Art in the city

Northwest High at Black Rock Center for the Arts

Art students from Germantown's Northwest High School will be having an exhibit at the Black Rock Center for the Arts this weekend.  It opens tomorrow, Saturday February 18th from 10am-5pm, with an opening reception from 2-4pm and continues through this coming Monday.  Get more info here.

Patuxent Art League 15th Annual Juried Art Exhbition...

...will be running from tomorrow, Sunday December 4th through the 28th, at the Montpelier Arts Center in Laurel.  Get directions here.  Reception and award ceremony will be tomorrow from 2pm-4pm. 

Great Falls Studio Holiday Art Sale

Great Fall Studios will be holding its annual Holiday Art Sale next weekend.  Here's what they have to say about it at their site:

Great Falls Studios in partnership with The Friends of the Great Falls Library will hold its annual Holiday Art Show and Sale during the first weekend in December in the Meeting Room of the Great Falls Library. The show hours will be as follows: Friday December 2nd from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM, Saturday December 3rd from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM and on Sunday December 4th from 12:00 noon to 5:00 PM. The Meeting Room will be open on Sunday even though the library itself is closed on Sunday.

 

Art that is hung on the walls of the Meeting Room will remain on display and be available for sale throughout the entire month of December.

 

Ten percent of all sales during the sale event and the entire month of December will be donated to the Friends of the Great Falls Library.

Get directions to the library here.

Czech glass art

Given the attention that Tim Tate is getting over at his latest solo exhibition at the Fraser Gallery, I thought this Christian Science Monitor review of a Corning Glass Museum exhibition was quite timely.  Called Design in an Age of Adversity: Czech Glass, 1945-1980, the exhibition has been extended to the end of the year.  Here's what the curator has to say about it:

A wide array of rare, colorful, and provocatively original vessels and sculptures—blown, hot-worked, engraved, etched, carved, and enameled—constitute “Design in an Age of Adversity.” The pieces bring to light an important but neglected period in mid-20th-century design. They also demonstrate the unintended consequences of the Communist repression of abstract art and its promotion of Socialist Realism, an ideology based on the principle that the arts should only glorify the political, social, and cultural goals of Communism.

With the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948, Socialist Realism was heavily promoted for the arts and compulsory for public commissions. Painting, sculpture, and graphic design were used to illustrate political ideology, and artists who rejected the state-approved direction ran the risk of persecution. The heritage of the Czech avant-garde—which included early 20th-century Czech Cubism and Functionalism—was dismissed as “decadent.” Contemporary art in the West, particularly abstract art, was held in contempt. Information was restricted behind the Iron Curtain, and Czechoslovak artists gradually became isolated from artistic developments in the rest of the world.

Because glass was considered a decorative medium for functional use, it was not as closely monitored as painting and sculpture. Unlike painters, sculptors, and graphic designers, artists working in glass, ceramics, and textiles were allowed to continue their work relatively unhindered, and in certain cases, encouraged to be experimental. Young artists, many of whom trained as painters and sculptors, were drawn to the relative freedom of glass. Glass was not considered to be an expressive or potentially subversive medium. How could a political statement be made in the design of a vase?

Read more here.  If you're heading home to Syracuse or Buffalo for the holidays, swing by the Museum and check it out.

Opening: Studio One Eight

Studio One Eight is presenting "Threesome: a Girl, a Guy, and a Gay" from November 12th to December 9th.  The girl is Dana Ellyn, but the press release I got was little unclear as to which guy was gay Gregory Ferrand or Scott G. Brooks.  No matter, the show opens tomorrow from 7pm-10 pm.  Here's what the release says about the three artists:

Dana Ellyn is a full time painter, living and working in Washington, DC. As a kid, Dana spent hours on end quietly drawing in her room honing her skills of representation. That determination led Dana to be admitted on partial scholarship into the fine arts and art history program at George Washington University.

Dana’s abandonment of several of life’s luxuries has afforded her the time and focus to create a dazzling array of well-conceived paintings. The allure of a Dana Ellyn painting is that it tells a story, it has meaning, and sometimes the message may come as a shock... Don’t let her pigtails fool you.

Dana’s paintings for this show are best described as personal reactions to universal themes: from a classically painted Madonna and child set on Mars to her expressionistic reaction to the looming threat of a bird flu pandemic.”

Gregory Ferrand, a Washington, DC artist, is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts. After living in Buenos Aires, Argentina for two years and traveling through Latin America, he began to paint in earnest. Through his paintings, he strives to tell stories about characters and situations that do, have, and will exist, gently unmasking the psychological or emotional state of the subject, inviting the viewer to share and/or identify.

His paintings and drawings for “Threesome” deal with emotional, physical, and societal insecurities.

Scott G. Brooks is originally from Flint, Michigan, and graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. He moved to the D.C. area in 1990 and currently lives and works in the U Street corridor. His work has been exhibited in New York, L.A. and many venues in the D.C. area, including the recent “Jumping Through Hoops” at Gallery Neptune, the WPA/Corcoran show “Seven,” “Drawing National 2” at Montgomery College, and the last three Artomatic exhibitions. Scott has also illustrated two children’s books: The Three Armadillies Tuff, and The Ring Bear. 

Check it out.

Paula Lantz opening at Gallery West

Paula Lantz, one of the artist members of Gallery West, will be having a solo show there starting October 13th and running through November 7th.  The opening reception will be Saturday October 15th from 5-7:30 pm.

Russia! review

Decent review of the "Russia!" exhibit over at the Christian Science Monitor.

Dianne Bugash at the Light Street Gallery

The   Light Street Gallery in Baltimore will be showing the works of Dianne Bugash from now until October 15th.  The opening reception will be Saturday evening 5-9pm.  Get directions here.

3rd Annual Curator's Incubator Program

There'll be a gallery talk and reception Friday September 9th at the Maryland Art Place in Baltimore for their latest exhibition, the 3rd Annual Curator's Incubator program.  The talk portion of the evening runs from 6-7pm with a reception following.  Get more info here and here's more about the idea behind the show.

It's a brand new car!

This is the latest tape sculpture from Mark Jenkins from the opening of his show at the Fraser Gallery.