kimmie hutchins

hi! today i’m going to tell you a bit about kimmie hutchins, a talented artist that is participating in our next show!

Kimmie Hutchins, an Oregon native, moved to Portland in 2001 and after the success of curating a small gallery decided to venture out on her own. Her work is both sad and playful. Each image is simple yet sometimes disturbing. Currently a full time artist, Kimmie has steadily been building her body of work and her name.

As a self taught artist Kimmie had many influences growing up and has always been drawn towards pop-culture and the ever expanding low brow art movement. Her work incorporates simple graphic scenes where sad girls and curious animals invite you in to take a look. In her previous works, dark-eyed characters lounged amidst huge fantasy flowers, rooms were wallpapered with adhesive alphabets, and robots and giant bees conducted mysterious transactions with a semi-autobiographical heroine in striped socks. She has spent the last several years perfecting her precise, linear style and playful imagery.

Kimmie hopes to continue painting and growing as an artist. With constantly evolving work, she has a bright future ahead.

st. john’s second annual new years social

tomorrow night is st. john’s second annual new years social!

This Saturday January 19, 5-8pm
St. Johns Community Center, 8427 North Center Street

Bring the whole family!
Meet up with friends, neighbors, and our local business community in our second annual community event featuring:
FREE FOOD from many local restaurants & cafes
LIVE MUSIC brought to you by PROPER EATS
Puppet show from MUDEYE PUPPET Co.
St. Johns TRIVIA sponsored by LEISURE PUBLIC HOUSE
Children’s reading by ST. JOHNS BOOKSELLERS
Great RAFFLE packages from many great local businesses

we are donating two packages of prints to be raffled off.

after we close the shop at 6 tomorrow night we’ll head over there, so if you’re around come check it out!

hope to see you all there!

lost + found – a show about love

hi!

we are pleased to announce our next show, Lost + Found, opening feb 9th at 5pm.

over the next few weeks i’ll be writing about some of the artists that will be showing with us.

today i’m beginning with kendra binney. this will be her second time showing with us and we’re very happy to have her back!

from her bio:

“Kendra Binney was raised in a small mountain town with no shoe stores. Most of her time was spent barefoot treading through the miniscule world of spiders, snakes and all things hiding in the grass. She transfers this closeness with the small and obscure into her paintings. Through scenes of dripping landscapes and insecure, vulnerable characters, she illustrates a world draped in memories, remorse, and fragile realities. Seen through pastel washes and shiny candy coatings of resins, her works evoke both nostalgia and contempt. They are at once gentle and cruel, sweet and unsettling.Kendra currently lives in Portland Oregon. She spends her days all alone in a small studio with no windows. Here she paints, daydreams, and paints some more.”

and on a completely different subject: it’s SNOWING!!

i don’t know how many of you are in portland, but it hardly snows here and it’s really exciting when it does, even though it almost never sticks…

i’ll be back with more tomorrow!

tinymeat!

last night the lovely mona from tinymeat stopped by our shop with a delivery of fantastic wallets. made right here in portland, tinymeat collaborates with artists to create wallets that are stylish, functional, and have a great sense of whimsy.

unicorn vs godzilla.

piano girl. i think this one might be my favorite, but it’s just so hard to choose. they’re all really great…

Ninjatown Micro Plush Characters!

ever wish you could have a Ninja with you everywhere you go? Well, now you can!

these arrived today and they are super cute!

this awesome series of miniature blind-box plush designed by Shawnimals is sure to bring style and class to your backpack, beltloop, cell phone or wherever else you can think to hang one on. twelve different Ninjatown characters including the elusive and scary Mr. Demon…

blind box packaging means that you purchase a sealed box and the contents are a surprise! each box contains one micro plush ninjatown character and a sticker. with each new box you discover which new character you get to add to your collection, $5.95 each.

some press from the past

i thought i’d post some links to some write-ups we received last november when we re-opened…

check out celina monte’s review of the show in the vanguard.

chas bowie said some great things on the mercury blog.

sarah wrote some really nice things about us on her blog view from the north.

new products!

hello! we received some new products today that i’m excited to tell you about. the first are these sweet and whimsical stickers by FriendsWithYou for $1.50 each.

we also have a cool Cardboy series from Mark James: the Cardboy CMYK Cartridge Set!

you turn these cool little packages inside out to make the toy itself. the Cardboy Cartridges series features four characters – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. they’re certainly the cutest toner cartridges i’ve ever seen.

they arrive in this package, then you unfold them one by one and before you know it you have the whole gang!

they are $29.99 per set.

Welcome to the Genuine Imitation Art Gallery and Design Studio blog!

hello! my name is cassie and i’m half of the team that runs genuine imitation’s art gallery and design studio. welcome to our blog! the purpose of this blog is to give you information regarding our gallery, design studio and shop, plus personal opinions about the people and culture influencing and amusing us. leave a comment or e-mail me at gallery@genuineimitation.com and let us know what you think. we appreciate your feedback!

for our first blog entry i thought i’d share some photos of our new gallery. having spent the past five years in the everett station lofts, we decided strike into new territory last august and went looking for a new gallery space. we found a great space in the up and coming st. john’s neighborhood in portland, oregon.

here is what the space looked like when we got the keys:

now i know you’re thinking, how hard could it be to turn that lovely space into a gallery? i mean, you already have a great couch to start with!

we got to work brainstorming and came up with some ideas:

well, over the next few months, with a little creative vision and a whole lot of hard work, the space began to come together. in november we had our grand opening of the new space. here are some photos from that event:

now that we’re not painting the walls and laying a new floor down, we have time to get back to what we love, good art and design!

either this week or next we should be getting some new stuff for our shop. i’ll be back with an update as soon as it arrives.