Category Archives: Philadelphia Art

Art in Philadelphia, PA.

Daniel Gerwin

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

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Johanna Inman

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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.”

Introduction 2012

February 1 February 25, 2012

Widener Memorial Foundation Gallery

Circumstantial Assembly / CFEVA at Moore

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

Introduction 2011

Photographs by DoN

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Leslie Friedman

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Leslie Friedman, CFEVA Introduction 2012, Galleries at Moore, Cargo for Port Derby, 2010, serigraph on paper, 10 color print, edition of ten, Nasty Button, 2010, serigraph on paper, 9 color print, edition of eight, 3-2-1 Blast Off!, 2010, serigraph on paper, 7 color print, edition of twenty-eight.

DoN asked Leslie Friedman how she felt about being in the CFEVA Introduction 2012 exhibition in the Galleries at Moore? “I feel really great! I was really honored to get the fellowship. When I was sitting in the room at the orientation they were saying that three hundred and fifty people applied. And a lot of the people that applied, some of them are here tonight, have applied multiple times. And, I just feel really great to be here. The work looks amazing, especially Kay‘s piece, I don’t know, it’s really exciting. I had seen her work at the To Scale show and I’ve been a fan but I never met her.”

Dada? DoN asked. “I think it does, I mean, there’s definitely any kind of work that’s on paper with the ephemera of paper is definitely going to make you think of Dada-ism. Also, the fact that it’s collage. The way that I collage is a 21st Century way of collage-ing. It’s using the internet to get all my imagery, finding things and altering them. So, I’m not cutting up magazines or photographs, my collage is all done on line…I feel like this young generation, whatever you want to call it, uses the internet so fluidly. I think art is about the interchange of ideas, so none of what I’m doing with this is never making fun of, or debasing any of anyone else’s work. I take something that may be forgotten and turn it into something memorable.”

Introduction 2012

February 1 February 25, 2012

Widener Memorial Foundation Gallery

Circumstantial Assembly / CFEVA at Moore

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

Introduction 2011

Photographs by DoN
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Rebecca Gilbert

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Rebecca Gilbert, CFEVA Introduction 2012, The Galleries at Moore

Lucky, reduction and multiple block woodcut and gold leaf, Rock Pile Fortune Vessel, reduction and multiple block woodcut Rebecca Gilbert.

Rebecca Gilbert, Building the Perfect Worm House, CFEVA Introduction 2012, The Galleries at Moore

Amie Potsic, Director of Career Development at The Center for Emerging Visual Artists says, “I love openings, it’s the only time artists get any feedback. Because you’re never there except for receptions, usually. Some people are shy and find it a little bit hard but I think that they’re really so key for not only exposing work but having artists get good at talking about their work and building relationships. Most of the time we have artist’s talks at CFEVA and part of that is that if the artist has the experience of doing them more often they get better every time they do them. If your not a teacher, there’s very few instances where you actually have the opportunity to have an artist talk.”

DoN listened in while artist Rebecca Gilbert talked to a mom and her young daughter about her print, Safe Keeping Place, “Well, there’s one story. I have this bracelet that had a family heirloom heart locket on it and I had this opening in Old City years ago, and I was having this conversation and this little charm fell off of my bracelet and it was this freakish thing because it fell off and instead of just rolling, it fell, I swear, in a hole in the corner of the room that was just that big. Exactly the size. I went back the next day and the gallery owner said the hole led to the street and so my charm was unattainable. It was like, oh no, my family heirloom! It’s gone forever. And my best friend said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s safe in that hole. It’ll be there forever.”

DoN introduced himself. Is that a Jackalope? “That is a Jackalope…I’m trying to bring a positive energy to my work and to keep a positive outlook in life. And I’m also very superstitious. Some superstitions I I follow and some I make up on my own. I included a lot of symbolism from that so I can add that positive energy. Lucky, is the name of the Jackalope, but it’s up to the viewer to decide if he is actually lucky or not. So you have all these good luck charms but for them, it’s subtle, but there’s extra feet and of course they chop off rabbit’s feet. So, it you have extra, you’re lucky. Another thing is I knew I wanted to do a Jackalope because I did an artist’s residency in Wyoming and I started researching Jackalopes and I knew that to me in my head that they’re mythical creatures who like to drink whiskey and sing songs.”

“But, in my research I saw that there actually have been rabbits found as early as the 17th Century, I found illustrations of rabbits with these knobs coming out of the top of their heads. Not horns but knobs. But, it’s actually a cancer. In my research there are all of these rabbits with these things hanging off of them. And, you know, one hypothesis is that that’s where it came from. They were interpreted as horns, so, that questions ‘what is lucky?’. ‘Oh, you’re lucky you’re an imagined creature with horns on your head?’. So, the whole reason I made the print was not to compare myself to other people because you never know the whole story.”