Incredible Benefit at Las Manos Gallery!

Please click HERE to purchase tickets (please specify "Las Manos") or purchase
tickets at the door!

Time Traveler

Paul used to work at Nelson's Bakery in the 1940's making dough after school. Las Manos Gallery now resides where Nelson's once did. Thanks for stopping in and sharing the memories Paul!

Pick Your Poison by Christmas Woods

Artist Christmas Woods describes himself as  an "earthling who is creature of habit seeking myth, might and magic."Christmas' piece titled "Pick Your Poison" features a delicate female hand, half robotic, half human. From its steel-like fingertips dangle two antique poison bottles. The passive pose of this mechanized hand leaves you wondering if the choice has already been made...

Mac Blackout Boom Boxes!

Work by the Artist Mac Blackout consists of old Sony/Toshiba/JVC boom boxes from the late 1980's and 90's. Each device turns into a creature after a facelift consisting of acrylic paint and nightmares. Each piece still holds it original function- blaring music or alarms, twisting its originally use into something all together more fantastical.

Michelle Peterson-Albandoz's Washington DC Show

Long View Gallery in Washington DC hosted Michelle's third show since the spring 2011. Peterson-Albandoz is based in Chicago and creates her reclaimed wood
constructions from the ample wood available in the city. Chicago, unlike many cities, has been destructing and constructing vast tracts of neighborhoods, updating dilapidated buildings
with new businesses and homes. Wood and raw materials from these construction sites are collected (often by her friends), and taken to her studio behind her business
(Las Manos Gallery). Nails and inconsistencies are stripped out of the wood and cut down to various shapes and sizes. These pieces are then re-assembled onto
panels to create patterns and colors to the artist's liking.

Michelle walks into the gallery containing her solo show titled "Urban Forest" which opened on Thursday evening, April 12th.

Michelle is greeted by Drew Porter, the Director of Long View Gallery.

Gallery owner William Waybourn, left, and art consultant Siobhan Gavagan, right, cozy up with Michelle during the opening minutes of the show.

Michelle stands in her "Urban Forest" created by building up old cut window frames from deconstructed buildings in Chicago. The wood has come full-cycle,
first existing as trees, then as board that created mankind's structures. The wood was then deconstructed and created into tree-like forms that hang from
the gallery's ceiling.

Patrons wind their way through the gallery. The featured work ran in two themes. One, more natural, organic creations, using seed-like shapes to reflect leaves and grains.
This theme blended into the second body of work which broke the wood down into more geometric lines, reflecting structures and pixels of digital images.

Michelle talks about the process behind her urban trees.

Michelle chats with patrons interested in her work.

Patrons admire Michelle's largest work in the show- a six panel piece stretching down the wall of the gallery. Each seed-like piece was hand-cut by Michelle to reflect the shape of a seed.

Patrons chat and drink wine during the opening at Long View Gallery. Attendance was fantastic.

A couple chats in front of one of Michelle's more "digital" inspired wood construction pieces.

Natural colored reclaimed wood pieces are blended with sporadic color pieces to give the impression of a digital visual creeping into an organic one.

Patrons take in one of four panel pieces that were inspired by leaves in the rainforests of Puerto Rico. Michelle spent part of her youth living and creating work in these forests and
uses them as inspiration in regards to her many types of artwork.

New Work by Michelle Peterson-Albandoz in D.C.!

Artist Jason Hawk and Eric Gushee

Jason Hawk

 

Motor Cortex"

This is the second piece in the Cortex series. The Cortex pieces, though mechanical in nature, reference parts of the human brain and so, the source of the human condition as a whole. Something that informs much of my work is a metaphor where the machine is a stand in for the human being. The machine is a symbol of tainted perfection; the most advanced device is built with planned obsolescence in mind and it is an inevitability that its workings will one day cease and it will be discarded and forgotten. However, these forgotten pieces are the building blocks without which future generations could never exist.

"001.4"

001.4 was the first in the ongoing Vessels series. Because of what lies behind the glass, the pieces cease to be just robots and become vehicles of communication. All of the pieces in the vessels series are like conversations in that they grow and change form as the pieces age. 

"Ascension II" (left image)                                                                  "Cortex Seedling" (right image)

This work deals with transcendence, a theme that pervades much of my work. Again in this piece i'm using the machine as a stand in for humanity and the human condition. The story that I bring through in this piece is one similar to that of the wood carvers son, Pinocchio. In both stories the need to transcend one's physicality is paramount, something that I think is a very real part of the human psyche. 

"Cortex Seedling"

This piece is a byproduct of my ongoing Cortex series, however in this piece the form is un-ravaged by the passage of time, as if it has come directly off of the assembly line. The Cortex pieces are meant to evoke a sort of impotent functionality, clearly hand made but touching on the machined perfection of mass production.

Eric Gushee

In terms of my artistic practice, I am a process artist based mainly in sculpture with interests in two-dimensional media. I begin my process with a single repetitive action, such as drawing a series of lines or mass-producing a single material. For me, actions and materials are holy tools which need to be

examined before use; through careful examination and use, the divinity of these tools can be known. In my practice I study each of my materials individually through manipulation, creating mono-compositions and testing them so that they

support themselves. Once I acclimate this very basic action into my practice, a limited vocabulary emerges, at which point I begin another layer of process. In this next step, I allow the second action to interact with the first, orchestrating

materials in space or frame to create a holistic composition. These two steps continually repeat in a spiraling process that may sometimes lead to a chaotic, yet controlled moment. My work is the product of this moment.

Amoeba #3

Dystopia opening at Las Manos Gallery

Steven Green stands with his work "Canyon, left of Center."

John Crouch with a few of his photographs inspired by the architecture in Chicago.

Alan Lerner, center, chats during the opening.


















Lerner's work, a combination of screen Prints featuring
gouache,  inks and gel medium.

Artist Christopher Hefner goofs it up with the lovely and talented Hannah Atchinson.

Hefner's work includes film, screen prints and charcoal drawings.

Eric Gushee stands with his incredible piece "Amoeba #3"

































































Katsy Johnson stands with her work, photographs with encaustic wax and oil paint.













































Steven Lockwood stands with "The Station" left, and "Daybreak."

Andy Pilarski with his piece created on drywall with ink and paint.

Christmas Woods with "A Wolf in Sheeps Clothing."

Juan Fernandez with his photographs.

Jason Hawk stands with his piece "Motor Cortex." Hawk has
several sculptures in the show.

Mieke Zuiderweg with her ceramic "Metropolis" sculptures.

Artists Christmas Woods, (from left) Mac Blackout, Christopher Ilth and friend.

Boom boxes, alarm clock radios and tv's turned into unusual creatures by Mac Blackout.




 

A piece by Mac Blackout.

Collage work by Christopher Ilth.

A sculpture by Christopher Ilth, admired by a gallery attendee.