Rachel Eschenbach (MFA '11) and Jessica Vaughn (MFA '11) Featured in Philadelphia Sculptors’ 12th Annual Student Exhibition, 5 into 1

Philadelphia Sculptors, in cooperation with the Galleries at Moore, presents Philadelphia Sculptors’ 12th Annual Student Exhibition, 5 into 1. The show features two graduating students from each of the five Philadelphia Fine Arts programs. Participants include, Kelly McGovern and Laurel Patterson of Moore College of Art & Design, Tyler Kline and Tom Yurkovic of Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Maxi Eisenmann and Jim Shomo of Tyler School of Art, Tyler Held and Colin O’Neill of The University of the Arts, and Rachel Eschenbach and Jessica Vaughn of The University of Pennsylvania. The Curators of 5 into 1 are Emma Irvin and Anna Romaniuk. The show's reception took place on Sunday, May 22nd and was preceded by a by panel presentation with Jordan Griska, Joseph Leroux and Sharyn O’Mara, moderated by Paul Hubbard, Graduate Program Manager of Studio Art at Moore.

For more information call 215.965.4027 or visit www.thegalleriesatmoore.org.

5 into 1

May 21 – June 18, 2011

Opening Reception: Sunday, May 22, 2011, 3:15 – 5:30 p.m.

Best of Show Award presentation--"Sculpture Today”: Sunday, May 22, 1:30 – 2:45 p.m.

Wilson Lobby, Moore College of Art and Design

20th Street and The Parkway

Philadelphia, PA 19103

For more information on Philadelphia Sculptors, e-mail Leslie Kaufman at lesliekaufman@verizon.net.

www.philasculptors.org

Howard A. Silverstein and Patricia Bleznak Silverstein Photography Studio Abroad 2011 Exhibition, Populous Flows

The University of Pennsylvania Department of Fine Arts is proud to present the Howard A. Silverstein and Patricia Bleznak Silverstein Photography Studio Abroad 2011 Exhibition, Populous Flows. Howard A. Silverstein and Patricia Bleznak generously funded 19 individuals, a collection of graduate students, undergraduate students, faculty, staff and adult extension students to travel to and from Mumbai, India in March of 2011. Populous Flows is an exhibition of the work made during this time, as well as work made after the fact in response to the multitude of experiences had while abroad. Populous Flows features the following students: Christine Alix, Shumita Basu, Níger Laila Bey, Sandy Boyer, Sarah Cohen, Sarah Dekker, Clare Din, Caitlin Lennon, Michael Marfione, Katie Motyka, Chloe Isadora Reison, Alex Remnick, Tamara Suber, Elise Wrabetz. Additionally, the subsequent faculty and staff also present their work in the show: Samuel Belkowitz, Gabriel Martinez, Karen Rodenwald, Julie Saecker Schneider and Larry Shprintz.

To learn more about Populous Flows, visit

http://www.design.upenn.edu/fine-arts-undergraduate/

POPULOUS FLOWS
May 20 - July 12, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, May 20th, 4-6pm

The Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall

University of Pennsylvania

200 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6229

215.573.5134

fine-art@design.upenn.edu

Gallery Hours: 10-5pm Monday - Friday

Julia Barbosa Landois (MFA '07) in Solo Exhibition at Blue Star Contemporary Art Center (San Antonio, Texas), Opening June 2nd, 6pm

Julia Barbosa Landois (MFA '07) will have work featured in a solo exhibition and live performance, entitled "Culo de Oro/The Golden Ass," at Blue Star Contemporary Art Center. "Culo de Oro/The Golden Ass" examines sex, masculinity, and the tourist mentality along the Texas/Mexico border.

Landois grew up in South Texas, surrounded by men who visited towns like Nuevo Laredo for prostitutes, bizarre sex shows, exotic game hunting, and recreational drinking. Like Las Vegas or Amsterdam, these towns illustrate how the concept of license can change when one changes environments. In this show, she, too, plays the part of tourist in the terrain of masculine identity and gendered desire, in a sexual rite of passage with no counterpart for women of the same culture.

This is Landois's first project using documentary material as a starting point. The installation and performance are informed by interviews conducted with friends and brothel patrons, sex tourism website testimonials, regional folklore, and ideas about sex and spirituality from ancient Mexico. Landois will perform in the installation space on June 30th with musician Erik Sanden of the art-rock band Buttercup. Creation of this work was made possible in part by the Residency Program at the Santa Fe Art Institute and an Award from the Artist Foundation of San Antonio, with funding provided by the Cultural Collaborative of the City of San Antonio.

To view more of Julia's work, visit http://www.julialandois.com/

Also, to read reviews of the show, please visit

http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Curtain-lifted-on-border-sex-trade-1443687.php

http://glasstire.com/2011/07/02/nuevo-laredo-performs-in-san-antonio-culo-de-oro-the-golden-ass/

Opening Reception: Thursday, June 2nd, 6-9 pm

Live Performance: Thursday, June 30th, 7pm

Exhibition Dates: June 2nd - August 6th

Blue Star Contemporary Art Center

116 Blue Star

San Antonio, TX 78204

http://www.bluestarart.org/

Marjorie Van Cura (MFA '02) interviewed by Peter Gynd Medley of Northside Open Studios

In the Studio: With Majorie Van Cura
By Peter Gynd Medley
posted May 7, 2011
www.northsideopenstudios.org/news/

This week I visited with Greenpoint artist Marjorie Van Cura.
Van Cura’s work is born of experience; her father a computer programmer at a genetic research lab, Van Cura’s work is informed by her personal experiences and reflections on genetic hybridization. Dealing directly with building personally relevant icons through appropriated imagery, her work bypasses the narrative, focusing instead on the subconscious processing of ideas.

Marjorie’s paintings begin with a Google image search. She searches for photos illustrative of both her experiences and the subconscious of an experience. The images are then digitally collaged together forming a hybridized human/animal/mechanical icon.

Reflective of genetic exploration, these icons undergo a series of changes through their generational reproduction. Referring to this as the “generation of a generation”, Marjorie hand traces these forms repeatedly to her final surface, the icon changing or evolving slightly with every successive transfer. This process produces paintings which upon first glance appear as perfectly balanced and symmetrical compositions of repeating forms. Upon closer inspection though, Van Cura’s paintings slowly reveal the subtle variations of the process.

Referencing Op Art and Surrealism, the works are pattern and color based, meant to be disorientating, but not completely overwhelming. The imagery of the icons reflective of the hybridization of contemporary culture and as Van Cura puts it, “a way to process the world and events without being overly political.”

To view more of Marjorie's work, visit www.marjorievancura.com.

Northside Open Studios: June 16th - 19th
* Note: Marjorie Van Cura will be in studio on Sunday only, June 19th from 12:00 - 6:00pm.

Majorie's Studio Location
255 Calyer Street
(@ corner of Newel)
Second Floor
Greenpoint Brooklyn

Penn Design 2011 MFA Thesis Exhibition, Opening May 12th, 6pm

Penn Design Fine Arts is proud to present the 2011 MFA Thesis Exhibition at the at the Ice Box exhibition space in Crane Arts, Philadelphia. The exhibition will bring together works by the 22 artists who will graduate from the program this May. The exhibition is free and open to the public. Exhibiting Artists: Paige Adair, Amy Archambault, Sandy Boyer, Zoe Chronis, Sarah Cohen, Robert Dimin, Rachel Eschenbach, Stephen Grebinski, Justine Hill, Beth Hull, Soo Kang, Bradley LaMere, Elina Malkin, Michael Marfione, Kent Miller, Jayson Scott Musson, Heidi Nam, Martha Rich, John Schlesinger, Tamara Suber, Jessica Vaughn, and Jessica Yang.

The PennDesign MFA class of 2011 has been challenged to independently pursue artistic research in visual art. With the graduation of this class, we celebrate the Fine Arts program's new unification of individual disciplines. For example, the work of a photographer is no less conscious of the universe of painting, and a video artist might have equal interest in sculpture. These graduating students have had exposure to international traveling studios, sponsored residencies, and visiting faculty. The combination of these experiences have broadened the students' perspectives and shaped their responsibilities as artists.

To learn more about the exhibition, visit http://pennexhibitions.com/index.php?/home/mfa_shows/2011/

Opening Reception: Thursday, May 12th, 6:00 - 9:00pm
Exhibition Dates: Thursday, May 12th - Sunday, May 29th

Crane Arts Building: Ice Box Project Space
1400 North American Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122
Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Sunday 12:00 - 6:00pm

Brent Wahl (Lecturer, MFA '06) in Solo Exhibition at Vox Populi, Opening May 6th, 6pm

Brent Wahl (Lecturer, MFA '06) will have work featured in his fourth solo exhibition at Vox Populi, entitled "Group Show". Fabricating three-dimensional "situations" that move through contextual and visual shifts is an ongoing interest in Brent Wahl’s work, as are reoccurring themes that investigate cultural phenomena, abstraction, architecture and illusion. For Wahl, abstraction has often been the "glue" that binds together the disparate visual forms in his varied work.

In "Group Show", Wahl refocuses his interest in abstraction in full force. Drawing on his fascination with the optical and spatial shifts that happen between three-dimensional structures imaged in two-dimensions (via photography), he embraces a playful and experimental stance with this work. Collaborating with himself, he compiles a “group show" of imagery that is at once thematically linked and visually diverse.

To view more of Wahl's work, visit, http://brentwahl.com/home.html

Opening Reception: Friday, May 6th, 6:00 - 11:00pm
Exhibition Dates: Friday, May 6th - Sunday, May 29th

Vox Populi
319 North 11th Street
Philadelphia, PA
http://www.voxpopuligallery.org/

Caroline Santa (MFA '07) in Solo Exhibition at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Opening May 6th, 6pm

Caroline Santa (MFA '07) will have recent work featured in a solo exhibition, titled "Coda", at Tiger Strikes Asteroid. Mining old drawings, discarded scraps of paper, and other found items, Santa's newest mixed media works are improvisatory, intuitive, and guided by serendipity. "Coda" is the inaugural exhibition in Tiger Strikes Asteroid's new space on the 2nd floor.

Santa's previously unresolved drawings are remembered, reexamined, and reshaped to become a fresh inventory of color, marks, and surfaces. Enforced by other found items, this collection of materials is recognized for an undeveloped portential and an appreciation of its own characteristics. Her thoughtfulness in observations and the inspiration she finds in overlooked fragments and secondary forms reveals a compelling process. The negative spaces of Santa's drawings become the subject, cut out and reinforced by the application of arbitrary shapes in gouaches, ink washes, spray paint and graphite. Santa holds a BFA from the University of Delaware and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. Recently her work has been shown at Projects Gallery, UnSmoke Space, and Gross McCleaf Gallery. In 2007, she was the recipient of the Charles Addams Prize, and was an Artist-in-Residence in Pereira, Colombia. Her work has been exhibited at The Delaware Center of Contemporary Art, FLUXspace, The Jenny Jaskey Gallery, The University of the Arts, the galleries of The University of Pennsylvania, and The Lucy Tejada Cultural Center in Pereira, Colombia. Santa lives and works in Philadelphia.

To view more works by Santa, visit http://carolinesanta.com/news.html

Opening Reception: Friday, May 6th 6:00pm-10:00pm
Exhibition Dates: Friday May 6th - Sunday May 29th

Tiger Strikes Asteroid
319A North 11th Street
2nd Floor (Our New Location!)
Philadelphia PA 19107

Joe Ovelman (MFA '10) in Solo Exhibition at Conner Contemporary Art, Opening May 14th, 6pm

Conner Contemporary Art is pleased to present concurrent solo exhibitions by Jeremy Kost, Joe Ovelman and Geoffrey Aldridge. Joe Ovelman (MFA '10) explores sexuality and the subversion of social norms with a series of new sculptures in his second solo exhibition with the gallery, "Coming Home". Works made of wood and mixed media resemble apparatuses used in past decades to provide anonymity during sexual encounters. Removing these forms from their original contexts and adjusting the relation of their features to human anatomy, Ovelman emphasizes the universality of these objects.

To view more of Ovelman's work, visit http://joeovelman.com/home.


Opening Reception: Saturday, May 14th, 6:00 - 8:00pm.
Exhibition Dates: May 14th – July 2nd, 2011


Conner Contemporary Art
1358 Florida Avenue,
NE –Washington, DC 20002
(in the Historic Atlas/H Street Area)
http://www.connercontemporary.com/
202.588.8750
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 - 5:00pm