Jessica Barber, Bonifacio, monotype/oil pastels @ Gallery Twenty-Two’s Making An Impression show featuring prints by Jessica Barber & Alison Altergott.  Prints is a bit of a misnomer in this show, both artists use printing as part of their process but expand the barriers into writing, drawing, collage and painting.  DoN LoVeS this print which looks very much like a Star Trek Ferengi.

DoN asked Jessica if she created this piece in Madrid because it feels so immediate and plein air, as if she set up her plates & inks right there in the cafe.  Actually the artist worked from a photo she took while on a trip to Alice’s annual painting retreat in Majorca with friends from the Plastic Club.  Jessica said club president, Bob Jackson allowed her to work late at night in the wonderful print shop “down stairs”, allowing her to create these rich, saturated images which she had framed at Liberty Art & Framing with non-glare glass.  Immediacy, tension and vitality exude from the paper with a fresh, active style only the rigorous lithograph process produces.

Jessica Barber explained to DoN she uses a new non-toxic form lithographic process using plastic sheets which the artist applies different resists for the ink, Jessica used non-conventional mark-making tools to develop her images including Sharpies, she said, “ink loves the donor”.

Jessica Barber @ the opening of her collaborative show @ Gallery Twenty-Two.  Second Friday for people in cars was frustratingly frantic, west Center City traffic was snarled because of the snow and the South Street bridge being out but DoN walked, easily strolling past cars with “Bad Romance” blasting in his iPod; Jessica was stuck on a bus trying to get to her own opening, arriving safely – fashionably late!

Alison Altergott @ Twenty-Two Gallery.  DoN asked about the girls in Alison’s prints, old dress patterns from the 50s & 20s because of the resonance of the strong feminine ideal of the home-maker.  DoN thought a feminist home-maker is a contradiction in terms but Alison defended the mystique as a commentary on what we’ve lost compared to the way families live now.  Alison Altergott combines handwriting, collage, paint and printing to develop these densely signified images about the ideals of growing up.

Alison Altergott, Heartstrings, 1 of 2 prints @ Gallery Twenty-Two.

 

Photos by DoNBrewerMultimedia Photography.