New art gallery brings Australia, Asia to Monroe

Walk into Monroe's newest art gallery for a journey around the Pacific Rim.

More than 70 items are on display, including aboriginal artwork from Australia, contemporary art from Japan and antique bronzes from China.

The presence of an international art gallery in town is making ripples. Mayor Donnetta Walser is enthusiastic, and art classes from Monroe High School are scheduling field trips to the 1,300-square-foot space known as Art Merchant International, which opened in September.

"Not only is it unique for the city of Monroe, it's a unique art gallery," Walser said. "They have brought in some truly amazing work. I had never seen so much aboriginal art, and that was a real eye-opener for me. For our school kids, it's a way to learn about the culture as much as the art."

The gallery is in a corner of a building that houses Research International, a 15-year-old company that manufactures air samplers, bio-detection gear and other counterterrorism equipment. It is owned by Elric Saaski and his wife, Leonie.

The gallery project grew out of the couple's business travels. Elric Saaski said they take time to travel around the countries they visit, to view and learn about art styles.

"We said, 'My gosh, if we opened a gallery, we could get the art pieces on consignment,' " he said. "We had extra space in our building we wondered what to do with, and so we invested a bit in creating a gallery space in our technology building."

The gallery and company are in an industrial park south of Highway 2 near the Evergreen State Fairgrounds.

"We found that what we're doing is not so uncommon in Japan," Saaski said. "A lot of high-rise buildings have small galleries in them associated with businesses, and they're really not publicized to a great extent. It was an interesting revelation."

The Monroe gallery's current show offers a look into the artistic life of one of the world's oldest peoples: Australian Aborigines.

More than 50 aboriginal artworks are on the walls — works by modern artists who combine the symbolism of their traditions with vibrant colors. Snakes slide across blue and yellow fields; ocher dot paintings evoke the quest for food; and bright salamanderlike goannas glow in a multihued background.

Aborigines have one of the world's oldest living cultures, going back more than 40,000 years. After years of oppression, they are coming into their own as venerated artists, often in cooperative art studios.

Many of the artists in this show are part of art collectives in Australia.

Perry Cunningham's "Windspirit" has graphics Peter Max might have envied but is infused with deep symbolism. "Whip Snake Dreaming" by Sharon Dodd of North Queensland fills the canvas with a snake against a pattern of dots.

The vivid colors and earth imagery evoke the sun-drenched coasts and plains of Australia and its unique flowers and animals. Symbols represent men, women, children, dingoes, kangaroos, bush bananas, seeds, witchetty grubs, meeting places and more.

The gallery also is showing other art from the Pacific Rim, including Chinese silk paintings and sculptures, lithographs by Vietnamese artist Lebadang and block prints by Sadao Watanabe of Japan. Also featured this month are several mixed-media paintings by Tokyo artist Emiko Kato.

The Saaskis met Kato on an art hunt in Tokyo.

"Emiko was having a one-artist show in one of the Ginza [shopping district] galleries, so we admired her art," Elric Saaski said. "She creates serial figures in a bold palette of colors. ... She uses some nontraditional materials in terms of gold and silver flake, and they're very striking and dramatic."

Saaski estimated it takes at least three years to establish a gallery financially.

"We're fortunate in that it's supported by our travels for our technology business," he said. "We do not have as much of a pressure to achieve some level of stand-alone financial success for the gallery, so we can present more of a museumlike aspect than a for-profit gallery."

Running a business and a gallery isn't that hard to coordinate, Saaski said, and he hopes it, like the counterterrorism business, can serve a global purpose.

"Certainly, the kind of things we're doing is a form of communications — bringing people from all countries together. If our gallery informs and entertains people and gives people understanding through works of art, that's a worthwhile thing to do," Saaski said.

Diane Wright: 425-745-7815 or dwright@seattletimes.com