Category Archives: Philadelphia Art Installations

Art installations in Philadelphia.

CFEVA Artists @ Drexel University’s Pearlstein Gallery

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Wednesday evening, Shoshana, Alden Cole and DoN attended Far Away From the Beginning A Departure from Childhood Idealism, an outstanding exhibit of contemporary art curated by Tara Caton, in cooperation with the Center for Emerging Visual Artists at Drexel University’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery at 33rd and Market Streets.  Tara Caton, a former intern at CFEVA, is graduating from Drexel with a degree in “Entertainment and Arts Management” and produced the show as her Senior Thesis Project.  Caton tells DoN she, “looked for artists with commonalities of themes, a number of artists work with dark memories from childhood, a childhood perspective with adult melancholy, fantasies, toys, play, dreams and memory.”  Tara selected all the works, wrote the text, produced the brochure and art card and installed the art; she will be the first to graduate with this degree and said it was a huge honor to do such a big job for an undergrad project.  The exhibit in the Pearlstein Gallery includes many familiar CFEVA artists including Anne Canfield, Darla Jackson, Joelle Jenson, John Karpinski, Jedediah Morfit, Caleb Nussear, Scott Pellnat, Peter Prusinowski, Serena Perone, Matthew Neff, Cecelia Rembert and Nataliya Slinko.  Far Away From the Beginning is on exhibit through September 5th.

Curator Tara Caton at The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery.

Curator Tara Caton at The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery.

Artist Scott Pellnat

Artist Scott Pellnat with his adorable little girl explaining his sculpture which looks like it’s made of cast iron but is really “off the shelf” plastic parts.  “Why create your own figures when you can buy a Barbie?”

Each section of Pellnat’s sculpture is rearrangeable so you can customize the surprisingly light pieces of surrealist art to suit your mood.

Each section of Pellnat’s sculpture is rearrangeable so you can customize the surprisingly light pieces of surrealist art to suit your mood.

Jedediah Morfit explaining his bas-relief sculpture

Jedediah Morfit explaining his bas-relief sculpture; working in common, forgotten, traditional genres (museums are full of them) Morfit re-fashions the method into new and vital art.

Detail from Jedediah Morfit’s “The Price of Doing Business”.

Detail from Jedediah Morfit‘s “The Price of Doing Business“.

Anne Canfield’s “The Mermaid and the Tiger Meet Halfway”, oil on linen.

Anne Canfield’s “The Mermaid and the Tiger Meet Halfway“, oil on linen.

John Karpinski

John Karpinski is attracted to the paradox of comics and how they say a lot with so little. Through comics adults can regain time from their childhood; John’s childhood favorite comics were Daredevil # 158 and What If? # 15.

All photos by DoNBrewerMultimedia Photography.  

CFEVA Introduction 2012

Blick Art Materials

Photo Synthesis @ DaVinci Art Alliance

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Photo Synthesis is –

A juried awards exhibition featuring photography and photographic processes

with art by:

Amy Ahearn, Tony Anthony, Keith Auerbach, DoN Brewer, Suzanne Comer, Judy Engle, Carlos Gil, Robert Grunke, Rikard Larma, Marilyn Lavins, Richard Marr, Karen McDonnell & Anthony Cortosi, Lee Muslin, Liz Nicklus, Mickie Rosen, Armand Scavo, Susan Van Selous, D.B. Stovall, Robert Waldeck, Ted Warchal, Julien Weitzenfeld, James Widerman.

 

Juror and Awards Judge: Internationally acclaimed photographer JON NAAR.

 

Mr. Naar was present at the opening reception, signing his books The Birth of Graffiti (2007) and Getting the Picture (2005).  DoN purchased Birth of Graffiti and chatted with Naar about how to present photographs most effectively.  “Naar’s photographs have been published in many of the world’s leading magazines and exhibited at the Metropolitan  Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the International Center of Photography, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. In 2005-06 at the Jan Cunen Museum in the Netherlands, his retrospective attracted a record-breaking 15,000 visitors (Jon Naar’s website).”

DoN with his entry “light beings (Dora & Pablo)”, photo by Rikard Larma.

DoN with his entry “light beings (Dora & Pablo)”, photo by Rikard Larma.

Award winning photograph by Suzanne Comer. (DoN agrees it looks like a botanical drawing - just stunning.)

Award winning photograph by Suzanne Comer.  (DoN agrees it looks like a botanical drawing – just stunning.)

Suzanne Comer with Photo Synthesis juror Jon Naar. Comer is primarily a painter who uses photography for reference, she was thrilled to win an award with such terrific competition at The DaVinci Art Alliance.

Suzanne Comer with Photo Synthesis juror Jon Naar.  Comer was trained as a painter who used photography for reference but is now a primarily a photographer which explains her painterly eye.   Comer was thrilled to win an award with such terrific competition at The DaVinci Art Alliance, she positively glowed with pride.

Artist Liz Nicklus with her photo montage/collage.

Artist Liz Nicklus with her photo montage/collage.

Liz Nicklus’ “Witness”, mixed media.

Liz Nicklus’ “Witness“, mixed media.

Susan Van Selous

Susan Van Selous‘ “Carley’s Daisy“, digital design.

Photo by Rikard Larma @ Photo Synthesis.

Photo by Rikard Larma @ Photo Synthesis.

Artist Marilyn Lavins with her entry in Photo Synthesis @ DaVinci Art Alliance.

Artist Marilyn Lavins with her entry in Photo Synthesis @ DaVinci Art Alliance.


Miller’s T-Shirt was created by Margharita Warhola, niece of Andy Warhol, exclusively for Deb.  Andy would have been 80 years old this year and has been gone from our plane of existence for twenty years now – hard to believe.  Dr. Deb explained the meaning of photography in her opening remarks, “Phos is Greek for “light,” and graphein is Greek for “to write”–so photography means writing with light.” 

 

All photography by DoNBrewerMultimedia except where noted.

 

Decor/Decorum @ CFEVA

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The Center for Emerging Visual Arts keeps raising the bar on curating art shows in Philadelphia, the current exhibit, Décor/Decorum, of photography, sculpted plates and plaster vignettes is simply exquisite like being plunked down into a scene on a Wedgewood plate only it’s in your eccentric grandmother’s white lacquered cabinet.  Photos of the interior of Joelle Jenson‘s grandmother’s Florida home are a temporal distortion, the mostly white spaces combine a mix of natural and artificial light, memory and architecture, austere, fresh and clean – when fresh and clean didn’t mean you were hip-hop but a time when everything had a place and was in it, sparkly and shiny.  Joelle’s grandmother had glamour shots of herself stratigically displayed thoughout her immaculate home, even producing calendars with her beautiful image, her snow white hair perfectly coiffed, as gifts for family members. Now Grandma is a star in Joelle’s homage to an esthetic quickly disappearing from the American landscape; Joelle confided with DoN that the family used to ridicule their grandmother’s decorating style but when she died and Joelle’s parents moved in they didn’t change a thing.  Jenson has completed photographing her husband’s parents home in Florida and is working on a series from her other grandmother’s abode.  Jenson produces her work at The Camera Club  of New York and exhibits at Wall Space Gallery in Seattle.Joelle Jenson @ Décor/Decorum @ CFEVA

Joelle Jenson@ Décor/Decorum @ CFEVA 

C-Print by Joelle Jenson @ CFEVA

C-Print by Joelle Jenson @ CFEVA.

Jedediah Morfit’s carved plaster plates and vignette’s mounted on the wall compose a chilly counterpoint to Jenson’s photographs.  Morfit “explores irresistible contemporary taboos including craft, religion and narrative” (CFEVA art card).  The antechamber gallery features a wall of plates Jed told DoN was about “new temptations of Saint Anthony“, with the plates each featuring a modern tempting diversion.  The opposite wall has a striking series of bas-relief sculptures with antebellum women pushing wheelbarrows filled with bones and heads running from a rain of arrows – very powerful.  DoN overheard one patron say she felt she was in, “one of those blue plates”.  DoN suspects she meant Wedgewood china.  Morfit tells DoN these are the first in a series that will feature “tons of figures including flying monkeys”.

Bas-relief wall sculpture by Jedediah Morfit @ CFEVA.

Bas-relief wall sculpture by Jedediah Morfit @ CFEVA.

Jedediah Morfit with his plaster plates in CFEVA’s main gallery.

Jedediah Morfit with his plaster plates in CFEVA’s main gallery.

All photography by DoNBrewerMultimedia 

DoN ArT NeW NeWs

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Randy Dalton’s Blue Grotto

 

Randy Dalton’s Blue Grotto

DoNArTNeWs New News – First Blog

The Blue Grotto, Randy Dalton‘s installation is at the Community Education Center (CEC), 3500 Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia, is open on Tuesday and Thursday Evenings from 4:30 to 8:30 pm and Saturdays from 12 to 5pm. Dalton can reached at 215-844-6253 or email randydalton@earthlink.net

March is Women’s History Month, this week’s DoN Art News is dedicated to all my strong women friends who have supported my efforts, inspired me and encouraged me to continue my artistic growth. Since DoN is an honorary girl, the rest of this article is about women’s art happening around town.

The current exhibit at The Center for Emerging Visual Artists in the Barclay Building on Rittenhouse Square is currated by friend of DoN, Brooke Hine. Adaptation: Celebrating Growth and Change is an exhibition dedicated to the transformation of environments, organisms, bodies and forgotten places. Brooke has gathered a cohesive collection of new art composed of unusual, unique materials from dryer sheets as an ethereal wall installation to drawings made with human hair to mobile sculpture activated by magnets. Brooke is a well known ceramics artist and has obviously taken great care to gather a collection of exciting new media mixed with traditional composition and craft techniques.

Brooke Hine Ceramic Installation

Brooke Hine’s ceramics.

The venerable Newman Gallery on Walnut Street has a superb group of art by women on the mezzanine level of this three story historic building. The Newman family has been running the gallery (the first in America) since 1865 and has been open at their present location since 1935! Terry Newman has gathered a group of strong paintings by 20th Century women artist’s demonstrating the influence of Impressionism and modern painting styles. Newman Galleries’ collection of works by American women of the early twentieth century includes numerous nationally recognized artists working in a variety of media and styles. Two of the most prominent women of that era were Elizabeth Washington, renowned for her soft impressions of the unspoiled Pennsylvania landscape, and Fern Coppedge, whose dazzling use of color and composition made her painted scenes come alive. The Cubist still life paintings of Dorcas Doolittle and the dramatic bronzes of Amelie Zell and Beatrice Fenton further illustrate the diversity of talent demonstrated by these women.

women’<p>s art

Newman Gallery mezzanine with art by women painters.

newman

The main floor of Newman’s Gallery is a trove of art, don’t be intimidated to visit and browse through the racks of drawings, prints and paintings; Newman’s staff is super-friendly and the third floor gallery is literally a museum of 18th, 19th and 20th century art.

Second Thursday at the Crane Arts Center was totally cool; Jocelyn Firth’s “You Might Find Yourself” show in the Icebox demonstrated that photography is not just “loft art” but inspiring, disturbing and influential. Thomas Prior’s, “Hotel Fire“, brought back the fear of distaster that CNN inflicts on us daily, Ian Baguskas‘, “Search for the American Landscape” elevates the mundane to the sublime with a simple shot of beach sand rendered as a passage of time and John Francis Peter‘s, “Red Tourism“, educates us to how photography and the pursuit of fame is universal if ephemeral. Firth’s curatorial debut in Philly is the beginning of a LoVe affair.icebox

The crowd at Icebox in the Crane Art Center.

NEXUS gallery’s 8 artists, 8 viewpoints featuring women artists from Philadelphia art schools, includes a lot of fiber art and unusual fabric constructions coinciding with the FiberPhiladelphia shows going on around town. DoN‘s favorite is Rebecca Landes‘, “I Embroider the Pain Away“; a collection of embroideries of phrases reflecting the angst of modern life and the irony of the old fashioned art of cross stitch intersecting computer age social life – “I’ll Never Look at Your MySpace Page”.

InLiquid’s show in the hallway is outstanding: Ruth Borgenicht and Leslie Pontz’s Collaboration: linking metal and clay is fabulous with constructions combining metal mesh and clay globs is fresh and soon to be influential since a group of hanging mesh bags filled with clay will soon be included in a famous, world-class collection. DoN appreciated how the duo utilized the old urinals in the space – so DuChampian.

ruth

 

Leslie Pontz & Ruth Borgenicht.

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Fiber art construction in the InLiquid show (sorry I don’t know who the artist is but the construction is poignant and evocative of working life in American society.)

Smile Gallery‘s, “F Word” show is superb featuring work by prominent women artists is this intimate space on the second floor. Friend of DoN, Betsy Alexander is showing her signature crosses made from old CDs and her new digital photos. Speaking of Betsy and my rant from my last post about how women in Philly don’t dress up…

Betsy Alexander

 

Betsy Alexander shows how to wear art.

The “F Word” is all about feminism and other “F’s” from fecundity to fetishism by prominent female artist’s curated by Debra Miller with brave, charasmatic images, constructions and paintings.

F Word

Francine Strauss, Lilliana Didovic and curator Debra Miller at Smile’s “F Word”.Betsy Alexander reports that the Thai food on the first floor is the best in town. Smile is at 105 S. 22nd St., 215-564-2502.

The William Way Gay Community Centerr has a one woman show of fiber constructions by Kathryn Pannepacker in the main lobby. At once political and poetic, Pannepacker’s work combines mundane materials like Q-tips with traditional fibers like jute to produce a collection of flags, sculptures and hangings with messages of hope, tolerance and peace. 

Speaking of the Gay Community Center – the current issue of Equality, HRC’s magazine features photos from Rachelle Lee Smith‘s wonderful portraits of gay youths who wrote short bio’s on the their pictures from the last art show at the center. Way to go HRC even if you abandoned the T’s in LGBT. Thankfully The William Way Center includes everybody even if it’s a boy who wants to wear dresses or a girl with a moustache and sideburns. The idea that HRC could turn their backs on a sub-group of an already persecuted group in order to push through an agenda is unacceptable; the leadership of HRC should be replaced if they’re not able to understand the evil of discrimination against transgendered people.

Next: Coffee Shop Art Shows.

LoVe

DoN