DoNArTNeWs

Kevin Lehman, The Need for Fundamental Change @ University of the Arts, Hamilton Hall Public Arts Initiative, Broad and Pine Streets, Philadelphia.

DoN walked past the sculpture vitrines in front of the University of the Arts and it appeared one of the sculptures had been pulled loose.  It was January 3rd and the Mummers Parade crowd can get pretty rowdy, generally Philadelphians are art friendly but you never know.  DoN felt anger and disgust that someone had damaged a public art piece, especially since some very beautiful and ephemeral pieces have graced the vitrines over the years with no vandalism.

But, this piece looks like it was moved across the plaza.  In the light of day the reality of the installation came together - the sculpture had actually pulled itself loose from it’s mooring near the grand stairs to the Temple and crawled to the garden wall leaving a trail of wire and debris behind.  In the garden, pod-like ceramic pots are birthing televisions and computer monitors, while the master motherboard hovers nearby protecting the brood.  Smaller pots have already invaded the farther reaches of the Japanese-ish stone garden connected by umbilical cords of red wire to the mother pods.  Kevin Lehman’s studio is in Lancaster PA.

Kevin Lehman, The Need for Fundamental Change @ University of the Arts Hamilton Hall Public Arts Initiative.

Kevin Lehman, The Need for Fundamental Change is the artist’s MFA Thesis Exhibition through January 15th, 2012.  For more information on the Hamilton Hall Public Arts Initiative contact jgirandola@uarts.edu

Kevin Lehman, The Need for Fundamental Change @ University of the Arts Hamilton Hall Public Arts Initiative

Kevin Lehman, The Need for Fundamental Change @ University of the Arts Hamilton Hall Public Arts Initiative

Photos by DoN Brewer

Laurentiu Todie, The One @ Art Ability Bryn Mawr Rehab Center, Malvern, PA.

DoNArTNeWs finally appears on page one in Google for the search term “Philadelphia art blogs“, thank you very much!   DoN has written more than four hundred reviews, interviews and promotions about the Philadelphia regional art scene for DoNArTNeWs.  The most frequently accessed pages include the term “Philadelphia art” in the web site statistics, “art” is the number one search term.  Philadelphia art is a search term that thousands of people are investigating because the Philly art scene is, as Mayor Michael Nutter stated at the West Collects press conference, “Strong!”  Great art has become synonymous with Philadelphia because of the high end cultural institutions like PMA and the innovative neighborhood artist enclaves, clubs, alliances and collectives that pervade the city and the region, creating an amorphous idea of what is Philadelphia art?  Is it the great art speak that PAFA teaches it’s students?  Is it the gritty allure of Fishtown, Northern Liberties or Germantown and the satisfaction of getting in early on something bohemian, eclectic, outrageous or controversial?  Is Philadelphia really the sixth borough of NYC?

Art is strong and vibrant in Philadelphia with wonderful resources but DoN has heard institutional leaders say the majority of public dollars get directed to the top tier while smaller groups compete for shrinking grant money and must endure its grueling paperwork.  Rachel Zimmerman of InLiquid, one of the oldest artist profile websites of its kind in Philadelphia, told DoN this past Summer that artists have three jobs: making art, selling art and the job to pay for buying art materials.  Artist Gregory Prestegord told DoN there are more like seven jobs to get to what he calls “a state of meditation“, the time he actually gets to spend making art, a broad circle of activities, many unrelated to art production, must happen to get to the moment of meditation when art appears out of seemingly nowhere. Art and the creative economy is enormous in Philadelphia, the competition for money is daunting, yet artists keep pushing against the obstacles and work hard to be known as a Philadelphia Artist, the second most popular search term for DoNArTNeWs‘ Philadelphia art blog.

Search Philadelphia art, who knows what you might discover?

Happy New Year!

LoVe

DoN

Read more about Art Ability at Philly.SideArts art blog and DoNArTNeWs art blog.

Rebekah Wilhelm, VIII - 2011 MFA Thesis Exhibition, University of Delaware Department of Art @ Crane Arts Center.

Rebekah Wilhelm, Untitled, detail

Rebekah Wilhelm, Untitled, VIII - 2011 MFA Thesis Exhibition, University of Delaware Department of Art @ Crane Arts Center in Fishtown.

Rebekah Wilhelm’s most excellent print display @ UD Crane is filled with information, tightly packed into clever, spare prints like an art lesson on less is more.  The prints of swirling words explains how viewers interact with vision, her chain link fence prints are confounding and restrictive and the reams of paper spread in a long swipe across the floor is provocative yet simple and easy. Wilhelm already has plans to go to work teaching at the University of Delaware and is considering studio space in Philly.  DoN chatted with UD Crane curator Anthony Vega, he highlighted how there was more focus on craft and skill in traditional media and no video this year.  C. Grant Cox, III includes multimedia and mechanics in his sculpture but there was a noticeable absence of flat screens and projections in the gallery.

Tara Russell,  VIII - 2011 MFA Thesis Exhibition, University of Delaware Department of Art @ Crane Arts Center.

Jacob Smiley, VIII - 2011 MFA Thesis Exhibition, University of Delaware Department of Art @ Crane Arts Center.

Tia Santana, VIII - 2011 MFA Thesis Exhibition, University of Delaware Department of Art @ Crane Arts Center.  Tia Santana’s performance/installation anchored the lower gallery by the stairs with the artist studiously braiding what looked a lot like hair into long dreads.  Dressed in white, Santana focused on expanding the mound of braids, weaving memes like “roots”, “identity” and “work” into a fascinating presentation of a simulacra-like archetype that a week later is still vibrant in DoN’s mind.

Daniel Jackson, VIII - 2011 MFA Thesis Exhibition, University of Delaware Department of Art @ Crane Arts Center.  Check out Jackson’s web site for a good look at his work, his paintings exhibit not just vibrancy and virtuosity but thoughtful content, decorative panache and strong painting science.  The glossy panels thick with layers of saturated color and ancient technique are mashed up with a contemporary sense of irony; Jackson’s paintings illustrate Vega’s observation of skill being penultimate.

Congratulations to Matt Giel for his desirable photographs, Leontien Rotteveel’s beatific objet trouve-like sculpture/installation and the entire class of UD 2011 for a refreshing look at the endurance of art.  The gallery is University of Delaware’s outpost away from school, offering students a really cool space to show their work, creating an aspirational vibe and a real clarity of vision of who artists can be after college.

Photos by DoN.

Kimberly Witham @ Introduction 2011 - Center for Emerging Visual Artists New Development Fellows @ Moore College of Art & Design Widener Memorial Foundation Gallery, Feb 2nd - 19th, 2011.

Kimberly Witham told DoN people presuppose she Photoshop’s her work but her mise-en-scène photographs are real still-life compositions, elements of which have a limited shelf life.  The pictures of pretty headless birds in cups and on plates dredge up memories of dead birds on the street and questions of why they fell from the sky.  About half of the photos included in this ground-breaking exposition are film, half digital, a seem-less transition between mediums made transparent by Witham’s virtuosity, she’s a professor of photography at Bucks County College, a school with a long tradition of excellence in photography education.  The road kill element is shocking and beautiful, a sweet, sad commentary on urban wild life.

Maggie Mills, Crops, oil on linen.  Maggie and DoN got into an animated discussion about”fracking“, another painting in the show is titled Frack, the practice of injecting noxious chemicals into the Earth’s crust to break it up and release “natural gas“.  This clean fuel puts unknown dangers into the families and communities who live where fracking takes place by releasing toxic chemicals into the water table, scary shit, Mills’ painting shows an adolescent crouching, head to knees, while visions of matrix-like drills descend from the sky.

Daniel Kornkrumpf uses fiber like colored pencils for his portraits of on-line social network profie pics he’s found over time - a long time since the densely embroidered portraits may take months to produce, unlike a drawing which may take an afternoon.  The isolated faces floating in large blank fields of fine linen examines the connection of the isolationism of social networks and the self-portraits that make you think, “Really?  That’s their best look?”  Instead of attracting attention, ridicule and mockery may result, by the way Plenty of Fish often advertises in the DoNArTNeWs sidebar, please, click through, Valentine’s Day is coming up.  Kornkrumpf will continue his unique fiber portraits but is pursuing drawing and painting for the upcoming show at the Ice Box in late spring.

Daniel Kornkrumpf

Mami Kato created these futuristic sculptures by unraveling rope she imports from her home, Akita Japan,creating domes of fiber reminiscent of the rice fields at home after harvest and clumps of stems line the horizon.  Kato surprised her audience by picking up the light weight, yet densely compact, domes, revealing the Trompe-l’œil. 

On the left is Alison Stigora, represented in this show with a magnificent drawing of a giant cosmic crystalline flower in mixed media including drawing, prints, chalk and wax but is also in an awesome show at LGTripp Gallery in Old City through February 26th. Next to her is Maggie Mills, behind Mami is a collage of digital prints by Jennifer Williams that is a totally steal-able idea - who knew, collage could be so cool.

Lewis Colburn, The Pursuits of a Gentleman, mixed media installation with ten photographs and steamer trunk.  This assemblage was a fave of Spike Howard, Philly’s finest wind farm engineer, for it’s sense of time travel, irony and elegance.  DoN loves how CFEVA treats photographers as true artists who belong at the table with painters and sculptors.

Arden Bendler Browning @ Introduction 11

A Fishtown native who’s studio is in the Crane Arts Center, Browning obviously takes full advantage of the large work space to create massive paintings, this color field of speeding urban images, like you see out of the corner of your eye as you zoom down the Expressway, is abstract expressionist yet a kind of contemporary cubism with obtuse angles and cracked spacial warps.  DoN easily sees Arden Bendler Browning taking the opportunity of the fellowship that CFEVA offers and running with it, her work is complex yet accessible, perfect for contemporary collectors.

DoN inquired of new fellow Don Edler as to how he came to win the CFEVA fellowship and he generously explained how he meticulously researches grants and awards, looks at winners of previous competitions, discovers which other awards or grants they’ve received and applies for them, too. By making applying for grants part of his business plan, Edler makes it almost sound easy and is proof that persistence, patience, targeted yet broad research into funding, exhibition and publicity works like a charm.

Congratulations to the new fellows!

Karl Olsen lights the subject of an impromptu critique of Yeoun Lee’s paintings during the monthly Salon des Plastiques @ The Plastic Club on the Avenue of the Artists.  Lee took up the challenge from a previous meeting to bring out a few paintings on the sweltering Summer evening to stand up to the observations of Anders Hanson, Bob Jackson, Mike Quinn, Alan Klawens - the guys behind the on-going series of exhibitions at one of Philly’s premier artist clubs.  DoN couldn’t help to harken back to the days when air conditioning was a dream yet to be realized.  Yeoun explained the cosmological influence on her current work with light being represented by a subtle rainbow of color.

Yeoun Lee @ The Plastic Club’s Salon.

The Casual Summer Show @ The Plastic Club showcases artist favorites.

Members of the Plastic Club are showing works not directed by a theme allowing for a salon like diversity of styles and medium; curators Alan Klawans and Bob Jackson filled the main galleries with a spectrum of light and color.

Marlise M. Tkaczuk, 3 Big Monkeys, silk screen in The Casual Show.  The Plastic Club has long represented printmaking with a great print room and print shows; Marlise’s confrontational funky monkeys are part clever and engaging, jumping off the wall.  Check the clubs website for info and links to events.

Carly Valentine @ The Art Institute of Philadelphia Grad Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club.

Carly Valentine @ The Art Institute of Philadelphia Grad Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club.

Carly Valentine @ The Art Institute of Philadelphia Grad Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club.

Carly Valentine’s black and white photography looked gorgeous mounted on the historic walls of the venerable Philadelphia Sketch Club Gallery on Camac Street.  Four times a year the club hosts the grads of AI to show their work in the gallery with a gala party; a great reason to dress up and have a drink.  Valentine’s deeply narrative work, mostly self portraits, nod to modern art with Magritte-like compositions, beaux arts frames and costumes from another era.  The rich blacks, creamy ecru and dreamy metaphors filled books, the walls over the fire place and the entire “winners wall” of the gallery.  Carly was unaware of the historic significance of exhibiting in America’s oldest art club, her grandmother, DoN’s good friend Jeannette Walsh, was long time president of the Regional Art Association in Clementon, NJ (the foundation of DoN’s art career), who was a fine artist in her own right, as well as a blue grass musician and entertainer.  Jean would be so proud to know Carly is excelling not just in fine art and photography but in being a really nice person, a trait no school can ever teach.

Gabriela Girova @ The Philadelphia Sketch Club.

John Moore’s painterly photographs combine natural elements with ethereal industrial constructs creeping into the composition.  The grad show at PSC was very gratifying with a focus on business, including business cards, book arts, web sites and unique presentation for their photography, information useful for art students emerging into a competitive market.  DoN appreciated that Moore bucked the trend and “forgot” his cards, DoN wrote his name on another grad’s card.  The graduates had a crash course in installing a show at The Sketch Club which concurrently has Phillustration 2010 running, they had to take down a complete show, install a new one, then re-hang the first show in the same order - welcome to the art world!

Tamara Brown

Tamara Brown’s carved books with photo emulsion images inside the books are fabulously evocative and transmogrifying, combining text and technique in a unique mash up.  LoVe iT!

Tetsugo Hyakutake @ Fleisher Art Memorial’s Wind Challenge #3.

When DoN first walked into the gallery he thought, “that’s a picture I wish I’d taken.”  The glowing industrial plants looks just like the one on I95 on the way to Trenton but Hyakutake shot most of the photos in Japan.  Many of the photos have a very Philadelphia vibe, especially the panoramic prints of bridges & highways and industrial sights, the effect is disorienting like you could be anywhere in the world.

Tetsugo Hyakutake is returning to Japan this Summer after a very successful career in professional photography in NYC & Philly’s Gallery 339 on Pine Street.  Tetsugo captures the aggressive industrialization of the Asian landscape with stunning prints displayed in a variety of styles, the prints hanging like scrolls on metal rods are very cool & contemporary, the transfixingly intense detail of the landscapes is lucid, clear and transporting.

Tetsugo Hyakutake @ Wind Challenge #3, Fleisher Art Memorial.

Photos by DoNBrewerPhotography.

Scott Kip’s installation of sculptures represents the past, present & future; the center sculpture with s a step stool has the shadow of clockworks rotating and when you look through the hole someone at a sculpture at the other end of the room can see your eye.  Each piece is a meticulously constructed models create wonderful optical illusions of abstract art reminiscent to Albers, Indiana and Grooms.  The left side of the gallery is the future and the right is the past - from the future the view is confusing, the past you may find another eye looking back at you.

Scott Kip’s center sculpture projects the shadow of time in the center of a frail super-structure.  Scott told DoN it took more than a year to complete the project of hard woods and that he was inspired by the writing of T.S. Eliot. The result is ineffable.

Scott Kipp @ Wind Challenge #3, Fleisher Art Memorial.

Scott Kip

“I make model scale structures out of wood, each lit directly from above.  The structures are designed around the path light takes through them, both the light from above and the possible sight lines of the viewer.  The work is a meditation on how perspective affects our understanding of the relationships between things and the idea that life (the space between birth and death) is a place.”

“…Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell he passed the stages of his age and youth entering the whirlpool.”

Death By Water, T.S.Eliot

Photos by DoNBrewerPhotography

Karl Richard Olsen took home the Gold Medal in the Plastic Club’s Members’ Medals Show for “Norge“, graphite & pastel.  Check out the perfect hoop earring, a simple shape created with confidant strokes, anchoring the image in a time, place, personality, style… it’s amazing how charcoal & pastel can look so liquidy & fluid. Olsen has a major installation for MCGOPA @ The Inquirer Building in Conshohocken.

Robert Bohne won the Dorothy Invernizzi Guinn Memorial Prize for his masterpiece, “Crustacean Feast“.  The award honors realist paintings because Dorothy didn’t get abstract art and this oil painting is a timeless example of atmospheric naturalism of the highest achievement.  As an artist, when viewing a painting which speaks of years of observation, practice, study, patience & wisdom, it leaves a sensation of living forever, feasting in the moment and leaving a mark on the world.

DoN Brewer, Denmark, photograph, Marie Samohod, Night Still Life, acrylic, Morris Klein, Washington Square, photograph and Eileen Eckstein, Finger Painting, photograph.

Tom McCobb, Adirondack Tea Party, oil.

Burton Greenspan, Albert, oil.  Honorable Mention Award for The Plastic Club’s Members’ Medals Show.

The Members’ Medals Show presents 130 artworks throughout three gallery spaces, Alan Klawans explained that volunteers organize and hang the show; the organic mix of paintings, drawings, photos & mixed media often is brilliant with quirky juxtapositions, DoN is confused by the placement of Syd Torchio’s Art Porn, Take 3, a fantastical painting with a grown up fun-house vibe that gets a bit lost in the dim hall, the best view is from the stairs.

Brenna K. Murphy @ Wind Challenge Exhibitions #3, Fleisher Art Memorial.

Brenna’s installation @ The Fleisher Art Memorial is part drawing, part conceptual art, part performance art, part photography & part crafting like a recipe for 21st Century modern art.  Murphy uses human hair to draw on the walls, sews hair into her photographs and over time will wash the hairs off the wall to put in the bowls on the floor, an idea she came up with when she was de-installing her last show.

Brenna K. Murphy draws onto the photograph by sewing hair into the paper, creating an illusion of a documentary photo, DoN thought she had installed huge drawings of furniture like the ones in the gallery.

Detail of hair drawing on the wall @ Fleisher Art Memorial by Brenna K. Murphy - DoN had to do some Photoshop magic to get the delicate lines to appear for the web, in real life the stray strands are poetic and serene.

Human hair wall drawing of a dresser with a small bowl on the floor, each Wednesday Brenna plans to wash off some of the hair and put it in the bowls.  Brenna Murphy’s drawings are loaded like meme bombs filled with memory, loss, dreams, beauty, ritual, divinity all playing out on long stands on hair.  Filaments of the imagination.