Rashid Johnson

Alexander Kroll

Alexander Kroll is a painter that works mainly in an abstract expressionist style. However, his works have fluorescent color palettes and are made on a large-scale to bring them into the contemporary art world. The colors in his works are layered and work together in ways that create a kind of rhythm in the works. It also allows viewers to see the process of how Kroll’s works came to be. Painting, for the artist, is a conversation in which one mark leads to the next; and one completed work leads to another.

His work has been exhibited at CB1 Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), ACME, (Los Angeles, CA), Lincoln Center (New York, NY), Torrance Art Museum, (Torrance, CA), Jessica Silverman Gallery, (San Francisco, CA), The UCLA New Wight Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), The Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design (Los Angeles, CA), The Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena, CA) and many others. Kroll received his BA from Yale University followed by MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2008. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Sol Hashemi

Sol Hashemi is a photographer who uses the medium in a wide range of ways allowing the viewer to approach his works in different ways. Hashemi uses post-modern ideas and themes to challenge the ideas of hierarchies among objects and in artworks. He also uses a wide array of recognizable objects from everyday life and pop culture to further challenge hierarchical ideas. While Hashemi works within photography, he also adds three-dimensional elements such as shirts, plants, and vanilla beans to give the viewer yet another viewing experience.

 Sol Hashemi was born in 1987 in Vancouver, Washington. He currently lives and works in Seattle. He received his BFA from the University of Washington where he received Mary Gates Research Scholar Seventh Annual Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities and Matt J. Jarvis Travel Award for Photography. He is also the recipient of Seattle Art Museum’s Kayla Skinner Special Recognition Award, 2013. Solo Exhibitions include “Technical Support” Annarumma Gallery Naples, Italy (2013), “Software Update / System Build” Henry Art Gallery Seattle, WA (2013), “Industry Standard” James Harris Gallery Seattle, WA (2012). He has also shown at Greg Kucera Gallery, 4 Culture, and Punch Gallery in Seattle. Hashemi has works included in the permanent collection of Portland Art Museum.

Amir Zaki

A firm believer in the transformative power of the photographic image, Zaki images are rooted in the history of the medium and uses it to shed light on the means of representation. Over the last 16 years, Zaki has pushed the physicality of the photograph’s two dimensional construct, allowing it to exist on its own and also exploring its own object-ness. In order to capture and record the original site, Zaki’s representations depict the complexity of place in terms of interactive evolving experience, an ongoing ecological intervention. The artist responds to the shifting contemporary landscape where nothing is permanent, constructing his own visual language to illustrate an entire mythology of place.

Amir Zaki lives and works in Southern California. He received his MFA from UCLA in 1999 and has been exhibiting nationally and internationally since graduating. He is a full professor at the University of California at Riverside. His work is included in many museum collections including the Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.

Adam Sorensen

“Landscape painting affords me a wealth of tradition and influence, and provides a platform that seems familiar and recognizable. 19th century romanticism, Japanese woodblock prints, and Abstract expressionism all factor into my works vocabulary. I work primarily in a reactive sense. A certain rock may lead to another, which in turn may lead to a specific tree. The scenes I end up composing, function as both utopian and eerily post-apocalyptic. Both of which can be seen metaphorically as social concerns in contemporary life. By inviting the viewer in visually, I ask them to recall where we have been, explore where we are now, and confront where we may be headed.” - Adam Sorensen

Adam Sorensen lives and works in Portland, OR. He had a solo show of his work at the Portland Art Museum in 2011, and shows extensively around Portland and Seattle. The artist has work in the collection of the Boise Art Museum, Seattle University, Portland Art Museum, Progressive Corporation among others. His paintings have been shown nationally.

Gary Hill

Gary Hill is a pioneering artist of new media and video work. His video works incorporate commentaries on society and culture as well as bringing in poetic themes and ideas. Hill considers video as a medium to be the most receptive, flexible, and far-reaching mirror of consciousness. He creates psychological spaces within his artworks that allow viewers to see this mirror of their own consciousness.

 Gary Hill lives and works in Seattle, WA. Exhibitions of his work have been presented at museums and institutions worldwide, including solo exhibitions at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Guggenheim Museum SoHo, New York; Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel; Museu d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona; and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, among others.  Commissioned projects include works for the Science Museum in London and the Seattle Central Public Library in Seattle, Washington, and an installation and performance work for the Coliseum and Temple of Venus and Rome in Italy.  Hill has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations, and has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, most notably the Leone d’Oro Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale (1995), a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Award (1998), the Kurt-Schwitters-Preis (2000), and honorary doctorates from The Academy of Fine Arts Poznan, Poland (2005) and Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, WA (2011).