In July, VALISE Gallery presents YELLO, a show dedicated to the bright, potent, and sometimes gaudy color of summer. Months ago, painters Rachel LordKenaga, Jiji Saunders, and Hita von Mende decided on the color yellow as the theme for their July show. Usually, artists chose a narrative theme, or they look for the commonality in their work to suggest a theme. These three artists wanted a visual structure for their upcoming work. “Sometimes you aren’t sure what the next step is, and there is hesitation,” says Saunders. “Yellow gave me structure. At every decision point, I chose a shade of yellow.” Hita von Mende agrees. “We all liked the yellow theme. It immediately gives you the first direction. When you have constraints in your painting, it creates greater possibilities.”
Asked what she learned from her work in yellow, Rachel LordKenaga says, “Pay attention! Yellow is hard to ignore. Even if yellow isn’t the prominent color, it’s the most important color.” She sees yellow as a symbol of hope, strength, and resilience but also caution. “It was delightful to focus on yellow, it’s a beautiful, powerful color. Using yellow is natural for me starting with a primary palette and mixing. Painting is always challenging, but I love the problem-solving of picture-making.
LordKenaga, Saunders, and von Mende will push the limits of experimentation up to the minute the show opens and perhaps throughout the month. The three artists intend to collaborate on three large-scale paintings on canvas in the week leading up to the show. When asked what she discovered when painting in yellow, LordKenaga exclaimed, “Yellow as underpainting glows fantastically!” The canvases, which von Mende under-painted in yellow, will hang on the back wall of the gallery where the artists will work in concert. “All three of us will work on every painting,” says Saunders. The thrilling part is that we have only one limit, yellow.”
The opening celebration is First Friday, July 7, from 6 to 9 pm, and the show may be previewed on Friday afternoon beginning at 1 p.m. VALISE Gallery is open Fridays and Saturdays from 1 to 6 p.m. The show runs through Saturday, July 29. VALISE Artist Collective and Gallery is in downtown Vashon at 17633 Vashon Highway SW, Vashon Island, Washington.
VALISE stands for Vashon Artists Linked In Social Engagement. We chose these words for their humorous, ironic, and activist bent. The gallery is dedicated to presenting subjects and media that are daring and unexpected. We want to stir our audiences. We want to challenge members to initiate fresh work. We want to share the venue with the community and inspire new ideas. The goal of VALISE Gallery is to be an important and accessible art venue for the community.
