Category Archives: Abstract Expressionism

Pandemic

Kassem Amoudi is a Palestinian Jordanian American artist who came to the US in 1983. He got his MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and now teaches there. The first time I remember seeing one of his paintings was at the Woodmere Art Museum. Like a philosopher Kassem thinks in terms of dualities, pairs of things that complement one another. He told me about one of the greatest of these pairings. – John Thornton, arts videographer

Artists in the Time of Pandemic, Kassem Amoudi

One of the paintings I will show at Cerulean Arts Gallery from the Stripes series. It is a 48×48 Acrylic. The show starts May 5th with social distancing and masks. The opening will be a Virtual tour and talk on Saturday the 8th at 2 pm. You can register for it at the gallery website when they add it. It hasn’t been posted yet because there is another show right now. — Kassem Amoudi

Cerulean Arts Collective, Kassem Amoudi

Cerulean Arts Collective

I will be One of the panelists at this webinar at Woodmere Art Museum May 6th at 7.
Please click the link to register.
Closing Reception (virtual): Group ’55 and Midcentury Abstraction in Philadelphia
Presenters: Bill Valerio, Woodmere Director & CEO; Patricia Stark Feinstein, Curator of the Samuel L. Feinstein Trust; Barbara Wolanin, PhD, Curator of the Group ‘55 exhibition; Kassem Amoudi, Artist
Join Woodmere in celebrating the art and artists of the Group ‘55 exhibition through an online closing reception. The online program will feature a new film on the exhibition, along with a conversation between Bill Valerio; Patricia Stark Feinstein; Barbara Wolanin, PhD; and Kassem Amoudi. Group ‘55 and Midcentury Abstraction in Philadelphia is on view through Sunday, May 9.
This event will be held online via Zoom, and registration is required. Participants will receive event information via email upon registration.
Free | 7pm | Click here to register.
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aCKZqyA-R-WFIqoOgyrUEQ

Kassem Amoudi, Cerulean Arts Collective

Thank you to Kassem Amoudi and John Thornton for the content of this post.

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Solo Exhibit

Linda Dubin Garfield, Patagonia Remembered

Linda Dubin Garfield’s Solo Exhibit Benefits Women International Leadership

In 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic swept the globe, Linda Dubin Garfield cancelled her travel plans and instead spent time reminiscing about her past travels. In a typical year, Garfield travels during the summer months and returns home to create artworks using the impressions left by these landscapes and cultures. Garfield has spent decades creating mixed media collages inspired by her travels to 37 countries on every continent. Instead of traveling this year, she spent her time working on a new body of mixed media work that reflects on the memories associated with her past expeditions.

Footprints: Travel Landscapes is a selection of new work by the artist, curated like a map that touches each of the 7 continents she has visited. The Da Vinci Art Alliance, 704 Catharine Street opening/birthday party is May 13, 5- 8 PM. The exhibit runs until May 30. For appointments visit www.davinciartalliance.org/footprints.There will also be a virtual opening and exhibit at the DVAA website.

Linda Dubin Garfield, Landscape Remembered

In lieu of birthday gits, Linda asks the people make a donation to Women international Leaders at www.will-pa.org whose mission is to
invest in underserved women globally who take the lead in becoming self-sufficient, elevating their families and communities. A percentage of sales will also benefit WIL.

Linda Dubin Garfield’s abstract and dynamic works use multiple layers of ink that waver between background and foreground to create a fusion of surface design and abstract expressionism. Using hand-pulled printmaking techniques, photography, collage and digital imaging, she explores the mystery of memory and the magic of place, inviting viewers to observe the world through her “mind’s eye.”

Linda Dubin Garfield, Namibia Remembered

Linda Dubin Garfield is an award-winning printmaker, the founder of ARTsisters and smART business consulting, and sits on the board of several nonprofits. She also offers memoir art-making workshops at several organizations like Philadelphia Parks and Recreation Centers for Older Adults, Simpson House and Atria Senior Living. Linda Dubin Garfield has hosted charitable birthday celebrations since the untimely death of her dear friend 15 years ago. In lieu of birthday gifts each year, Garfield collects donations for nonprofits that she supports and that match her annual art theme. Some charities are Family Support Services, Locks of Love, Women in Leadership, Breastcancer,org, and the Dementia Society. She has raised over $15,000 for various charities since 2006. ###

Linda Dubin Garfield, Ed.D.
printmaker/mixed media artist/blogger she/her 610.256.6037 cell
www.lindadubingarfield.comwww.artsisters.org– Founder
www.davinciartalliance.org – Board Memberwww.smARTbusinessconsulting.org– Founder
blogs: The ART of Travel – www.lindadubingarfield.blogspot.com
www.toooldtodieyoungblog.wordpress.com

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July

Pygmalion, Roberta Gross, Shapes and Colors of Summer in July, The Plastic Club

Shapes and Colors of Summer in July
ONLINE MONTHLY EXHIBITION AT PLASTIC CLUB

The Plastic Club’s building is closed, but the Club is resuming its regular schedule of monthly shows with an online exhibition devoted to the shapes and colors of Summer.

The Summer show opens Wednesday, July 1. The art can be viewed on the Plastic Club‘s website (www.plasticclub.org) then. There will also be one of the Club’s “Third Sunday” online Salons with discussion about the exhibit on Sunday, July 19, from 1 to 2 PM.

Entries can be realistic or abstract, based on reality or your imagination, or any combination of these approaches.  Any medium is accepted. Physical artwork must be submitted in the form of a photograph or video. A reasonably clear cell phone photo or video should suffice. As always, original digital imagery, photography and video are also welcome.

Due to the building closure, we have devised a simple method to submit your photograph, image or video along with your contact information. For detailed instructions, see the “Call for Submissions” on the Exhibitions Tab of the Club’s website, www.plasticclub.org.

A lottery will select three entrants to win a prize: four free workshop sessions when the Club re-opens.

The Plastic Club, located on historic Camac Street, was founded in 1897 by a group of women artists to promote the arts to the public and support artists both in the Philadelphia community and beyond.

The Plastic Club, 247 South Camac Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19107

Thank you to Bob Moore for the content of this post.

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Everything

Everything Counts, Ana Vizcara Rankin at Kitchen Table Gallery

Ana Vizcara Rankin at Kitchen Table Gallery
World Map (Coffee), Mixed-Media Collage, 2.25 x 3 inches, Ana Vizcara Rankin, 2016

Ana Vizcara Rankin’s Viking Mill Studio, located in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, is filled with her mixed-media maps and new works that will be exhibited in her solo exhibition, “Everything Counts” at Kitchen Table Gallery beginning September 20, 2019. Ana is best known for her large-scale world maps inspired by migration patterns, colonization, and climate change. With Antarctica often oriented at the top and the Arctic Circle positioned at the bottom of the artwork, these maps challenge our notions of reality. 

Ana points out, “It’s really very self-centered of us to think that we can perfectly and logically orient the entire solar system. There is no clear up or down in the universe.” We are now confronted with new information, a previously unseen, nonbinary conceptualization of our existing world view.

Elucidation of the unseen seems to link Ana’s early drawings and paintings to her new work.  Blockchain Bootstrap, a large-scale, mixed-media, unframed canvas cascading from ceiling to floor in Ana’s studio, is one example that will be exhibited in “Everything Counts” at Kitchen Table Gallery.  Blockchain Bootstrap, completed in 2019, measures 196 x 96 inches and was created with metal leaf, tar, acrylic, graphite, and charcoal.  Large, map-like areas of grey tones ranging from white to black are linked through extensive layers of mark making. Drips, lines, splatters, paint strokes, carefully applied metal leaf, and blocks of drawing that resemble a binary language or program code become a materialization of the elusive nanoseconds or hashtags that link together successive commands and blocks of data.  Such links are activated every time you boot up your laptop or digital device. Through careful observation of digital imagery and engagement with the process of drawing or painting, in Blockchain Bootstrap, Ana strives to better understand the split seconds that successively make up our virtual worlds.   

Ana’s attempts to understand complex and split-second phenomena are materializations of occurrences and abstract theories typically hidden from our immediate sight.  Her Dispersion Drawings, including Bubble Chamber 2 and Bubble Chamber 7, are small graphite and gesso drawings on reversed drafting film that are comprised of light dots, lines, and spirals on darker backgrounds.  These delicate works, rendered in grey tones, map out subatomic activity ignited inside bubble chambers, an obsolete technology used to detect electrically charged particles.  The chambers contain liquid heated to a level that allows bubbles to form, and their movements are mapped using a large-format film camera. In keeping with Ana’s interest in deconstructing binary theories, quantum mechanics opposes earlier models that describe subatomic structures solely as particles.  The dispersion drawings serve as a map or materialization of the abstract theory. 

The dispersion drawings extend to astronomical activity only detectable via high-powered telescopes.  Crab Nebula is a 24 x 24 inch gesso and graphite drawing on reversed drafting film mounted on panel. Scattered white marks move forward and backward against a dark background or universe to unveil the ongoing process of a supernova exploding and dispersing into space.  Once again, in her quest to better understand the world through the process of making, Ana draws our attention to that which occurs, but escapes our vision.

As our studio visit came to an end, I asked Ana if she has always been drawn to the unseen. Describing herself as a chatty child, she recounted one particularly talkative day at the age of four when her grandfather suggested, “Ana, why don’t you try to draw silence?” Ana stayed with that drawing for a long time, illustrating the silence her grandfather sought. She smiled and let me know, “My grandfather held on to the drawing and I was able to see it as an adult. I guess I’m still trying to draw silence.”

Ana’s mixed-media paintings and drawings will be on exhibit in “Everything Counts” at Kitchen Table Gallery September 20 to October 6th, 2019.  You’re invited to the Opening Reception Friday, September 20, 2019, 6:00 to 9:00 pm.

Ana Vizcara Rankin at Kitchen Table Gallery
Crab Nebula (dispersion diagram), gesso and graphite on drafting film, reversed, mounted on panel, 24×24 inches, 2019


Ana Vizcara Rankin is an Uruguayan American artist based in Philadelphia. She holds an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and a BA in art history from Temple University. Her work has been exhibited internationally and throughout the United States, including at The Brandywine River Museum of Art and the Embassy of Uruguay in Washington DC. Ana is the recipient of numerous awards including the Judy McGregor Caldwell Purchase Prize, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Essie Baron Memorial Award, Temple University, the Billikopf Award, Temple University, the Gundersheimer Merit Award, Temple University, and 1st Prize Sister Cities International, Stillwater, OK. Her work is held in international public, corporate, and private collections. You can learn more about Ana and her art at avrankin.com.

Thank you to Paula Cahill for the content of this post.

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2019

2019 AUTUMN INVITATIONAL, Off the Wall Gallery at Dirty Frank’s

2019 Annual Autumn Invitational at Off the Wall Gallery at Dirty Frank’s

The annual AUTUMN INVITATIONAL, which officially opens THIS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 7-10 PM, is one of our favorite shows. For good reason.

By showcasing the artists who have achieved notable success over the past year, measured by sales and jury awards, it welcomes back artists who are truly fan favorites. And with this year’s edition in particular, it gives us a more in-depth look at the work of three exceptional artists:

* This marks the fourth time CAROL TASHJIAN has shown her work in our space. Across different media and subject matters, a common thread has emerged: a disciplined approach to her craft, which strips away the extraneous in favor of essence. When Carol has shown one or two works, viewers sometimes have to seek out the quiet refuge of her art. This time, with 19 works, we are happily immersed in her approach, with the litho crayon rubbings of trees on the right side of the Wall practically creating a meditative arboretum of sorts (to the extent that’s possible at Dirty Frank’s!).

* For WILD TYPE, aka, ORI ROE, the Invitational marks a third turn at OFF THE WALL and this time is indeed the charm, with 13 works that, as with Carol, finally create a critical mass and enable us to enter her unique worlds at the intersection of science and art. Wild Type takes her nom d’artiste from a wild-type strain — there are ori sequences in the mitochondrial DNA of such a mutated strain; similarly, Wild Type’s art-making practice applies fundamentals of organic chemistry to create “worlds with X, Y and Z coordinate space,” and to begin answering such deep questions as “What does it mean to exist in space?”

* As we count down, RUSTY EVELAND is returning for just the second time, after a tour de force debut in BREAKTHROUGHS FOR SHEILA. His art runs a wide gamut. Across eight pieces, spanning figure studies, an animated short projected in our 3D space, and mixed-media and found-object assemblages, Rusty never aspires to Carol’s introspection or Wild Type’s exploration but rather embraces an energy and enthusiasm that naturally draws audiences into his work.

* And it’s worth noting that while this show’s headliner is usually the winner of the Mary-Rowe Memorial Jury Prize, last year’s honoree, LINDSEY WAVREK, will next be on the Wall this coming March and April as a MARY LIZ FELLOW, the highest honor we bestow on any artist in our community.

We look forward to seeing you THURSDAY EVENING, and for those of you who would like to transcend mere attendance and become a PARTICIPATING ARTIST at our next Opening Reception, on November 17, please make sure to pick up an entry form for UNDER $100, our upcoming JURIED EXHIBITION.

We are accepting entries for the show — which invites any and all media and subject matters, priced at $95 or less — now through October 17. Take the top prize and you’ll not only be in that show; per the above note about Lindsey Wavrek, you’ll automatically be part of the 2020 AUTUMN INVITATIONAL!

UNDER 100 Entry Guidelines Poster, OTWGallery, September 2019
15th Annual Juried Exhibition, Off the Wall Gallery at Dirty Frank’s

Thank you to Togo Travalia, Manager, OFF THE WALL GALLERY at Dirty Frank’s for the content of this post. (He’s a really good writer!)

NE Corner, 13th & Pine Streets, Philadelphia, PA, 19107

offthewallgallery@gmail.com

facebook.com/OTWDirtyFranks

@OTWDirtyFranks

(215) 732-5010 (bar)(484) 357-6440 (cell)

Celebrating 40 years of revolutionary art

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