Category Archives: Philadelphia Abstract Art

Non-representational art in all media including drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, prints, video, on-line, writing, etc.

“Down Stairs” Members Gallery @ The Plastic Club

Member Gallery @ The Plastic Club

Alice Meyer Wallace in the Down Stairs Members Gallery @ The Plastic Club.

Member Gallery @ The Plastic Club

Alice Meyer Wallace, Mina Smith-Segal, the photo is Bonnie Schorske‘s are featured artists in the Members Gallery; the next five member artists to show in the delightful space were drawn from a hat by a small boy with an unusually large head during the awards ceremony for the current Small Worlds exhibition.

Member Gallery @ The Plastic Club

Bonnie Schorske, photographs in the Down Stairs Members Gallery @ The Plastic Club on the Avenue of the Artists.

The Plastic Club hosts the monthly Photographic Society of Philadelphia meetings, art-aholic Salons hosted by the inimitable Anders Hanson (Jody Sweitzer announced a joint Plastic Club/Sketch Club/Avenue of the Artists show @ Off the Wall Gallery in Dirty Frank’s Bar), daily workshops and Bob Jackson makes dinner the last Friday of the month for the starving artists who gather at the club to draw and paint.  The next show is a black and white theme – interesting.

199 “Small Worlds” @ The Plastic Club

Small Worlds @ The Plastic Club

Sibylie Pfaffenbichler, Sailor on Leave, oil.  The artist explained to DoN her inspiration came from the forties and the famous images of sailors returning home.  The painting is so exuberant, vibrant and distinctive it really makes you wonder why we don’t dance in the street when our soldiers make it home.  Pfaffenbichler is chair of The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Annual Flower Show.

Small Worlds @ The Plastic Club

Paul Davis Jones, Enigma, acrylic.

Small Worlds @ The Plastic Club

Gail Morison-Hall, The Burning Bush, mixed media & Elise Arnold, Untitled One, acrylic.  With 199 works of art, Small World @ The Plastic Club would have been even bigger if more artists understood that presentation is half the battle, the exhibitions committee refused several pieces (DoN spotted a few suspect entries who passed muster).

Small Worlds @ The Plastic Club

Nick Brown, Orange Juice Cup & Mug, stone ware.  Brown brings unfired pottery to life study workshops at The Plastic Club and sketches directly onto the clay, often you can hear him scratching grooves into the design to prevent the glaze from spreading when applied.  The resultant objects are like ancient vessels found at an acheological dig – future meets ancient.

Small Worlds @ The Plastic Club

Lee Mamaluy, Popping Blooms, oil, Kathryn Russo, At Ease, mixed media and Jeanne Chesterton, Dots, oil.

Small Worlds @ The Plastic Club

Robert Stauffer‘s photograph, Thorazine Can Kill The Human Spirit, with broken glass in a mirror lined shadow-box frame is like a history of modern art all mushed up like DuChamp meets Warhol meets Ansel Adams.  The broken glass reads like disaster, the desert scene feels like being stranded and the infinite reflections on all sides have secret hidden images to uncover.

Small Worlds @ The Plastic Club

 Alden Cole, Now n Then #3, Mother & Child, wax/clay, 2010 & 1964.

Small Worlds @ The Plastic Club

Bob Makoid, Avian Capers,markers.  Makoid told DoN this drawing is extra special to him because his kids surprised him by having the design made into a stained glass window.

Small Worlds @ The Plastic Club

Michele Jenkins, New Glasses, oil.  DoN LoVeS this painting!  Timeless, super-fun, nostalgic, funny, happy and executed with aplomb.

Small Worlds @ The Plastic Club

Anders Hansen, Earth Goddess, ink/watercolor, Lois Schlachter, Queen of the Night, acrylic and Joseph De Fay, The Cafe’, ink-jet print.

Small Worlds @ The Plastic Club

Lois Schlachter, Balloon Release, acrylic.  DoN appreciates Lois’ combination of real & unreal, abstract & illustrative, signs & significations – cool.

Small Worlds @ The Plastic Club

Alan Clawans, Small Shed, photograph, DoN Brewer, light being (Farrah Fawcett), photograph (it’s not DoNArTNeWs without some DoN news), Sylvia Schreiber, White Flower, acrylic, Susan Wierzbicki, Saim, acrylic and Elise Arnold, Cats, acrylic.  DoN is so pleased to have his entries placed so strategically in the beginning, #3, and the end, #196 – the magic of 3.

Photos by DoNBrewerMultimedia Photography.

“The Best of My 5” – Lilliana Didovic @ Smile

Lilliana Didovic “The Best of My 5″ @ Smile Gallery

Lilliana Didovic LoVeS Philly!  DoN inquired what the Best of 5 means?  The artist explained the hidden, deeper enigma of the number 5 – 16 years ago when her son Gordon was only 5 he had a liver transplant, on the same date 5 years ago (both happened on her birthday, February 23), he had an emergency surgery-open trache in order to be on ventilator and doctors put him in induced coma. Iimagine you must trust the expertise of others to heal the one you love.  Five years ago just that happened to Lilliana, the doctors and hospitals in Philly came through for her family with futuristic expertise, Gordon is in his early twenties now.  A miracle.  While she handed the life of her son over to the doctors, Lilliana returned to painting, a skill she practiced in her former home in Sarajevo-Bosnia.  She and her husband escaped from the war there in the 90s and emigrated to the US with their young son, painting was not a priority but suddenly art returned to her world and helped heal her during the unimaginably stressful process which began five years ago.

Now she paints because she loves it, producing exuberant modernist paintings in a style which is recognizably Lilliana, DoN knows people who collect Didovic’s art cards, frame them and give as gifts – DoN LoVeS steal-able art ideas.

Lilliana Didovic “The Best of My 5″ @ Smile Gallery

Lilliana Didovic @ Smile Gallery on 22nd Street.

Lilliana Didovic “The Best of My 5″ @ Smile Gallery

Red Untitled II, acrylic on canvas, Lilliana Didovic.

5 is fabulous!  Bold color, iconic imagery, glittering sparkles and energetic compositions represent love, hope and power, Lilliana’s art transmits happy peacefulness with a touch of rock n’ roll wildness not moribund hopelessness.  Didovic lives in the moment, her 2010 paintings are heroic in scale, molten color fields in cool blues and hot reds hung in pairs, one wall is covered with a zillion miniature city-scapes with glimmering crystals representing the lights of our great city.  The gallery @ Smile on 22nd St. is a great showcase for Didovic’s five year time trip though love, life and the pursuit of happiness.  Lilliana LoVeS Philly – Back at ya, Girl!

Lilliana Didovic “The Best of My 5″ @ Smile Gallery

Lilliana Didovic @ Smile Gallery.

 

Photography by DoNBrewerMultimedia.

2010 New Members Exhibition @ The Plastic Club

P. J. Smalley, Girl on Toilet

P. J. Smalley, Girl on Toilet, oil/digital print @ The Plastic Club.

Donna P. Collins, Our Love Dissolved

Donna P. Collins, Our Love Dissolved, photograph.

Donna P. Collins, One Way Out

Donna P. Collins, One Way Out, photograph.

Julianna Struck

Julianna Struck, Untitled, oil @ The Plastic Club New Members Exhibition 2010.

Karen Frank, Effervesence

Karen Frank, Effervesence, acrylic.

Serena Perrone, Dreaming of Flying Fish

Serena Perrone, Dreaming of Flying Fish, oil/charcoal/graphite.

Welcome to the 24 new members of the Plastic Club; the current show is super-strong with technical virtuosity, broad variety of styles, big personalities and aspirational contemporary ideas from established and new members of the Philly Art Community.

Bruce Gast – Alien Anthropomorphism @ The Dumpster Divers on South Street

Bruce Gast

Bruce Gast @ The Dumpster Divers Gallery on South Street.

Bruce Gast

Like some alien tribal mask collection, Bruce Gast‘s found object constructions tell the story of an art collector from a galaxy far, far away who loves to capture and mount the heads of his trophies from space safaris.  Each piece has a personality from another dimension, tapping into race memory and cell consciousness like some wacko Venus of Willendorf on a moon of Jupiter.

Bruce Gast

Bruce Gast @ The Dumpster Divers on South Street.