Monthly Archives: August 2015

Edgeless

The Edgeless Divide by Sun Young Kang

The Edgeless Divide by Sun Young Kang, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA.

“Nearly every facet of life that we understand is dependent on our visual perception of the world, predisposing us to only see the “present.” But it is not difficult to perceive that our world is composed of two antithetical ideas: presence and absence, life and death. These ideas can be understood in the Buddhist philosophy of “Emptiness”—every existence, every single moment that has ever existed, can only be conceived as either past or future. The abstract nature of this concept is often difficult to grasp, but my work is an attempt to secularize this fundamental idea. 

Negative space in various structures of books or installations is the essential part of my work. The empty space suggests to readers or viewers a meditative moment. In this moment, the negative space provides an opportunity to reflect on one’s self and the meaning of Emptiness in our lives. I cut out pages, burn out texts, hang prints in space or cast various containers to create a physical and metaphorical Emptiness. The important parts of the structures are absent. The absence becomes a presence in the visual objects. 

Most recently I have created installations consisting of many tiny tubes that question the boundary of all antithetical ideas. Boundaries can be physical and visual, but also language, religion, culture, politics, indeed all human relationships and social creations involve boundaries. Whether a boundary is physical or not, it does not just divide one entity from another, it implies another side or space or existence. Light and shadow and the delicacy yet strength of thin paper are metaphors for the inseparability of life and death. They are also installation devices creating two conceptual spaces.

Through the irony of my working process, which is visualizing non-visuals, I try to question this non-describable concept—the continual parallels of presence and absence, their inseparability. I also would like the audience to think about the meaning of absence in their lives as part of nature, through their own interpretation of “Emptiness.”

Sun Young Kangsunyoungkang.com

The Edgeless Divide by Sun Young Kang, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA.

HOURS & ADMISSION: Monday, closed, Tuesday through Saturday 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Sunday 12:00 – 5:00 PM

Adult Admission: $8, Military, Seniors (65+), & Educator Discount: $5, Children under 12: FREE

1401 North 3RD Street, Harrisburg, PA 17102, (717) 233-8668

Thanks to Sun Young Kang for the content of this post.

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allTURNatives

allTURNatives: Form + Spirit 2015, The 2015 Windgate ITE International Residency Exhibition at The Center for Art in Wood, John Thornton Films

“The 2015 Windgate ITE International Residency Exhibition at The Center for Art in Wood. For 20 years Philadelphia’s Center for Art in Wood has hosted the Windgate ITE International Residency Program. This year, five artists, a scholar, and a photojournalist were brought to Philadelphia and given the opportunity and freedom to develop their work, explore new ideas, and learn from one another. I met this year’s extraordinary group at their exhibition which is called “allTURNatives: Form + Spirit 2015.” – John Thornton Films

“Celebrating The Center for Art in Woods 20th year hosting the Windgate ITE International Residency Program, the resident fellows worked together for two months in Philadelphia to collaborate and focus on new directions in their work, which culminates in the allTURNatives: Form + Spirit 2015 exhibition in the Center’s Gerry Lenfest Gallery. This multidisciplinary exhibition will reflect each resident fellow’s experience including objects produced before and during the residency. Three dimensional work will be accompanied by photos, video, and other documentation depicting the summer experience. Follow the Windgate ITE blog at https://internationalturningexchange.wordpress.com/2015/

THE 2015 WINDGATE ITE RESIDENT FELLOWS ARE:
Julia Harrison, Artist (WA, USA); Rex Kalehoff, Artist (NY, USA); Zina Manesa-Burloiu, Artist (Romania); Adrien Segal, Artist (CA, USA); Grant Vaughan, Artist (NSW, Australia); Seth C. Bruggeman, Scholar (PA, USA); Winifred Helton-Harmon, Photojournalist (PA, USA).” – The Center for Art in Wood

allTURNatives: Form + Spirit 2015, The 2015 Windgate ITE International Residency Exhibition at The Center for Art in Wood through September 26th, 2015

Hours / Location

Visit The Center for Art in WoodThe Center for Art in Wood
141 N. 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106

Phone: (215) 923-8000
Fax: (215) 923-4403

Hours of Operation
The Center for Art in Wood is open 10:00 am. – 5:00 pm. Tuesday through Saturday. Closed on Sunday & Monday.

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Studio

Bruce Garrity, Studio VisitBruce Garrity, Studio Visit, Rutgers-Camden, Recent Work, detail of large painting, photograph by Jeff Stroud

Bruce Garrity, Studio Visit, Rutgers-Camden, Recent Work

“I am really into architectonic, geometric abstract art like Sangram Mujamdar. He’s a really good painter, he’s Indian, American, teaches at MICA, you would probably like his work. I don’t know that I’m influenced by him but he’s somebody who is a contemporary, and I think my work somehow relates to his and what he’s doing. it’s also that they are representational that I like about them. There’s a few people around like that, Gideon Bok in Boston, they are more about perception.”

bruce5Bruce Garrity, Studio Visit, Rutgers-Camden, Recent Work, photograph by Jeff Stroud

The studio on the Rutgers campus has high ceilings, big widows, rolling lockers and space to paint big. Bruce Garrity‘s paintings are big, really big. So big that when he show’s them he has to rent a moving van. But the flexible space isn’t crowded and I didn’t notice any paint smell so I guessed the vivid paintings were acrylic.

“No, these are all oil paintings. We don’t use very much turpentine and usually what you smell is turpentine, I don’t use it very much. There are some passages that are sort of washy, but they were painted a while ago. I don’t use a lot of medium, I use a little bit of this alkyd because I need them to dry. But normally, I don’t even put any of that into it, it’s the oil paint, it’s thick, but it’s just the paint.”

I like using Liquin, but it smells. It’s good for outdoors but my studio smells like fumes.

“I just use a little and then the smell goes away after a day or two. In here it’s gotten to the point where we don’t use that much. My students have one can that they all wash their brushes in and that’s about it. We go though maybe a quart of turpentine per semester.”

I’ve been using Gamsol to clean my brushes.

“Some people say that’s a problem because you just don’t smell it, there’s still fumes in the air. There’s a school of thought that it’s better if it smells a little bit because then you’re aware of it in the air. We use a little of it so there’s not a lot of it in the air.”

bruce4Bruce Garrity, Studio Visit, Rutgers-Camden, Recent Work, photograph by Jeff Stroud

Bruce, you’re canvasses are huge, I struggle with just small ones.

“You know, it’s the scale. The scale that I’m comfortable with is essentially life-size at the picture plane. So, if I make a figure, the whole figure is six feet tall. So, it really has to do with the scale more than anything else. I like big paintings, too. But they’re a pain in the ass. You have to have to right space for them. But, you know, it’s how I like to paint. It is what it is.

That big one out there, the one that’s in the other room. That was a completely different painting in 1995. I showed it down here in the Stedman Gallery and it had a big dinosaur, and a jeep, and a bunch of other things. It was sort of like a museum/circus vibe, I was big into that back in the 90s. I kept it, because obviously no one was going to buy it. So at one point I just white-washed the whole thing.

Towards the end of the time that I was in graduate school that’s when I started to paint landscapes. I painted pretty heavily because I was in graduate school and I started do this waterfall bit that is kind of like what I would see up in the Poconos when we went on vacation. And then I started putting these figures in, kind of like Cezanne’s Large Bathers, it’s kind of like the Large Bathers of the Poconos.”

bruce3Bruce Garrity, Studio Visit, Rutgers-Camden, Recent Work, photograph by Jeff Stroud

Do you have people model for you?

“Some of them are. Either from models who were here. some are taken from drawings, photographs, a bunch of different stuff. Some are the top half might be one person and the bottom half might be someone else. They’re kind of Frankenstein-ed together, I don’t know that I would normally do that, but, that is basically how Cezanne did his. For a guy who was basically known as a perceptual painter, always painting what was in front of him, all the Bathers paintings, he made tons of them, were all from out of his head or old sketches. I think he even did some of them out of fashion magazines that his sister had. So, he was imagining girls with their clothes off, I guess.

Apparently, he was like nervous around models. It wasn’t like he never had nude models, but they made him nervous-er. I always thought that was really interesting, and everybody I always talks about the stuff that he did, looking at it perceptually, but going forward, the Cubists looked at those paintings and that’s where they got permission to do what they did. It was like, ‘He can do it. Why can’t we?'”

bruce2Bruce Garrity, Studio Visit, Rutgers-Camden, Recent Work, photograph by Jeff Stroud

Will you be showing this at your show at 3rd Street Gallery?

“Oh, yeah. It will probably be about twenty paintings. There are seven or eight big things, and a bunch of little things. We will be showing in the annex as well and there are some spots the smaller pieces will look well. I’m showing with Katherine Kurtz, she does some abstract things, some are more figurative. I would say she’s mainly an abstract painter but here she’s showing more figurative, DeKooning-ish, kind of figurative things.

The pairings at 3rd Street Gallery are kind of random, but sometimes you get these connections that are interesting. I’m looking forward to it, I like Katherine a lot. I like her work. And my work doesn’t always play well with others, they’re overwhelming and colorful and big. But I think our things are going to look good together.”

bruce6Bruce Garrity, Studio Visit, Rutgers-Camden, Recent Work, photograph by Jeff Stroud

Recent Work Bruce Garrity

September 2 – September 27, 2015

FIRST FRIDAY: September 4, 2015, 5:00 – 9:00 pm

ARTIST RECEPTION: Sunday, September 13, 2015,1:00 – 4:00 pm

Bruce Garritys poetic figurative paintings utilize a broad vocabulary of painterly means in the pursuit of visual drama. The surfaces of the works range from light washes, direct drawing, scumbles and layerings to heavy impastos of the mostly saturated color palette. Garrity draws on various methods of construction, to bring the works to fruition: direct perception, memory, invention and combinations of these. The paintings, some as large as eight by ten feet, depict figures and objects life size at the picture plane so one feels they can be entered and engaged directly. They are autobiographical of interests over a long period of time.”

The artist will present a walk through gallery talk on Sunday, September 20th beginning at 2pm.” 3rd Street Gallery

Written by DoN Brewer except where noted.

Photographed by Jeff Stroud

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Orphan Rug

Armenian Orphan Rug Mural by Kathryn PannepackerArmenian Orphan Rug Mural at Zakian Carpet Cleaning by Kathryn Pannepacker

Armenian Orphan Rug Mural at Zakian Carpet Cleaning by Kathryn Pannepacker

August 7th, a beautiful sunny Summer Day, there was a big party at 4930 Parkside Avenue. Rows of chairs were lined up on the carpeted sidewalk in front of Zakian Carpet Cleaning. The Philly press, politicians, artists, neighbors and friends all gathered for an unveiling of an important artwork. The story of the Armenian Orphan Rug is difficult to explain without tears coming to my eyes since it was woven by hundreds of orphaned children; the Armenian Orphan Rug Mural memorializes the genocide of over one million Armenians a century ago.

Zakian Carpet Cleaning owner Bob Zakian hired Kathryn Pannepacker to create a mural for a large expanse of wall on the front of the historic factory. Kathryn is well known for her carpet themed murals throughout Philly and understands how to make large scale projects happen. Philadelphia mural artists Kathryn Pannepacker and Angela Crafton along with apprentice Lizzy Mamourian interpreted the carpet in a bold, eye catching, design complementing the architecture and telling the tragic tale of Armenian annihilation with confidence and sensitivity. Lizzy had never worked on such a big project and as a representative of the Zakian family, her input to the completion of the mural can not be understated.

“Not many businesses have been around since 1923 much less still run by the same family. Each day when Bob Zakian arrives at his rug cleaning plant and showroom on Parkside Avenue, across from the Mann Music Center, he is reminded how his grandfather and then his father took extreme care in cleaning their customers’ valuable Oriental rugs.” – About Zakian Carpet Cleaning

Armenian Orphan Rug Mural by Kathryn PannepackerArmenian Orphan Rug Mural at Zakian Carpet Cleaning by Kathryn Pannepacker

“The rug is made to characterize the Garden of Eden, contains 4 million knots and took 18 months to complete.  The rug measures 11.5 feet by 19 feet and is in excellent condition. It was removed with President Coolidge’s personal possessions when he left office in 1929 but was returned to the White House as a gift from his family in 1982. The rug has only been displayed twice since then, and is a reminder of the close relationship between the people of Armenia and the United States.” – The White House

At the mural unveiling I overheard comments from Armenians whose families were affected by the genocide. Families reconnected with cousins of cousins, and friends of friends. The mural is a metaphor for the awful separation of families, children were sent to orphanages all over Europe, and a hundred years later Armenians are still reconnecting with relatives.

Armenian Orphan Rug Mural by Kathryn PannepackerArmenian Orphan Rug Mural at Zakian Carpet Cleaning by Kathryn Pannepacker

The Armenian Orphan Rug, also known as the Ghazir Orphans’ Rug, is an Armenian styled carpet woven by orphans of the Armenian Genocide in Ghazir, Lebanon. The carpet took eighteen months to make and was eventually shipped to the United States where it was given to President Calvin Coolidge as a gift in 1925. It was returned by the Coolidge family to the White House in 1982. Its most recent public display was in November 2014 at the White House Visitors’ Center as part of the exhibition “Thank you to the United States: Three Gifts to Presidents in Gratitude for American Generosity Abroad”. – Wikipedia

Armenian Orphan Rug Mural by Kathryn Pannepacker

“Third generation Philadelphia business owner Bob Zakian’s rug cleaning business has been a cornerstone of the Parkside neighborhood of the city for more than 92 years. Zakian’s grandparents opened Zakian Rug Cleaning in 1923 shortly after emigrating from Armenia and surviving the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

In honor of the100th anniversary of the genocide, Bob Zakian knew he wanted to pay tribute to his family’s heritage as well as give back to Parkside, the neighborhood his business has always called home.” – Kathryn Pannepacker

Armenian Orphan Rug Mural by Kathryn PannepackerArmenian Orphan Rug Mural at Zakian Carpet Cleaning by Kathryn PannepackerArmenian Orphan Rug Mural by Kathryn PannepackerArmenian Orphan Rug Mural at Zakian Carpet Cleaning by Kathryn Pannepacker

Bob Zakian, Representative Vanessa Lowery Brown, Lizzy Mamourian, Kathryn Pannepacker, State Senator Vincent Hughes, and Angela Crafton at the unveiling of Armenian Orphan Rug Mural at Zakian Carpet Cleaning by Kathryn Pannepacker.

Read Mural honors Armenian heritage, Parkside neighborhood, by The Philadelphia Tribune staff writer Bobbie Booker.

“In honor of the 100th anniversary of the genocide, Zakian knew he wanted to share his history in the neighborhood his business has always called home.” – Bobbi Brooker

Armenian Orphan Rug Mural by Kathryn PannepackerArmenian Orphan Rug Mural at Zakian Carpet Cleaning by Kathryn Pannepacker

When you drive down Parkside Avenue and you catch a glimpse of the colorful mural take some time to stop and take a closer look. The design incorporates fanciful animals, natural and supernatural, like characters from a child’s favorite book. One of my earliest memories is my Grandma reading to me. Armenian Orphan Rug Mural at Zakian Carpet Cleaning kindly explains the unfathomable gap of maternal and familial love that was experienced by generations of Armenians.

Written and photographed by DoN Brewer except where noted.

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Party

Paint Party, Dahlak Paradise, Nile Livingston

Paint Party, Dahlak Paradise Ethiopian Restaurant & Bar, Nile Livingston

Paint Party in the rear patio of Dahlak Paradise Ethiopian Restaurant & Bar 4708 Baltimore Ave. Philadelphia, PA 19143

Wednesday, August 12th from 6:00pm – 8:00pm. Hosted by Nile Livingston!

Sign-up includes happy hour drink specials, 20% off your meal, acrylic paints, step by step instructions from two professional artists, and a 12″ canvas for you to take home. If it rains we’ll host the party inside. There are a limited number to table easels available. Please RSVP early and arrive time. Purchase tickets at: http://nilelivingston.com/dahlakpaintparty

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