Art Gallery
From a distance, Laura Moriarty’s latest sculpture ‘Upheaval’ looks like its namesake. Displaced mounds of waxen pigment are collected on two large, wooden pallets, tilted and overlapping like slowly advancing tectonic plates. Upon closer approach, the geomorphic formations of paint reveal incredible diversity – unexpected veins of color, striations of texture, and glimpses of interior spaces.
Steve Powers (aka Espo of graffiti fame), proves that home really is where the heart is, when he unveiled his ambitious mural project “A Love Letter For You” to his native city of Philadelphia this past Fall. Through countless hours of community outreach, meetings, and social networking, Powers has brought together hundreds of West Philly residents to shape this project with through their artistic skills, insights on love, and thoughts on what their neighborhood means to them.
In the contemporary media climate – overwrought with tweets and live-feeds, links and newsflashes – oil painting can seem anachronistic, a simultaneously quaint and frivolous throwback to a former era of static imagery. The work of Aaron M Brown openly challenges that assumption, using traditional media to speak directly to the complex visual realities of today.
Ducts Art Gallery’s interview series continues with printmaker/artist, Hoang Pham in conversation with Brooklyn-based performance artists, Holly Faurot and Sarah H Paulson. She communicates with them via email from her studio in Richmond, Virginia.
Hoang: I’d like to start off by talking a little bit about your relationship. I know you two have been together for some time now–the baby years going back to college.
This past March, over sixty street and graffiti artists came together to transform a historic 4000 square foot raw studio space – formerly 112 Workshop and the hip-hop mecca, Greene Street Recording Studio- for the collaborative show, “Work To Do”.
With the energy and creativity that has come to define the New York scene, these artists put their work on everything from brick walls to wood and glass.
Cast in transparent crystal, a dozen antique purses hang delicately on the wall. They are apparitions of objects called forth from a previous time. Each translucent handbag belies its original function: revealing instead of concealing. Privacy is denied, allowing personal experience to become shared.
Philadelphia artist, Jen Blazina makes memory tangible.