Justin Duerr, The Guardian Sisters of the Wombic Calm Inside the First Bor, ink on paper, 39″ x 70″, Courtesy of Coalition Ingenu.
In Your Dreams – Art in City Hall
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Category Archives: Coalition Ingenu
Justin Duerr @ St. Asaph’s
Check it out – a wide angle shot of Justin Duerr’s incredible show at St. Asaph’s. DoN can’t stop thinking about Justin’s story about his first job in a bakery. The boss was mean – we’ve all had mean bosses but this jerk took the cake – but Justin learned to decorate cakes and design with frosting. Duerr decorated his own cake for the opening party with day-glo orange piping of a woman’s face. The framing by Robert Bullock of Coalition Ingenu is truly superior, some of Duerr’s drawings are five feet or more with thin plexiglass offering distortion free viewing. Learn more about Coalition Ingenu and the fine work they do using art to improve people’s lives and our community, you’ll be inspired – Shoska & DoN LoVe this show and art space! 
Justin Duerr: Song-Story Images in Black and White @ St. Asaph’s
Justin Duerr: Song-Story Images in Black and White (and some Red) @ St. Asaph’s Gallery, presented by Coalition Ingenu is a tour de force in magic realistic drawings. Duerr’s marker drawings, some huge and involving, some small and dream-like, fill the Gothic room with Bosch-ian imagery of bird-men, crawling words and psychedelic thought forms. The presentation by Robert Bullock of Coalition Ingenu is pristine, with simple framing with glare-free plexiglass, permitting the viewer to delve into the mind of Justin Duerr.
Cake decorated by Justin Duerr for his opening party at St. Asaph’s gallery. One of Duerr’s first jobs was working in a bakery where he learned to work with frosting.
Gallery view of the Justin Duerr installation @ St. Asaph’s Gallery, 27 Conshohocken/State Road, Bala Cynwyd, Pa.
“Ghost Born Free From Cages and Jails”, drawing by Justin Duerr.
Justin Duerr @ St. Asaph’s Gallery through April 5, 2009.
Jim Bloom’s “Them” @ Vivant Art Collection
DoN has written about other shows by artist Jim Bloom at Home & Planet in Bethlehem, PA and Outsider Folk Art in Reading PA but the current show called Them at Vivant Art Collection, 60 N. 2nd St., Philly is a tour de force. Bloom has a knack of poking a stick in the eye of cultural prejudices from gender issues to homophobia to obesity; Jims brutalist painting style highlights how words and attitudes can be painful and ridiculous. The one-person show includes portraiture but the works using words are particularly powerful and poetic. One large canvas shows a smiling couple clicking a snapshot of them outside a concentration camp as if they were visiting Disneyland, another lampoons stereotypes of effeminacy and homophobia and another painting highlights how words are often just so much noise.
Florcy Morisset, the owner/curator of Vivant Art Collection, is thrilled with this years first show, telling DoN that she can date the century of a painting by the design of a face in a painting and that Blooms socially incorrect subject matter shows how we all are included in Them. Bloom told DoN he was discovered by Robert Bullock of Coalition Ingenu introducing him to George Veiner of Outsider Folk Art Gallery who immediately purchased his entire collection for his gallery. Since then, Bloom has been able to move forward from painting on found objects such as cardboard boxes and paper plates to canvas’ but the vibrancy and irreverence remains. Them is on exhibit through the end of January.
Jim Bloom @ Vivant Art Collection.
“Light Green Hat“, Jim Bloom @ Vivant Art Collection.
Paintings by Jim Bloom @ Vivant Art Collection in Old City.