Pandemic Gallery presents Sew Draw, a two person exhibition by Richie Lasansky and Alison Read Smith, of drawings, prints, and sculpture of various media.

Richie Lasansky

Born in La Paz, Bolivia, while his parents were in the peace corps, Lasansky’s interest in drawing and art stems from an age when he could first hold a pencil. His parents being music and dance performers, he traveled around with them, constantly drawing everything he saw. For a while he thought his interest in animals would lead him to a career in science. After graduation from Hebron Academy, he studied biology at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., but upon graduation, moved to Iowa to study printmaking formally with his grandfather – Mauricio Lasansky. He spent eight years in this apprenticeship.

As a printmaker, Lasansky feels many artists are not involved in an important creative aspect of the process by allowing their work to be printed by others. He prefers the complete approach. Intaglio printmaking is “such a sensual, tactile medium that if you don’t get your hands dirty and experience the feel of drawing on copper and printing the plate, you’ll never really know what the medium can do.” Lasansky makes all his ink from scratch. This personal investment in the process is evident in his work. “A lot of artists’ work is heavily conceptual now, but mine is process-oriented,” said Lasansky. “It’s mostly figurative, not abstract.” He’s not one to analyze his art beyond that, however, preferring to quote his grandfather: “Artists and fish die the same way, by the mouth.” Lasansky has lived in Costa Rica, New Hampshire, but was raised mostly in Maine, including a year on the Island of Vinalhaven. He now lives with his wife in Brooklyn.

Allison Read Smith

Allison Read Smith was born and raised in Memphis, TN and has lived and worked in NYC for the past twelve years. Merging Southern storytelling with the more brisk pace of New York she has generated a body of work that uses pedestrian materials, such as newspaper, magazines, postal stamps, cardboard, and rubber. For this exhibition she relies mainly on roofing rubber to generate a cartoonish, malleable dark humor. Her work has an intoxicating effect as the imagery she puts forth draw so many questions for the viewer. Asking what is really relevant and meaningful in our day to day lives. As a sculptor she combines many different elements into three dimensional creations of skewed beauty and wondrous theory. Pushing past the antiquated confines of sculptural work and into her own realm of an almost intangible essence.