Gallery4Culture
2009-2010 Season

Alicia Basinger
Souvenir
March 5 - 26, 2010

reception March 4, 2010, 6 – 8 p.m.

Souvenir, Alicia Basinger's March installation of ceramic sculpture takes its inspiration from various objects (tschotskes, antiques, and the garden). The artist's predilection ranges from everyday kitsch to the figurines and over-the-top curiosities of the Rococo and Art Nouveau movements. Creating structures in clay and orchestrating material transformations with a range of processes, Basinger creates a personal, fantastical world of objects, lanterns, and symmetrical, wall-mounted reliefs. Her work alludes to concepts of growth, metamorphosis, phenomenon, deterioration, and our universal relationship to nature. In the words of the artist, "I am interested in constructing a stage or imaginative space where the viewer may enter, escape, or possibly get lost in."

Artist Biography: A Midwest native, Alicia Basinger studied ceramic arts at The Cleveland Institute of Art, earning her BFA degree in 2004. She received an MFA degree from the University of Washington in 2008. Basinger is presently a ceramic instructor and resident artist at the Seattle non-profit Pottery Northwest. Basinger will present an artist talk at Pottery Northwest, 226 First Avenue North, on Friday, February 26th at 7 p.m. The talk is free and open to the public.

Gallery4Culture is located within 4Culture offices at 101 Prefontaine PL S, Seattle WA 98104 at the corner of Third and Prefontaine, in the Tashiro/Kaplan Building. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm. The Gallery will be closed during government holidays as well as nine furlough days in 2010: January 4, February 12, May 28, July 2, September 10, October 1, November 26, December 27. The gallery is open and free to the public. For more information about this program call 206 296.8674.