Margery Amdur’s solo exhibition “Amass”

September 7-29, 2012

September sees Projects Gallery celebrating its eighth season opener with the second solo show of paintings and assemblages of Margery Amdur.  Ms. Amdur is well known to the Philadelphia art world for her imaginative mixed media constructions.  Using American kitsch as a launch pad for immense and complex contemporary art constructs, her works come alive with innovation, sensitivity and creative verve.  As she enters the world of kitsch, she also touches on traditional women’s art-making techniques and household games, such as paint-by-number kits.  All of this comes together in large-scale works on paper and innovative collages.  Ms. Amdur is neither a pure painter, yet she uses painting strategies; a printmaker, although she employs numerous printmaking processes; a sculptor, yet she frequently works openly on the floor and wall as would a classical sculptor; nor a textile artist, though her works flow filled with textiles and elements essential to the textile artist.  She has, at times, referred to herself as an installation artist, a painter and a sculptor; but in reality these titles all fall far from the mark when describing the unique form that has evolved into the Margery Amdur we see here.  In short, she is a builder of images, often seeming to build them right in front of our eyes.

The artist is fresh from a year and a half of work designing and overseeing the creation of a 4,000 sq.ft. public art piece, “Walking on Sunshine,” permanently installed in SEPTA’s Broad and Spring Garden Street station.  This immense, complex and delightful painting that one walks upon greets the weary or rushing traveler with a smile of color and light at their feet.  Its fluid and vivid shapes and textures brighten this formerly gloomy station with surprising aplomb.

Amdur, the relentless experimenter, enters these forms again in a number of works seen here with a liberating sense of play, surprising for a project that most artists would find exhausting.  Using this sense of childlike wonder, she emerges with a fresh take on her own creation, allowing the viewer an experience equal in uplift to the subway installation but adapted for a completely new space and audience.  Using every skill and technique that years of experimentation have taught her, she brings to Projects an exuberant body of work defiant in its nature but celebratory in its success to animate the walls of the gallery and lift our eyes to a new level of appreciation for this remarkable artist.

Originally from Pittsburgh, Margery Amdur received her B.F.A. from Carnegie-Mellon University and her M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.  Margery has had over 60 solo and two-person exhibitions.  Her international exhibitions include Turkey, Hungary, Poland and England.  In addition to her studio practice, she has begun to curate and organize national exhibitions, including To Be Or Not To Be, A Painters Dilemma ’2009,’ and Seeing Voices, The Authentic Visual Voice ’2010.’  She is the recipient of more than a dozen awards and grants and has been reviewed in national and international publications, including Sculpture Magazine, Fiber Arts, New American Paintings, New Art Examiner, Art Papers, and the Manifest International Publication (INPA).  This past summer Margery was an artist in residence at Virginia Center for Creative Art, and will be exhibiting a floor installation in Art Prize 2012.

 

Alejandro Mendoza’s solo exhibition “Location, location, location…”

April 6-28, 2012

Location, location, location… this famous phrase has a lot of meaning in the real estate market.   For Alejandro Mendoza, a refugee of Castro’s Cuba, location has another meaning.  “Location today means everything,” says Mendoza.   And he means it.  Since fleeing Castro’s shores, first to Mexico and then to Miami, he has been forced to deal with this concept of location again and again.  The highly valued freedoms of the free world are relative to location and access.  “ Constantly in our path we have to recalculate our location.  It has meaning for culture, color, race, language, intellect, money, power and, of course, art,” says the optimist Mendoza.  “Everybody dreams of a dream location because location has become a great goal in our life.  It is a socially empty concept and speculative.  It is one of the must radical modern concepts as a sign and symbol in today’s society.”

In this dynamic new body of work, Mendoza creates a non-existent topographic world, a world that alludes to land, trees, houses and geographic references.  It is a fanciful world that is non-specific and undefined on a map yet constantly creating a sense of location.  He poetically reveals, in an elegantly abstract language, the truths and myths of “Location.”  One stands in front of his objects and gets a sense of their location as they define their own borders; and yet, one feels the optimism of this artist searching for a sense of place, still questing a location.  This new work suggests maps and boundaries and tools for determining these concepts.  The truth of any map has always been the desired treasure of its maker.  The oldest map known to man was a map produced in Egypt showing the location of dolomite, a stone needed to carve other stones for the production of tombs and temples.  A meteorologist might present a map of wind currents or cloud patterns; a real estate developer would demonstrate a choice piece of land in relation to a prospective customer base.  What can one expect from a refugee poet/sculptor?  The cherished land of artistic freedom freed from boundaries determined by politics and economics, free from the limitations of the material world yet realized in a marvelous material form.  We journey here with Alejandro to a land not yet known but clearly visible to this artist’s eye.  As the land just over Jordan was referred to as the land of milk and honey, he allows us this moment to peer with him into the artistic mist and dream of a location free from limits, open to all and owned by no man.

Alejandro Mendoza lives and works in Miami and is the genius behind and curator of “Giants in the City,” a large-scale inflatable sculpture project developed for Art Basel Miami in 2009 and subsequently exhibited internationally.  His most recent solo exhibition was at the Coral Gables Museum, Coral Gables, Florida.  Projects Gallery Philadelphia is excited to present this elegant and poignant exhibition on the eve of its solo debut during New York City’s Pulse Art Fair this coming May.

“Hands On” group exhibition by the Society of American Graphic Artists

February 3-25, 2012

Projects Gallery, in collaboration with the Society of American Graphic Artists (SAGA), presents Hands On, a group offering of thirteen highly accomplished printmakers that use hand-pulled processes to create their art.  These artists are the current council members of SAGA, a juried, not-for-profit national organization of fine art printmakers based in Manhattan.

Emphasizing such techniques as mezzotint, engraving, etching, lithography and silkscreen, SAGA is a consortium of printmakers who make prints that are rich, vital and relevant.  The Society has a long and distinguished history; its origins stretch back to 1915 when a group of printmakers founded the Brooklyn Society of Etchers. Over the years SAGA has grown to include printmakers from throughout the country and has organized numerous national and international exhibitions.  Early members included:  Henri Matisse, Kathe Kollowitz, John Sloan, Edward Hopper, Pablo Picasso, Mary Cassatt, Joseph Pennell, John Marin, Childe Hassam and John Taylor Arms.  For more information about SAGA, visit its website at sagaprints.org.  Hands On featured artists are:

William Behnken, a life-long resident of New York with an MA and BA from the City College of New York, where he has taught for four decades. He is the recipient of many awards and represented in numerous museum collections.  He is also an elected member of the National Academy of Design, where he taught printmaking from 2001 to 2007.  His work was the subject of a featured essay in the Spring 2007 edition of American Artist’s Drawing Magazine.

Joseph Essig received his BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art and his MFA at the Tyler School of Art.  He has received numerous prestigious awards, and his work appears in many private and museum collections. His prints explore his relationship with the Brooklyn waterfront, and his etchings utilize a la poupee inking and interpretive wiping to create abrupt contrasts and atmospheric effects to create dramatic moments.

Amir Hariri was born in Tehran and immigrated to the U.S. to attend college in the early 1990′s. He has studied printmaking (with specialization in stone lithography) with Michael Pellettieri, and painting with William Scharf at the Art Students League of New York. His work incorporates his studies in anatomy, architecture and mechanics into an organic, “bio-mechanical” unity. Overarching themes also include investigation of architectonic space and anthropomorphic anatomy.

Michael Hew Wing defines himself as a printmaker. To him, it is not only the love of the line, textures, and imagery created by etching techniques but the process that is equally and vitally important, specifically the struggle with the tools and plate to bring forth the image he is trying to achieve.
He received an MA from the Fashion Institute of Technology and a BA from Hamilton College. He has participated in numerous exhibitions in New York City and abroad, including Ireland, Australia and Spain. He was the recent recipient of the Chaim Koppelman Award at SAGA’s 65th Annual Members Show.

London-born artist Marion Lerner-Levine studied painting and printmaking at the Chicago Art Institute. Her images convey a sense of the magic and mystery of objects as if seen through a mirror. Recent woodblock prints and monotypes are concerned with landscape patterns and structures and with intimate city views from across narrow streets.  She has received numerous awards, including an NEA; and her works are in several public collections around the world.

After postgraduate study at the Slade School of Art in London, Tennessee born Barbara Minton received her MFA at Pratt Institute. Inspired by the interaction of nature and architecture in Brooklyn, she continues to work on a series of landscape etchings that draw the viewer into the intimate relationship between past and present. She has taught printmaking and art history at various colleges, and her work has appeared in many exhibitions and competitions.

Masaaki Noda was born at Hiroshima, Japan, in 1949. He graduated from Osaka University of Art 1972 and moved to New York 1977, where he studied with Michael Ponce de Leon and Michael Pellettieri at the Art Students League. He has had over sixty one-person shows throughout the US, as well as in France, Greece, China, Taiwan and Japan. Masaaki’s prints (mainly silkscreens) have been included in four hundred group and international venues around the world.  He serves as graphic director of the Audubon Artist Association in New York City.

Japanese artist, Tomomi Ono, studied traditional Japanese painting.  After living in Spain, she moved to New York in 1993, where she studied lithography at the Art Students League. Ono’s work has been exhibited in the US, East Asia, and Europe. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards; and her work is in prestigious private collections, as well as in major public collections.

London born Merle Perlmutter is known in the printmaking world for soft-ground mezzotint etchings. She is represented in museum collections around the world, has been the recipient of the CAPS grant and of 44 additional printmaking awards and was the 2009 honoree of SAGA.  She has exhibited throughout the world, and her etchings have been featured on television’s Channel 13.

Projects Gallery’s own Florence Putterman was awarded an NEA Grant in 1979 and has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the US and Europe. She received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Pennsylvania State University in 1988 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from SAGA in 2010.  Her works are in numerous museum and corporate collections, and she has received several purchase awards. Florence is listed in Who’s Who of American Art and Who’s Who in America.

Ellen Nathan Singer received a BFA from Columbia University and studied at the Art Students League of New York. Her printmaking includes woodcuts and etchings. Her work is in several notable collections, and reproductions have appeared in several publications. She has exhibited in many solo and group shows.

Oklahoma born Shelley Thorstensen lived in Austria and Germany before settling in Oxford, PA, on the edge of the Amish country.  Recent solo shows include the Painted Bride Art Center, Woodmere Art Museum and Philadelphia’s The Print Center.  She has a BFA from Syracuse University and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, where she teaches drawing and printmaking.
Steven Walker was born in Brooklyn in 1955 and grew up in Long Island. He studied art at Wagner College on Staten Island and New York’s Art Students League.

Len & Ira Upin – Two Brothers-Two Profiles

November 4-26, 2011

Two Brothers – Two Profiles, a dual exhibition featuring Ira and Len Upin. Ira, a Philadelphia-based artist, is known for his provocative figurative juxtapositions rendered with awe-inspiring skill and frequently challenging narratives. New to Philadelphians is Len Upin, an artist who was an educator in a suburban Chicago school system until a series of medical issues brought an early end to his teaching career. During the recuperation process, Len found himself returning to the studio, making a series of expressive and arresting images that, though based on a photographic reference, plunge the viewer into the torment and angst of the human spirit as the body and mind wrestle with sickness and a near-death experience. The force of these powerful works, in the simple language of black and white in the tradition of Rembrandt and Lucian Freud etchings, engages the viewer in the artist’s unrelenting struggle with mortality. This confrontation brings the artist’s emotions into the empathetic core of his audience, allowing us all to ponder this mythic plane. His subjects are himself, family and friends; his results are arresting glimpses into our deepest felt desires. One does not feel pity for the struggling artist but rather anguish for mankind itself and the fleeting nature that is life and the torment of the unknown, which is its inevitable conclusion.

Ira Upin’s contribution is a series of images based on the experience of a forceful, healthy and productive man coming to terms with the normal aging process. This process begins slowly but persistently over time, intensifying until the once powerful becomes increasingly less capable. In a series of complex, figurative compositions that conjure the work of Pieter Bruegel meets “The Big Lebowski”, Ira uses his considerable skills to craft images which increasingly lead the viewer to understand that it is the humans in these images that are merely characters on the stage of life, easily replaced by yet another character waiting in the wings just off stage. The strong narrative nature of these works and the cryptic scenarios they present confront the viewer in yet another way to contemplate the temporal nature of life.

In Two Brothers – Two Profiles these siblings, who were reared in suburban Chicago but who have lived separate and very different lives, come together under the same roof to speak about one of life’s most compelling moments – its conclusion. These two brothers, who have lived full lives of work, marriage, parenthood, success and challenge, are asking similar questions in markedly different ways. It is no coincidence that each is fascinated with the portrait as an artistic device. Two Brothers – Two Profiles brings to the forefront two commanding perspectives on the nature of human existence and the artist’s need to discuss the uncomfortable in a frank and compelling manner. The Upin brothers engage, invigorate, enlighten and remind us that we all have an opportunity to give life meaning.

Abstraction

October 7-29, 2011

Abstraction is the first in a series of exhibitions exploring a variety of artistic genres utilizing the talent of contemporary artists.  Beginning with the first completely abstract painting made by Wassily Kandinsky in 1910, artists have used abstraction to create forms that have no reference to figurative reality.  In its wider definition, abstraction describes art that depicts real forms in a simplified or reduced way that keeps only an allusion of the original subject matter.  Even into the 21st century, abstraction continues to invigorate and liberate many artists to think beyond the limits of conventional forms and media.  Whether working with geometric shapes, pure color fields, symbols or expressionistic gesture, abstractionists try to convey a feeling or a sense of the known and unknown.  According to Rudolph Arnheim in Visual Thing, “Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.”

This juried exhibition features 28 selected artists and several invited guests.  The works encompass a variety of media, including drawing, mixed media, painting, print and sculpture. Abstraction presents traditional techniques, as well as new technology; and it demonstrates the plethora of artistic styles even within a specific genre.  Juried artists include:  Robert Aiosa, Jon Anderson, Steven R. Berry, Tom Coffin, Alexa de los Reyes, Paul Downie, Patricia Dusman, Astrid Fitzgerald, Ashley Flynn, Sheila Grabarsky, Marjorie Grigonis, Denis Grué, Stephen Haigh, Lisa Haskell, Mary Kane, Del Lovett, Sandi Neiman Lovitz, Beth Malonoski, Courtney Mendenhall, William Montgomery, Saga Moor, Carol Philips, Sophie Sanders, Zoe Spiliotis, Stephanie Suter, Annelies van Dommelen, Alice Whealin and Kim Yantis.

Why call-to-artists exhibitions?

Projects Gallery has initiated a number of call-to-artists exhibitions lately.  Although the gallery has done this on occasion in the past, we have increased the frequently this year.  You might ask why?  There are several reasons:

1.  Economics – to be blunt and up front.  With today’s financial conditions, it becomes increasing more difficult to mount solo or even two-person exhibitions.  The costs of running a gallery, even a small one, are incredible, even for the basics like rent (fortunately we own our space), electricity, insurance, promotion, etc.  Then if you add the costs of receptions and, for the more fortunate, personnel, it becomes almost prohibitive.  So those entry fees are sometimes just enough to keep the lights on.

2.  Altruism.  Yes, we care.  From the very beginning, Projects Gallery’s main tenet was to put the artists first and to represent them honestly, respectfully and to provide a platform for them to showcase their work, as much as possible, according to their own personal vision.  These call-to-artists shows give artists, who might not otherwise have an opportunity, a chance to get their work out of their studios and to display it in a quality venue.  Most of these artists do not have gallery representation, and this may one of the only ways their works will be seen.

3.  Community Outreach.  All of our call-to-artist exhibitions are thematic.  In the past, we have explored ideas such as guilty pleasures, summer in the city, celebrating a historic presidency.  Currently there’s an exhibition on the walls in Philly discussing masks in today’s society (thought up by a Mexican and an American and juried by a Venezuelan).  Next we’re going to explore contemporary abstract art in its myriad styles.  And the most unusual idea has just been sent out.  In “Square Foot Art Basel Miami,” we have asked artists to stay within a 12″x12″ configuration for a mosaic-style grid to be hung in our Wynwood Lofts Miami gallery.  The first 100 artists to send in their entries are guaranteed a place on the wall.  This is open to anyone in the world so long as the piece is 12″x12″ and can be hung on the wall.  No one is juried, no one is rejected, no one is selected.  Truly a democratic, first-come, first-served opportunity.  After the first 100 artists, subsequent entries will be placed according to space availability on a wall the measures 30′W by 12′H.  That’s 360 sf of space, and we’re not hanging floor to ceiling.

4.  Opportunities.  The opportunity for the gallery to find new artists to represent.  We have in the past and hope to in the future.  The opportunity for someone to find a piece of art that they want to own.   The opportunity for an artist to be seen by another gallery and start a new relationship with them.  This too has happened in the past.  Opportunity for the artist to think about a theme and see how their work might apply or make something brand new and stretch their abilities.

So you see, it’s not about living off the backs of artists.  I’m still driving the same old car, and believe me there’s much more work involved in this type of exhibition than a solo or dual exhibition.  It’s about working together, as artists often do, to think outside the box and to keep things going no matter how tough the going gets.

Máscara (Mask)

September 2-24, 2011

A juried exhibition exploring the contemporary use of the mask.  More than 25 artists are featured, with works in a variety of media, including drawing, mixed media, painting, photography, print, sculpture and video.  Everyone wears a mask, whether literally or figurative.  What are we trying to hide or reveal?  Ancient man used the altered human form to represent the mysteries of his world.  Shaman or medicine men wear body paint or crafted objects to transform themselves into forms from the spirit world.  Halloween and Mardi Gras are two of today’s blends of religious and secular celebrations.  What does the mask represent for modern man?  We wear masks of all kinds – as part of religious rituals, in theater, in sports, in entertainment, in combat as well as in the face we present to others.

Juror, Henry Bermudez, has selected an eclectic group of artists to discuss this topic.  Mr. Bermudez is a Venice Biennale Venezuelan artist who has shown throughout the world and has had more than 30 solo exhibitions and has participated in more than 75 group exhibitions.  His works are included in several public and private collections, including National Museum of Catholic Art & History, New York; Museums of Contemporary Art, Caracas, Maracaibo, Merida, and Maracay, Venezuela; Modern Art Museum of Costa Rica; Puebla Cultural House, Puebla, Mexico; Museum of Art Ralli, Punta Del Este, Uruguay.  He currently lives in Philadelphia and has an installation at the Philadelphia International Airport.