Category Archives: Philadelphia Artists

Artists DoN has met in and around Philadelphia.

Nancy Barch, Chained Mail, mixed media @ Grow – Off the Wall Gallery. The use of disposable materials such as the ceiling tile and old slides reek with hidden meaning and memes. Slides are so anachronistic and ceiling tiles, even though functional at insulation and sound-proofing, are out of style. Barch’s piece sends obtuse mixed messages stimulating social consciousness neurons to fire in the brain.

Grow @ Off the Wall Gallery in Dirty Frank’s Bar.

Alisa Fox, Jars, mixed media.

One of the cool things @ Off the Wall is the corner display case where more delicate constructions can be installed. The team of Jody and Togo extend much effort in branding, soliciting, promoting and selling art from publicity to art cards and posters to installation, the production is always top notch. Off the Wall has hosted hundreds of local aspiring and established artists in their thoughtful exhibitions.

Karl Olsen, Free Compost, mixed media including ingredients from mustard to absinthe.

Grow is on display through August 7th and includes work by 30 artists including members of the Plastic Club, Photographic Society of Philadelphia and other regional arts groups. Frank’s has been an outpost for many Plastic Club members and recently Anders Hansen hosted a Salon at The Plastic Club to discuss the Grow show. In branding the show, curator Jody Sweitzer and manager Togo Travalia, put a new spin on the current “green” trend with a focus on recycled materials and ideas.

Karl Olsen used phylo dough, Julia Fisichella‘s amazing photoshop collages are inspired, Ed Snyder’s floral photograph exquisitely illuminated the concept with an image pinched from nature, Veronica Schmude‘s moody interior photograph is brimming with stolen narrative (Veronica is the guest speaker at this Tuesday’s PSoP lecture series at The Plastic Club). The Salon was lively: Shoshanna Aron (just back from Israel) pointed out how being “green” is a new concept – that the old paradigm was consumerism, Bob Bohne introduced the topic of the healing power of art and the importance of community outreach, Alan Clawens highlighted how artists resist creating new work for a theme show and try to squeeze old works into new parameters, DoN mentioned bricolage and Burnell Yow!s amazing show at Smile. The group sipped wine and chatted until sunset and the party moved to Frank’s. The discussion helped DoN realize that thinking outside the box isn’t always the best approach – sometimes all you need is the box.

Joroko & Yow! – Intuitive Bricolage @ Smile Gallery

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Burnell Yow!, “Dolls of the Apocalypse“, Smile Gallery.

Burnell Yow!, “Mummy Barbie“.

B. Yow!, L. Parkes, D. Walters, “Exquisite Corpse #33“, giclee print, 20″ x 16”

Joroko,”March On“, mixed media.

Joroko, “Subtext“, mixed media.

Bricolage, pronounced /ˌbriːkoʊˈlɑːʒ/, /ˌbrɪkoʊˈlɑːʒ/ is a term used in several disciplines, among them the visual arts and literature, to refer to the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things which happen to be available, or a work created by such a process. The term is borrowed from the French word bricolage, from the verb bricoler the core meaning in French being, “fiddle, tinker” and, by extension, “make creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are to hand (regardless of their original purpose).”

A person who engages in bricolage is a bricoleur.

Thank you Wikipedia!

Burnell’s dolls are totemic, shamanistic, zen-like, beatific, clever, ironic, dystopian creations repurposing objet trouve and doll parts. The digital “exquisite corpse” prints are a great stealable idea – so po-mo.

Joroko‘s goth skeletons populating bombed out surfaces, dancing and cavorting with stars, stripes, crosses and words perfectly counterpoints the odd dolls – somehow the energy of the room becomes a bad boy’s fantasy world of stealing your sister’s dolls and ripping the heads off and drawing war scenes with explosions, craters and bodies. Dr. Deb Miller curated the show – deep.

Plastic Surgery As Art: Michael Jackson, Orlan and Self-Mutilation Performance

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Michael Jackson was the penultimate post-modern artist; the indelible impression of a person being able to transform race, gender, age, and identity with the use of mass media is an artform beyond the realm of acceptance for many. Like a human collage Michael had a tiny doll nose, pretty pink lips, fawn eyes, opalescent skin, Liz Taylor hair and Kirk Douglas jaw line, his thin frame absolutely perfect in the “You Are Not Alone” video. Only in our futuristic present are people able to transform their physical being to match their internal identity, anyone can change their look, even in the slums of Brazil breast augmentation is big business. Michael Jackson was a true visionary who understood the synergy of image, performance and marketing to penetrate the minds of people even to the farthest corners of Earth.

The French artist, Orlan, famously uses plastic surgery to transform her image creating ugly/beautiful, intriguing/repulsive, ancient/futuristic changes to her face. Cheek and lip implants, bulbous forehead adornments, Cruella DaVille hair all mashed up to create a shocking, memorable experience – a design using human flesh as canvas. Check out Orlan’s website – she is a trip! On David Bowie‘s “1 Outside” album, the CD liner notes tell the tale of a performance artist who cuts off small bits of his body for an audience of connosseurs willing to pay for the privilege of witnessing self-mutilation, the artist cutting off digits and bits of muscle till only one arm remained. Art is in the eye of the beholder.

Stefan Sagmeister‘s famous AIGA poster.

DoN LoVeD Michael, always believing he would never harm a child. A friend once told DoN he saw Michael Jackson with a wheelchair bound child at a ride in Disney World, the people in line went wild asking for autographs but Michael told the crowd he was there to be with the sick kid and devoted hours to making a child’s dream come true. We are the world.