Gallery Group showcases Bellevue artists

Known as either Gateway Mortgage Group or Gallery Group, the small venue on Sixth Street shows the work of local artists.

 It juggles the precarious world of banking and art simultaneously.

“This space was an art gallery for decades,” branch manager John La Bella said. “The latest one was Prima Gallery, which went out of business over three years ago, so we rented the space from Mortgage banking office.”

Art on the walls of the Gallery varies by show. Art lining the shelves placed strategically around the small two-story building stays the same. Ceramicists’ work rests on the shelves and waits to be purchased.

“We had a photography show in here once that had about 20 artists in it,” La Bella said. “Sometimes we have a solo show. It’s just one artist’s work up. Bellevue, the current group we have here, has six or seven artists’ work up.”

The Bellevue Group is comprised of local artists who express themselves through a variety of media.

“Bellevue is a group of up and coming artists, usually right out of school, so they haven’t really established themselves yet,” La Bella said. “They had a gallery, but there was some politics involved, and now they no longer have a gallery. They’ve been basically just trying to have shows all around town, wherever they can get space.”

Art created by Jay Garst, Jenna Jacobs, Joey Like, Patricia Coleman and a few others will hang on the wall until Sept. 26.

In the downstairs gallery, Garst’s screen prints were suspended together in the back corner.
His first work was titled “Under the Sea” and depicted twining seaweed and mermaids floating through them.

His second painting, “The Minotaur 1,” showed a girl breaking free of a fiery stake.

Garst used only two colors on his final piece. The sharply contrasting white and black print featured a girl sitting on a log at night. Faces stared down at her from the trees.

In the upstairs gallery, Like’s style was abstract and involved acrylic paints and permanent inks.

Ranging from colorful and geometric to lines and black and white, Like’s paintings were plastered across canvas.

Paintings done by Patricia Coleman, owner of Patricia’s Wellness and Arts Café, were next to Like’s on the wall. Her work was large and colorful, and faces embedded in the greens and blues stared at the viewer.

A framed ink portrait by B.J. Kish Irvine called “Summer Bamboo” was placed at the foot of the stairs.

Jenna Jacobs artwork was made using a different medium, fabric.

Over-lapping green, black and gray cloth squares were sewn together to create a large rectangle.

“The Bellevue Group hasn’t really had the opportunity to be in an actual gallery,” La Bella said. “So when they approached me about eight months ago, I said ‘yes.’”