Category Archives: Photography Philadelphia

Philadelphia photographers and photographs.

Endangered Seasons, Amie Potsic at The Borowsky Gallery

Ties That Bind, Seventh Annual Community Juried Art Show at Off the Wall Gallery

Jose Rios, Clown Posse, pen and gouache, Ties That Bind, Seventh Annual Community Juried Art Show at Off the Wall Gallery

By the time Clown Posse was presented to the panel of jurors assembled at Off the Wall Gallery curator Jody Sweitzer‘s place on her sweet flat screen TV, they were ready for a jolt of color. In the first round, the jury looked at over 200 images by about 50 artists while artist statements were read explaining how the artwork relates to the theme Ties That Bind. It was a lot to take in, DoN knew many of the artists but lots of others were new to him and as each image was connected to a statement, the idea of what the best representation of theme could really be emerged. For the second round of viewing, renowned photographer Rick Wright joined Elizabeth J. McTear, Marlise M. Tkaczuk, Melissa Ezelle and DoN as we looked at them all once more, each scoring our favorites in different ways. And then we looked at them all again and began the process of elimination.

There was some disagreement with Jose Rios’, Clown Posse because the color looks so bold standing on it’s own on a monitor and what do clowns have to do with Ties That Bind anyway? Jose Rios is an art student at Oasis Arts and Education, he wants’s to “inspire hope in others and myself.” The jury agreed that clowns connect deeply with people on an emotional level, a common childhood thread of fun and fear, the naive primitivism and cartoon pop color of the painting is right on trend and when you see the artwork with the rest of the show, the piece speaks in a quieter voice. During the opening reception the artist sat in the booth under his painting and worked on drawings of super-heros.

The team sifted through images for several more hours, with breaks for strawberry rhubarb pie, and argued the merits of each piece, we had to narrow the selection down to a manageable number of artworks that would fit the limited wall space and DoN learned a good lesson. Presentation is key; art shows are juried looking at digital photos which make the images all the same size on the screen, make sure your photo is the best possible.

Alice Gonglewski, Apartment, popsicle sticks, fabric and acrylic paint, Ties That Bind, Seventh Annual Community Juried Art Show at Off the Wall Gallery, photo courtesy of OTW@DF

Alice Gonglewsk‘s artist statement accompanying the popsicle stick constructions that look like a drawing/sculpture hybrids is a poem which begins, “Organize the dreams and moments, find connections, find a true tribe…” A good tip if you’re stuck writing an artist statement is to remember you’re an artist and can say it with words in a poem. If you can bring a tear to the juries eye, go for it. The graphic pieces present themselves as drawings in space, floor plan-like, with simple forms and materials representing the complex setting of a life lived.

Carla Liguori, Bound, terra cotta and glaze, Ties That Bind, Seventh Annual Community Juried Art Show at Off the Wall Gallery, photo courtesy of OTW@DF

Bound took the “top” prize, there were different levels of adherence to the theme instead of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, but the small ceramic sculpture exemplified the concept on so many levels, mixing metaphors, exquisite detail and finish, and a strange dada-ist narrative that is hard to put in words, as if we’re aware of being yoked and thinking we’re one thing instead of another; each creature believes it resembles the other because it can’t see itself. The artist describes the relationship between the figures as, “tortuous”.

Russell Brodie, Berkley House, oil on pine, Ties That Bind, Seventh Annual Community Juried Art Show at Off the Wall Gallery, photo courtesy of OTW@DF

The image of Berkley House, oil on pine, by Russell Brodie, is about life sized, the paintings are small and very realistic. In the jurying process the paintings looked as big as the other works, the images all presented relatively the same aspect ratio to one another, and presented on the screen large it was hard to imagine them small. The artist says he “wants to draw the audience in.”

Nicole Giusti, The Soap Dish, photograph, Ties That Bind, Seventh Annual Community Juried Art Show at Off the Wall Gallery, photo courtesy of OTW@DF

DoN loves the fact that The Soap Dish was awarded most abstract interpretation of the theme. How can a photo be abstract? But in this case many of the artworks were impressionistic, not abstract per se, and Nicole Giusti‘s still life photo combined with the tense narrative of her strained relationship with her grandmother transformed ordinary soap into doppelgangers, simulacra and ghosts of unpleasant memories. The repeating patterns, pristine color fields and limited palette resonated the theme of uncomfortable ties to family that reads differently for each viewer.

Gene Renzi, American Flags for Sale, photograph, Ties That Bind, Seventh Annual Community Juried Art Show at Off the Wall Gallery, photo courtesy of OTW@DF

Stephen Millner, Air Support, mixed media collage, Ties That Bind, Seventh Annual Community Juried Art Show at Off the Wall Gallery, photo courtesy of OTW@DF

Stephen Millner‘s Air Support collage is poignant and direct to the point, ties to military people is special, enduring and hopeful. The cancelled air mail stamps speak of countless expressions of hope and love, military families send care packages of stuff soldiers can’t get in Afghanistan or even on military bases, DoN has two nephews who have been deployed to the wars, Kurt is in Iraq right now working as a contractor, Buddy is back on active duty and could deploy anywhere, anytime. Art that reflects military life touches DoN‘s heart, the ties of love and hope bound with anxiety and fear is potent.

Eli VandenBerg, Egg Beater, ink on paper, Ties That Bind, Seventh Annual Community Juried Art Show at Off the Wall Gallery, photo courtesy of OTW@DF

All of the jurors thought of their grandmothers when presented with Egg Beater, an exquisite ink drawing that is simple, descriptive and active. The image represents a tool that ties us to fond memories, the old fashioned kitchen utensil able to mentally transport us to a place in the past with cake batter and whipped cream. Even the angle of the egg beater hints at activity, actions and achieving goals.

Jena Serbu, detail from Crickets, diorama with marionette- style low-fire clay figures found wood construction by Dawn Smith, Ties That Bind, Seventh Annual Community Juried Art Show at Off the Wall Gallery, photo courtesy of OTW@DF

Crickets is especially interesting because the piece was made on spec. The artists submitted a proposal with drawings and samples of some completed elements of the sculpture, the artist statement dealt with marital discord, problems from the past and angst of modern life. So the artists took a chance the jury would give them the go ahead to complete the piece, the presentation of the idea was fulfilled exactly as proposed and is a powerful presence in the show.

Ties That Bind, Seventh Annual Community Juried Art Show at Off the Wall Gallery

Awarding the prizes was a surprisingly simple and satisfying exercise. Each juror picked their top three favorites in each category ranked in descending order, if two or more pieces were selected by the jurors the scores were added and the highest scores received an award – a cool tie-dye kit.

DoN was honored when Togo Travalia asked him to help jury the show, Off the Wall Gallery at Dirty Franks has a long history of exceptional art shows. The Ties That Bind, Seventh Annual Community Juried Art Show is beautiful, sometimes challenging with a wide interpretation of a theme based on three simple words and what they mean to different artists. The ties that Off the Wall Gallery has to the Philadelphia arts community binds artists in a welcoming place, not afraid to take risks with art, challenge norms and raise the conversation to new levels when it comes to art interpretation and exhibition. Ties That Bind, Seventh Annual Community Juried Art Show at Off the Wall Gallery is on exhibit through August 3rd.

Written by DoN

Photographs courtesy of Off the Wall Gallery at Dirty Frank’s Bar except where noted.

Anne Saint Peter, 915 Spring Garden Studio Visit

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Anne Saint Peter, 915 Spring Garden Studio Visit

When the Spiker, Jeff the photographer and DoN arrived in Anne Saint Peter‘s studio on our open studio tour at 915 Spring Garden Art Studios, the collection of unusual photographic prints glowing in the afternoon sun fascinated our art crawling trio. Jeff the photographer shoots with a beautiful Nikon camera, DoN has his trusty Kodak and iPhone for Instagramming, and the Spike-man uses his iPhone camera to document his life through photography. So, when the photo-geeks saw Anne Saint Peter‘s studio there were a lot of questions to ask about photography.

Anne Saint Peter, 915 Spring Garden Studio Visit, photograph by Jeff Stroud

DoN asked Anne Saint Peter about the process of printing images on metal? “I was looking to do panoramic photography, I wanted a panoramic camera but they were tremendously expensive because of the lens to do that, so I figured out how to do it by using multiple exposures. And then I was looking for an interesting alternative to inkjets and I found that some people were printing on aluminum and I thought,’That’s sound cool.” But how does that work?

Anne Saint Peter, 915 Spring Garden Studio Visit

“It has to have a special coating, the aluminum, in this case it’s roofing material, you have to clean it it, basically scrub it down. You coat it and things working out well it goes evenly. Actually the Epson ink-jets are really good with this type of thing. They can even take cardboard. So, it’s an interesting thing. The bottom ones I got commercially printed because their starting to do it commercially, wedding photographers like it because of the reflective quality. But they’re doing full color photographs and full color photographs done like that on aluminum pop. But if I send them these files they turn out totally differently.”

“I don’t like coating aluminum, it seems kind of a waste of why you’re doing it. They also make what they call metallic paper which gives you some of that pop but the problem with me is that when you cover it with glass you sort of lose it, like what’s the point? I’m trying to figure out how to show it without glass.”

Anne Saint Peter, 915 Spring Garden

The trio of photo geeks were fascinated with the box camera set up in the studio. Anne Saint Peter said, “It’s an eight by ten, the glass plates are under here. You just slide them in and open this up (remove the lens cover) and you’re good to go. This is actually such a small lens, in terms of aperture, you have plenty of time, it takes longer so it works out really well. The problem is the focussing and things like that because the image that you see on here is upside down and reversed. So, it’s interesting, I can’t tell if people are smiling or not. You know, like if you’re doing a portrait and it’s a little hard, if somebody moves you’re out of the pool.”

Anne Saint Peter, 915 Spring Garden Studio Visit, photograph by Jeff Stroud

Anne Saint Peter continued, “But when you get it, people who are good at, I’m just not, I don’t do it enough, I can do a smaller one, 4 x 5.” DoN asked if the camera uses glass plates? “No, I use film. You can use the glass plates but then the glass plates have to be coated and processed within a couple minutes, finished in a couple minutes. And that’s, I love the images, but it’s too much to try and control. And what killed me in the end is they were coating them with shellac and alcohol over a flame. And I was out of the pool right there. Shellac sticks to everything, everything’s stuck to your hand, how do you get it even? The answer is you just practice. Over an open flame which could start a fire any minute with glass that’s going to break. No. To me printing with inkjet on aluminum is a lot easier”

Anne Saint Peter, 915 Spring Garden Studio Visit, photograph by Jeff Stroud

Written and photographed by DoN Brewer except where noted.

Thank you to contributing photographer Jeff Stroud.

Interchange: Contemporary Photography & Video from Ireland @ CFEVA

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Mandy O’Niell, Untitled, Interchange: Contemporary Photography & Video from Ireland @ CFEVA

“The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA), in cooperation with Culture Ireland, The PhotoIreland Festival, and Broadstone Studios, presents an international exchange of exhibitions – Interchange: Contemporary Photography & Video from Ireland, and Adapt: Contemporary Photography & Video by CFEVA Fellows from the US. This exchange was created to enhance the artistic dialogue between Philadelphia and Dublin and to promote collaboration between local and international artists. The exhibition in Philadelphia, Interchange: Contemporary Photography and Video from Ireland, was curated by Angela Duignan and features works by Michelle Browne, Padraig Cunningham & Linda Shevlin, Angela Duignan, Michael Fortune, Niamh O’Connor, Mandy O’Neill, and David J. Pierce. It is an exhibition of contemporary artists from Ireland, which explores the narrative mode through the mediums of video, audio, and photography. The works exhibited encapsulate and reflect aspects of identity, heritage, story telling, ritual, and social change. They present a view of a contemporary Ireland – its culture and heritage – while drawing parallels to a wider global context.”

Mandy O’Niell, Untitled, Interchange: Contemporary Photography & Video from Ireland @ CFEVA

Philadelphia artist Amy Stevens stayed in Roscommon with Angela Duignan and her two daughters while on an artist exchange to Ireland. The fellow artists became fast friends and concocted a scheme to bring photography and video from Ireland to Philadelpha and vice versa. Amy is going back to Ireland this summer with the CFEVA contingent featuring Noah Addis, Joelle Jensen, Allison Kaufman, Michael Mergen, Tim Portlock, Jeffrey Stockbridge, and Kimberly Witham curating the exhibit for The PhotoIreland Festival, a month long photography festival. Angela Duignan told DoN, Its an exhange between Ireland and the States. Amy came over for a three week artist residency and stayed with me while she was there and out of that friendship weve created an exchange show. Its taken two years for it to come together, find the spaces and all. Amy said, Since I went through the CFEVA program I thought it would be a good fit. Its a nice exchange, its a good way to do it.”

In Angela Duignan‘s address to the audience gathered in the gallery she said, “First I’d like to thank Amy and CFEVA for taking this on and the huge generosity of bringing this show over from Ireland. Id particularly like to thank Amy Stevens for her incredible work hanging the show and organizing it. Her show will be brought over to Ireland in July as a part of The PhotoIreland Festival.

Well start off with Mic (Michael) Fortunes work, hes from Wexford, east coast of Ireland, he works in video, photography and audio. This particular piece is three video pieces, for three years, each year, he photographed and videoed his mother who dressed up on Halloween. And she goes next door to her mothers house to try and play with her head. Theres actually six years of video footage. Hes also working on a documentary on folklore and heritage and his background is an educator and hes presented at 120 shows in the last year all over the world in film festivals as well as gallery spaces.

Niamh O’Connor, Mary Ellen’s Cottage, Interchange: Contemporary Photography & Video from Ireland @ CFEVA

In the video projection is Michelle Brownes video pieceLinda Shevlin, shot in Belfast and the third is David J. Pierce, shot in Dublin. The gallery was dark for the video and projections; the photographs are displayed in the anti-chamber and hall. In the corner of the darkened gallery is a strange chair, a semi-circular red chair with high sides and headphones. Angie explained, Its a ten minute audio of my daughter telling her version of The Princess and the Pea story. It is connected to the large print outside of the girl on a stack of mattresses. The base of that piece is how memory changes as the story is told over time, the story is remembered and changed, on and on. Angie Duignan explained to DoN that she was in a shop with a stack of mattresses, she put her daughter up top and took some shots. But decided to dress up her little girl and bring her back for a more refined photographic narrative.

Angela Duignan, How Does That Story Go Again?, Lambda photographic print, laminated onto MDF, Interchange: Contemporary Photography & Video from Ireland @ CFEVA

IIn the hall is a group of portraits of boxers, photographer Mandy ONeill said, My work is about particular groups of people or individuals through an instinctual desire to get closer to another part of the world. The images Im presenting in the show were taken between 2007 and 2009 in a boxing hall called Saint Xaviers in the inner city of Dublin. Theyve been exhibited nationally and internationally, most notably in the European Month of Photography in Berlin and Gallery of Photography in Dublin. Around 2007 when the work began Ireland was in the grips of the so-called Celtic Tiger, everything seemed to be going really fast, excessive consumerism was the order of the day. This is something I never felt part of; I felt a longing for something more authentic and simple.

The image of the lone figure of the boxer, theres a romanticism attached to this that I think resonates around the world. Norman Mailer stated, Boxing is a metaphor for life, I saw the boxer as an embodiment of this idea and a pared down more authentic existence. I also like the idea of being able to come back into our own bodies rather than buying all this stuff required to make us happy. The particular club I chose to shoot at turned out to be a great place, the camaraderie, care and support for the young kids around the area was amazing and they would make you feel at home just by not making you feel you were in the way. I was in their training area in a corner with my camera and lights while they were skipping and jumping around. The smells and sound of the place became familiar to me and the bell rings every three minutes and is followed by a one-minute break. The subjects were all filmed within this one-minute break in an attempt to capture this heightened physical excitement. My assistant would run and grab somebody and then we had thirty seconds to grab the shot before they went back. The title Exhale comes from this pair of struggle then respite and always trying to move slightly forward. I saw it as a general metaphor for life.

Niamh O’Connor, Desert Island Rain, Termon Road, Taum Triangle Row, Marrion & Maggies, giclee photographic prints, Interchange: Contemporary Photography & Video from Ireland @ CFEVA.