Creature Comforts:
Brooklyn Witteman and Colleen RJC Bratton

Opening Reception: Saturday, June 15, 2019 from 5-8pm
Exhibition: June 23-July 14, 2019
Gallery Hours: Sundays from 12-5pm

Strobel and Sands is pleased to present Creature Comforts, an exhibition of drawings by Brooklyn Witteman and sculpture by Colleen RJC Bratton. Creature Comforts seeks to explore the human desire for physical and mental comfort through humor, introspection, self-care, and altered states of mind and imagination. The need to escape from the here and now allows us to recharge our minds in order to cope with the present.

This exhibition brings together works by two Seattle-based artists that exhibit close relationships between design and visual art. The artists pull from popular culture mythologies, Pop Art movements of the 1960s-80s, and elements of design to elicit self-reflection through anamorphic avatars.  

Both Brooklyn and Colleen’s art works have a graphic, expository quality. Stylistically, the works share curvilinear shapes and appear ready for action, yet remain still, like they are frozen in the midst of telling a story. Brooklyn’s Creature Collective drawings have anamorphic attributes, reminiscent of traditional tattoo styles and 1980s Pop Art. Colleen’s work appears to spring from 1960s psychedelic illustrations and Pop Art, as well as 1970s textile and graphic design.

By envisioning humanness through the lens of fantastical beings, we feed our desire for unity. It is a testament to this desire that the fantasy genre has become so immensely popular in contemporary culture. The ability for artists to create new worlds and beings that live within, enables our imagination to overcome imposed and self-created limitations, thus creating new ways to overcome challenges and create a sense of well-being.