i.e. is excited to feature Bellingham artist, Jesse Max Otero, with a full gallery installation. Last year, Otero gave us a taste of his imaginative prowess with his popular small installation, "Fruiting Bodies." Viewers were intrigued, confounded, smitten, charmed, maybe irritated but they did not leave unaffected.

   Otero makes small sculptures, often 3 x 3 in, out of everyday unconsidered materials. They are hand crafted, intimate, immediate and raw. That is the first step of his process: building a collection, dozens and dozens of miniatures, each with its own power and personality. The second part is installing these pieces into a specific site. i.e. will paint a few squares of wall color to work with and he will compose the sculptures around the interior space of the gallery using floors, walls, ceilings and color swaths as the framework for his placement of pieces. Place is of particular importance to Otero and he likes to bring as much of the setting into the actual form of the art he is shaping when installing.

   The pointillists in painting, such as Seurat, gave us a a way to see a painting by allowing the viewers eye to connect the dots of color. By doing so the work achieved an airy glow or halo effect. A visual disruption that made us see in a new way.  Otero works with space and scale to change up the way we experience materials in our environment. To come away with fresh eyes.