Category Archives: Philadelphia Photographers

Twentysix Wawa Stores

Philiput presents: Twentysix Wawa Stores – Eric Weeks Photographic Exhibition, Book and Film : Poetic Finissage

Philiput presents: Twentysix Wawa Stores – Eric Weeks Photographic Exhibition, Book and Film : Poetic Finissage 1901b Washington Ave, Philadelphia, PA. Sept 29, 5pm – 9pm. Curated by Rebeca Martell and Devin Cohen.

Shoutflower Four Poetry reading event happening featuring: Heather Houde Samantha, PiousJohn Pinto,Myene Yanu and more.

Eric Weeks is an artist using photography and video, a curator, and Chair of the Photography & Video Department at the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA. He has exhibited his photographs and short films nationally and internationally, including in Australia, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and the United States. His work is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Maison Européene de la Photographie, Bibliothèque Nationale, Yale University Art Gallery and the Sir Elton John Collection, among others. He is the author of two monographs, World Was in the Face of the Beloved and A Rose By Any Other Name. Portfolios have appeared in FotoNostrum, Dodho, Zoom, Photo +, Fahrenheit and Dear Dave. Awards include a City Corps Artist Grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts; an Individual Creative Artist Fellowship Grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; Open Call Winner, Art Speaks Out, ikonoTV, Berlin; Finalist, Black Maria Film Festival, Jersey City; and Semi-Finalist, G2 Green Earth Film Festival, Los Angeles. Weeks received a MFA from Yale University, and a BFA from the School of Visual Arts. His work is represented by Galerie Catherine & André Hug in Paris.

Twentysix Wawa Stores examines the Pennsylvania-based convenience store and gas purveyor Wawa. Wawa means wild goose in the indigenous American language of the Ojibwe. The Wawa business started in 1902 as a dairy farm located in Wawa, Pennsylvania, an area first named as such by land owner Edward Worth. The film, photo exhibition, and discussion follows the Lincoln Highway, starting in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and culminating at the farthest north Wawa store in Elizabeth, New Jersey.Made in reference to Edward Ruscha’s Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Twentysix Wawa Stores unobtrusively observes the phenomenon of automobile culture in America in the 2020’s.

Philiput presents: 
Twentysix Wawa Stores – Eric Weeks
Photographic Exhibition, Book and Film : Poetic Finissage 
1901b Washington Ave, Philadelphia, PA

Thank you to Devon Cohen for the content of this post.

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John Singletary – Through Lines/Fault Lines

John Singletary - Through Lines/Fault Lines
John Singletary, Still Frame from Traces, 22:45 Minute OLED Video/Sound Installation

John Singletary – Through Lines/Fault Lines

The Gallery at Penn College (a Penn State Affiliate) 

Room 303, The Madigan Library, 1 College Ave., Williamsport, PA, 17701

On View Until March 23rd, 2023

Closing Reception and Artist Talk

Wednesday, March 22nd, 4:00-7:00 PM

Press Contact:

Cindy Davis Meixel 

Writer/Photo Editor

T 570-320-2400; x 7134

E cmeixel@pct.edu

Exhibition Hours:

Tuesday – Thursday: 2:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Friday: 10:00 AM – 8:00 PM

Sunday: 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Transcending the limitations of the photographic medium, John Singletary creates multidisciplinary installation experiences. His work graces The Gallery at Penn College through March 22. Singletary’s Through Lines/Fault Lines is the first exhibition of multimedia work on screens in the gallery’s history. Located on the third floor of The Madigan Library at Pennsylvania College of Technology, the gallery is in its 17th season.

John Singletary - Through Lines/Fault Lines
John Singletary, Installation View – Traces, 22:45 Minute OLED Video/Sound Installation

The exhibition includes two installations: Traces and Anahata.

“John’s new series, Traces, was created specifically for his solo exhibition in The Gallery at Penn College,” said Penny Griffin Lutz, gallery director. “Visitors will be immersed in an audiovisual experience that explores culture, beliefs and the human connection.”

Traces uses video, digital and stop-motion animation, historical footage, and audio. “Anahata” is photography-based and presented as an immersive installation on organic LED electronic canvases.

A photographer and multimedia artist based in Philadelphia, Singletary received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography from The University of the Arts. His work has been collected by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Center for Fine Art Photography, as well as other institutional and private collections.

The artist says the imagery and vignettes in Traces, an ongoing multimedia work, depict “the extraordinary light and darkness in the human condition and life events such as the genesis of our existence and the purpose we serve to each other and ourselves.”

The audio component of the installation consists of a series of anonymously conducted interviews with a range of participants. The perspectives highlighted reveal the universality and individuality of values, the intersectionality of symbolism across cultures and lineages, and the perpetual cycles of life.

“Surveying the myriad and disjointed experiences that make up a life, ‘Traces’ explores the way we construct our internal narratives and create meaning from experience,” Singletary said.

John Singletary - Through Lines/Fault Lines
John Singletary, Still Frame from Traces, 22:45 Minute OLED Video/Sound Installation

Anahata explores human relationships and their connection to the divine. Choreographed movement was captured with an open-spectrum camera in a purpose-built, ultraviolet light studio where dancers performed in handcrafted costumes. The resulting dreamlike images are steeped in archetypal symbolism, mythology and mysticism.

A long-term collaboration between the artist and dancers, costume designers, makeup artists, choreographers and other artists, Anahata unveils a “frenetic tribe” that feels of another place and time.


The Gallery at Penn College is open 2 to 8 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays; and 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays. (The gallery is closed on Mondays and Saturdays and will also be closed March 5-12 during Spring Break.)

John Singletary - Through Lines/Fault Lines
John Singletary, Dryads from Anahata, 5′ x 3′ OLED Installation

Thank you to John Singletary for the content of this post.

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POST, Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2022

Philadelphia Open Studio Tours (POST) returns this October 2022 with over 250 participating artists and partners.

What: PHILADELPHIA, PA – October 6, 2022. NEW. Philadelphia’s best behind-the-scenes, creative space showcase, Philadelphia Open Studio Tours (POST) is back in-person over two weekends, October 15th/16th, and 22nd/23rd.

Traversing the city’s four quadrants — by SEPTA, bike, car, or on foot — Philadelphians and visitors alike can take part in an extraordinary self-guided discovery of local art practice. Philadelphia Open Studio Tours is the largest studio visit experience in the region, featuring over 250 artists in situ and community spaces who will open their doors to visitors for one of the four days. Participating businesses and creative spaces enhance the energy already taking place in the more than 30 neighborhoods where art studios are located. Related POST activities include: studio visits, hands-on
demonstrations, artist talks, preview events, featured exhibitions and more.

Who should attend: All are welcome to participate in the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours! Families, students, community groups, visitors of all ages are encouraged to attend.


Why: POST is not just an intimate window of a day in the life of an artist, or a gallery hop. Instead, it highlights the enormous artistic capital of talent that is Philadelphia in an approachable, accessible way for all to enjoy. No other open studio event in the area provides such a rich and diverse cultural experience for the public. For more detailed, up-to-date information, to view the digital directory and interactive map of participating artists, as well as in-person event updates in October, please visit the NEW POST event website at www.cfeva.org/philaopenstudios.

When and Where: Philadelphia Open Studio Tours occurs, city-wide over two weekends, with ancillary activities scheduled for the weekdays in between. Studios and creative spaces are open to the public from noon-6pm all four days: POST South quadrant – Saturday, October 15th; POST West quadrant – Sunday, October 16th; POST Northwest quadrant – Saturday, October 22nd; POST Northeast Quadrant – Sunday, October 23rd.

For the interactive map and artist directory listings, please click here.
Media Contact: Lily Gilston, Community Program Manager at The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA) www.cfeva.org/philaopenstudios | 215.546.7775 x 13| Post@cfeva.org | lily@cfeva.org | #POST2022 #POSTPHL
@PhilaCFEVA on Instagram, @CFEVA @Philaopenstudios on Facebook

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REBECA MARTELL – NIGHT IS THE NEW DAY

Rebeca Martell, Night is the New Day

REBECA MARTELL – NIGHT IS THE NEW DAY

Where will we go after the last borders? 

Where will the birds fly after the last darling? 

Where will the plants sleep after the last wind? 

We’ll write our names with steam dyed crimson,  we will cut the hand to the edge so that our meat completes it.

Here we will die.

Here, in the last passage.

Here or there… our blood will plant its olive trees.

Mahmoud Darwish

Night is the New Day, Rebeca Martell
Night is the New Day, Rebeca Martell

In the black and white photographic series Night is the New Day, Rebeca Martell evokes the recognition of the strangeness that she experiences looking at in exile.  Between surprise and nostalgia, Martell moves towards the redefinition of herself, cautiously exploring the places she sees and the people who inhabit them.  With a foreign lens, looks for the moment that sublimates the experience of herself, that captivates the feeling of being in the dark leaving behind the memories of the tropic, like running away from a bad dream.

Rebeca Martell

Martell’s camera is the vehicle that intervenes between her gaze and the other; where the faces are not recognized, where the blur in the images is the metaphor of the distance between the self and the beings that inhabit reality.  Martell utilizes the absence of light to blur the very act of looking. Martell’s work not only sublimates emotions but is also a lonely walk; the cold and silence, the memories that inhabit the memory. 

Night is the New Day, Rebeca Martell

The images of Night is the New Day are an evocation of what the darkness hides from the eye, what cannot be perceived by the naked eye, the ghost of the absent light during the winter that only leaves in its wake a few shades. Rebeca Martell makes use of photography to portray her days of winter in Sweden while, at the same time offers us a testimonial of a look that becomes raw, powerless and unprotected against others and before her own process of self-recognition.  She portrays the moment where the connection between the gaze and the soul is created, right there where it appears what cannot be shown with the naked eye, where she reaches the image from the furthest part of the unconscious.                            

Liliana Marcos Lozano, 2022

Night is the New Day, Rebeca Martell

Rebeca Martell bio:
Rebeca Martell, an independent photographer, trained at UNAM, Centro de la Imagen, Jumex Collection, Philadelphia Photo Arts, Rufino Tamayo Museum, Alameda Art Laboratory, and Photoespaña.


Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Oaxaca, the Barnes Foundation, X-Teresa Arte Actual, the Sebastián Foundation, Brukenthal National Museum of Contemporary Art in Romania, Philadelphia Photo Arts, and the National Auditorium; as well as in the Mexican embassy in Spain, Belgium, Lithuania, Hungary, Greece, Holland, France, San Pedro Museum of Art, and in the Juan C. Méndez PhotoMuseum, as well as having been a winner at the eighth State Meeting of Contemporary Art in Puebla, Mexico.

Night is the New Day, Rebeca Martell

Philiput presents: Rebeca Martell – Night is the New Day photographic art by Rebeca Martell, curated by Devin Cohen, curatorial text by Liliana Marcos Lozano

event photos by Devin Cohen

Night is the New Day, Rebeca Martell


Afromythology

Shawn Theodore, Fanm Jade Ble (Blue Jade Woman), 2019

Shawn Theodore: Night Stars
A Solo Exhibition of New Work
February 26 – March 20, 2021

February 11, 2021 (Philadelphia, PA) – Paradigm Gallery is pleased to present Night Stars, a solo exhibition of new photographic work by interdisciplinary artist Shawn Theodore. Night Stars is an expansion of Theodore’s investigation into a space he calls ‘Afromythology’, which unites
the real and imaginary histories and futures of African Americans. In Night Stars, Theodore widens this space by melding together the traditions of African indigo making and the magical powers of water and stars.

The evocative exhibition illuminates the space where they all converge, a body of work that is a deep, deep blue. Night Stars marks the first exhibition at Paradigm with the artist. Night Stars is open to the public from February 26 – March 20th with an opening event on Friday, February 26th at 5:30PM.

Theodore makes connections, finds linked points and intersections within the past and seeing what is repeated in the current he identifies recurring themes, like spirituality. Spirituality has been passed on from generation to generation, and is something that is ostensibly part of the Black experience, but it is not something you can see or touch; it happens without direct knowledge, just faith.

In Night Stars, Theodore looks deeper for where instances of faith happen such as in music, quilt making or code switching. All of these hold examples of coded language, subversive art and intent and Night Stars is constructed from these metaphysical bridges. Bridges like quilts that were used to smuggle secret messages guiding people to freedom, far beyond the maker’s own physical passing. Or the Dogon tribe of West Africa, who were master astronomers.

They believed that their ancestors were descendants of a species from the Sirius star system eight and half light years away and to be free meant going back home. Though they were physically limited, their collective celestial knowledge somehow traveled across time and space to other groups of Black people who used it to understand the same set of stars that were used in the same way: to be led to freedom. ‘Afromyth’ sits upon these bridges.

The works in Night Stars are a series of statuesque portraits, monuments within a vast space of blue. Blue is a multi-tiered reference within the exhibition. The color is known to ward off evil in African and African American culture and Theodore questions how that symbolic signal came to
be and why it still holds that power today.

The artist says, “To create in blue, one must first understand its powerful nature. There has to be a world that exists inside of the color. A spiritual process is happening that is begging us to look inside of it, and somewhere within it are answers”. Theodore connects the symbolic color to the 19th century process of cyanotype.

The artist has always been fascinated by the historic practice, which produces a cyan-blue print; however, it is extremely rare to find a Black subject in one of these prints. Rather than shooting in cyanotype, Theodore uses it as a guideline, photographing his subjects using blue filters and blue cast lights.

The resulting works are less historic than they are revolutionary. On the series Theodore says, “Featured in this collection are portraits made of bejeweled deities in the indigo-hued ether, the fervor of fête revelers, the quiet stillness amongst the dense foliage and haints of Low Country of South Carolina, possession in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, and sunrise reverence at the edge of the Caribbean Sea. At the center is the viewer, who stands at the bardos of these seemingly disjointed experiences, their presence unifying the real and unreal”.


Photography often acts as a fast route to see the past, but what is beyond the camera’s sight? Subconsciously, the brain creates narratives beyond physical photographs, beyond what we logically know or see. These leaps are our imagined archives and it’s within their boundless possibilities that Night Stars lives, filling the gaps.

*Due to COVID-19, “Night Stars” will be open for regular weekend hours with limited capacity and is available to view by private appointments during the week until further notice. The digital exhibition twin is available on https://www.paradigmarts.org/ for viewing from home. These policies are dependent on the current policies of the CDC, WHO and the Governor and Mayor’s offices. Paradigm Gallery’s number one priority is the safety and wellness of their visitors. For live updates on the exhibition and appointments, please visit the Paradigm website and socials. For any questions on Paradigm’s current policies, please email info@paradigm-gallery.com.

About Shawn Theodore
Shawn Theodore (b. 1970, Germany) is an award-winning photographer whose work opens broad conversations regarding the role of the photographer in the shaping of agency and imagery, engages in new forms of storytelling, and impacts the trajectory of the collective black consciousness.


Theodore has participated in exhibitions at various institutions, galleries and fairs, including the African American Museum in Philadelphia (2017, 2018), Mennello Museum of American Art (2018), The Barnes Foundation (2017, 2018, 2019), Steven Kasher Gallery (2018), AIPAD (2018, 2019), Hudson Valley Community College (2018), Catherine Edelman Gallery (2017), The Bakalar & Paine Galleries at MassArt (2017), Snap! Orlando (2018), Richard Beavers Gallery (2018), PRIZM Art Fair, Scope Art Fair, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Rush Arts Gallery (2017, 2018), and the University of the Arts (2019).

His commercial projects include works for Apple, Showtime Networks, RocNation, PAPER Magazine, New York Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, The Atlantic, The New York Times, PDN and others.
Theodore was awarded the prestigious PDN’s 30 New & Emerging Photographers to Watch (2019), the Getty Images / ARRAY ‘Where We Stand’ (2018) grant and a grant from the Knight Foundation for ‘A Dream Deferred’ (2018). He is a two-time nominee of The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Fellowship, and a nominee of the Magnum Foundation Fund.

Theodore earned his BA in JPRA (Journalism, Public Relations and Advertising) from Temple University. He currently attends the MFA for Photography program at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD Atlanta). Theodore is a current trustee of the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation and the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center.

About Paradigm Gallery
Paradigm Gallery + Studio® was established in 2010 by co-founders and curators, Jason Chen and Sara McCorriston. The gallery exhibits meaningful, process-intense contemporary artwork from around the world. Now open 11 years, Paradigm Gallery is globally recognized and known as a tastemaker within their greater Philadelphia arts community. As the gallery grows, it maintains its original mission to keep art accessible. Through monthly donations, free public art installations, and initiatives like Insider Picks, Paradigm Gallery, continues to be a champion of small businesses and emerging and mid-career artists.

Location:
746 S 4th St
Philadelphia, PA 19147
Media Contact:
Lainya Magaña, A&O PR
347 395 4155
lainya@aopublic.com

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DoNArTNeWs – celebrating twelve years reporting on Philadelphia artists and art.