Category Archives: Philadelphia Art Galleries

Philadelphia art galleries DoN has visited.

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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Bare

Boundless and Bare
Boundless and Bare…,Rachel Zimmerman, Harry Byrne curated by Jon Manteau

Boundless and Bare…,Rachel Zimmerman, Harry Byrne

curated by Jon Manteau

“Boundless and Bare…” is a two-photographer exhibition, sponsored by Pete Checchia Photography and Arts, 733 N’ 2nd Street, in Philadelphia, PA, featuring the works of Rachel Zimmerman, Harry Byrne and curated by Jon Manteau

The exhibition opens, On “First Friday”, October 4th with an artist reception the following day, Saturday, October 5th. Pete Checchia Photography and Arts, 733 N 2nd St.Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The title of the exhibition comes from the Percy Shelley sonnet “Ozymandias”. In the poem, a traveler describes a ruined statue, of a once mighty king, Ozymandias. The theme of the poem, is a meditation on the hubris of kings, empires and their inevitable decline, the fragility of human power and the effects of time. We are bearing witness to a similar decline in the United States. Our once “Mighty Union” seems to be slowly, inevitably eroding from outside forces and from internal. Our “Made in America” industrial giants are no longer a force in the world markets. Our once thriving plants, factories and workshops, long ago abandoned and vacated, left to the elements and to decay. Our old forms of entertainment, amusement parks, drive-in movie theaters, circuses, to name a few, replaced by that which is digital. Jobs lost to other countries and automation, our own workforce left to rot…or to rust across the rustbelt. If the creation of a structure represents the ideals and values of a time, so too does its subsequent abandonment and destruction. 

In this exhibition, Rachel Zimmerman’s photographs of the “Altherholt Machine Shop”, through her lens, bear witness to remnants of “what was”, like some eerie time capsule. Our craftmanship and tools for the job, surrounded by aging infrastructure. The inanimate “tools of the trade” ghost-like without the people trained in their use. Harry Byrne’s photographs document the remnants of what once was or “the ghosts of”. In his images of antiquated modes of transportation (trolleys) and outdated “Americana”, an amusement park, one can almost feel the presence of all of the thousands of human beings who at one time or another passed through, on their way to work, home or for a family vacation or afternoon out. The Six Flags Amusement Park outside of New Orleans, vacated after Hurricane Katrina is now covered in weeds, rust and peeling paint. The park itself no longer inhabited by people but by apex predators-alligators and wild boar.


Boundless and Bare
Boundless and Bare…,Rachel Zimmerman, Harry Byrne curated by Jon Manteau

The Photographers

Harry Byrne is an attorney based just outside of Philadelphia, PA. He has written and lectured extensively on family law topics. He enjoys photographing urban decay and abandoned sites of all types and manner and is interested in themes of the transitory, the inevitable collapse and the pretensions of greatness: a favorite poem is Shelley’s ”Ozymandias”. More importantly, urban exploration and photography are as far as he can get from the strictures and formalities of practicing law.

Rachel Zimmerman is actively working in the visual arts. She is the Founder and Executive Director of InLiquid Art and Design, based in Philadelphia, PA. She is a working mother, married with a 14-year-old son, Ivan, and a 12-year-old daughter, Sasha. She doesn’t get as much time to do her own artwork as she would like. When she does get the opportunity, they are usually precious moments while traveling, where she can explore color, tone, light and composition in the ordinary. She has always been interested in spaces without people. At the moment, there is a timelessness that does not become dated by the conventions of style. Over the years, she has been influenced by the photography of-Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Walker Evans, Aaron Siskind and Robert Frank…” The Americans” in their filmic quality and their exploration of the unfamiliar place.

Guest Curator
Jon Manteau is a visual artist, musician, maker of many things, college professor and curator. He’s been a working artist for over 35 years. He attended Parsons School of Design, The New School for Social Research, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and received his Master of Fine Art, from the University of Delaware, in 1996. He has taught for over 25 years, at the University of Delaware, Temple/Tyler University and is currently an Associate Professor at Penn State University/Brandywine, where he has been building their studio-art program since 2010. He’s exhibited nationally and his works are in collections, throughout the United States and Canada. He’s curated multiple exhibitions. He’s lived and worked in New York City, Brooklyn and Hoboken. He’s a “native son” of Philadelphia, where he lives and has his studio-practice.

Thank you to Jon Manteau for the content of this post.

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Mending

Mending A Reflection, Julie Heffernan,

Rowan University Art Gallery

Mending A Reflection, Julie Heffernan, Rowan University Art Gallery
Mending A Reflection, Julie Heffernan, Rowan University Art Gallery

Rowan University Art Gallery is pleased to present Mending A Reflection, a solo exhibition of Julie Heffernan’s self-portraits, curated by Mary Salvante, Director of Rowan University Art Gallery. 

The exhibit will be on view September 3 to October 26, 2019, with an artist talk and opening   reception on September 12, from 5 – 7:30 pm. Artist talk begins at 5 pm with a reception immediately following. 
                                                                                
Mending a Reflection addresses the connection between culture, mass media and personal identity through the eyes of one central female figure. Through her self-portraiture, Heffernan investigates what she calls the “shared collective unconscious,” exploring the historical narratives and subliminal imagery that work to shape who we are and how we perceive the world around us. 

Mending A Reflection, Julie Heffernan, Rowan University Art Gallery
Self Portrait with Daughters, Julie Heffernan

In 2019, Heffernan revised many of her self-portraits, including Self-Portrait with Daughters, Self-Portrait After Galilee, Self-Portrait with Shipwreck, Self-Portrait as Wrangler, Self-Portrait as Two-Headed Princess, and Self Portrait as Hothead. These newly updated paintings will be exhibited for the first time publicly in Mending a Reflection.

Heffernan’s paintings help us understand how media can influence our behavior and manipulate our perspective. In her large-scale vibrant works, she pays homage to many powerful women by including them in her portraits. Taking inspiration from women activists like Anita Hill and Tarana Burke, Heffernan confronts this bias by presenting what she calls a “different sort of self-portrait,” one full of female spirit, “giving voices to women who have been silenced for too many years by the dominant culture.” 

Mending A Reflection, Julie Heffernan, Rowan University Art Gallery
Self Portrait as Wrangler, Julie Heffernan


ABOUT JULIE HEFFERNAN

Julie Heffernan has been exhibiting her paintings nationally and internationally since 1988 and is represented by Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco. She has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe, including at PPOW in NYC entitled Hunter Gatherer (2019); the Crocker Art Museum, Palmer Art Museum and Michael Haas Gallery in Berlin; and a museum show entitled When The Water Rises originating at the LSU Museum of Art in Baton Rouge and traveling to museums in California, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Texas through 2019. She has participated in numerous group shows at major galleries and museums including the Museum für Moderne Kunst, in Bremen, Germany; Me Museum, Olbricht Collection in Berlin; the Palazzo Reale in Milan, Italy; and in Environmental Impact exhibition traveling to 12 museums throughout the United States. 

Heffernan is the recipient of such prestigious grants as the NEA, NYFA and Fulbright, as well as a PS1 Artist-in-Residence, and her work has been reviewed by major newspapers and magazines including The New York Times and The New Yorker. Her work is in numerous museums throughout the country including the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art in Richmond, VA.  She is a Professor of Fine Arts at  Montclair State University in New Jersey.


ABOUT ROWAN UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY
Rowan University Art Gallery serves as a premier cultural destination for South Jersey, the Rowan community, and surrounding region. Our mission is to provide a platform for discourse on best practices in contemporary art by professional artists, curators, and scholars through the presentation of interdisciplinary art exhibitions, panel discussions, guest curatorial projects, and other public programming.

The Gallery has a history of programming that recognizes the achievements of women in the visual arts. Important past group exhibitions include The Sister Chapel: An Essential Feminist Collaboration (2016) and Groundbreaking: The Women of the Sylvia Sleigh Collection (2011). The gallery also hosted Better Than Ever: Women Figurative Artists of the ’70s Co-ops (2009), a traveling exhibition that was curated by Sharyn Finnegan, Between the Threads: A Feminist Guide to the Domestic (2016), and Enamored Armor (2018). Solo exhibitions have included Beverly Semmes (2011), Joyce Kozloff (2014), Jeanie Jaffe (2015), Diane Burko (2018), and Ebony G. Patterson (2019).

Support for programming at Rowan University Art Gallery is also made possible by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information please visit: rowan.edu/artgallery

RSVP TO THE OPENING RECEPTION: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/julie-heffernan-mending-a-reflection-artist-talk-opening-reception-tickets-65799671589

GALLERY LOCATION

301 High St W, 
Glassboro, NJ 08028
856-256-4521

Visit us online at rowan.edu/artgallery and follow us on Facebook @RowanGallery.  
#RowanGallery #MendingAReflection

GALLERY HOURS
Monday – Friday, 9 am – 5 pm
Saturday, 12 pm – 5 pm

Public parking is available in the Mick Drive Parking Garage across the street from the gallery. Admission to the gallery, lecture, and reception is free and open to the public.

Thank you to Chelsea Markowitz for the content of this post.

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Daughters

Nature’s Daughters: Solo Art Exhibition and Networking,

Jessica Libor, Da Vinci Art Alliance

Nature's Daughters: Solo Art Exhibition and Networking, Jessica Libor, Da Vinci Art Alliance
Jessica Libor, Da Vinci Art Alliance

Enjoy original artwork and creative networking at this unique event.
See Jessica Libor’s new pieces in her solo exhibition “Nature’s Daughters,” on view for one night only at the Da Vinci Art Alliance on Wednesday, September 4th from 5-8pm. Celebrate women with Jessica’s art and also with networking expert Jennifer Lynn Robinson. Men are also welcome to attend!


“I want to show the glamour of nature. Whenever I am outdoors in the wild, I feel the most beautiful and free. I don’t think I am alone in this experience. What I wanted to do was show this feeling visually. I want people to be swept away in a gorgeous fantasy of the absolute magic that nature weaves sometimes. I painted women because it felt like a natural expression of nature—like the earth, the feminine can have many sides to it, can bring forth new life, and often express their beauty by decorating themselves…something I am interested in drawing a correlation with.”


Jessica Libor graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2014 and has been painting, curating and writing since. Find out more at www.jessicalibor.com.


At 7 PM, Jessica will say a few words about the artwork, and Jennifer Lynn Robinson, Esquire of Purposeful Networking will provide her 5 best tips for women to network more strategically. You will also be able to ask Jennifer your networking questions one on one. Find out more at https://www.purposefulnetworking.com/.

There will be light bites and drinks provided. This event is free for all and open to the public! Registration is encouraged.

Wed, September 4, 2019, 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM EDTA

Location: Da Vinci Art Alliance, 704 Catharine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147

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Young

YOUNG AT ART 3, Off the Wall Gallery at Dirty Frank’s

YOUNG AT ART 3, Off the Wall Gallery at Dirty Franks

Looking for an art show that’s a breath of fresh air? Perhaps one where the artists’ love of creativity shines through — no agenda, just passion? LOOK NO FARTHER.

THIS SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 1 to 4 PM, we will gather to welcome 22 very young artists to OFF THE WALL. They are the forces behind YOUNG AT ART 3, the newest edition of the occasional juried show we inaugurated in 2013.


Our Opening Reception will put a kid-centric twist on our normal light hors d’oeuvres — pizza, fruit salad and juice boxes, plus mini-cupcakes from our friends and neighbors at SWEET BOX — and you’ll have the chance to meet more than half the artists.


Our creatives run the gamut in age from 3-4 years old — AUGUST KILLESTEFAN NAU and ORLA VECCHIO — up to 11 and 12 — including JAYDEN O’HALLORANMARY MINEI and YOUNG AT ART veterans KYLIE GROVEMO HINCHEY-MODGLINSKYLAR WILLENBORG and EMI and NOA TRAVALIA.

The Travalia girls also remind us that this time around we’re showcasing sibling synergy with five such sets: EMI and NOAISE and SAJ EVANS MCNALLANDARIUS and STEFAN NAUA.J. and SADIE PENNINGTON and CORMAC and ORLA VECCHIO.


Across their work — ranging from paintings and drawings in oil, acrylic, watercolor, colored pencil, charcoal and oil stick, to photography and collage to August’s whimsical sculpture, which takes flight in our 3D case — you witness SHEER JOY.


It buoys our firm belief that each and every person is BORN TO CREATE. The love of art and art-making is genuinely innate. Life erodes this instinct rather than reinforce it — unless we lift up an artist as early as possible.

 
So come join us as much to elevate as to celebrate. And if your party includes other kids, more power. Yes, normally you would be carded — but not for these three hours and a little bit more (unless you order alcohol). Let’s take in great art and have fun!
See you Sunday,
Togo

Togo Travalia
Manager OFF THE WALL GALLERY at Dirty Frank’s, 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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