Category Archives: Philadelphia Art Galleries

Philadelphia art galleries DoN has visited.

Philadelphia Sketch Club, 28th Annual High School Art 2012

Soldenise Ramos-Gonzalez, Pink Self Portrait, acrylic, Philadelphia Sketch Club, 28th Annual High School Art 2012

The Philadelphia Sketch Club is America’s oldest artist club established in 1865, for the past twenty-eight years the historic club has honored Philadelphia High School art students with an exhibition of work selected from all of the High Schools in the city. On February 19th, 2012 the awards ceremony and closing reception took place in the historic gallery and more than twenty awards were presented to Philadelphia High School art students or their teachers. The generous awards included monetary awards for the top winners and the many memorial awards, wonderful gift packages of art supplies for honorable mentions made the presentation go on for almost thirty minutes, and a wonderful reception with tons of food for hungry teens. Congratulations to all the artists from DoNArTNeWs.

Emanuel Rodriguez, Living Room, Best in Show, Philadelphia Sketch Club, 28th Annual High School Art 2012

The High School Art Show at Philadelphia Sketch Club included 149 works of art for the jurors to select from. Mina Smith-Segal, Lois Schlachter and Joseph Winter spent hours winnowing down their faves but with 22 awards almost of the schools took home prizes. DoN was impressed by the high level of craft and presentation, even without frames many pieces were appropriately matted to best effect.

Ada Anderson, Self Portrait/Woman, Digital Photo Award, Philadelphia Sketch Club, 28th Annual High School Art 2012

Ada Anderson told DoN her teacher pushed her to take her Photoshop skills to the max, sending her back to the computer to refine the photo over and over; Ada took her original self portrait then used the star paintbrush tool to decorate her scarf, layers of rainbow gradient are subtle mimics lens flare. Digital Photo Award well deserved.

Linda Lvea, Travis Balker, acrylic, Kimberly Neubauer, John Frusciante, acrylic, Catherine Cordoza, Steve Jobs, acrylic, Tara Downey, Steve Buscemi, acrylic, Philadelphia Sketch Club, 28th Annual High School Art 2012. The Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush, Graphic Arts Teacher Jeff Evans

Maisum Shami, Cast Drawing, conte, Philadelphia Sketch Club, 28th Annual High School Art 2012, Dick Blick Award

Miranda Gibson, Chair/Space Study, mixed media, Philadelphia Sketch Club, 28th Annual High School Art 2012

Dorothy Roschen, Philadelphia Sketch Club, 28th Annual High School Art 2012

Special thanks to all the donors of awards, volunteers for hanging the show, food donations, committee co-chairs Debra Cooperstein and Dorothy Roschen, Jaqueline Barnette, Jaqueline and Richard Kunin, Mina Smith Segal, Norka Shedlock, Catherine Bath, Joanne Bosack, William C. Patterson PSC President and Executive Director Richard W. Fink, III.

Dorothy and the team begins work of this project in September to present a wonderful example of the state of the arts in High School. Expressing creativity and ideas through the arts is essential for young people to learn in order to communicate more effectively in the adult world. The skill of being able to draw is underestimated in society. Support the arts by helping the Philadelphia Sketch Club 29th Annual High School Art Show even bigger and better, in only takes volunteer time to make a big difference in a young artists life.

Photographs by DoN Brewer
Students, get the best service, selection and price: shop at BLICK!

[disclosure page]

Prince Twins Seven-Seven

Leave a reply

Prince Twins Seven-Seven, Igarra, Nigeria, 1944 – 2011, Acrobatic Dancers, 2007, oil, acrylic, ink and pastel on plywood, Indigo Arts, Crane Arts Center

“Prince Twins Seven-Seven is an artist from Nigeria who actually passed away last June.” Indigo Arts Gallery owner Tony Fisher explained to DoN, “He was probably the most prominent living Nigerian artist at the time and he spent quite a lot of time in Philadelphia. The last fifteen years he spent a lot of his time in Philadelphia because he was in some degree in exile from Nigeria both political problems and personal financial problems. He was in Philadelphia for quite a while, the last five years or so he was back in Nigeria before he passed away. But, he was told since he has a Green Card he could come back and forth every six months. He would stop in every six months, and in a lot of the cases, bring me new work.”

Prince Twins Seven-Seven, Monkey with Fish, 2007, oil, acrylic, ink and pastel on plywood, Indigo Arts, Crane Arts Center

“He was not born with the name Prince Twins Seven-Seven, he took that name on to commemorate the fact that according to his mother, according to him, he was the sole survivor of seven successive sets of twins. Obviously the child death rate in a country like that is high, seven sets of twins in a row and they all died in childbirth or whatever, even his own twin died. It’s not totally unbelievable in that Nigeria, the Yoruba people of Nigeria gave the highest rate of twins on Earth. As a result of that, in their religion there is a special place for twins. There’s a cult called the Ibedgi cult that honors twins with these little figures that are carved that represent when one or both twins die the figures represent them. Either the surviving twin or the mother of the deceased twins will keep that figure and honor it, feed it, dance with it in ceremonies, things like that for the rest of her life. There’s really a special place for twins in that culture.”

Prince Twins Seven-Seven, Indigo Arts, Crane Arts Center

“In his case I think he had a real flair for names, in general he had a flare for drama and I think he had the second Seven because it sounded better than Twin Seven. This was in 1964, which was in kind of the era of 77 Sunset Strip so he didn’t credit it to that but Seven-Seven had a good sound to it. So he emerged as in artist in 1964 when he first started painting and he was immediately very successful in Nigeria. He appeared in shows all over the world, several museum shows in Europe, he was really a very big name. In the period that he was in Philadelphia he was kind of in decline, I think he had kind of been forgotten and he was really, well it was in the last five years that he was really beginning to revive again. There were several shows of his work, the Philadelphia Art Museum bought a major piece that they have there now, the Smithsonian has one of his pieces, so, he was picking up but he didn’t get to enjoy it for long. Unfortunately, it’s like so many artists’ tale, I’m sure it won’t happen instantly but his reputation will rise again since we’re now looking back on him as a key figure of post independence African art.”

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

Photographs by DoN Brewer

[disclosure page]

InLiquid v.12

1 Reply

Ellie Brown, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Brenna K. Murphy, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Clarissa Shanahan Schirmer, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Jim Houser, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Jung Wah Ahn, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Jordan Griska, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

LGTripp Gallery, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Donna Usher, LGTripp Gallery, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Rachel Zimmerman, the mastermind behind the artist representation website InLiquid, sent DoN a FaceBook message asking if he had received his V.I.P. invitation to the InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012? DoN double checked his inbox and passes to the pre-opening Silent Auction cocktail party for the biggest art event in town unopened. Cool! 4:00 – 6:30pm, Friday February 10th – DoN had copped the ultimate art party early-bird special!

The ICE Box Gallery in the Crane Center for the Arts is massive but the hall was filled with art of all kinds, tables brimming with collectibles throughout the room, even extra walls to accommodate the array of art and DoN had it all to himself, sort of, for about thirty minutes. Wandering through the collection DoN spotted familiar artists from across Philadelphia and lots of new faves. A cocktail bar was in the middle of the room and a bartender made DoN a drink with gin, aloe vera juice and muddled basil, in the Gray Area (the large gallery next to the ICE Box) tables with fantastic treats like a thin crustini with a smear of sun dried tomato paste topped with a dollop of pate’. Displayed around the room were silent auction bidding sheets for dozens of desirable services and a group of prints selected by jurors from submissions. So, even if you didn’t win your bid you can still buy a collectible art print.

Soon DoN had a good buzz going from the gin, wandered back in the hall to absorb the sights and ran into artist Amie Potsic. Walking and talking we were struck by the high quality of the art: a bold red and black painting by Da Vinci Art Alliance Executive Director David Foss, massive abstract expressionist paintings by one of Amie’s faves, Jung Wah Ahn, Brenna K. Murphy‘s hair art, Ellie Brown‘s bag photographs (she photographs people and the contents of the bag they carry) and so much more by many great Philadelphia artists.

Amie Potsic is an artist, photographer, maven, Director of Career Development at CFEVA, and has been an InLiquid member artist since it’s inception in 1999 – that’s pre-Google. Amie told DoN the more web presence she has the better. InLiquid is a non-profit organization providing hundreds of artists not just portfolio web pages but real world opportunities to show their artwork, their website is information rich with artist images, bio’s, statements, events and news. Some of the donated art is still for sale on the InLiquid website. Support the efforts of InLiquid artists and businesses who gave so generously from their own inventory to help the artist community hub in Fishtown grow and thrive.

More photographs on DoNArTNeWs FaceBook page.

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

Photographs by DoN Brewer

Daniel Gerwin

1 Reply

Daniel Gerwin, Orpheus’ Mistake, acrylic on found framed mirror, 28″ x 17.5″, 2011, Center for Emerging Visual Artists at the Galleries at Moore (photo from the West Collects website – vote for Daniel Gerwin)

DoN met Daniel Gerwin at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists Introduction 2012 new Fellows reception at the Galleries at Moore. “Title Magazine is the title of a new on-line, visual arts magazine based in Philadelphia. We launched in August.” DoN asked what platform the magazine is based on? Tumblr? “It’s on WordPress, I’m not the technical guy, I’m into the editing and all that side of it, getting writers and whatever. We have someone else who’s a very good graphic designer and she does everything. All the WordPress work. I can’t, I don’t know anything about it.”, he said laughing. DoN added a link to Title Magazine in the DoNArTNeWs blogroll.

Daniel’s work employs tromp l’oeil in a new way, painting on wood and mirrors, DoN is reminded of the painting style of Gerhard Richter the way the paint is smeared yet presents a naturalistic expression, “When you look at it, it’s immediately clear that it’s paint. The other piece that I have is a shaped painting.” DoN was mesmerized by the optical illusion of the painting, it switches back and forth from wood parquet to abstract painting. “The tromp l’oeil, I’m interested in, the whole idea of an illusion, that is subverting itself and actually calling your attention back to what’s real about it, it’s reality of the actual paint in front of you. But I’m also interested in the whole idea of, like the first thing you said about parquet flooring, the domestic space and the way we inhabit our space. And then I sort of have the thought that the way, as we live in a space over time, we actually come to haunt that space ourselves. And then it haunts us back.”

“It’s that integration between us and the place that we live. My studio is in my own home, I work in my home so that idea of a presence is interesting to me. The other thing that is on my mind with these mirrors is there’s a tradition in the Jewish religion, which is how I was raised, when somebody in your family dies you cover the mirrors. My mother died in 2009, so there’s something of that that is still part of my work and there’s that aspect that I’m thinking about and it also has to do with when you, because there’s bits or mirror that you look between, you do catch glimpses of yourself. There is both the sense of self-voyeurism and a further extension of the mystery of representation, you’re there but you’re sort of not quite there. But that there is a division brought by the paint between our world and the other side. So that connects back to me through those traditions.”

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA), in cooperation with Moore College of Art & Design, presents an exhibition by the new Career Development Program Fellows. A highly selective fellowship with only a 2% acceptance rate, these six artists represent some of the most promising talent among emerging artists in the region: Leslie Friedman, Daniel Gerwin, Rebecca Gilbert, Kay Healy, Heechan Kim, and Johanna Inman.

Introduction 2012

February 1 February 25, 2012

Widener Memorial Foundation Gallery

Circumstantial Assembly / CFEVA at Moore

Introduction 2011

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

Photographs by DoN

Students, get the best service, selection and price: shop at BLICK!
[disclosure page]

Johanna Inman

1 Reply

Johanna Inman, CFEVA Introduction 2012, The Galleries at Moore

“I’m so excited about this group!”, said Amie Potsic, Director of Career Development at CFEVA, to DoN at the V.I.P. reception 2/1/12 for Introduction 2012 in The Galleries at Moore. “I think they’re fantastic and they’re all really go getter, hard working artists. Which you have to be these days.”

“We are absolutely thrilled, we have six new artists who begin this month and they’re beginning the two year fellowship with us and we have a really talented group. A great variety of mediums, styles and backgrounds but everything really makes sense together. I think quality somehow makes everything hang beautifully together. That’s a defining quality of CFEVA artists is the level of craft is always really high, the level of intention in their work is really strong.”

“Johanna Inman has wonderful photographic work that she actually creates without a camera. These are all created from flatbed scanners. Her father has an antique book collection he’s had for years and years (which she scans) and that’s why you have this level of detail and why it’s so flat at the same time. It’s just incredible how much detail she gets out of the image, the same with the book on the other side with a full page spread, those are all made on a flatbed scanners. She has a number of bodies of work, where she takes real objects rather than photographing them she uses scanning technology.”