in rural Michigan, he was  always in or around the woods. There he dreamed of spotting flying  saucers in a patch of sky just above the pine trees, or stumbling upon a  clearing to witness some kind of bucolic supernatural ceremony. He  never did witness such events however, but was always on the lookout for  the extraordinary in nature.

As  his paintings continued, images began to surface that best represented  these more mystical yearnings. Before adolescence He was often sick with  flu and high fevers which invariably let to hallucinations, some of  which were terrifying and quite bizarre. There were times when he would  lash out at them or run around the house in hopes of escaping. His  mother would let him stay in his brother's room during these episodes.  It seemed to make him feel safer.

In  his brother's room, along with all the cool stuff an older brother has,  was a vintage 1940's radio. As he lay in bed in a delusional state, he  would watch the radio rise up or grow and become speaking. It's voice  (he assumed it was God's voice) would announce all kinds of catastrophe  and miracles alike. Sometimes a crackling panicked voice like that of an  on the street reporter and other times a booming great almighty voice  from above, the radio belted out cryptic messages and spectacular  occurrences. It was entirely hypnotic and at the time, he believed to be  the most important discovery of his young life.

Age,  maturity and better health eased the delusions and his education at the  University of Virginia transformed many of these images of the past  into whimsical and playful paintings of landscapes, seascapes and  timeless memorabilia.

We are pleased to exhibit in a one two punch, former art gallery owners Shannon Rasor in April (April 10 - May 4) and husband Bradley Caplis in May (May 8 - June 8).

Brad Caplis (May 8 - June 8) has been a regular and very well liked gallery exhibitor since 2003. This past month was the first solo exhibit by his wife and business partner Shannon Rasor. Her work was on exhibit April 10th thru May 4th with a few works held over (should there be any left) into May.

A lot can be said about an individual who embraces the challenge of being an artist turned gallery owner, turned artist again. The world of art is fickle, subjective and rarely synchronized with business acumen, but when an artist temps fate and immerses themselves into the business of art, combining their creativity and collecting all the knowledge necessary to run a small business successfully when they decide to exit, they do it with a clarity not realized before. They are not only a better artist at understanding the collector or the pedestrian public, but also better at the business of art. Shannon Rasor and Bradley Caplis have done just that and success abounds. We look forward to two consecutive months as we exhibit each of them individually.

Caplis, a native of Michigan uses remembrances of his childhood as a source of inspiration for his paintings. Growing up in rural Michigan, he was always in or around the woods. There he dreamed of spotting flying saucers in a patch of sky just above the pine trees, or stumbling upon a clearing to witness some kind of bucolic supernatural ceremony. He never did witness such events however, but was always on the lookout for the extraordinary in nature.

As his paintings continued, images began to surface that best represented these more mystical yearnings. Before adolescence He was often sick with flu and high fevers which invariably let to hallucinations, some of which were terrifying and quite bizarre. There were times when he would lash out at them or run around the house in hopes of escaping. His mother would let him stay in his brother's room during these episodes. It seemed to make him feel safer.

In his brother's room, along with all the cool stuff an older brother has, was a vintage 1940's radio. As he lay in bed in a delusional state, he would watch the radio rise up or grow and become speaking. It's voice (he assumed it was God's voice) would announce all kinds of catastrophe and miracles alike. Sometimes a crackling panicked voice like that of an on the street reporter and other times a booming great almighty voice from above, the radio belted out cryptic messages and spectacular occurrences. I was entirely hypnotic and at the time, he believed to be the most important discovery of his young life.

Age, maturity and better health eased the delusions and his education at the University of Virginia transformed many of these images of the past into whimsical and playful paintings of landscapes, seascapes and timeless memorabilia.

Brad Caplis currently resides with his wife in the Pacific Northwest where he continues to pursue his painting.

We are pleased to exhibit with a one two punch, former art gallery owners Shannon Rasor in April (April 10 - May 4) and husband Brad Caplis in May (May 8 - June 8).

While Brad Caplis (May 8 - June 8) has been a regular and very well liked gallery exhibitor since 2003 with us, this is the first solo exhibit by his wife and business partner Shannon Rasor. Her work will be on exhibit thru May 4th with a few works held over (should there be any left) into May.

A lot can be said about an individual who embraces the challenge of being an artist turned gallery owner, turned artist again. The world of art is fickle, subjective and rarely synchronized with business acumen, but when an artist temps fate and immerses themselves into the business of art, combining their creativity and collecting all the knowledge necessary to run a small business successfully when they decide to exit, they do it with a clarity not realized before. They are not only a better artist at understanding the collector or the pedestrian public, but also better at the business of art. Shannon Rasor and Brad Caplis have done just that and success abounds. We look forward to two consecutive months as we exhibit each of them individually.

Having exhibited Caplis' work for 16 years and always having Rasor present, the creativity, awareness and maturity of both partner's works are evidence of great past experiences as collectors embrace their works.

Rasor brings a contrast of content to Caplis' work with delicate and meditative abstracts, yet the same harmony of pleasant and reflective qualities are synonymous in their works.

Rasor's paintings are adventures. Somewhere between abstraction and depiction, her work is her own language. It is a language of appreciation and wonder for the adventure of existence. Fluid and light, her paintings bring the calmness and clarity that she expresses in her personality daily.

"In the adventure, I combine the parallel worlds of nature and emotions. They storm or flow depending upon my state of mind, memories, and the willingness of my hand. My work is about constant change and renewal. It is an attempt to convey an idea of a beauty, untamed, and beyond my understanding. The minerals and earth from which paint is derived are revived on canvas to reform their own essence. The process of making the painting is where the true journey lies. Abstraction keeps the secret". Shannon Rasor

Shannon Rasor has been a working artist for over twenty years where her experience includes in the studio creating her fine art and in the public where decorative paintings and murals flourish. You can see her work featured on billboards, buses and various venues in the Puget Sound area.

We are  pleased to hold over our September exhibit of the newest works by Canadian artist, Lori-ann Latremouille.

In this year's exhibit, "Magnolia", Latremouille says, "I have always loved the stark beauty of Magnolia trees and bushes in spring. The glorious buds sitting perched on the leafless dark branches like small pink and white birds waiting to bloom and fly. So stunning and surreal to me invoking these images."

Since the 1980's Latremouille has been creating her visual puzzels of humans, animals and vegatation intertwined on paper with charcoal and pastels. In 2010 she started painting with acrylics on wood panel. She was drawn to the natural wood grain texture and the layering effects the paint allows.

Latremouille was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, and is clearly influenced by the lush and synergistic ecosystems of the West Coast. This is evident in her work, where human figures, animals, sea creatures, birds, flora and fauna all intertwine. She begins each piece by doodling and sketching. The lines gradually develop into more complex shapes and forms. Positive and negative spaces shift back and forth, like in a jigsaw puzzle. The images spontaneously evolve. Velvety blacks and pure colours provide sensual tonal gradations that give the work an evocative strength and intensity. Her unique blending of emotionally charged blocks of color with brilliantly contrasting black and white hues is striking and at times psychedelic.

She is also a singer songwriter and has published 3 CDʼs of her own music. Poetry is where her songwriting began, and she is now incorporating her lyrics and poetry into her paintings.

Not  everyone can get into the gallery during any given month and a lot of  good works get missed, so we like to "Regroup" works from during the year  that you might have missed or would like to revisit.

We are pleased to hold over some of the new works by Northwest artist, Mark Skullerud for the month of May as we exhibit "Seattle Re-Cline".

This year Skullerud brings us new, sharp and crisp, stylized paintings of some of Seattle's known and lesser known urban scenes.

With a Cubist style and evocative colors, Skullerud depicts our contemporary and pedestrian lives with bridges, boats, parks, buildings and urban streets. He doesn't romanticize the subject, but rather breaks it down to an objective correlative that allows the expression of an emotion to be translated through events, objects and color palette depicted. The visual narrative of his paintings are really very well done.

On the flip side, Skullerud has additional works that fall far more closely in line with abstraction. Using a method he describes as un-directed drawing, he creates unexpected compositions that rely on our innate tendency to find order in chaos. As with his more representational work, each piece begins with a graphite composition leading to one or more small color studies and finishing with an oil painting.

He wants viewers to know the beauty that's visible every day, and to recognize the fleeting and subtle light that is gives the region its character and identity.

As with our past exhibits with Skullerud, the selection of artwork is diverse and there is really something for everyone. Small acrylic studies on canvas and the original concept drawings done in graphite are also available as support works to the larger completed paintings.

http://www.king5.com/entertainment/television/programs/new-day-northwest/the-creative-mind-behind-yellow-submarine-the-jetsons-flintstones-and-other-classics/434572053