Artist Talk!

Please join us at Basta's Trattoria (410 NW 21st) Thursday Dec. 6th, after the galleries close.
Lawrence Abrahamson, and Susanne Galligan will be talking about their recent work:

OUT–LINES: Drawing in Space

(The talk starts at 8:30 plan to come a few minutes early if you'd like to get a drink or a snack to enjoy during the talk.)

Read on for more information:

Utilizing commonplace items such as flagging tape and sewing thread Lawrence Abrahamson and Susanne Galligan create site-specific objects and spaces from the surrounding environment. Using a formless, linear material, the artists “outline” negative spaces already existing in the setting. The resulting tensile structures are inseparable from their locations, literally knitting the works into the context.


BIO:

Lawrence Abrahamson is a designer with an architectural background that explores the boundaries of space, art and experience. With the results of such explorations including sculpture, photography and mailart, Lawrence demonstrates his interests in the interaction of the public realm with that of visual constructs.

Lawrence has worked in Portland OR, Washington DC and New York City focusing on strategic planning and conceptual development for various clients including Pokemon USA, Reebok, Weight Watchers, ING Direct and Marc Ecko.

Currently living in Singapore, he has established a design and experience consulting firm, Smartsmart. His inaugural project was the development of an art and design opportunities study encompassing interactive public installations and space planning alterations such as art placement, environmental wayfinding and conceptual paint schemes. Most notably, Lawrence proposed “Mirror Pixels” a site-specific installation utilizing a grid of round mirrors to animate a large concrete expanse by breaking down the wall into points of reflective movement and activity.

This spring Lawrence has been invited to be a Research Fellow in the Center for Digital Creativity where he will research the Fundamental Elements of Asian Design.

Susanne Galligan is a current Portland State University art student with a DIY bent. She honored women of a certain age by exhibiting 100 vintage full slips on a clothesline in Provincetown, MA (“Your slip is showing”), participated in The Kitchen Summer Intensive with Harrell Fletcher, New York (2006), and most recently “Sleep Tight America,” a social practice/sculpture exhibition exploring the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Her earlier forays into the art world include a fabric collage on Elvis Presley’s career as exemplified by his pants (“Panting for Elvis”) at an Indianapolis gallery (1988), and ,coincidentally, a string art portrait of the sun with peace signs in high school (1971).

Before “OUT–LINES”, Lawrence and Susanne have collaborated on many artistic endeavors including mail art pieces, “Book of Stamps” and “Expressive Letters” and a public leave-behind, “Raymond”.