Category Archives: One-Person Art Show

One person art shows. Philadelphia artists one person art shows.

Fresh Paint, Anthony C and Karen M in The Philadelphia Sketch Club’s Stewart Room Gallery

Kojak, Fresh Paint, Anthony C and Karen M in The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Stewart Room Gallery

The member show in the Stewart Room Gallery of The Philadelphia Sketch Club is a coveted spot to exhibit solo art shows. The art team Anthony C and Karen M, long time active members of America’s oldest artist run art club are the featured artists for July and are breaking new ground artistically in the historic space because the show is team artwork and street based in style. Street art is a big part of Karen M and Anthony C’s art platform including free art, mail art, stickers and graffiti. Karen M talked about the content of the expansive show while we walked around the grand pool table. “This is a body of work that is about two years in the making. Along with our other projects. We always seem to be doing iconic images and popular culture, we reference things we like and things we think are important. And things that have messages.” said Karen M.

Fresh Paint, Anthony C and Karen M in The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Stewart Room Gallery

“Each piece is cut with an X-ACTO, sprayed onto canvas, each piece is unique because you can’t spray it the same every time.” Some of the pieces are familiar from other exhibitions, I wondered how much work was recent? The Mona Lisa is especially memorable.”Only one or two were in other shows. This is new. We always work. We always have projects going and then when an opportunity come up for a show, we’ll go to our inventory and pick what we think would be appropriate. Now, with the Stewart Room, we know with The Philadelphia Sketch Club, it’s very traditional, a lot of people from PAFA and we wanted to do something that no one has ever seen.”

Green Cash, Fresh Paint, Anthony C and Karen M in The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Stewart Room Gallery

“So, we have fifty-one pieces here and we did the installation so that you come in and it’s all fresh paint. There might be criticism from hardened graffiti writers who say you’re selling out when your putting it on canvas. But, as I was talking to a Miami based graffiti writer, graffiti is evolving, and we have the stencil so there is no problem if we want to spray it somewhere else. If you know what I mean?” Playing dumb, like what? Karen M said, “Sidewalks, we don’t vandalize, we don’t spray on personal property but if something’s dilapidated or boarded up, that’s fair game.” That’s what graffiti is. But Anthony C and Karen M approach the style as a way of communicating with an audience of their peers and collectors who gather their work from the street or buy it in a gallery. Karen M says, “Modern graffiti started in Philadelphia and then spread to New York. It started with Cornbread. Who we had the pleasure of meeting him a couple of years ago when the documentary about him debuted. And he said he was just in a detention center and always broke the balls of the cook because we wanted cornbread and they didn’t have it. So the name stuck. When he got out, he liked this girl, so he wanted to get her to notice him, so he looked at the transit route that she rode and he wrote his name at every stop.”

Fresh Paint, Anthony C and Karen M in The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Stewart Room Gallery

“So he just wrote, Cornbread and then eventually Chewy joined him and the birthplace of graffiti is Philadelphia and then it moved up into New York and it evolved and they did the trains, and people went all city. And then it went from just tagging to bombing and pieces. And now graffiti has evolved so much that there’s even graffiti classes, there’s legal walls, maybe some companies would want to hire a graffiti writer to advertise on the side of their store.” Another local graffiti artist NoseGo just did a building on 5th Street near South. “We know him from a gallery called Rare Breed that was one of the first graffiti galleries in back in the day. It was on 15th Street. A lot of writers gathered there, a lot of them knew each other from there, he sold paint, he sold markers, he sold videos, books…and it was a really good gathering ground for people that were doing work.”

The Cry, Fresh Paint, Anthony C and Karen M in The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Stewart Room Gallery

Fresh Paint, Anthony C and Karen M in The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Stewart Room Gallery

The array of pop icons, cultural figures and persistent images presents the question of how to decide what to paint? Karen M said, “It’s intuitive. We’re influenced by punk rock, hip hop, Andy Warhol, Blek LaRat from Paris, the Godfather of street art, he’s done wheat pastes and stencils, he’s just wonderful. He saw all the rats of the city of Paris, so he started to stencils of them and we think he’s just wonderful, the Godfather of street art. Gotta give props to Blek and Cornbread.”

Chem Warfare Copper, Fresh Paint, Anthony C and Karen M in The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Stewart Room Gallery

The absence of color is obvious with crisp white canvasses each offering a unique stencil and maybe a spurt of spray paint. “If you do a stencil on a wall or tag, it is usually just the flat black Rust-Oleum Flat Black is the pinnacle of graffiti paint. Now, they’ve got all kinds of crazy colors, there’s paint coming from Spain, all over the world, but, the true graffiti writers use the flat black Rustoleum. So we stay in that tradition.”

Sid, Fresh Paint, Anthony C and Karen M in The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Stewart Room Gallery

The exhibit is arranged thematically with pop icons, famous images and characters grouped loosely. “It’s a juxtaposition, we wanted people to say you really didn’t have the balls to do the Mona Lisa, did you? Yes, we drew the Mona Lisa and John Lennon, iconic for our time. On this wall we have Redd Foxx and on the opposite wall we have Malcolm X. And they were together when they were hoodlums and they both made such an impact on our culture: Redd Foxx eventually becoming iconic, comedian, television character and Malcolm X the leader of the Nation of Islam. And, we love to juxtapose images, we don’t do it with any rhyme or reason going back to when they put together the words hydrogen jukebox. We just juxtapose base on our intuition and design of the piece. So, the show was hung rather quickly and without too much…thinking about definite placement, we did it intuitively.” One grouping of characters appears to be all sociopaths. “We’re drawn to the darker side, we’re drawn to the sociopaths and the crazies, we like that. In pop culture and our friends.”

Eraserhead, Fresh Paint, Anthony C and Karen M in The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Stewart Room Gallery

Fresh Paint, Anthony C and Karen M in The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Stewart Room Gallery

Karen M says, “We push the envelop. And we want to be known, well, we’re basically political artists. As any graffiti artist, when they put their name on the wall, that’s a political statement. I got interested in graffiti in the late seventies and the earlt eighties when I went to Mexico and there was the conflict in El Salvador. And every wall that had a space, had political graffiti about getting America out of El Salvador and to me that just sparks in me a love for the art which I carry to this day.”

“David Lynch is a big influence. When I was at Philadelphia College of Art we had a great film teacher, Dr. Ruth Pearlmutter, and showed us Eraserhead and I believe it was when it was first released and I just wrote pages and pages on the film. Anthony and I, my collaborator, are big fans of David Lynch. You can even see some of the influence on our YouTube channel and just the image of Henry with his hair all backlit looking all crazy just made a perfect stencil.”

Fresh Paint, Anthony C and Karen M in The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Stewart Room Gallery

Read more about Anthony C and Karen M at SideArts.com Philadelphia Art Blog. New SideArts.com post here.

Anthony C and Karen M on SideArts.com

Anthony C and Karen M YouTube channel

Anthony C and Karen M on MySpace

Follow Anthony C and Karen M on Twitter @anthonygraffart

Through SideArts.com, DoN is offering online and in-person one-on-one consulting services to visual and craft artists and art businesses. Read all about it here.

Written and Photographed by DoN Brewer

Follow DoN on Twitter @DoNNieBeat58

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LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery

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LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery

LiQin Tan explained to DoN the concept behind Primitive Level Signals, the spectacular multi-media exhibit at Dalet Gallery in Old City, “It’s an animation installation, it all uses 3D animation software to create the animations and we also have animation stills. Printed directly on the wood the prints use technology that is new, a new way to print on different materials, ridged materials, normally it must be much softer. Now you can use hard wood or metal, aluminum…”

LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery

LiQin Tan explained, “Now I can print on all kinds of materials, not just paper. Also, the concept behind this is Chinese Taoism, what this means is that the Chinese have always dealt with five elements: fire, water, metal, earth and wood. All of the elements consistent with Nature is where the idea came from. Also my idea combines the ideas of the North American Indian people with ideas like the dream-catcher.”

LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery

The gallery is filled with fascinating creations from the mind of LiQin Tan, there are prints on animal skin stretched in frames with industrial clamps paired with an abstract video on a glossy monitor mounted on the wall above the dream-catcher. “Using spirit levels as a signal to describe a natural phenomenon in humans, where human brain development is an equalized procedure. The competing concepts of the brain, whether the battle of the brain’s size versus it’s intellectual capacity , or of it’s technological versus spiritual side, are always kept in equalibrium” – Dalet Gallery art card.

LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery

The gallery displays five pairings of prints on wood with accompanying video like these three above to represent the five Taoist elements: fire, water, metal, earth and wood. The animation stills printed on the panels of wood are ethereal, with Max Ernst-like abstract images that evoking dreams, mind storms, underwater mysteries and the being lost in the deep forest. The animations are mind-blowing in complexity and creativity. In the front gallery is a series of monitors, tangles all in wires and cables, with an animated lava flow ebbing back and forth using video game technology realness to the point that the piece looks hot from melted stone.

LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery

“In this dream-catcher you see here, the animal skins, I made them by myself, is from the North American Indian people as well, they’re used in a way to represent their culture. I stole it from them. In the animation is the biggest stone, the spiritual stone.” said LiQin Tan. In the picture above is a shot, a still if you will, of a large dream-catcher, the animal hide stretched taut in the primitive circular frame using the same cruel clamps, the installation has two of them. From both sides of the darkened gallery four video projectors shined animations onto the stretched skins, the light shining through like when you hold a flashlight to the web on your hand. The animation includes dancing figures, “The Miao people, a small group of people in China, are represented by the dressed dancers…I mixed the cultures, I call it digital primitivism, using digital technology to make it primitive.” The effect is deeply spiritual, connecting with memories, archetypes, cultural resonance and internally rooted thoughts and ideals.

“You can see that in the animation, but I also used the American Indian skills because I made the animal skins by myself. Using primitive skills, using calf skin, this kind of skin the procedure is called primitive, so I used the primitive skills to make them digital. And I used digital skills to make primitive art.”

LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery

“It’s a two-way work, digital art with old society and modern society, it’s multi-faceted. I like the North American Indian culture a lot. I did a lot of research in Canada and I made a lot of multimedia pieces about North American Indian culture, so it’s about how during the day I teach digital animation but I have North American Indian culture in my brain. So the idea came very easy, very natural especially when it connected with Chinese Taoism, I did a lot of research, I’m not a religious person but I read a lot of philosophy and a lot of the research is organized in this idea.”

LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery through June 23rd.

Written and photographed by DoN

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Bob Jackson, 100 Faces of Bob at Off the Wall Gallery

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Bob Jackson, 100 Faces of Bob at Off the Wall Gallery

100 Faces of Bob is over one hundred mixed media art objects mounted on the wall at Off the Wall Gallery created by outgoing President of The Plastic Club, Bob Jackson. Last week DoN watched a movie at The Plastic Club‘s monthly art salon, shot in 2006, of Bob Jackson‘s collections and studio, a consummate pack rat collector and inspired artist. Jackson collects objet trouve’ then transmogrifies the collected elements, found at flea markets, yard sales and antique shops into anthropomorphic portraits.

Bob Jackson, 100 Faces of Bob at Off the Wall Gallery

Off the Wall Gallery usually hosts group show but gave over the whole space to Bob Jackson’s thesis: attractive, fun, visionary art that’s affordable. Bob Jackson has been leading The Plastic Club for many years, he’s seen it all, good and bad, and synthesized the information into an art style that is aspirational and accessible. Like his ball point pen drawings on typing paper, the 100 Faces each express the artist’s hand, thought, effort and time. Anthropomorphism is practically the original art, the Venus of Willendorf speaks to us over mellenia, Bob Jackson is able to tap into our deepest cultural memories and speak to us here in the future.

Bob Jackson, 100 Faces of Bob at Off the Wall Gallery

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Bob Jackson, 100 Faces of Bob at Off the Wall Gallery

The Off the Wall Gallery consistently installs thought provoking and relevant art shows. Usually the installations are juried group shows offering emerging artists opportunities to show their work with established artists. Art is part of the business model at Dirty Franks Bar, space on their wall is coveted and their sales record is really good. 100 Faces of Bob will be remembered as one of the great moments in Philadelphia art history, the show looks like it will be sold out. Each piece is only $50.00. Bob Jackson‘s legacy will be a strong, real, measurable impact on the Philadelphia art community, DoN has personally cried on Bob’s shoulder over art matters and know’s he has counseled and supported hundreds of other artists with assurances, solutions and advice. Creating a wonderful experience design, the show offers so many lessons in art making, marketing, networking and socializing from a master Philadelphia artist, 100 Faces of Bob reveals the beautiful face of a friend.

LoVe

DoN

Ivette Spradlin, Everything Changed, Then Changed Again at Center for Emerging Visual Artists

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Ivette Spradlin, Shuanna with Child, Braddock PA, inkjet print, Everything Changes, Then Changed Again at Center for Emerging Visual Artists

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists has had artist exchange exhibits with the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts for the past five years. The current show which ends April 20th is Ivette Spradlin‘s Everything Changes, Then Changed Again, is an exhibit of large scape black and white “portraits”. Ivette Spradlin has ties to Philadelphia because she went to grad school and taught here at Tyler School of Art, graduating in 2007 after which she briefly moved back to Atlanta then on to Pittsburgh. When she began working there Ivette realized she needed to build a community of friends and figure out a way to meet people. Her photography project came about from the need and desire to connect to people and wasn’t originally intended to be shown but more of a way to get access to people. The collection was first shown at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, CFEVA is the second venue for the collection.

“I wanted to start shooting portraits again so I started asking a couple of people that I knew there and it kind of built up from there. I would meet people and ask if I could take their portrait and I would have them choose a space and location and let them know that I was looking for a space in transition. Some of these people are in some sort of transition in their own life and I felt I was, so, this was a way of documenting that transition for me and for them. And getting to know Pittsburgh.”

Ivette Spradlin at Center for Emerging Visual Artists

Ivette Spradlin, Heather in Marchester, Pittsburgh PA, inkjet print, 42″ x 52″

“I think that those ideas about adapting are always in my head and thats definitely what this work was for me, adapting to Pittsburgh and learning to be a person there, an artist there, a teacher there, a friend. When I first started it, I really wanted the figure to be really small and encompassed in a landscape, part of that is a visual thing but Pittsburghs landscape it can kind of tower over you, there are a lot of mountains, and I wanted it to feel like youre enveloped in the landscape, almost a little bit lost in it. Then some of the turns (of the subject) we came up with are kind of an optimism, a hope, like the turn of a transition, like their life was looking towards something else. Some of them are getting divorced, some of them are having babies, so I think that had a lot to do with that.” Most of Ivette Spradlins portraits were collaborations with her subjects as far as setting and wardrobe but sometimes she would be led to a certain spot and learn some of the subjects personal history. “We shot in many locations for each person and that’s the part where the photographer makes the decisions, like where you’re going to photograph them? And where they’d look good, whats nice aesthetically.”

Written and photographed by DoN Brewer

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Recommended reading from Ivette Spradlin

Veronika Schmude at Apple Jacks Studio

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Veronika Schmude at Apple Jacks Studio

“I went running out on the eye beam because I saw this shot. And my friends were like, ‘They were right about you!'” Veronika Schmude is an urban explorer who loves to takes risks to get a great photo. Veronika asked DoN to help her hang her show at Apple Jacks Studio at 319 North 11th St, 4th Floor, Philadelphia, the arts building near Vine Street, it’s flattering to be asked for artistic advise, especially in a hot art spot like the Khmer Building with Vox Populi and Tiger Strikes Asteroid. We decided to arrange the work formally with an even eyesight line with some quirky informal arrangement of the smaller pieces mixed in. With the broad spectrum lighting Veronika installed and the industrial loft vibe of the gallery, the photographs looked perfectly amazing.

Veronika Schmude at Apple Jacks Studio

Veronika Schmude explained to DoN, “All of these are the Richmond Power Plant except for the center piece, the center one is called Machine and was taken at Global Dye. Which they’re apparently shooting a movie in; the Richmond Power Plant had a bunch of movies shot there: 12 Monkeys (Special Edition), is the most known, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Two-Disc Special Edition), that was shot there as well, parts of it and it’s actually a fascinating building.” DoN wondered how one get’s inside a locale like an abandoned power plant? “They make attempts to keep us out by putting grating and a fence but..” A conversation starts between Veronika and a couple of her explorer pals about which tools the authorities would be consider those used for breaking and entering and those for hobbyists, Dremel Rotary Tools are for hobbyists (wink, wink!)

Acting normal and like you belong there is a technique the explorers use if confronted with questions as to why they’re there. “I’ve always been fascinated with abandoned buildings and industrial sites since I was a kid. I would go into abandoned buildings in the town I grew up in, Springdale PA, about forty miles outside of Pittsburgh. And between the abandoned warehouses along the train tracks and the abandoned homes I came across interesting stories and one story in particular.“

Veronika Schmude at Apple Jacks Studio

“There was this one house that was cut into three different apartments. Well, this one apartment I went into, they were all open, because it was a small town and they didn’t need to lock up anything really. Everything was left as is, they literally picked up and left, down to food on the stove in the pot and I ended up later meeting the woman who used to live there. She was obese to the point of bed-ridden, her husband had elephantiasis, and they used to have two kids living in this apartment. And, according to them, these children became possessed and they literally had to pick up and leave and the children were eventually taken away because they were, well, they had some problems.”

DoN asked Veronika about the emotional sensations she experiences exploring abandoned spaces since she started as a kid? “Yeah, I have to say there is something almost appealing, very sexy about the whole smell of, like, decay and rust and the air’s so thick you can feel the particles, there’s dust landing on you. There’s something like also very innocent about it because it takes me back to my childhood, but, it’s a thrill, too. I mean, it’s definitely a rush getting into these places without getting busted. Getting back out with everything intact. Some buildings I have to be quicker than others, get in and get out, depending on if there’s homeless or whatnot, squatters. I shoot with a Canon 450D, on my last shoot which at the Saint Nickolas Coal breakers I borrowed a friends camera, both Canon, and an Canon XTi, the Canon XTi has a 135 mm wide angle and my camera, the 450D, had a 90 mm normal lens which I use for closer, smaller shots. I use a color enhancing filter and I adjust my white balance to give a warm tone or a cool tone…which gives that warm red hue, makes the rust colors really pop.”

Veronika Schmude at Apple Jacks Studio, 319 North 11th Street, Floor 4, Philadelphia PA 19107

Written and photographed by DoN Brewer

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