Monthly Archives: May 2018

Continent

French artist in Philadelphia presents career retrospective with artwork made in Asia, Africa, Europe, and America.

From One Continent to Another: 20 years of Printmaking, A solo exhibition & career retrospective by French artist Agathe Bouton

Curated by Amie Potsic

June 1 – July 1, 2018

OPENING RECEPTION & ARTIST TALK: First Friday, June 1, 5:00 – 9:00 PM, Artist Talk begins at 7:00 PM

CLOSING RECEPTION & ARTIST TALK: Sunday, July 1, 3:00 – 5:00 PM, Artist Talk begins at 4:00 PM

LOCATION: 3^rd Street Gallery, 45 N. 2nd Street, Old City, Philadelphia, 19106

Wednesday – Sunday, 12:00 – 5:00 PM and by appointment

http://www.3rdstreetgallery.com/

Admission is free.

Agathe Bouton, Indigo XXXI Diptych, Woodcut and monotype onto handmade Shan paper, fabric and metal plate mounted on wood panel, 14″ x 30″, 1 panel, 2012

Philadelphia, PA – 3^rd Street Gallery, located at 42 N. 2^nd Street, Philadelphia, presents From One Continent to Another, a solo exhibition and career retrospective by French artist Agathe Bouton. The exhibition presents twenty years of printmaking works created in Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. Curated by Amie Potsic, CEO and Principal Curator of Amie Potsic Art Advisory, LLC, the show begins on June 1 and runs through July 1. The opening reception will be on First Friday, June 1 from 5:00 – 9:00 PM with an artist talk beginning at 7:00 PM. The closing reception will be on Sunday, July 1 from 3:00 – 5:00 PM with an artist talk beginning at 4:00 PM. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM and by appointment.

Agathe Bouton, Warehouse I, Monotype and collage, 20″ x 28″, 2017

From One Continent to Another, a solo exhibition and career retrospective by French artist Agathe Bouton, celebrates the artist’s boundary-pushing printmaking and paper works created across the globe over the last 20 years. Bouton will exhibit her unique engravings and etchings as well as installations, paper clothing, collages, and artist books. Having lived and created her work internationally in the United Kingdom, France, Myanmar, the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Turkey, and the United States, Bouton’s work poetically reveals a consistent artistic vision enhanced, stretched, and strengthened by international experiences and perspectives. Continually inspired by the landscape, both urban and natural, as well as the culture in each region, she creates an imprint of time, traces of erosion, and recollections of a disappearing world by inscribing atmosphere, color, and texture in her prints.

“My work is inspired and fed by all the experiences and cultures I have discovered during my travels. Each time I had to reinterpret myself with my art and find new techniques and inspiration, which was challenging but so worthwhile,” says Bouton. Discussing how her work has changed since moving to Philadelphia, she explains, “I have been inspired by the urbanism I see around me. My latest series of work was inspired by architecture, including abandoned warehouses. This series focuses on the details of these grand facades, with their patchwork of broken windows. I’m drawn to the intrinsic beauty of these buildings, archiving the color palette into an evocation of the original inspiration.” – Agathe Bouton

Agathe Bouton is a French artist living and working in the Philadelphia area whose boundary-pushing printmaking and paper works exhibit influence from living and working in exotic, international locations. Bouton earned her BFA in Painting and Printmaking and her MFA in Arts and Textile Design from the prestigious ESSAA Duperré in Paris, France. Since leaving Paris 13 years ago, Bouton has lived and exhibited her work internationally in Paris (France), London (UK), Philadelphia (USA), Rangoon (Burma/Myanmar), Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Dakar (Senegal) and Istanbul (Turkey). She has presented solo exhibitions at the Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain in Dakar, Senegal; Rathaus House in Waldbrol, Germany; Centre d’Arts Plastiques Albert Chanot in Clamart, France; Bundaberg Art Centre in Bundaberg, Australia; Galerie Od’A in Istanbul, Turkey; River Gallery in Yangon, Burma/Myanmar; and the Bettie Morton Gallery in London, UK.

Bouton has received numerous awards in France and the United States for her accomplished printmaking including the Pierre Laurent First Prize in 2007 in Albi, France; being named a finalist in the Prix GRAV’X in 1999, 2003, 2004, and 2005 in Paris; and being selected as a semifinalist in the 91^st and 92^nd Annual International Competitions of The Print Center in Philadelphia. Her work is in the collections of French institutions including: the Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes; L’Inventaire, Artothèque du Nord Pas de Calais; and the Musée Français de la carte à jouer. Since moving to Philadelphia, she has exhibited at Inliquid, the Center for Emerging Visual Artists, Main Line Art Center, and NoBa Art Space, with a forthcoming exhibition at the Brandywine Workshop.

Agathe Bouton

Amie Potsic, MFA is the CEO & Principal Curator of Amie Potsic Art Advisory LLC, Chair of the Art In City Hall Artistic Advisory Board to the Office of Arts and Culture of the City of Philadelphia, as well as an established photographer and installation artist. Potsic has extensive experience curating exhibitions and installations for museums, galleries, art organizations, and public spaces. She received her MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and BA’s in Photojournalism and English Literature from Indiana University. She also studied at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC.

Potsic has held faculty appointments at the University of California at Berkeley, Ohlone College, and the San Francisco Art Institute and been a guest lecturer at the International Center of Photography, the University of the Arts, Tyler School of Art, and the Delaware Contemporary. Professional appointments have included Director of Gallery 339, Curator and Director of the Career Development Program at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA), and most recently Executive Director and Chief Curator of Main Line Art Center. Curatorial projects have included exhibitions for the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, the Office of Arts and Culture of the City of Philadelphia, Philagrafika, Moore College of Art & Design, Main Line Art Center, Maryland Art Place, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

3^rd Street Gallery, located in Old City Philadelphia, actively seeks to foster new and unique relationships between its artists and the public. It achieves this through the city-wide First Friday event, Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, and by annually hosting open-invitations to its varied community-based exhibitions. The foremost commitment of 3rd Street Gallery is to extend an awareness of and appreciation for fine art by engaging the public with insightful and challenging creative works in various mediums, genres and styles. Agathe Bouton is a Full Member of 3^rd Street Gallery.

One Continent to Another will be on view June 1 through July 1. The opening reception will be on First Friday, June 1 from 5:00 – 9:00 PM with an Artist Talk beginning at 7:00 PM. The closing reception will be on Sunday, July 1from 3:00 – 5:00 PM with an artist talk beginning at 4:00 PM. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday from12:00 PM – 5:00 PM and by appointment. Admission is free.

For more information, please contact Amie Potsic at amie@amiepotsicartadvisory.com or 610-731-6312.

Thank you to Amie Potsic for the content of this post.

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Unintended

Unintended Consequences
An Interview with Brooke Lanier by Paula Cahill

Unintended Consequences, May 5 through June 5, 2018

Opening Reception, Saturday, May 5, Noon to 3:00pm

Artist Talk, Tuesday, May 15, 6pm, Brooke Lanier Fine Art, 201 South Camac Street, 4th Floor, Philadelphia, PA

PC: I’m excited to see your upcoming exhibition, Unintended Consequences. Can you explain
how the images in Unintended Consequences relate to the landscape historically?

BL: I see these paintings and photographs as part of a larger art historical lineage that began in
the mid-1800’s and is still very relevant today. For instance, the Impressionists made paintings
that are now seen as merely pretty, colorful, and imbued with beautiful light, but if you look at
their subtext, the diffused light and color were caused by extreme air pollution from the
industrial revolution. Likewise, the landscapes in the show are quite beautiful and serene on the
surface, but they depict the continuing aftermath of industrialization and human impact on the
environment.

PC: How are the artists addressing climate change in Unintended Consequences?

BL: Jennifer Manzella’s prints of abandoned industrial building facades along the Delaware and Hudson Rivers are the first images viewers see when they walk into the show. They imply the environmental impact of industrialization. Diane Burko’s photographs from the Arctic Svalbard as well as Greenland’s Ilulissat Glacier and Ekaterina Popova’s watercolors of Skagaströnd, Iceland depict melting ice caps in the polar regions. Moving south, Geoffrey Agrons‘ photographs and my own watercolors depict shorelines destroyed by hurricanes and tropical storms. These are increasingly impactful, intersecting phenomena for densely populated coastal areas that are being developed at the same time that melting polar ice is causing sea levels to rise.

PC: How has climate change impacted your own work?

BL: I was making theoretical and abstract work until this past January when I visited my
grandmother in south Georgia. I had the opportunity to explore the coastline and marshes from southern Georgia to Jacksonville, Florida. Exploring eroded dunes in terrifyingly disorienting fog and tromping as close to the edge of the salt marshes as I could get without sinking in, I witnessed the destruction, change, and extreme erosion that hurricanes and tropical storms have wreaked onto the landscape during recent years.

I began to focus on the environmental impact of these events and the interaction between human destruction of the wetlands and the development of desirable beachfront communities. To accommodate mass development of coastlines, flood plains and wetland areas were paved over, decimating an important source of natural flood control. An ever increasing coastal population means that the impact of the storms on humans is much greater since so many people lose their homes and businesses. After seeing the immense impact of the hurricanes, I came back to Philadelphia and completely changed what I was making.

PC: It sounds like you had a deeply moving response to this experience and that your work
became more personal as well as more focused on social and environmental change.

BL: Yes.

PC: What would you like people to take away from Unintended Consequences?

BL: These images deal with the beauty in the details, but they evoke the sublime: a feeling of
being very small in the face of something very immense and powerful like a storm, the climate,
or how tiny one is compared to a glacier. I hope the viewers will think about their place in the
universe.

*For more information: Brooke Lanier Fine Art or brooke.lanier@gmail.com

Unintended Consequences https://www.facebook.com/events/1480508215410781/

Landscapes are a physical history of events that shaped them. In this exhibition, Geoffrey Agrons, Diane Burko, Brooke Lanier, Jennifer Manzella, and Ekaterina Popova raise questions about what events transpired that shape our current environment. The poetically unpopulated vistas in this exhibition subtly imply the lingering unintentional effects that humans have had on our planet in the wake of industrialization. Rather than being overly clinical or didactic, these images function as personal experiences of global phenomena.

Jennifer Manzella’s prints depict deserted urban landscapes, including vacant lots and derelict industrial buildings along the Hudson and Delaware Rivers. These structures, geometrically simplified silhouettes, have been forgotten in the wake of the decline of the American manufacturing industry. The empty spaces in her compositions are equally important as the vacant buildings.

Similarly, Geoffrey Agrons’ photographs feature mysterious structures such as the bones of piers along coastlines devastated by hurricanes. In much architecture there is an implicit assumption that we have dominion over our surroundings, but nature is unconquerable. Agrons has said that he only points his lens at something that breaks his heart, and indeed, there is a sense of melancholy and being lost in a vast space, trying to make sense of the aftermath.

The coastal areas in Brooke Lanier’s watercolors have been hit by multiple hurricanes in the past two years. Destruction of wetland wildlife habitats for real estate development exacerbates recurrent flooding. As warming oceans and melting glacial ice raise water levels, flooding from tropical storms has an increasingly devastating impact on highly populated coastal areas. Property highly sought after by vacationers and retirees is vulnerable to extreme weather. Carefully landscaped beaches are reshaped by storms and strewn with rubble.

Diane Burko’s photographs give a face to statistics, documenting of the regression of glacial ice. Burko accompanied climatologists to the Arctic Svalbard as well as Greenland’s Ilulissat Glacier to document the shrinking of polar ice over time. Her work contains an inquisitive quality that is also present Ekaterina Popova’s watercolors of Skagaströnd, Iceland. These images serve as visual proof, used for sharing a story once their creators return home.

The show is open to the public Tuesday through Friday 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and by appointment. A brunch opening will be held on May 5th from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. Join us for coffee, muffins, and conversation with the artists.

Thank you to Paula Cahill for the interview with Brooke Lanier. Extra content copied from the facebook event page.