Category Archives: Philadelphia Artists

Artists DoN has met in and around Philadelphia.

Tim McFarlane @ Bridgette Mayer Gallery

Tim McFarlane has been painting for a long time, along the way becoming a color specialist, conceptual context conneuseur and sure handed painter. Each panel displays the passage of time, speeded down and slowed up, sometimes painting wet into wet, other times letting the layers build creating a completely different temporal distortion.

Bridgette Mayer tells DoN, “I saw something in Tim’s work I really enjoyed and knew that he could develop further. He’s one of those artists that have natural spirit and intensity of purpose.” McFarlane’s one-person show is powerful and full of ideas to steal – like using the grainy wood panels on thin boxes and just painting with a joyous hand.

Tim McFarlane

Twist, acrylic on panel by Tim McFarlane @ Bridgette Mayer Gallery.

Tim McFarlane

Little Speaker Groove, acrylic on panel, Tim McFarlane.

Tim McFarlane

Gravity’s Architecture by Tim McFarlane @ Bridgette Mayer Gallery on beautiful Washington Square.

Berlioz Ortega @ Goggle Works

ortega

Berlioz Ortega, pencil, Dreams Between Dali and I.

 

DoN forgets that Dali is not just an inspirational omni-cultural, trans-dimensional being throughout the art world but is a hero to Latin artists, too. This drawing is wall sized. Ortega’s studio was open as part of Goggle Works First Thursday events.

Peace

peace

Peace sign made from shredded money @ Art x 7 @ 6th & South Streets, the exhibit is elegant and edgy with strange points of view and exaggerated reality. The gallery is part of the new South Street Renaissance, superb photos by Susan Arthur Whitson and Keith Sharp.

peace

Kathryn Pannepacker @ The Philadelphia Dumpster Divers in Outsiders Folk Art. This piece includes woven paper matches, the kind you light cigs with; Pannepacker knows how to ignite a conversation, her peace/heart is ready to burst into flames.
peace

Photo by DoN.

The Philadelphia Dumpster Divers @ Outsider Folk Arts in the Goggle Works.

The Philadelphia Dumpster Divers have overtaken Outsiders Folk Arts in the Goggleworks Center for the Arts, a major cultural hub of the Reading region. DoN saw families tumbling out the door after some sort of recital, there’s an art show of students who have taken classes in the center, there’s an enourmous wood shop that smells so good. The Goggleworks is a magnet for artists of all stripes finding access to a wide array of opportunities and is really cool space itself, packed with studios, galleries, show spaces and art. The Dumpster Divers are definitely grooving on the vibe of the place and have installed unique, quirky objects which will inspire many budding artists as well as attracting collectors, since Viener’s artistic eye is well respected.

George Viener is a collector of folk art, outsider art and self-taught art; even though the many of the Divers are professional artists in their own right, collectively the group has a simple basic principle of being creative with what’s on hand, art doesn’t have to be expensive to make and rescueing lost objects ala Marcel DuChamp is de riguer. DoN thinks that counts as self-taught, it’s new, unfiltered raw ideas bubbling to the surface; Dada.
outsider arts

Len Davidson, Queen of the Gnomes, @ Outsider Folk Arts in Reading, PA.

 

outsider arts

Randal Cleaver, Space Time @ Outsider Folk Arts.

 

outsider arts

Warren Muller, Philadelphia light artist @ Outsider Folk Arts in the Goggleworks Center for the Arts in Reading.

Burnell Yow! – Dolls of the Apocalypse @ Outsider Folk Art

In Philip Dick’s dystopian future sci-fi classic, Dr. Bloodmoney, Happy Harrington, a deformed mutant with telekinetic powers trundles around in a wagon pulled by a donkey and gleans from the post-nuclear highway with his robotic prothetic “arms”. Yow! takes DoN to that future place when transmogrified beings wander Earth looking for charms, spells and spare mother-boards. Tapping into the zeitgeist that trash is future treasure, these dolls represent the Apocalypse that has already happened all around DoN is slo-mo without him really noticing. Dolls of the Apolalypse incorporate actual Barbie Doll body parts – using a terrific technique, Yow! tricks the eye into believing the work is cast metal. Plastic is the new Apocalypse.

 

burnell yow! doll

 

Burnell Yow!, Dolls of the Apocalypse in The Philadelphia Dumpster Diver Show @ Outsider Folk Arts in Reading, PA.

outsider arts