The Hall Spassov Collection

The Personal Collection of Erik Hall and Amy Spassov

January 6 – February 28, 2017

To kick off the new-year gallery owners, Erik Hall and Amy Spassov, will exhibit their personal collection publicly for the first time.   Over more than a decade the pair have grown the gallery side by side and during that time have amassed a collection of artworks from all over the world.  You can expect to see works by many of the represented artists such as Gretchen Gammell, Jeff Peters and Jérôme Poirier, as well as work by Seattle artist Dylan Neuwirth, tapestry artist Erin M. Riley and Street Artist, Swoon.  The couple will also be sharing a sculpture by the late artist, Cheryl Ekstrom, their custom motorcycle builds and custom furniture pieces built by Hall. 

NEW STUDIO 2017

Our first space located on 2nd street in Downtown Bellevue is being developed into a high-rise early this year so we've been in the process of building a new studio space. This time from ground up! We've been involved with every aspect of this project from the design, to the drawings and the complete build. Here are some progress shots.

Living in Style

 

  

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." - William Morris 

        

This is our Living in Style booth in participation with the Bellevue Collection. We view many things as art, including our collection of vintage paintbrushes as well as our custom vintage motorcycles. Artwork on view by Cheryl Ekstrom, JD Hansen, Stallman, Erik Hall, Jeff Peters, Daniel Ochoa and neon by Dylan Neuwirth.  Contact the gallery for more information.  

Studio Location

The Studio is a multi-use facility for Hall Spassov Gallery. The 2500sqft space is home to a full wood shop, painting studio, custom vintage motorcycles and over three hundred works of art from as far away as Barcelona and as close as Seattle. The space is located three blocks South of the gallery in Old Bellevue and is open to the public by appointment. 

Featured Artist

September 2015 Exhibition:  STALLMAN 
'Rhythm of The Heart' Stallman 

By Claire Hanser 

Artist duo Jason Hallman and Stephen Stum have gained recent notoriety for their distinctive canvas-on-edge sculptures, and they continue to find ways to innovate within this unique medium. In their most recent body of work, color takes the spotlight; however, in a bold new move, these pieces (including Rhythm of the Heart) bring fiery sensibilities to the foreground. Charcoal, embers, molten metals and smoke come to mind when we consider this abstracted sculptural cardiogram. Never predictable, always changing, its rises, falls, and twists invoke both the medical and the emotional “rhythm” of the heart.

The story of each Stallman piece is as crucial to its appreciation as its design; the two artists (partners in business and in life) work on each tableau together. Filling it in from the sides toward the center, they unify their intentions by meeting in the middle. Their work is, at its core, about collaboration and partnership—between colors, between people, between humans and nature—and their innovative technique renders each piece a collaboration of mind as well as body. Each Stallman work is a tandem journey across the panel, where the viewer’s eye becomes a third collaborator, following the evocative sojourn of canvas ribbon from right to left and back again.

In Rhythm of the Heart, Stallman employs an organic/industrial conflation. In this undulating composition we could as easily see a river lit at midnight by a harvest moon, a vein of shimmering gold in the depths of a coal mine, or the time-lapsed vista of a darkened highway. The palette certainly brings fire and metal to mind, but may hearken also to flesh and charcoal, to the hard-worn surface of a tarnished vessel, the dirt of eons rubbed away to reveal the gilding underneath. In Rhythm of the Heart, we find the shimmer of audacious beauty in the tangles of a dark grey vortex; a hopeful gleam that tantalizes us from deep in the shadows.

Thumper, a Honda CB350 Twin

A 1971 Honda CB350 Twin called "Thumper"

Rebuilt by Twinline

You Might Live, You Most Certainly Will Die.

We maintain that a successful piece of art conveys the message it was meant to convey and that a successful artist is, indeed, trying to say something with their art.  That is to say that if one creates a piece of art that was meant to convey fear and that fear is never felt by the viewer then that art is not successful.  Of course it is more complicated than that.  It relies heavily on the viewer’s personal experience, education and open-mindedness.  

Does it need to have broad appeal or reach just one person?  Are its meanings varied?  Deduction of these questions leads me to believe, and I whole-heartedly do, that an artwork is successful if it cannot be ignored.  It does not have to be loved or believed.  It may be hated or even feared.  The inability to disregard the art becomes the measure of the art’s success.  It’s even better when it calls into question the very personal choices we make for our own lives.  It is in this place that we have found the success of Dylan Neuwirth’s work titled You Might Live, You Most Certainly Will Die.

The gallery in Seattle did not have ideal windows to display traditional paintings.  We tasked ourselves with finding artwork that would come to define our Seattle gallery and us.  It would make relic of the traditional sign and speak to our personal beliefs.   After meeting with Neuwirth it became clear to us that he was the right artist to produce such a piece. You Might Live, You Most Certainly Will Die, is a reminder that focusing intently on personal choices, pursuing passions and embracing risk are necessary in ones comfort with the inevitable and as such represents our gallery and our purpose perfectly.

The neon sculpture hovers permanently in our window in Seattle.  The piece was mounted on a custom lathe and plaster backing that the artist and gallery collaborated on.

The lathe plaster boards and mounts.

Interior view.  Neon sculpture by Dylan Neuwirth, "Imagine a Relaxing Email"