Category Archives: Art Spaces Philadelphia

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Feast Your Eyes

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Alexandra Orgera, Sardines, digital photography, $75.00, multiple framed prints available, Feast Your Eyes, Off the Wall Gallery

Feast Your Eyes at Off the Wall Gallery is a visual smorgasbord, a mind melt sandwich, a banquet of tarts, sweets and delights, some are tasty and some are nasty. The 8th Annual Community Arts Show theme was suggested by surrealist/photographer William Myers which was the recipe for a choice menu of art. The show is free to enter but the competition for space is tough. The Off the Wall Gallery team gathers a jury of art experts to curate the show, treats them to an evening of wine and hors d’oeuvres and enough art submissions to feed the head until it explodes. Read about DoN‘s experience as a past juror here.

Off the Wall Gallery is located in Dirty Frank’s Bar at 13th and Pine Streets and is a hang-out for artists of every kind: college kids from the surrounding art schools, art club denizens from Philly’s allies, world famous painters and absolute beginners side by side at the bar. The collection of mixed media art ranges from paintings, photos and prints to video, sculpture and a QR code with an appealing appetite for the beautiful, strange and unique.

Alexandra Orgera, Sardines, digital photography, $75.00, is delectable, printed on panel with a simple raised box frame the piece has the delicious power to switch identities in the mind’s eye. What looks like a classic still life painting is actually a photograph made of the ingredients of fine art. Even more tasty is how affordable the collection of photographs are and you can ask for special orders.

Feast Your Eyes, Off the Wall Gallery

Look at all the names on this list! Writing about group shows for DoNArTNeWs sometimes leaves a sour taste in DoN‘s craw because not every artist can be put on the menu. So, for a virtual degustation of this ambrosial display, DoN recommends you visit the maitre’d of the fine establishment to digest Togo Travalia‘s tasting recommendations of the gratifying show at the Off the Wall Gallery facebook page.

Even more savory is sipping Jack neat at the bar, absorbing a tantalizing arrangement of tempting creations and listening to David Bowie on the jukebox while cute couples play darts, artists sketch and photographers take pictures. It’s scrumptious.

Written by DoN Brewer. Photographs courtesy of Off the Wall Gallery.

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Vestige: An Industrial Perspective

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Jessica Barber, Vestige: An Industrial Perspective, Twenty-Two Gallery, Dancer, mono-print, $1000.00

“My style is highly intuitive, drawing inspiration from a variety of subject matter. Most often, I gravitate toward capturing the essence of the human form in a loose, expressive manner, using color and texture as my primary focus. Combining monotype printmaking with painting and pastels is my favorite vehicle for creating these images . I utilize monotypes, lithographs or other prints as a textural base, then create subsequent layers in other media until I’ve achieved the desired result. My goal is not to render my subject exactly as it appears, but rather to interpret the spirit of the form and my internal perceptions related to it.” – Jessica Barber

Jessica Barber, Vestige: An Industrial Perspective, Twenty-Two Gallery

Jessica Barber‘s, Vestige: An Industrial Perspective at Twenty-Two Gallery in Center City West includes a marvelous variety of mono-prints, lithographs and mixed media paintings all based on the wasting industrial infrastructure of Chester PA. Photographer Jeff Stroud and DoN visited the artist on a sultry Sunday afternoon to view her new work and learn more about the process of printmaking and her inspirations.

“All of the large pieces were printed at BYO Print in Kensington on Cecil B. Moore Avenue. The smaller prints were all done at The Plastic Club with the exception of my one etching which was done in Miami. Fulwood Press in Miami, actually I have piece in a show down in Miami. I was involved in a group show through Projects Gallery up here but they also have a branch there. So when I participated in that show a couple years ago I thought, ‘You know? I have family down in Miami. Why don’t I go join the piece that I sent down there and go for the closing reception.

It was really nice, very, very nice. My family from down there came to the closing reception with me. Right across the street from it was this print shop and I was like a kid in a candy store. Because they have this huge vertical press that comes down and you can set the exact pressure. So, I definitely put it on my list for the next time I go down there, if I have the time I’ll do a couple etchings there. I usually don’t have the time to do etchings while I’m up here.”

Jessica Barber, Vestige: An Industrial Perspective, Twenty-Two Gallery

Why don’t you have the time here?

“The etching process you have to do a lot of experimenting with acid bath, knowing how long to keep the plates in the acid. And just that process in itself, as far as preparing the plate is rather lengthy.”

Etchings are different than lithographs?

“Yes. When I’m up here I stick to the more immediate processes for me which would be the monotypes, the prints and the lithographs on polyester plates. Because I can work around my two and one half jobs, I can go in at night and I can pull a bunch of prints in marathon sessions at The Plastic Club.”

Jessica Barber, Vestige: An Industrial Perspective, Twenty-Two Gallery. Over Her Head, mono-print, $300.00

Why is your show called Vestige?

“Vestige refers to things that just have gone beyond their useful purpose or there is an absence now because whatever they were there for is gone. A lot of the imagery I use would fit into that because the objects are there and they fit into peoples everyday environment. However the industriousness that went along with those objects and what they were used for is there no longer. It’s the vestige of the industrial past.

And some of the figures are inspired by that whole adaptation between that type of environment and the humans that are there that have to live with it. And they have to deal with that environment. I go to Chester a lot, that’s an area that if the right people would take care of it there could be a revitalization of that area. Just like what’s happening in Fishtown or when I went to Miami.

One of my pieces is inspired by Miami in the Wynwood Arts District, which is an area full of old warehouses that has become an area full of art galleries and coffee shops. But you can still see the vestiges of the industrial life from before.”

Jessica Barber, Gateway, mono-print, $850.00, Vestige: An Industrial Perspective, Twenty-Two Gallery through July 7th, 2013.

“In this exhibit, Jessica Barber’s mixed media and fine art prints concentrate on symbols of our industrial past: what is left of structures no longer in use, now relics of an often forgotten period of prosperity. She explores this reality through portraits of these structures, along with images depicting the perspectives of humans co-existing and adapting as their environments further disintegrate into decay or transition into renewed vitality. Among pipelines and condemned homes, scrap yards, and rapidly revitalizing neighborhood corridors, she examines traces of the past, and hints of the evolution yet to come.” – Twenty-Two Gallery website.

Jessica Barber has an art gallery in Chester called Art on Avenue of the States which is part of the arts and cultural revitalization of the city. They are partnering with PPL Park and with Harrah’s Casino so that people who go to the waterfront in Chester and then get right on the highway and go straight home will discover the bridge the artists are building between the community and the gambling entertainment complex. Buy art – it will revitalize your life. You can’t lose.

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Written and photographed by DoN Brewer except where noted.

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Faveladelphia

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Faveladelphia, Favela Painting, Praça Cantão, Communidade Da Santa Marta, Rio De Janeiro, 161 West Gallery

161 West Gallery hosted a fundraising event to promote the social practice artists called Favela Painting, Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn. The space was darkened a bit so the large light boxes could glow to best effect, the DJ played upbeat grooves and special Brazilian beer and cocktails lightened the hot, sultry night. The pop art punch of color from the glowing photographs and high art festivities accentuated the sociological impact of art in the world community. And not just any communities. Edge cities.

DoN recognized the image of the cheery housing complex from a seminar called Design for the Other 90% presented at the University of the Arts by Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum. The information packed presentation was about designing for the 90% of the world’s population who live in places like the favelas of Brazil, the barrios of Mexico, and the famous slums of the world.

Dre Urhahn said, “Yeah, this has been in the New York Times, all over the place. This is like our piece de resistance artwork. We made that into the Times and we were so proud, it was – The United Nations put it up on their headquarters!”

Faveladelphia, Favela Painting, Praça Cantão, Communidade Da Santa Marta, Rio De Janeiro, 161 West Gallery

“The United Nations invited us in and there was this huge banner of this project, so that was something we were really proud of. This is called Praça Cantão, all the information is on our website.

Our dream is to create this (pointing to an illustration of a rainbow hued hillside town) an endless continuation of painting up the hills. And where we painted thirty-four houses, which is our largest project in Brazil, we painted more than fifty storefronts here in Philadelphia. But our dream is to paint hundreds of houses and that’s what we’re fund-raising for. We’re fund-raising to go back to Brazil and fulfill the dream that began almost seven years ago.”

Faveladelphia, Favela Painting, 161 West Gallery

“The interesting thing is the topography of the favelas is that they’re scattered about the city. Because there’s these beautiful hills and mountains but the rich people live at the base, so when the poor people came, often they work for the rich people as servants in the service industry. They live close to the rich people and they just scattered through all the free space and built their own things on it.”

Faveladelphia, Favela Painting, 161 West Gallery

“When I was there I didn’t see people care a lot for these neighborhoods. We’re doing a big Kickstarter campaign to raise money to go back to Brazil, train people, employ people, it’s really like one big job opportunity project with a combination of education and we hire everybody. So everybody, even the boys you can see up there painting, were making more than McDonald’s wage while they’re painting. Some of them were in the drug gangs before and we offer them an opportunity and that’s something for us that’s always been really important.

And that’s also why we’re working will El Sawyer who works with the re-entry system in Philadelphia. He’s made a film about them called Pull of Gravity. For people when they come out of jail because they don’t have any place to go or people to hire them. So it’s really hard to reestablish your validity as a citizen, you know?”

Faveladelphia, Favela Painting, 161 West Gallery

“They work together with The Guild. The Guild workers worked with us on our project on Germantown Avenue as well. So we have people coming out who really have a tough time to come back into the community again. Through these art projects they actually get a chance to not just be out there, but, to be appreciated as well. You know? It’s great when you come out of jail instead of just hearing a lot of ‘no’ to hear a ‘yes’ here and there. Or even maybe a,’Hey! That’s great.’ Or a, ‘Wow. I’m proud of you!’ That’s something that can do a lot.

I think that where people are sometime a little bit critical that it’s art, it’s paint, what are you really helping? But, deep on the inside, I think, that it does do a lot. It does do a lot of change for people especially on the mental level. It’s important.” – Dre Urhahn

Faveladelphia, Favela Painting, 161 West Gallery

DoN remembers walking home from the Design for the Other 90% lecture feeling super lucky to have the luxury of space and privacy of home. The map of the world showing edge city hot spots didn’t highlight Philly even though there is a tent city just across the river in Camden. But Germantown Avenue? As it turns out Philadelphia is an edge city for many disenfranchised citizens – Faveladelphia.

El Sawyer, Director of Pull of Gravity said, “The name, the title came out of when you see people get pulled back into the streets. People that do time get home and get pulled back into the streets. The movie follows three people over a year’s period of time and basically from the time they came home: one guy was home three days after doing three years, myself – I’ve been home for ten years after doing eight years and another guy who has been home six years after being in and out for the past twenty-five years. It has a variety of guys and shows their experiences.

The movie has sparked so much attention nationally, I mean people from Minnesota, all over, places you wouldn’t regularly think of. Smaller places like Minneapolis. We were thinking our market might be New York, Detroit, Chicago but smaller place like Kansas City, Pensacola, places like that are really being drawn to the movie. There’s a lot of work being done in those places and and as far as us? I didn’t know there is as much work being done as there is. This movie has been polarizing, bringing together a lot of resources and people doing the same kind of work. – El Sawyer

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Written and photographed by DoN Brewer except where noted.

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Life’s a Drag

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Life’s a Drag, Drag Performance and the Taboos of Femininity, Kate Brazina

Performance by Icon Ebony Fierce, Porcelain and Ann Artist, photography by Michael Valtin, video by Kate Brazina at Moore College of Art and Design Senior Exhibition 2013.

“The evolution of drag has it’s first recorded roots in the Thirteenth Century Theater and now is widespread on various platforms such as film, television, underground theater and nightclubs.” – Kate Brazina

Life’s a Drag stands out among great art installations at the Moore College of Art Senior Show because of the manipulation of context, situation, audience, history and future of public art installations. In a Warhol-ized world, art curators seek that cultural awareness nerve that will signal something is different, strange or unknown that can be discovered. The presence of three high profile Philadelphia drag queens along side the graduating class of 2013 of America’s only women’s art school was disorienting and fabulous.

Life’s a Drag, Drag Performance and the Taboos of Femininity, Porcelain

Through facebook messaging DoN asked Kate Brazina some questions: Moore College of Art is a unique institution for women. Did your investigation into drag culture have anything to do with the school’s signification of women as separate? Is your work impacted by the male gaze?

“My interest in drag culture mostly came about because I work in nightlife with a lot of queens. But, my interest in feminism and femininity definitely came from my time at Moore.”

“Moving forward through the next 800 years drag has become a progressive form of entertainment and integral part of the gay community catering to people of all walks of life.” – Kate Brazina artist statement.

Life’s a Drag, Drag Performance and the Taboos of Femininity, Kate Brazina, Ann Artist, Moore College of Art Senior Exhibition.

“My work has a lot to do with the male gaze and playing with comfort zones.”

Gaze is a psychoanalytical term brought into popular usage by Jacques Lacan to describe the anxious state that comes with the awareness that one can be viewed. The psychological effect, Lacan argues, is that the subject loses a degree of autonomy upon realizing that he or she is a visible object. This concept is bound with his theory of the mirror stage, in which a child encountering a mirror realizes that he or she has an external appearance. Lacan suggests that this gaze effect can similarly be produced by any conceivable object such as a chair or a television screen. This is not to say that the object behaves optically as a mirror; instead it means that the awareness of any object can induce an awareness of also being an object. – Wikipedia

Life’s a Drag, Drag Performance and the Taboos of Femininity, Kate Brazina at Moore College of Art Senior Exhibition

Kate Brazina has tapped the zeitgeist of the gender-fuck cross-dresser as a meme for rebellion in the larger context of society in a powerful and appealing presentation including the prerequisite chairs, TVs and drag queens, the metaphorical psychological mirror.

DoN remembers watching Milton Berle on a black and white TV in the 50s prance and sissy it up in a funny sexualized way. This week America’s Next Drag Superstar, Jinkx Monsoon, was crowned on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 5, a cable TV reality competition show exposing many of drag’s secrets to a curious audience. RuPaul said in a recent interview that the biggest audience for her product line is teenaged girls. Impersonating women in an all girl’s school takes, as Rupaul would say, charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent. Condragulations Kate Brazina.

ps. DoN‘s drag name is Gayla Dolly.

Written and photographed by DoN Brewer except where noted.

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Larry Collins and Dermot Meagher

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Larry Collins, charcoal and graphite drawings on paper, stadler-Khan

Alex Stadler is excited about the upcoming art show in his space featuring the drawings of Larry Collins and Dermot Meagher. The stylish design studio on Sansom Street is amazing and Alex shared a sneak peek of the upcoming art show featuring two prominent Massachusetts artists. Larry Collins is an art consultant and fine artist, Dermot Meagher is a fine artist, novelist and retired judge, both are influential Provincetown area artists.

“Dermot Meagher, pronounced ‘Mar’, does these lovely drawings, the images are very light-hearted. He’s coming for the opening. They’re both gentlemen in their late 60s, early 70s, both, Larry actually is a Viet Nam Veteran and Dermot, they’re both veterans from that period of time. We’ll have both of their drawings here on exhibit and Dermot will be here.

Dermot is also a novelist, he writes mystery novels, and he’s also the first openly gay judge in Massachusetts. He’s a really cool guy. It’s going to be a really nice show.”

Larry Collins, stadler-Khan

“A graduate of the University of Oklahoma and the Massachusetts College of Art, the value of his artistic training became starkly evident to Collins during the Vietnam War, when he was pulled from an infantry line company to become an Army combat artist and photographer.” – Larry Collins