VAIN & Cut Kulture Present

Soles in the Mist

Art Opening featuring the work of Iosefatu Sua

Thursday, July 7th 5pm-11pm 21+

( VAIN 2018 1st Ave 206.441.3441)

Seattle, WA—Thursday, July 7th from 5-11pm, Belltown’s VAIN Salon and Seattle arts collective Cut Kulture present the latest work of local multi-media artist Iosefatu Sua dubbed Soles in the Mist. As a featured artist in the VAIN gallery’s Free Thinking Residency Program, Sua says of his exhibit, “Soles in the Mist explores cultural and individual displacement when forced to separate from traditional ties to the past. Cultural identity and security become threatened by the burden of deep existential uncertainty in a culture organized around economic and ethnic inequality.”

Soles in the Mist (Sole is the Polynesian word for homeboy) features images of stereotyped overweight Polynesian Islanders super-imposed on patterned backdrops. The Figures are bold and heavily outlined, street style, and are painted on colorful screenprints which are wheat pasted onto their canvas. Visual inspirations include Japanese wood prints, urban art, and traditional Polynesian iconography.

The opening, with it’s bright island theme features beer, wine, grilled sandwiches provided by George’s Grilling Shanty (all crafted on a George Forman grill) as well as two additional floors of art by additional residents. Soles in the Mist will run through Sunday, July 31st.

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More information:

Iosefatu Sua:

This 32 year old New Zealand native was raised in Wellington, NZ by Samoan born parents where he was intially inspired, at the age of 12 to paint by his older brother, a well practiced graffiti artist. Honing the craft by sketching in his bedroom, Sua took it to the streets when he was 14, throwing up murals on the canvases of the city; under subways, at the airport, and on school campuses. He'd go alone and unusually during the daylight hours as his brother wouldn't allow him to tag along for safety reasons and strict parents kept them from sneaking out at night.

His family moved to the states shortly after he began doing graffiti to East Palo Alto, a rough suburb in the Bay Area. Here his art was hampered by being in a new and foreign environment, a lack of resources and an inhibiting gang culture that he reluctantly became a part of. His family moved once again to the military town of Colorado Springs where he remained involved somewhat with gang culture, participating in gang related tags and role calls (when members tag all of their names in a certain area). With roll calls and tagging a far cry from the creative outlet he once found in graffiti, Sua spent a lot of time drawing images from pop culture magazines such as Lowrider, Rolling Stone and others.

Influenced by his surroundings and a desire to escape the ties to gang activity, Sua joined the Army and trained as a combat medic who would go out with the foot soldiers. While stationed in Germany, he met a fellow artist and tagger from Los Angeles. They got together and started doing pieces on the Autobahn together and his interest in painting and design was revitalized. Another creative outlet was designing fliers for local German hip hop dj's in Wiesbaden, where he was stationed (South of Frankfurt).

Sua now resides in Seattle and describes his style as "street influenced fine art that deals with culture, identity and expressionism." Raised with roots in Samoan, New Zealand and American culture, he is currently focusing on the idea of taking creation myths from the Pacific Islands, Asia and other non-Western cultures to inspire new myths, create and expand on them.

Cut-Kulture United:

Cut Kulture United is a small art and design collective that has been dedicated to promoting art with a global urban aesthetic since 1998. Endeavoring to bring together sometimes divergent elements of culture, Cut Kulture splices together hip-hop, pop, Skateboard, and design aesthetics into a veritable melting pot of… well, cut culture. To further this goal, Cut Kulture seeks to represent something of the global cut and paste that is taking place in the modern marketplace: music producers sample music, artists reference past art, and multimedia conjoins the real and the hyper-real. Toward this end, Cut Kulture has worked as a t-shirt design company, consulting and artist management, as well as in the more curatorial sense of organizing and creating art shows. This arts-centric organization seeks to be centered in arts brokerage, yet not for brokerage in the traditional sense of the term (read: for the love of money), but for the love and dissemination of art.

Vain Salon:

Established in 1996 ,VAIN is a full service salon and boutique located at 2018 1st ave in downtown Seattle. The boutique features beauty products as well as Gifts and apparel

designed by artists from throughout the northwest. We at VAIN have a strong interest in creating a space where people feel free to explore important questions of personal self-expression. The VAIN gallery, Free Thinking Residency Program, and artist studios allow us to do our part in supporting the flourishing Seattle art community.

The VAIN Free Thinking Residency provides studio space, a stipend, and an exhibition opportunity for independent, creative, and innovative artists to create non-traditional, groundbreaking work that embodies the VAIN philosophy.