Organized Mischief

November 2 - 25, 2023

Numerous cultures honor the veil between life and death, between this world and the next. CoCA itself has recently risen from the dead. Whether it’s the Celtic SAMHAIN, HALLOW’S EVE, ALL SOULS or the Hispanic DIA DE LOS MUERTOS, the Hero Twins who journey to Xibalba and back in Mayan cosmology, or even Stingy Jack and his carved Turnip, all pay tribute to those who’ve passed and the thin line that divides us.  Perhaps it’s worth keeping in mind that while “..discensus ad Advernus facile est…” (Latin saying, ‘the descent to the Underworld is easy’), the return to light can be difficult (Orpheus and Eurydice).

Gallery Installation: November 2 - 25, 2023

Exhibition Opening: November 2, 2023 from 5-9PM

Featured Artists:

Andrew Drawbaugh +

My artwork leans toward the macabre. There doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it. Cursed with an impish mind, I see the world as a film noir landscape, a netherworld ripe with metaphor, where mundanity disguises the grittier side of life. Using Photoshop and working in black and white, I assemble tableaux. I find old family photographs at antique malls, remove the people in them, and then lay them on top of my own photographs, attempting to assemble a cohesive whole, a meaning, or at best, the hint of a narrative, some mysterious and poignant drama. When working in color, a single image sometimes typifies the same effort. As my artistic practice evolves, I will continue to wander a world stuffed with hidden meanings, my camera, a tool to catch stories, poised and pensive, hiding in dark corners.

Anya Gudimova +

[My painting] “What will become of silence when everything else dusts” balances the feeling of familiarity and uneasiness with its use of color and theme. There is a luminescence in the painting that is toned down by the darkness from which it tries to escape. The woman in a painting seems to be emerging from the darkness, the ocean is something we understand yet we don’t truly know what lies beyond. This painting is a little bit dark, a little bit hopeful.

Christopher Hydinger +

Completed in 2019, but a work-in-progress for over four years prior, the “Poet-Warrior Mask #1” is, and ultimately this entire series likely will be, one of the most materially and narratively diverse creative processes (other than maybe some landscape design or interior design projects) that I'll ever experience. A hyper-focused experiment in color, shape, texture and an invented symbol language merging to create implied cultural references and values pertaining to Transformation and the Life/Death process, the “Poet-Warrior Mask” series is myPopCraft* attempt at iconic ritual objét crossed with postmodernartifact.(*PopCraft is a postmodern movement characterized by the combination of Pop-based applications and Craft-based structures and ideals and typified by the presence of organic formality, thrifty luxuriousness, architectural integrity, humorous juxtaposition and contextual preciousness.)

il +

Plant or animal, something must die so that I may live. Life and Death are synonymous....Life is death is life is death is...This ceremonial mask is used to assist with transformations in birth, life, death, and rebirth. Once serving to protect its contents, the egg carton, now crushed, holds the absence of the eggs, acknowledging their purpose in daily rituals within the grand infinite cycle. Bio: As I explore the urban environment's destructive and generative effects on nature, society, and the built world, I employ materials best suited for expressing and translating my involvement with those elements into sculpture.

Jill Drllevich +

I am a gatherer. Sometimes it is thoughts, ideas or emotions that I gather other times it is “special finds”. I put them aside knowing they will be used when the time is right. I love playing with different mediums and combining them as often as possible. For the past 10-15 years I have been using Clay and found objects to create masks that playfully portray the personalities of those who have passed.

Lisa Collins +

Currently I am captivated by figure sculpture. Drawing on my experiences f growing up in the Middle East and Africa, I have a deep passion for exploring the realms of feminine mystique and symbolism. My “Bitties” capture the essence of beauty woven with a dark and flirty tone. Each unique sculpture is mysterious and serves as a vessel for storytelling. Through clay slab building and encaustic techniques my sculptures create a visual language. I layer oxides, pigments, oil paint, charcoal and sometimes hair to kiln and Raku fired pieces. My work is currently being exhibited in galleries, art shows an in the homes of private collectors.

neec nonso +

in 2011, my mother died while trying to bear a child. We buried her near our home and planted a guava tree on her grave. Burying the dead near home is the norm in Nigeria. Some families even bury theirs in their bedrooms. This practice is rooted in our belief that the dead don’t 'rest-in-peace' but embark on a journey to fulfill ancestral duties and reincarnate to reunite with us again. thus, when a child is born, the child is never named, until after consultation with the gods, to reveal the identity of who has returned. In 2021, I visited families and made emotive portraits of selected individuals believed to have reincarnated. I placed their ancestors beside them like guardian angels, by using multiple self-portraits of myself at different angles to examine memories and exhume intimate family stories, popular myths and taboos surrounding death, reincarnation and the afterlife.

Christy Turner +

My work combines natural science with the macabre, a blend of scientific illustration and morbid imagery that documents humanity’s influence on the natural world around us. I chose these two linoleum-cut reliefs prints specifically for their mischievous depiction of contrasting elements of life and death. These two pieces highlight our society’s influence and effect on our local marine species and habitats. “Nest” depicts a female Giant Pacific Octopus tending her eggs inside an abandoned human rib cage, contrasting the surprising maternal instinct of these intelligent creatures with humanity’s destructive (and self-destructive) treatment of their natural habitat. In “Mariner,” the combination of human skull and Dungeness crab highlights the uneasy balance between the commercial fishing industry and the ever-dwindling species they harvest. Both pieces offer a playful (if grim) statement on human mortality as it pertains to our treatment of the natural world.

Isaac Joyce-Shaw +

[My] work connects to the theme in different ways. The first is fairly literal, it’s a painted composition of a couple of flirty pictures that my ex sent me. The others are based on childhood pictures of me and my friends at play.

Julie Flusche +

An underworld being in Croatian myth, the Štriga, or witch, has the power to leave their body in their sleep. At night, the Štriga exits the mouth in the form of a fly, eventually urning into another creature (usually a black one) and wreaking havoc in the village. Peasants of the old days would place a rock in the mouth of a sleeping woman if a fly was seen about, blocking the fly's return and thus, killing the Štriga. The ragged piecing of the silhouette symbolizes how the curse of the Štriga must have destroyed the woman's life. I like to think the woman would awaken from her possession with new vigor, having been released from the curse, but the ending is lost in folklore. She probably choked on the rock.

Lynette Jaques +

“Entre Vida Y Muerte” is an oil painting by Lynette Jaques. Winged animals are mystic and sacred symbols in cultures across the world, often associated with passing between realms. The death’s-head hawk moth can be found throughout many continents, excluding the Americas, where monarch butterflies are native. In this piece, they contrast to capture Lynette in a dreamlike balance that can exist “between life and death”.

Polly Purvis +

My artwork investigates two spirit realms: transcendent and material worlds. “Two-Spirits” refers to the human realm of experience, expression and identity. This sculpture was inspired by the Native American and First Nations term “Two-Spirit people” and refers to the recognition of multiple genders in one person. My pair of glass forms, amplified with a fluorescent base, celebrates the fluidity of gender identity and the idea of having two or more spirits or identities, breaking the boundaries of the binary cultural understanding of gender. “Stills” represents transcendent spirits of the immaterial world. The work recalls “spirit” or “ghost” photography of the late 19th century where photographers attempted to visualize “spirits” in their portraiture. My suite of six photographs is taken from a video recording at Museu da Marioneta in Lisbon. The dancing skeletons represent spirits transcending death, celebrating the Portuguese affinity for humor through the art of puppetry.

Organized Mischief is made possible with support from the Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture and 4Culture.

Black Jar Follies +

The "Dead Heads" were inspired by my interests in medieval art, memento mori, Halloween, horror films and Shakespeare, and the ways in which we use masks and status to navigate our way across the thinning veil. "The Grinning King" is blind to their own ravenous greed and fleeting power, represented by vacant eye sockets, an oversized mouth, gold-tipped horns and moldering chain mail. The emphasis on the eyes of "The Mortal Fool" suggests a former insight into the ways of the world. But a jawless mouth with missing teeth hints at want and decrepitude. The iron shackle at the base represents the inescapable servitude of this wise fool's fate. Both are mixed-media pieces, created using an additive sculptural process with papier-mâché, metal, wood and clay. The chain mail, jester's coif and bases were also handmade by the artist, and are reminiscent of their corresponding head's time while still fully animated.

Esther Ervin +

The union of Katrina, the Dame of the Dead, and Jim Crow, representing segregation and discrimination, serves as a powerful statement on the alarming prevalence of murders, mortality, and the social illness associated with gun violence. As of August 1, 2023, the devastating impact of gun violence in the US has claimed the lives of at least 25,198 individuals, equating to an average of approximately 118 deaths each day. Police violence fatalities fall disproportionately on Black, Indigenous and Latinx populations. Black men are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than White men. Despite the weighty subject matter, the incorporation of the popularized Katrina image and the celebration of the Day of the Dead enabled the creation of an installation that is accessible and suitable for families, facilitating meaningful engagement and sparking conversations about the diverse manifestations of gun violence.

Jack Johnston +

My body has been the foundation of my work since I was a teen, a young queer body in a deep red state. Identity and process commingle: with my 35mm camera stolen as I moved to San Francisco for classes at San Francisco Art Institute, my first works were by necessity conceptual: tourist shots printed 3” square by a camera store, to be passed around class in spiral-bound booklets. For “Organized Mischief,” these black and white images are reprinted using Polaroid Lab, to further wrest the image out of pure documentation into an identity of their own, distorted by technology and time

James Cheng +

Since my youth, I've been fascinated by the concept of spirits. My mother would share tales of wandering souls, which only fueled my curiosity. I've encountered a few inexplicable occurrences throughout my life. Still, it wasn't until I became an adult and began making photographs that I recognized the significance of spirits in my art .It's interesting how people view cameras as capturing reality in their photographs, but I'm not sure which camera and reality they mean. As someone who values the art of storytelling, I enjoy exploring new methods to weave narratives through photography, mixed media, and multimedia. While the result is significant, I place more emphasis on the creative process of self-exploration and constantly learning novel and innovative methods to convey my artistic expression to others.

Kayla Cochran +

With this work, I encourage viewers to step into a mirror world, reminiscent of a dream, in search of a feeling, an answer, or a memory. Join me in the liminal space between life and death, real and fiction, past and future, original and replica. There, I hope you can relinquish control enough to get lost, to find truth in the illogical and the imagined. My work captures momentary suspension in the in between, neither where we came from, nor where we are going. There is a human presence that transcends the body and grants subjectivity to in animate objects. My interest in a scene is almost always prompted by its light. The relationship between light and dark holds grand metaphors of good/evil and knowledge/ignorance. Light and dark, like black and white, oppose one another. It is within their coexistence that the subtle complexities of their relationship emerge.

Kelly Lyles +

Life (well, other than politics) is a lot of fun, and I like viewers to share that in my work. I have a number of different ‘styles’ and media, but all are based on representational art steeped in years of classical training. There’s often an element of humor to my work. Especially in these trying times we need laughter… Victoria’s Corona is part of my Corona Queens series, wordplay about viruses in their crowns. Queen Victoria and her era had a love of seances as she tried to contact her beloved Albert. Millions in her era (including Mark Twain and Arthur Conan Doyle) believed in “spiritualists.”

Mikhail Siskoff +

“Pensive Among Skulls” is themed on witchcraft and spellcasting with a mod 1960s vibe in a nod to classic TV series like Bewitched or Sabrina but a little darker. This hip young woman has transcended our dimension into the world of the fallen by use of ancient manuscripts.

Nancy Kiefer +

Is it a surprise that Rapunzel took advice from the Goddess Kali and put her power into her own hands? After all, she was traded to the witch so her mother could taste the delicious tendrils of Campanulara punculus and then forced to live in a tower without any scissors to cut her hair or doors, for that matter. Perhaps she got tired of people climbing up and down her braids or irritated by being portrayed in books as placid, blonde, wistful, and blue-eyed. We will never really know why she took her hair and used its power to become a sea creature or some sort of magnificent monkey acrobat ready to pounce.

Tatiana Garmendia +

In these films I explore the relationship of the body to ancestors, to culture, and to death itself. In “Shadow Boxing,” a 3-min animation pits me against a skeletal specter. During the boxing bout, I call upon Ogun, the archetypal Yoruba warrior to come help me defeat the ghostly apparition. In “Patria Querida” (My Dear Homeland), a dance macabre becomes an extended metaphor for the nostalgia countless refugees experience in the absence of their homeland.