Lawrimore's "Patch Dynamics" a fresh and exciting threat to the city's art scene

Theodore Roosevelt said, "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

So if you're a 21st-century man who can't kill a bear to assert his masculinity (and perhaps, feed and clothe his family), you might as well buy one on eBay.

A black bear, covered in 20,000 rhinestones and paid for with a credit card, stands as a makeshift totem in "Patch Dynamics," a playful group exhibition in which ordinary objects and abstract images are more than they seem.

Co-curated by Scott Lawrimore and Yoko Ott, "Patch" is to be viewed as six solo shows. Each is connected by a concept in landscape ecology theory: that "patches" are the unique and disparate parts of a whole and are invariably altered by the entry of new patches.

The under-40 artists involved are either new to the Northwest or to art — some of them only recently received their degrees — and each of their corners in Lawrimore Project's immense warehouse space represents a fresh and exciting threat to the city's scene.

Justin Colt Beckman's imposing bear is a conspicuous highlight in his portion of the gallery, where themes of urban/rural dichotomies (Beckman is from Los Angeles but lives in Thorp, Kittitas County) blend into examinations of the modern male existence, mirroring the nearby work of Michael Simi and Matt Browning.

"The fun of a group show is finding different points of entry," explains Ott. "We reverse-engineered ("Patch") to have concurrent exhibitions, and see what dialogues started to happen between the work."

Gallery-goers should trust their intuition, and move between shows in a flow that's natural to them. The entry room features Simi's "Nightmoves," an ominous installation of 12 conjoined, hipster-uniformed bodies and a looped ambient soundtrack, facing off with Heide Hinrichs' delicate, romantic pieces. Her abstractions are crafted from eggs and pearl-like beads. A soccer ball becomes a lotus blossom, creating a feminine counterpoint and a decidedly separate world from the other side of the gallery — it's easy to get lost in.

Turn around, and Browning's sports-informed work seems to address the question "What do men do now?" through intensely personal studies of art and Browning's own experiences. A tower of used skateboarding shoes, a pixilated pelt-shape made from baseball skins ("Trophy Trophy"), and a device to puncture beer cans for shotguning are less and more than their descriptors. In his photograph "The Dance," Browning and his friends get elegantly wasted — their movements uncannily (or incidentally) resemble Matisse's "Dance."

"It embodies almost the exact same theme," says Browning, "We're celebrating — I don't know particularly what — but almost dancing, hand in hand."

Further into the space are works from Caleb Larsen, a programmer and code writer, and Vesna Pavlovic, a conceptual photographer investigating public, private and social space. Larsen screws with language and data, turning Shakespeare's oeuvre into a room-size digital print using an invented alphabet. Echoing Roosevelt's quote, the placard for his "Burn Out" series (strikingly beautiful smears made by moped tracks) accurately describes them as "endearingly pathetic ... painterly testaments to giving it your all with what you have."

As the physical midway point between the six shows, Larsen's "Boiling Point" video is the pivot point that "Patch" revolves around. And, "The artists are at the boiling point in their careers," Lawrimore is delighted to say, "sparking off" of each other.