When I first began writing about art for Reflex in 1995, I remember being struck by the unusual balance of chaos and order that held sway in the painter’s studio. The logic of such a place, built around the idiosyncrasies of the artist’s process and materials, would seldom make sense until I had the opportunity to watch them in action. At such times, the mystery could give way to a fascination that often lived up to all the romance surrounding painters and their craft. But what was there here really but canvas, messy oils smeared on every possible surface, and rows of white plastic jugs?  

It is this dual aspect of the studio – the magical and the mundane -- that photographer Steve Gilbert captures in his series of portraits, on view at Café Paloma in Pioneer Square through March. For each of his subjects, Gilbert carefully arranges grids of black and white stills that show us their work spaces from a series of wide and opposing vantage points. The artists themselves make only an occasional appearance in these frames, but their absence helps establish the unseen presence of those dynamic, unpredictable forces they so often manage to channel here.

Gilbert’s painters are the late Drake Deknatel, the now New York-based Friese Undine, Sean Hurley, Doug Parry, and Jeff Mihaylo. Drake, Friese, and Sean were among the first artists I met after joining Reflex, and seeing their fleeting likenesses together here, surrounded by views of their studios in which they are out of sight, made me a bit sad and nostalgic. Drake, a man so full of life and good cheer, died suddenly while having lunch at this, his favorite spot, in November 2005. For me, Steve Gilbert’s series of photographs brought back the peculiar excitement that took hold in those days, when I first ventured into the studios of such artists.

Be sure to treat yourself to the meze plate while your there. It's quite possibly the best lunch anywhere Downtown.