Poetry reading at Alan Lau show at Shoreline Community College Art Gallery

Shoreline Community College Art Gallery presents...​

ALAN LAU

JAN 13 - MARCH 13, 2020

Building 1000, Lobby

Poetry Reading with Musical Guest, Geoff Harper 

Thursday, January 30, 2020 12:30 - 2pm 

Black Box Theater (4000 Library Building)

Artist Reception following the poetry reading

2:00 - 3:00pm in the Art Gallery (1000 Building, Lobby)

*All events are FREE and Open to the Public

Shoreline Community College, 16101 Greenwood Ave N, Shoreline 98133, 206-546-4101

Parking Free after 4pm

Alan Chong Lau
Photo by Carina del Rosario

Artist, writer, and community organizer Alan Chong Lau grew up in Paradise, California. In his first book, The Buddha Bandits Down Highway 99, Lau recalls early memories of his grandmother teaching him calligraphy in her kitchen – his first experience with the brush. “She’d guide our hands until they became extensions of her memory, until each character became her own,” he wrote.

Lau earned his BA in Art from the University of California – Santa Cruz in 1976. Post-college, Lau traveled extensively, including several visits to Japan where he studied sumi-e and brush painting at the Nanga School in Kyoto with mentor Nirakushi Toriumi.

After moving to Seattle in 1978, Lau began exhibiting his artwork at Francine Seders Gallery. Lau developed a visual style that was inspired by the traditional brush painting techniques, but unfettered by strict tradition and free in his own interpretations. Primarily working on delicate Japanese rice paper, Lau layers sumi ink, watercolor, pastel, and other media to create abstract works with great depth yet surprising lightness.

Lau is also a published writer and poet. Collections of poetry include Songs for Jadina (1980), which won the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation; Blues and Greens: A Produce Worker’s Journal (2000); and no hurry (2007).

With Lawson Fusao Inada and Garrett Hongo, Lau authored The Buddha Bandits Down Highway 99 (1978). His work has appeared in anthologies such as From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas 1900–2002 (2002) and What Book!?: Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop (1998).