The success of Travis Louie's work rests on his uncanny ability to juggle two completely contradictory tendencies at once. On the one hand, the aesthetic of his work is a brilliant pastiche; with photorealistic precision, he carefully crafts works that nail the particular qualities of Victorian photographs that makes them look incredibly "real." On the other, he's creating a dream world of monsters that never existed in reality. And beyond the simple derangement of the creatures he portrays with life-like faithfulness, he adds yet another layer of complexity by crafting them with these inscrutable facial expressions. It's verisimilitude meets fantasy meets something deeper, and the magic of how all those layers collapse is what gives his work its oddly compelling quality and charm. more ›

A new show of work by Nicoletta Ceccoli and Eric Fortune opens tonight at Roq la Rue. Ceccoli, an Italian artist, is showing works from her series "Beauties and Beasts," that twist childhood imagery borrowed from fairy tales, religion, and legends, into metamorphosing images of growing up and losing innocence. American Eric Fortune's mini-show, "Daughters of Our Nature," features sexy nymphets and whatnot. more ›

The premise of Roq la Rue's new group show is that it's in response to the shift in the pop surrealist art world towards street art, e.g., the sort of stuff that used to be on display at the sadly departed BLVD gallery. But Roq la Rue is pushing back with , and you'll get the idea. more ›

Roq la Rue has a new show opening tonight by recent Seattle transplant Christian Van Minnen. Van Minnen's new "Keyhole" series feels a bit like Magritte meets Giger--like Magritte, Van Minnen enjoys playing with structural contrasts, but he shares with Giger a love of the grotesque. Also showing is Japanese artist Yoko d'Holbachie, who mixes cutesy Japanese-style characters with American psychedelia. more ›

Chalk it up to bad luck. It's totally lame and we're sad to admit it, but last week on Friday the thirteenth, a new show opened at Roq la Rue (2312 Second Ave.) and we totally dropped the ball. Please accept our sincerest apologies and see the above gallery for some awesome, sexy work work by Andrew Hem and Stella Hultberg, on display through March 7, which means it closes just in time for the show to open on Friday, March 13. Brilliant! more ›

BLVD is—make that was—the urban contemporary younger sibling conjoined (they share a wall) with Roq La Rue, Seattle's pop surrealist institution. (Which is, thankfully, staying put.) more ›

The new joint show (plus a mini) opening tonight at Roq la Rue (2312 Second Ave., 6 - 9 p.m.) is a bit of a departure from previous shows that were heavy with dark themes. The three artists on display tonight each borrow heavily from distinct cultures (Japan and Mexico, respectively) to create elegant, whimsical paintings. more ›

After a month-long remodel, Roq la Rue is re-opening tonight at six with its newest exhibition, a pair of solo shows by Victor Castillo and Brian Despain. more ›

Roq La Rue remains our favorite local gallery, still going strong after 10 years in business. They were closed all last month after their anniversary show, undergoing some remodeling and giving owner Kirsten Anderson time to relax (and travel to Amsterdam). Tomorrow, though, the gallery reopens with a new show: the return of Roq regular Brian Despain and the debut of Victor Castillo. In honor of the occasion, we interviewed her (again) about lessons learned and what's new. more ›

Nothing says "Happy anniversary" like a group show, so that's how Kirsten Anderson and Roq La Rue are celebrating the gallery turning 10. Anderson didn't have any experience running a gallery when she started Roq La Rue, but she loved lowbrow (we don't think she'd coined "pop surrealism" yet) and thought it deserved an awesome venue. more ›

If there's one thing you can say that the artists whose shows opens tonight at Roq la Rue have in common, it's that they both really like women. Esao Andrews, an NYC-based artist, likes to contort the feminine form into the oddest situations: stuck inside the bowl of a flower vase, riding a giant swan, or with a head blasting hot air into the sack of a hot air balloon. Japanese artist Fuco Ueda is a bit dirtier: many's the knock-kneed girl in a, shall we say, situation, whether stroking a unicorn's horn or sleeping while a shrimp swims by, emitting a blooming cloud of semen. more ›

There's some sort of primeval or subconscious part of our brains that remains fascinated with the potential magic of spaces we can't enter, whether it's down a rabbit hole, on the other side of a mirror, or the life of things within the walls of our home. The work of Dutch artist Femke Hiemstra, which goes on display at Roq la Rue tonight, captures that fascination with whimsy and wit. Her paintings demonstrate a miniaturist's attention to detail as well as a wildly active imagination. Her paintings on found objects, like , beg us to see the potential magic in the everyday. more ›

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More or less everyone has had the experience of finding a box of their old toys from when they were a kid and having that strangely alien sense of encountering something you once knew well but have all but forgotten. In this Seattlester's case, that happened about two years ago at our grandparents' house, when they were going through forty-plus years of accumulated bric-a-brac to get ready to move. In a dusty old attic box, we found our most prized childhood possessions: a collection of G.I. Joe action figures (not the big, kung-fu grip ones from the Seventies, the small, hard plastic ones from the Eighties). How many hours had we whiled away at age ten, touching and arranging and fighting these things which sit so limply, feeling both dusty and slightly sticky in our hands? more ›

We asked, Jeanine Anderson answered: she shared photos from Friday night's pop surrealism opening at Roq La Rue in our Flickr pool. late fauna of north america: who goes to the Roq? Thanks, Jeanine! We managed to snap a couple as well. Here's the crowd at 7:30: And here's Little Miss Seattlest requesting that we stop looking at art or taking pictures and go to dinner (at Marjorie, across the street, which was yum):... more ›

Tonight's three-man show at Roq La Rue brings three quintessential pop surrealists to town. more ›

We've been delinquent. more ›

"Pretty," she said of Joshua Petker's "There Is a Light that Will Never Go Out." more ›

--In Wallingford we all fight to be the last on the bus "You go first" "No, you go first" style. Don't know about the rest of you. more ›

Much as we'd like to, we don't always (or even usually) attend opening nights at BLVD and Roq La Rue, so we stopped by both galleries Saturday afternoon. The piece in the video is indeed painted directly on the gallery wall -- and after April 7, it'll be painted over. more ›

We've been following brand-spankin'-new art blog That Ain't Art, a collaboration between Kirsten Anderson and Celeste Fuechsel of Roq La Rue, Damion Hayes of BLVD, and Larry Reid of the Fantagraphics store. With that lineup, it's no surprise that That Ain't Art's focuses on lowbrow and pop surrealism -- "the alternative art scene in the Northwest," as their about section says. In their first couple of weeks, they've talked up artists and exhibitions, noted with... more ›

ART: Roq La Rue hosts Detroit's celebrated lowbrow underground artist Glenn Barr for the signing of his new hardcover book Haunted Paradise. more ›

Roq La Rue is showing three artists this month: David Ho, Femke Hiemstra, and Ronald Kurniawan. Tonight's opening night in Belltown, running from 6 until 9 or so. more ›

It's a bar, it's a gallery, it's a cafe, it's an installation art space, it's probably going to become part of the Belltown circuit that should involve Roq La Rue, BLVD, and the Sculpture Park. It's the McLeod Residence. more ›

Seattlest's wife used to work with Warren Dykeman before he moved to a less corporate position. So we had an early sneak preview at his style, having seen a couple of pieces he hung in their office. more ›

On Saturday local comic book deity Fantagraphics is opening a retail outlet in Georgetown. It's their first one and it's going to be incredibly cool, but this is a "soft opening" meaning they'll be there and there should be some stock in the place, but don't expect them to be a well-oiled retail machine. Their grand opening isn't until December so, shhhh, don't tell anyone. more ›

If you think it's too early to talk Halloween, you must really hate those Xmas tchotchkes that have shown up in major retailers near you. We, on the other hand, think Friday the 13th is the perfect day to start celebrating. more ›

Kirsten Anderson emailed Seattlest to remind us that Tales of the Rat Fink, the new film about hot rod legend Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, opened tonight at the Grand Illusion. From their website:

From the award-winning director of Comic Book Confidential and Grass comes Tales Of The Rat Fink, Ron Mann’s wildly inventive biopic about influential Renaissance man Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, who engineered a shift in mid-twentieth century culture with his customized cars, “monster” T-shirts and America’s alternative rodent – “Rat Fink.” Ed Roth helped fuel the “Kustom Kulture” / Hot Rod movement of the 1960s in Southern California and Hot Rodding grew from crude backyard engineering where performance was the bottom line into a refined artform where aesthetics were equally important. Mann’s largely animated documentary features the voice talents of John Goodman, Ann-Margret, Brian Wilson, Tom Wolfe, Matt Groening, Robert Williams, Stone Cold Steve Austin and the ever lovable Smothers Brothers.

And by "streets," we mean Roq La Rue and BLVD. Stop by Belltown tonight and you can catch two art openings within 20 feet of each other -- it's the opening of a three-person show at each place. more ›

Seattlest didn't get a chance to attend the BLVD/Roq La Rue openings on Friday night -- we plan on swinging by within the next couple of weekends. more ›