Ayumi and Aaron Piland are the fantastical magical duo known as APAK. They are a husband and wife collaborative art group who live among the trees in a little cabin on the outskirts of Portland . When they combine forces, they are able to travel to other dimensions, beyond time and space to bring back images from their travels for your viewing pleasure.

"Electricity surrounds us and connects us. It is created by life and flows through everything. " For the show, Apak presents a collection of gouache paintings on wood and paper illustrating curious little beings exploring and discovering new plants and animals in the Electric Garden.

Peter Hamlin attended Art Center College of Design, CA. His clients include the New Yorker, New York Times, Seed Magazine, Nickelodean, and others. Peter calls Brooklyn, NY his home.

"We are in strange, inspiring times as technology becomes less distinguishable from life as we know it and our world becomes more connected." 'Electric Garden' for me suggests new relationships with nature and raises many questions. Historically plants have been used for food, shelter, and aesthetic enjoyment. Now, and in the future, newer technologies present innumerable possibilities.... Can we utilize photosynthesis as a power source? Could computers or any feasible technology be cultivated from plants? How about growing new organs or even new forms of consciousness? What are the potentially good and possibly dangerous implications? Painter and illustrator Peter Hamlin explores these questions and others through his artwork. Electric Garden is rich and fun source of inspiration for a show and I'm very glad to participate!

After a few years in a few cubicles, Betsy Walton has made a break for it. She now works full time as an artist and illustrator from her studio in Portland, Oregon. Her recent work explores the possibilities of visual narrative. With a background primarily in printmaking and drawing, Betsy experiments with layering, detail, and color in her works on paper. When she is not painting and drawing, Betsy might be found wandering through the library, or exploring the forests and beaches of Oregon.

For Electric Garden, Betsy presents small mixed media drawings exploring the theme of Electric Garden as a metaphor for wonders and mysteries in natural life. She has created a series of careful composite images of figurative elements and fantasy plant forms that explore the physiology and psychology of the relationship between the human figure and the garden. The images are rendered in various combinations of gouache, graphite, and collage.