Category Archives: Art Spaces Philadelphia

Art galleries, shops, showrooms, lobbies, hallways, studios, warehouses, lofts, workshops, restaurants, coffee shops, schools, and any space where art is displayed in and around Philadelphia.

“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.

Jessica Barber & Alison Altergott – Making An Impression @ Twenty-Two Gallery

Jessica Barber @ Gallery Twenty-Two

Jessica Barber, Bonifacio, monotype/oil pastels @ Gallery Twenty-Two’s Making An Impression show featuring prints by Jessica Barber & Alison Altergott.  Prints is a bit of a misnomer in this show, both artists use printing as part of their process but expand the barriers into writing, drawing, collage and painting.  DoN LoVeS this print which looks very much like a Star Trek Ferengi.

Jessica Barber @ Gallery Twenty-Two

DoN asked Jessica if she created this piece in Madrid because it feels so immediate and plein air, as if she set up her plates & inks right there in the cafe.  Actually the artist worked from a photo she took while on a trip to Alice’s annual painting retreat in Majorca with friends from the Plastic Club.  Jessica said club president, Bob Jackson allowed her to work late at night in the wonderful print shop “down stairs”, allowing her to create these rich, saturated images which she had framed at Liberty Art & Framing with non-glare glass.  Immediacy, tension and vitality exude from the paper with a fresh, active style only the rigorous lithograph process produces.

Jessica Barber @ Gallery Twenty-Two

Jessica Barber explained to DoN she uses a new non-toxic form lithographic process using plastic sheets which the artist applies different resists for the ink, Jessica used non-conventional mark-making tools to develop her images including Sharpies, she said, “ink loves the donor”.

Jessica Barber @ Gallery Twenty-Two

Jessica Barber @ the opening of her collaborative show @ Gallery Twenty-Two.  Second Friday for people in cars was frustratingly frantic, west Center City traffic was snarled because of the snow and the South Street bridge being out but DoN walked, easily strolling past cars with “Bad Romance” blasting in his iPod; Jessica was stuck on a bus trying to get to her own opening, arriving safely – fashionably late!

Alison Altergott @ Gallery Twenty-Two

Alison Altergott @ Twenty-Two GalleryDoN asked about the girls in Alison’s prints, old dress patterns from the 50s & 20s because of the resonance of the strong feminine ideal of the home-maker.  DoN thought a feminist home-maker is a contradiction in terms but Alison defended the mystique as a commentary on what we’ve lost compared to the way families live now.  Alison Altergott combines handwriting, collage, paint and printing to develop these densely signified images about the ideals of growing up.

Alison Altergott @ Gallery Twenty-Two

Alison Altergott, Heartstrings, 1 of 2 prints @ Gallery Twenty-Two.

 

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.

Trina Mansfield – Fabric Collage @ The Cosmopolitan Club

Trina Mansfield - Eiffel Tower

Trina Mansfield, Eiffel Tower, quilted fabric collage @ The Cosmopolitan Club.

Trina Mansfield is a multi-media artist working primarily in fabrics but she also takes the photographs, plots the designs on the computer then pieces together elaborate “quilts”.

Trina Mansfield - Eiffel Tower

Trina Mansfield’s labels for her exhibition @ The Cosmopolitan Club are truly exceptional – hand-written notes in pencil with tiny sketches like getting a nice letter from a friend.

Trina Mansfield @ The Cosmopolitan Club

Trina Mansfield @ The Cosmopolitan Club.

DoN LoVeS quilts and fabric art (he watches all those geeky sewing shows on TV), maybe because there’s an emotional link to Grandma’s crazy quilts from childhood.  Mansfield’s quilts are painterly and impressionistic, even though the concept is based on crazy quilts these designs are exceptionally lucid and lush with witty contrasts and meticulous details.