Roq La Rue Gallery

About

Direct yet conceptual. Provocative and engaging. Design & illustration for brands, publications, and people.

 

About Roq La Rue

Roq La Rue was started in 1998 by Kirsten Anderson. Seeking to create a space in Seattle for for the rising “Low Brow” art scene, the gallery showed everything from Kustom Kulture art, outsider art, prison art, tiki art, work by underground cartoonists, anything that was sub-culturally influenced and provocative from an art world point of view. As the gallery grew and the artists in the scene started to be less transgressive but more refined, trading kitsch for magical realism and more nuanced storytelling, the scene shifted into calling itself “Pop Surrealism”. Roq La Rue was on the cutting edge of this new movement, exhibiting the best artists in the genre and discovering new talents. This led to gaining not only an international roster of artists and collectors, but a reputation for being highly discerning. The gallery currently shows emerging and mid-career artists who excel at merging thoughtful fantastical symbolism and meaning, magical realism, and technical excellence.

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Kirsten Anderson

Kirsten Anderson is the owner/curator of Roq La Rue. She founded the gallery in 1998 and is about to celebrate 25 years of Roq La Rue!

She wrote the first survey of the burgeoning underground pop art scene in 2014 called “Pop Surrealism”, which effectively renamed the art movement previously exclusively known as Low Brow. She also was the editor-at-large and writer at Hi Fructose magazine from 2007-2014 authoring countless articles and has written numerous forwards for artist monographs including Mark Ryden, Martin Wittfooth, Lisa Petrucci, Travis Louie, Marion Peck, Camille Rose Garcia, Victor Castillo, and Femke Hiemstra. She is considered a global authority on Pop Surrealism and various forms of contemporary underground pop art.

 

Philanthropy efforts:

We love animals and spend time and resources doing what we can to assist wildlife conservation efforts. We generally donate through owner Kirsten Anderson’s non-profit Creatura Wildlife Projects.

The gallery raised money via four very successful print releases with artists Mark Ryden, Camille Rose Garcia, Audrey Kawasaki and Josh Keyes with sales going to support the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya, which has had great success in raising young, orphaned creatures and integrating them back into wild herds. Their innovative organization also puts an emphasis on building community and giving back to the local human population.

We also raised money for Big Life Foundation, and organization devoted to stopping the rampant proliferation of poaching in East Africa.

In 2014 we released an additional print with Camille Rose Garcia with profits going to Bat Conservation International.

In 2014 we hosted an exhibition called “Unpredictable Gravity” curated by Robbie Lowery, with half of all profit going to assorted cancer charities including The Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Recently we partnered with Electric Coffin to release two prints in 2020 to support Musang Community Kitchen and the Wa Na Wari Art Organization. We also released a print with Jeff Jacobson with all profit going to Creatura Wildlife Projects and send on to Mara Elephant Project.

In 2021 and 2022 artist Mark Ryden donated profits from the sale of two prints to Creatura that we used to help fund Mara Elephant Project, Wildlife Works Elephant Protection Trust, Saving the Wild, Wild Love Preserve, and Bat World Sanctuary.