In Our Gallery: Jessie Summa Russo

Viscon Cellars welcomes back local artist Jessie Summa Russo this month with all new works for an exhibition on display from October through December 2024.

Preview the show online.

Join the artist for the opening during West Seattle Art Walk on Thursday, October 10 from 6-9pm. Snacks and free wine tastings will be provided!

There will also be a closing reception during West Seattle Art Walk on Thursday, December 12th, so save the date.

The pieces in this show are from two collections:

Cosmic Grids, 2022

“In the quantum world, to see something you must disturb it.  In the deep quantum world, to see something you must create it.” — Nobel-winning Physicist Frank Wilczek

At its most basic level, our universe exists as a “vibrant energy field” Wilczek calls The Grid. In these mixed media paintings, each square represents a life—some bright, some indistinct, some full of contrast, and some just a brief and incomplete sliver—that belongs to and in the blue-black void of space equally.

Morphetica, 2022-24

These abstract expressionist paintings are inspired by recurring dreamscapes and hypnopompic hallucinations—vivid sensory experiences that occur as a person is waking up from sleep—that I have experienced for as long as I can remember.

“During the pandemic, I began experimenting with the unique topography of oil and cold wax medium; it was love at first scrape,” says Russo. After building up a collage background layer, she paints and etches until the composition evokes a wall plastered with worn posters and ghost graffiti.

Russo was raised by two artists in Somerville, Massachusetts. She studied printmaking and painting at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and illustration at Massachusetts College of Art & Design. Based in West Seattle since 1997, she founded the local venue Skylark Café & Club in 2006 and ran it until 2013. She is currently the Gallery Director at Gallery 110 in downtown Seattle—stop by and say hello the next time you’re in Pioneer Square!

Follow her on Instagram or check out her website here.

Cosmic Grid Segment 98, 14” x 14”, oil and paper on cradled wood

Dream City, 10” x 10”, oil on canvas

Cave Waterfall, 10” x 10”, oil and paper on canvas

Underwater Lava II, 12” x 10”, oil and paper on upcycled wood

In Our Gallery: Rodolfo Rios Garza

Join us for West Seattle Art Walk on second Thursdays in the coming months, and you’ll get to see this quarter’s artist, Rodolfo Rios Garza.

• Thursday, July 14

• Thursday, August 11

• Thursday, September 8

In the artist’s own words:

“I am mostly self-taught but early on benefitted from the mentoring of the late renowned Southwest artist Mel Casas, and from Peruvian artist, Francisco Grippa.

I get my inspiration from my surroundings, both natural and man-made, photographs, music and from images in my dreams.

This exhibit focuses on trees. Trees are such an endless source of inspiration for me. Trees speak to me in many ways. In them I see energy, love, sadness, and so much more. Their texture lends itself to detailed expression while their limbs can denote a range of moods and resurrect memories.

As is my practice, I also include new pieces outside of the show’s main theme as a means of hinting at where my mind wonders and where that wondering might lead me creatively. ”

Remember, if you come to the tasting room on West Seattle Art Walk Thursdays, you get to view these works while also trying out the latest lineup of Viscon Cellars wines for no tasting fee.

In Our Gallery: Pam Hemmerling

Join us for West Seattle Art Walk on second Thursdays in the months of April, May, and June to check out our quarterly artist Pam Hemmerling!

• Thursday, April 14

• Thursday, May 12

• Thursday, June 9

We’ll let Pam introduce herself:

“I’m Pam Hemmerling; an unexpected artist living with my family in Seattle. At the age of 50, I took my first art class crossing the threshold into an unforeseen creative journey. In hindsight, creative threads are interwoven throughout my life but it was the freedom of mixed media art that propelled me forward. My hope is that I could inspire others to be open to their creative process; to try, to practice, to learn. I believe that art is for everyone.”

Remember, if you come to the tasting room on West Seattle Art Walk Thursdays, you get to view Pam’s mix of expressive portraits and abstract artworks while also trying out the latest lineup of Viscon Cellars wines for no tasting fee!

In Our Gallery: Priyanka Parmanand

Join us for West Seattle Art Walk and view our quarterly artist Priyanka Parmanand.

• Thursday, February 10th

• Thursday, March 10th

Priyanka describes herself as a self-taught artist living in Issaquah, WA.

“My art gives hope and is full of exciting colors and textures which represent positive energy and spirit towards life. Today I actively participate in local art exhibitions and love being an art instructor in schools, local art galleries, and senior centers.

I am also the founder of Crimson Canvas Arts, a company that mentors budding artists and is present in more than 10 different schools in Issaquah and Redmond. In today’s busy world where art has taken a backseat, my goal is to nurture budding artists to become future creative thinkers and problem solvers!”

Stop by the tasting room on Art Walk Thursdays from 5PM to 9PM to check out Priyanka’s abstract artworks while sipping on some Viscon Cellars wines! 

In Our Gallery: Jessie Summa Russo

Join us for West Seattle Art Walk!

• Thursday, October 14th

• Thursday, November 11th

• Thursday, December 9th

This quarter, Viscon Cellars is hosting returning artist Jessie Summa Russo from October through December. Jessie studied art and illustration at Sarah Lawrence in New York and Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and has called West Seattle home for the past two decades. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

My recent work is inspired by my life as a musician as well as the lives of my relatives. My grandfather was an Abstract Expressionist painter in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, and I feel like his paintings both defined him and I understood him through them. My mother went to art school when I was a toddler; some of my earliest memories are of the printmaking studio with giant black press wheels taller than people.

When making art, I don’t think about anything, and that is the primary joy of the process. It feels like a pure meditation on visual interest and the nature of time (there was nothing, and now there is art), and a simultaneous, unfettered expression of that meditation.

I use coffee filters, candy wrappers, vintage record sleeves, yellowed sheet music, and fragments from my Grandma’s scrapbooks. (She kept everything.) I cover and reveal elements with paint until the effect reminds me of a wall plastered with posters and graffiti that have worn away over time. I like to bring a hint of goofiness to a beautiful, textured aesthetic, and campy ‘50s ephemera is perfect for that.

I’m drawn to art with texture for its mystery—how can it be beautiful as it reminds us of entropy and death? How will I view this work as I change with time? For example, I’ve begun using my 25-year-old etchings in collages, and by ‘using’ I mean ripping out bits and gluing them into new worlds, sometimes even painting over them completely—transforming the fraught past into a hopeful future with new meaning.

I want to deliver room transformation to friends and strangers that they enjoy as much as I enjoy my own collection. I want them to look at the work and see something new every time.

COMMISSIONS: Email Jessie directly.
INSTAGRAM @summarusso

Stop by the tasting room on 10/14 from 5PM until 9PM to have a look and enjoy complimentary snacks with some Viscon Cellars wines. 

In Our Gallery: Amy Stone

Join us this Thursday, January 10th for the first West Seattle Art Walk of 2019.

Abstract artist Amy Stone will be at the Tasting Room to introduce her work to all you local oenophiles, so be sure to stop by and say hello.

In Amy’s own words:

"I have been painting and drawing my entire life. I have a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Colorado and a Masters in Art Education from Hofstra University, but it wasn’t until my family and I relocated from New York to Seattle that I began to create art daily. 

I am drawn to the idea of balance and imperfection and how that translates to the paper or canvas. Without knowing this was my goal, someone recently told me that my work reminds them of the Japanese term Wabi-Sabi.

Wabi-sabi represents Japanese aesthetics and a Japanese world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”. We are forever growing, changing, learning, transitioning and it is difficult to find a balance of wife, mom, artist, friend, daughter, niece, cousin, aunt, and me.  This idea is translated to my work as I strive to create a balance of color, texture, movement, and energy.

One can say that an artist’s work is never done, and mine is certainly never perfect, but we should all seek to find beauty in life’s imperfections.”

Take the opportunity to browse Amy’s work while enjoying some Viscon Cellars wines this Thursday. If you miss it this weekend she’ll be up through the end of March.