Deborah Mersky & Joe Max Emminger
Mersky & Emminger
April 20 – May 21, 2006
OPENING RECEPTION
Thursday, April 20, 2006
7 – 9 PM
YARD DOG explores the Emerald City beyond the stereotypical images of coffee, rain, software and grunge in a show of recent works by 2 innovative Seattle artists.
DEBORAH MERSKY grew up in Austin, Texas and has lived in Seattle for the past 21 years. She earned an MFA at the University of Washington and has been exhibiting her work since 1980. As a public artist, she creates elaborate, large-scale installations executed in such materials as glass and metal and integrated into buildings. Both her public and studio works are informed by the natural world, with natural elements removed from their original contexts and rearranged to create patterns. She often combines printmaking and collage. Recently she has been combining cut-up paper money and maps in her collages. These works have colonial overtones and speak to Mersky’s frustration with current government affairs.
JOE MAX EMMINGER is a self-taught painter living in Seattle. He began making art in the early 1970s. His paintings depict figures that struggle to maintain stability in chaotic situations. This idea of equilibrium between opposing forces is reinforced in the works through the balance of humor with more serious underpinnings. Emminger says of his bold, stark compositions, “I try to stay out of the way and let them happen. I try to leave room for them to breathe and live in the world.”