Q & A WITH THE ARTIST – Friday, July 15, 5:00 – 7:00pm
The 3rd Street Gallery is pleased to announce, Sweet Tooth, the solo show of photographer Neil Marcello whose works continue to explore complex industrial solutions that ultimately become the problems that bear examining.
In Sweet Tooth Neil’s photographs of architectural dioramas, that he designed and hand built, suggest the role industry plays in the production of candy and the use of artificial dyes in the United States. His interest in the candy industry began as a boy consuming readily available sweets such as Nestles, Butterfinger, which just recently eliminated artificial dyes in its manufacturing process for this particular brand of candy.
Neil Marcello, LemonHead, Sweet Tooth Series, 2014-2016
He was surprised to learn that the Mars candy manufacturing company used (and continues to use) natural dyes in their production of candies in Europe, and the United Kingdom, but not in the United States.
He says, “I offer them up as kitsch motifs, similar to the shapes, colors and forms used by candy manufacturers to stimulate and entice the viewer…”.
While viewing these fantasy images, Neil encourages the viewer to reflect on how far we may be willing to go in order to satisfy our cravings. Together with the launch of his latest exhibition, Neil has collaborated with Philadelphia street photographer, Ronald Dean Corbin, on the release of Corbin’s new self-published photographic book, entitled “Photographs My Way” (2016), available on Amazon.
Please contact the artist for prints and commissions
Neil Marcello, Twizzlers, Sweet Tooth Series, 2014-2016
3rd Street Gallery, an artist-run fine arts gallery, opened its first space in 1978 on the corner of 3rd and Bainbridge in South Philadelphia. It has shown numerous artists since its inception and currently hosts fifty member-artists. These multigenerational, award-winning artists hold advanced degrees in the arts and sciences, work in diverse traditional and contemporary media, and have their works included in collections at museums, as well as in corporate and private collections.
Thank you to Neil Marcellofor the content of this post.
“I want to capture the periods when we break down and lose control; when we become what we fear and even what we hate. In these moments when we become completely vulnerable, we close in on ourselves and wish those outside do not see. My intention is to evoke empathy with what I believe is a common struggle.” – Eli Smith
3rd Street Gallery, 45 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106 (215) 625-0993 – Wednesday, March 30 – May 1, 2016, First Friday, April 1, 5-9pm, Artist Reception, Sunday, April 3, 1-4pm
“I am a Philadelphia based artist, mostly working in oil paint, as well as gouache and charcoal. Much of my art is monolithic and epic in form and style, adhering to bold imagery. I want the viewer to be unable to ignore my work, I want it to grab them and not let them go until they have noticed it, even if they cannot fully appreciate it. My desire as a painter stems from my inadequacy as a social colleague.” – Eli Smithartist statement excerpt
Since its inception in 1978, 3rd Street Gallery has been an artist-run cooperative in Philadelphia’s Old City neighborhood. The gallery brings together past and new generations of independent artists, who actively create new work for the gallery’s exhibitions. Splitting their time between their studios and the gallery, our member artists volunteer their efforts on the day-to-day business and logistical operations of the gallery that enables our cooperative to adapt to the ever-changing world of art.
March 30th thru May 1st, 2016, First Friday, April 1st, 5:00 – 9:00 pm, Artist Reception, Sunday April 3, 1:00 – 4:00 pm, Gallery Hours, Wednesday – Sunday, 12:00 – 5:00 pm
2015 – 2016 Traveling Exhibit | USA | CHILE | SPAIN – Sala de Arte, Embassy of Chile, Washington DC / Sala Viña del Mar, Viña del Mar, Chile / Casa Elizalde, Barcelona, Spain / 3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia PA
“My Ancient Land, is related to my recent series of abstract paintings inspired by the music of Chilean classical composers: René Amengual: “Symphonic Prelude”; Eulogio Dávalos, “Cueca for Pablo Neruda” and “Siempre”; Juan Orrego-Salas: “Sextet for B flat clarinet”; Enrique Soro: “Danza Fantástica”; Sylvia Soublette, “Roman Mass”, and Jorge Urrutia: “Suggestions of Chile Op.1”.
Immersed in this music as I painted, I felt it flow through me physically and found myself expressing both the movement of the music and my own emotions in free and spontaneous brush strokes that are musical as well as gestural. The colors I have used suggest -in an abstract way-, my memories of the geography, the forest, the desert, the ocean, and the Chilean sky.
The resultant paintings serve as coded maps, leading the viewer to the Illo Tempore where, over time, our roots spread wider and wider until we are part of a universal root system without cultural, territorial, or continental distinctions. This origin intrigues me, and it spontaneously appears in my work.” – Jacqueline Unanue
The series expresses Ms. Unanue’s visual inspiration of a selection of compositions of an outstanding group of Chilean composers, who represent the “classical musical voice” of Chile in dynamic, vibrant and expressive works of art that have been created using different techniques and mediums but that convey the deep love of the artists’s native land and her understanding of the magic of these compositions.
In the artwork of Jacqueline Unanue strongly emerges a variety of primary lines, as signs of writing, which can be identified as very early graphic symbols: a Greek gamma, one soad or Arabic kaf, or a Chinese idiogramic sign. The strokes are primitive, as a plunge into the primary substrate of the language, as if these vibrant strokes were to bring close the ancestral language through another path. It seems that through these pictorial landscapes Jacqueline tries to connect with an experience of the word beyond its cultural divisions: primordial strokes. As chromatic dots and dashes with which many people of Aboriginal cultures decorate their bodies to connect with the “sacred time” of their ancestors, the root of their myths. These paintings hide from the superficial eye–just used to look for tones and chromatic harmonies–that telluric strength of a creative time, the signs that emerge to become name, magical, incantation. The primordial creative vortex.
When Kandinsky comes to abstraction in the visual arts in 1910, he does it from music because music has always been, by nature, the abstract language. In her works, Jacqueline Unanue establishes a bond from her paintings–her interpretation of the music of great composers is from the motions provoked by a world of sensations; with strokes of great freedom to capture the feeling of extension to the body with this one motion, and not to allow the fusion of these two abstract worlds to be hindered by reason, even for an instant. We could say that Unanue’s works reflect the informal attitude of the action paintings of the 40s and 50s–like Pollock and also about her forms more closely attributed to the Armenian artist Gorky. This attitude is visible in the magnificently collection of her traveling exhibit starting in Washington DC.
Jacqueline Unanue is a Chilean born visual artist of Spanish ancestry residing in Philadelphia PA since year 2000. She studied design at the Universidad de Chile de Valparaíso. At that time she became interested in the rock art done in her native country. She traveled extensively through Chile’s Atacama Desert, doing on-site rock art research in the mountains and cliff areas that contain art that was carved or painted thousands of years ago. She also traveled to Spain to study the pre-historic paintings of the Altamira caves in the Basque Country, which being the home of her paternal ancestors connected her to her roots.
In 1989, she won the Critic’s Award in Visual Arts from the Valparaíso Art Critics Association in Chile. In addition to numerous individual and group exhibitions in Chile since 1983, she has also been exhibited in Spain, Finland, Ecuador, Argentina, and the United States—in galleries in Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York. In 2013 and 2015 she exhibited in Barcelona, Spain. On two occasions she has obtained grants sponsored by DIRAC, the Directorate of Cultural Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile for her exhibits at Guayasamin Foundation, Quito, Ecuador, and at the Inter-American Development Bank, in Washington DC.
In 2015, she received the Latin American Women in Art and Cultural Tribute recognition in New York. She currently lives in Philadelphia with her husband Ricardo Guajardo who is also an artist and designer. She is represented by the 3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia.
– Blog Corporación Cultura Viva, Viña del Mar, Chile: Jacqueline Unanue pinta desde la no conciencia: una abstracta lirica de sentimientos irrefrenables by Daniel Santelices Plaza, Doctor en Historia del Arte Universidad de Navarra, España, May 2015.
– El Mercurio de Valparaíso, Chile, Valparaíso, Chile, Pintora chilena vuelve a sus origenes con “Mi Antigua Tierra”, Arte y Espectáculos, Thursday April 23, 2015
– Impacto Latino, New York, March 2015: Mes Internacional De La Mujer en Nueva York: Homenaje a la Mujer Latinoamericana en las Artes y la Cultura, by Ximena Hidalgo-Ayala,
This collection of drawings represents 66 of 72 clam and mussel species currently listed as endangered. Despite the tenacity of these creatures, long term changes in the health of our waterways have caused massive declines in colony populations. – Sarah Kaizarartist statement
“I work from photographs to ensure accuracy and I do contact the photographers to get their permission to use them. Which, well, they’re endangered species, so they have done a lot of leg work to photograph them. Because they’re so rare and this is a mutual respect. Like, you have to. “
“Since May of last year. I really, honestly, was just trying to make myself active everyday. I found this endangered species list. I don’t normally draw animals, I’m a painter. But this was a block of time I had and I wanted to be active and make myself do something.
So, I’m trying to work through the list. The project kind of emerged by accident because they really started to feel affective when you see them all together. It feels like a family. But I have an interest in Nature, things like foundations to conserve wildlife.”
When you draw on the train, do you draw attention?
“In the beginning I sat in the quiet car so the people wouldn’t talk to me. (Giggles) But I don’t mind people watching, it’s just when people start to have a conversation with me I feel like I need to stop. I feel really rude if I’m like. ‘This is what I really want to be doing right now, please, don’t talk.’ But, people are generally respective, they ask a few questions. You know. It’s really not too bad.
It feels important. When you work with these environmental organizations who do these specific species campaigns and view the scope of the whole problem. It is overwhelming, like, these clams aren’t cool if you only see three of them. When you see all of them they actually start to feel like it swallows you up.”
Sarah Kaizar lives in Richboro, Bucks County and works in Philadelphia as a web producer for WHYY. She holds a BFA from Tyler School of Art (2007), an Associates Degree in Marketing, and a Certificate in Web Design & Multimedia from Bucks County Community College (2009 & 2010). Sarah has been a full member of the 3rd Street Gallery in Old City, Philadelphia since February 2012.
Third Street Galleryis a member artist gallery, usually showing duo or small group show, the current exhibit is Kathleen Shaver, solo show and Rex Sexton, Paper Moon. The irony of a dual exhibit with half the show titled solo is in name only because the art by both artists looks beautiful together in the big gallery in Old City at 58 N. 2nd Street : Philadelphia, PA 19106 : 215. 625. 0993.
Written and photographed by DoN Brewerexcept where noted.
Neil Marcello, Good and Plenty, Sweet Tooth Series, 2014-2016
Neil Marcello, LemonHead, Sweet Tooth Series, 2014-2016
Neil Marcello, Twizzlers, Sweet Tooth Series, 2014-2016
