Thank you Philadelphia Foundation, your support of artists living with disabilities is so important words can not express my feelings. DoN has made great friends through Art Ability, thank you so much to Dr. Saunders and her fantastic team. Art Ability at Philadelphia Foundation and Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital. Buy art – you never know who you will be helping.
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Jed Williams Studio, Hmmm?, oil on canvas, 30 X 30 inches, $400
Jed Williams has refined the direction his painting has taken by working exclusively with oils. Known for his mixed media day-glo meditations, the artist has tamed his palette. Anthropomorphic faces easily appear in a jpg but in his atelier at 615 Bainbridge Street, with the sunlight streaming in the storefront window onto the large stretched swath of linen, the color story is an art experience that is nuanced and deep.
The fractured typography questions everything you know about art; rich, thick layers of oil paint speak with their own voices, echoing the question. The opalescent eyes glance sideways avoiding eye contact, clenched hands reach to cover the strained lips, restraining the urge to ask the ultimate question: Hmm? The artist searches for the answer in color fields, reaching into the dark indigo blacks, frantic intruding tentacles vibrate with thick paint strokes of citron, olive and naples yellow to mess everything up like a magic marker. The squirmy close-lippedhead simulacra glows with the radiant golden yellows. As yellow as you can get.
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Written and photographed by DoN Brewer.
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Wendy Wolf, 161 West Gallery, Flora + Fauna, 161 West Cecil B. Moore Avenue, Philadelphia
“Because it’s all collaborative, they sort of all come back and help out after they do their show. Which is cool. Wendy was really excited to do wheat paste before her show. And she said she’ll come back and do more because she loved it.”
There is a large elaborate white wheat pasted paper design, fluid, almost floral, pasted to the front of the gallery. Jessica Murphy, 161 West Gallery owner, took DoN on a tour of the developing arts center, there’s a large interior courtyard perfect for parties, picnics, music and art installations. The walls are already becoming mural-ized with plans for more color to come this Spring. 161 West Gallery has been located at 161 West Cecil B. Moore Avenue, Philadelphia, since July, 2012.
“The building took a lot to get ready, to clean and paint. That took about two months. The current show will be up the whole month of March. There’s a show the 16th and then do special appointments.” – Jessica Murphy
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Peter Prusinowski @ Fishtown Airways, 200 East Girard Ave. Prusinowski is a Center for Emerging Visual Artists Fellow, a great honor bestowed on outstanding artists allowing them to exhibit works in group shows, receive publicity, opportunities and support from the Center. Peter is a photography purist who works in a wet dark room and is not interested in digital photography in the least. As he explained to DoN, Peter attempts to emulate masters such as Man Ray who was able to achieve solarization on film which appears like magic in the development process.
Prusinowski’s show at Fishtown Airways focusses on the history of Fishtown and the Penn Treaty, combining historic documents and photographs alongside his own studies of the area. A story of community and it’s importance to the early development of the USA emerges with bucolic river views, charming residences and quirky scenes from the centuries old village inhabited by long time residents and young growing families.
A group of historic documents including old newspaper articles, graphics and papers shed light on the Penn Treaty and the importance of this river town and it’s people.
East Girard Avenue is on the east side of the Frankford El with restaurants, bars, shops and a lively street scene. Fishtown Airways corner is bright and sunny, the gallery painted a buttery yellow, the art pops off the wall against the restful color. Proprietor , Bob Murphy is planning to open an ice cream shop along the broad avenue making this section of Fishtown a family friendly destination as well as an art outpost along with Johnnie Brenda‘s, High Wire and Bambi. Shoshka and DoN had a blast talking with the locals and hanging out on the corner.
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Randy Dalton’s Blue Grotto
The Blue Grotto, Randy Dalton‘s installation is at the Community Education Center (CEC), 3500 Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia, is open on Tuesday and Thursday Evenings from 4:30 to 8:30 pm and Saturdays from 12 to 5pm. Dalton can reached at 215-844-6253 or email randydalton@earthlink.net
March is Women’s History Month, this week’s DoN Art News is dedicated to all my strong women friends who have supported my efforts, inspired me and encouraged me to continue my artistic growth. Since DoN is an honorary girl, the rest of this article is about women’s art happening around town.
The current exhibit at The Center for Emerging Visual Artists in the Barclay Building on Rittenhouse Square is currated by friend of DoN, Brooke Hine. Adaptation: Celebrating Growth and Change is an exhibition dedicated to the transformation of environments, organisms, bodies and forgotten places. Brooke has gathered a cohesive collection of new art composed of unusual, unique materials from dryer sheets as an ethereal wall installation to drawings made with human hair to mobile sculpture activated by magnets. Brooke is a well known ceramics artist and has obviously taken great care to gather a collection of exciting new media mixed with traditional composition and craft techniques.
Brooke Hine’s ceramics.
The venerable Newman Gallery on Walnut Street has a superb group of art by women on the mezzanine level of this three story historic building. The Newman family has been running the gallery (the first in America) since 1865 and has been open at their present location since 1935! Terry Newman has gathered a group of strong paintings by 20th Century women artist’s demonstrating the influence of Impressionism and modern painting styles. Newman Galleries’ collection of works by American women of the early twentieth century includes numerous nationally recognized artists working in a variety of media and styles. Two of the most prominent women of that era were Elizabeth Washington, renowned for her soft impressions of the unspoiled Pennsylvania landscape, and Fern Coppedge, whose dazzling use of color and composition made her painted scenes come alive. The Cubist still life paintings of Dorcas Doolittle and the dramatic bronzes of Amelie Zell and Beatrice Fenton further illustrate the diversity of talent demonstrated by these women.
Newman Gallery mezzanine with art by women painters.
The main floor of Newman’s Gallery is a trove of art, don’t be intimidated to visit and browse through the racks of drawings, prints and paintings; Newman’s staff is super-friendly and the third floor gallery is literally a museum of 18th, 19th and 20th century art.
Second Thursday at the Crane Arts Center was totally cool; Jocelyn Firth’s “You Might Find Yourself” show in the Icebox demonstrated that photography is not just “loft art” but inspiring, disturbing and influential. Thomas Prior’s, “Hotel Fire“, brought back the fear of distaster that CNN inflicts on us daily, Ian Baguskas‘, “Search for the American Landscape” elevates the mundane to the sublime with a simple shot of beach sand rendered as a passage of time and John Francis Peter‘s, “Red Tourism“, educates us to how photography and the pursuit of fame is universal if ephemeral. Firth’s curatorial debut in Philly is the beginning of a LoVe affair.
The crowd at Icebox in the Crane Art Center.
NEXUS gallery’s 8 artists, 8 viewpoints featuring women artists from Philadelphia art schools, includes a lot of fiber art and unusual fabric constructions coinciding with the FiberPhiladelphia shows going on around town. DoN‘s favorite is Rebecca Landes‘, “I Embroider the Pain Away“; a collection of embroideries of phrases reflecting the angst of modern life and the irony of the old fashioned art of cross stitch intersecting computer age social life – “I’ll Never Look at Your MySpace Page”.
InLiquid’s show in the hallway is outstanding: Ruth Borgenicht and Leslie Pontz’s Collaboration: linking metal and clay is fabulous with constructions combining metal mesh and clay globs is fresh and soon to be influential since a group of hanging mesh bags filled with clay will soon be included in a famous, world-class collection. DoN appreciated how the duo utilized the old urinals in the space – so DuChampian.
Leslie Pontz & Ruth Borgenicht.
Fiber art construction in the InLiquid show (sorry I don’t know who the artist is but the construction is poignant and evocative of working life in American society.)
Smile Gallery‘s, “F Word” show is superb featuring work by prominent women artists is this intimate space on the second floor. Friend of DoN, Betsy Alexander is showing her signature crosses made from old CDs and her new digital photos. Speaking of Betsy and my rant from my last post about how women in Philly don’t dress up…
Betsy Alexander shows how to wear art.
The “F Word” is all about feminism and other “F’s” from fecundity to fetishism by prominent female artist’s curated by Debra Miller with brave, charasmatic images, constructions and paintings.
Francine Strauss, Lilliana Didovic and curator Debra Miller at Smile’s “F Word”.Betsy Alexander reports that the Thai food on the first floor is the best in town. Smile is at 105 S. 22nd St., 215-564-2502.
The William Way Gay Community Centerr has a one woman show of fiber constructions by Kathryn Pannepacker in the main lobby. At once political and poetic, Pannepacker’s work combines mundane materials like Q-tips with traditional fibers like jute to produce a collection of flags, sculptures and hangings with messages of hope, tolerance and peace.
Speaking of the Gay Community Center – the current issue of Equality, HRC’s magazine features photos from Rachelle Lee Smith‘s wonderful portraits of gay youths who wrote short bio’s on the their pictures from the last art show at the center. Way to go HRC even if you abandoned the T’s in LGBT. Thankfully The William Way Center includes everybody even if it’s a boy who wants to wear dresses or a girl with a moustache and sideburns. The idea that HRC could turn their backs on a sub-group of an already persecuted group in order to push through an agenda is unacceptable; the leadership of HRC should be replaced if they’re not able to understand the evil of discrimination against transgendered people.
Next: Coffee Shop Art Shows.
LoVe
DoN