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. Mission accomplished. It's a gallery beloved by BoingBoing and Fodor's alike. Come celebrate tonight with cupcakes and beer and......

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......

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......

FRIDAY ART: Roq la Rue and its sister gallery BLVD are having joint openings tonight. At Roq la Rue, San Francisco artist Robert Burden explores the joys and soulless commercialism of the toybox. At BLVD, Wastelands and Wilderness features new work by Parskid and Chip 7. Parskid's work evokes the mystical dark forests of the Pacific NW, while Chip 7's work is a paranoid exploration of sci-fi fantasy and globalism. Plus, at BLVD you......

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......

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):......

Tonight's three-man show at Roq La Rue brings three quintessential pop surrealists to town. Brian Despain: Scott Musgrove: And -- our personal favorite -- Ryan Heshka: Our only regret from our Jeopardy! audition was forgetting to answer "Buy an Ryan Heshka original" when they asked what we'd do with the money. We went with "travel." All three artists will be there tonight, so while you have until December 1 to get there, this is the......

We've been delinquent. Show after great show keeps arriving at Roq La Rue, and we keep not telling you about them. We could list excuses, but they're mostly varieties of "we should learn how to effectively use a to-do list." Case in point: the current show, featuring Yumiko Kayukawa (whose Princess of Darkness is pictured) and Ojimbo, opened October 12. We should have promoted opening night. But the show's still open, the art's still there,......

We hadn't originally planned on taking Little Miss Seattlest along on our sneak preview of Roq La Rue's latest show, Venus, but we got some art criticism out of her. "Pretty," she said of Joshua Petker's "There Is a Light that Will Never Go Out." Isabel Samaras' "Black Venus"? "Nudies." Further clarification: "No bra on." Double true. Most of the rest of her commentary involved asking "What's that, Daddy?" as we walked from painting......

--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. --Short short hair is not at all unattractive. --Shilshole to Downtown ferry? Hell yes. Let's bring back the Mosquito Fleet! --Wonder if this is related to this. --Ichiro, once overrated, is now underrated. --Trendy chicks at the Cheese Festival --Venus is coming to Roq La Rue.......

Thank you, anonymous tipster who pointed us to this video of Logan Hicks painting one of his stencil pieces on the wall at BLVD. 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.......

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......

ART: Roq La Rue hosts Detroit's celebrated lowbrow underground artist Glenn Barr for the signing of his new hardcover book Haunted Paradise. 6-8pm // Roq La Rue, 2312 2nd Ave // Free RAWK: Tenacious D brings their over-the-top metal spectacular to the Paramount for one night only. 8pm // The Paramount // $37.50 MUSIC: Grizzly Bear at Neumo's. Yellow House is a great album (among the best from last year), but it wasn't until......

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. The gallery's online, but of course there's no substitute for seeing the paintings in person. You've got tonight through March 3 to get there, but if you want beer at the same time, tonight's the night. Based on the website preview, we're most interested in the Hiemstra,......

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. Tonight is the public opening, but due to hot NYE party, the high-tech pedigree of the McLeod's (Buster McLeod is a Robot CoOp member), and the fact that the place grovels on the floor begging to......

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. Tonight, Dykeman and fellow local painter Robert Hardgrave, both of whom had pieces in BLVD's inaugral show, are the featured artists in the gallery's Hard Light show. Hard Light opens tonight with an artist's reception from 6-10pm. If......

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. From the Fantagraphics blog: We will really pull out all......

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. And so does local lowbrow institution Roq La Rue -- they're kicking off their traditional Halloween show ("Monster Mayhem and Day of the Dead Delights") tonight. In a break with tradition, though, it's not......

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”......

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. Think those new Tully's bus ads are the coolest new work on (faux) woodgrain? Think again. Audrey Kawasaki's pieces at Roq La Rue feature half-alluring, half-disturbing sexy young women painted on wood panels. The grain adds a......

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. Turns out at least one frustrated would-be BLVD attendee decided to audition for a spot in an upcoming "world's dumbest criminals" mass email, though. Kirsten Anderson explains in her blog: After Damion tells him that the gallery was closed, the Moron says "I'm going to smash your door......

Last time Scion did something in town, it was their lackluster art showing at Roq La Rue. It was marketing that felt like marketing, so it just made you want to tune out from the whole experience. We won't hold that one against them too much though, since they've gone back to their roots a bit with this year's installment of the Free up Your Mix series (at least we're fairly certain it's a series),......

When it comes to art, Seattlest is in the "we know what we like" camp. We're not unversed in art theory or history, but when you cut to the chase, we want to look at pretty pictures. That's one reason we're so fond of Roq La Rue and now BLVD -- Kirsten Anderson and her cohorts have an eye for pretty that resonates with us. Hordes of people came to BLVD's opening last Friday night.......

Friday night Seattle gets a new art gallery -- BLVD, dedicated to urban contemporary art. (Note to the uninitiated: that's "boulevard," not "beloved.") We talked with gallerist Kirsten Anderson, who also owns Roq La Rue, the neighboring lowbrow/pop surrealism gallery, about urban contemporary art and what to expect from BLVD. You've said that, in a nutshell, lowbrow and pop surrealist artists grew up listening to punk and new wave, while urban contemporary artists grew up......

Fresh from his quarter-hour of fame as a food blogger, Ronald is preparing a giant Spanish torta for a neighborhood party in Belltown. He plans to stalk chef Kerry Sear's cooking class at Cascadia on Saturday morning. On Sunday, he'll make is way into SoDo territory where wine writer/wine merchant Rich Kinssies promises to roast a pig and pour samples of Spanish reds at The Wine Outlet . We hope it goes well with the......

What will the weekend bring? Why, the new 4A state basketball champion, of course! So the staff of Seattlest picks our favorites in today's critical semifinal game between Franklin and Curtis. Also, they mention some other stuff they are interested in. Michael van Baker is tired (possibly from his recent bare-knuckled fight with former Knick Charles Oakley, seeking revenge after Oakley stole his girlfriend. He predicts a Franklin victory. Once Garfield is eliminated from contention,......

Seattlest doesn't often regret not buying something. But when we do, man, we dwell on it. 10 months later, we still regret not buying Ryan Heshka's painting Electroladylux when we saw it at Roq La Rue's Mod Squad show last year. It doesn't help that Heshka chose this piece for his website's home page. Every time we visit to see what's new in his portfolio we cry a little inside, wishing that Bettie Page-zilla......

Kirsten Anderson, owner of Roq La Rue and all-around supreme being, is lecturing on Pop Surealism and the rise of tonight at the Seattle Academy of Fine Art. Lectures are what made me drop out of school, you say. But this lecture is about Lowbrow art which you love, we respond. Pop art is for freaks and the Academy of Fine Art is not the right venue to talk about it, you say. "The movement......

A few weeks ago Seattlest mentioned the incredibly lackluster Scion:Installation exhibit at Roq La Rue. While the potential was high, the showing failed to resonate on an artistic level. Standing in stark contrast to that show is Roq La Rue's latest offering, "Sweetest Taboo." It hits the notes that Installation failed to, and provides an opportunity to see work from fifteen up-and-coming artists. Curated with Cut Kulture's Damian Hayes, "Sweetest Taboo" is a celebration of......

Seattlest debated on whether to write this post at all. We don't want to come across as negative (not that that slows us down at all in the real world). Never mind those reservations however. Despite the fact that the exhibit itself is winding down for us, we feel its our duty to let our thoughts be known. Our words may come too late for Seattle, but maybe it can help out our friends in......