Tag Archive "rob-matthews"

Weekly Update – Matthews, Holsing at Gallery Joe

This week’s Weekly has my review of Rob Matthews’s Knoxville Girl and Marilyn Holsing’s Young Marie at Gallery Joe. Below is the copy with some pictures. More photos at flickr. And here’s Libby’s post on the show and our Look! episode.Gray’s AnatomyTwo shows explore moral ambiguity. Rob Matthews, Knoxville Girl, the Deposition, at Gallery Joe. Rob Matthews’ 14-drawing murder saga is a morality tale reminiscent of the pious lessons told via stained glass windows in the great cathedrals. His “The Knoxville Girl” suite of works is based loosely on real murders in Knoxville, Tenn., and on the Appalachian ballad “Knoxville ... More » »

Look! It’s Libby and Roberta at Gallery Joe

Click To Play This episode from our ongoing series of gallery visits takes us to the Gallery Joe for the narrative works of Rob Matthews and Marilyn Holsing. Our video guru David Kessler captured it all and makes the magic happen. Here’s a link to David’s popular Shadow World videos. And here’s a link to the archive of all the Look! episodes.

Murder and excess–Matthews and Holsing at Gallery Joe

Rob Matthews, Knoxville Girl-Retrievalimage courtesy the artist First Friday began with a bang for us. We started the evening at Gallery Joe, and really could have stayed there for the night. Two solo exhibits of drawings of Rob Matthews and of Marilyn Holsing each asked questions about responsibility and morality and human nature. They also successfully argue that drawing has become a major medium, capable of handling the kinds of important messages that used to belong only to painting, and rarely to etchings. Rob Matthews at the opening of Knoxville Girl Matthews’ Knoxville Girl is a series of 19 graphite ... More » »

A cause no more!

There are two winners in our effort to raise money for a Donors Choose project. The wonderful Rob Matthews has won the top prize–one year of advertising on artblog!!!! He got it for being the top donor to the project we chose, “What In The World Is Going On?: Current Events Kit.” The project is now becoming a reality–subscriptions to a news magazine for the students of Ms. Sinclair, a Philadelphia public school teacher. So thanks to the several donors, three of them from artblog. Here’s the letter we got from Ms. Sinclair: Dear Donor, Thank you so much for ... More » »

Weekly Update – PAFA’s new acquisitions!

This week’s Weekly has my review of the PAFA new acquisitions show This Place is Ours! Below is the copy with some pictures. More photos at flickr. And here’s Libby’s post. PAFA’s Got a Brand-New BagThe Academy lifts itself into the 21st century. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’ new acquisitions show “This Place Is Ours!” rightly deserves the exclamation point in its title. Jim Houser, This Place is Ours! (right) and Eamon Ore-GIron, Exit Strategy, from Pafa’s new acquisitions show. The big show of more than 100 works of American art purchased since 2001 demonstrates a new vision ... More » »

Inbox incoming, round two

Rob Matthews, fresh from a whirlwind trip to Europe (read about it at Rob’s blog, Matthews the Younger), sent me a note about two New York shows with Philly ties that open this weekend. They both sound outstanding! The Lizard Cult at Clementine GalleryJune 2-Aug. 10. Robyn O’Neill who’s been blog-tending at Matthews the Younger while Rob and his wife, Tracy, went to Europe, is in this group show which honors a long-time and influential art teacher, Lee Baxter Davis. Robyn O’Neil, A Falling Stump, drawing seen at Art in the Armory, 2006 at Galerie Praz-Delavallade, Paris, booth Here’s the ... More » »

New blogger on the scene

Hey artblog readers! Welcome Robyn O’Neil to Philadelphia blogland. Robyn is a great drawing artist (see post). We’ve seen her work in the Whitney Biennial 2004, at Gallery Joe and at the recent Art in the Armory. Robyn is a friend of Rob Matthews and is taking over temporarily at Matthews the Younger while Rob and Tracy Matthews do the European tour thing (2 weeks, many cities, no sleep, lots of art, great food, sigh…). Robyn has blogging creds as well as art creds. Her blog, uffball, has a great story about a blankey, some fuzz, obsessive art production, difficult ... More » »

Friday night open studios

Our good friend, artist and natural-born blogger Rob Matthews, wrote recently with information about the Church Studios open house which is tomorrow night, March 23, 7-9:30 pm. I mentioned this fundraising event a while back when I posted my interview with Scott Laumann, former Church Studios artist (he’s moved back to California). Here’s the particulars of the fundraiser, which benefits the Church Studios (see Libby’s post for more about the studios) and CCO an organization that interacts with college students. A WORK IN PROGRESS: Open Studios & Art AuctionFriday, March 23, 2007Church Studios at Olivet Covenant Presbyterian Church,22nd and Mt. ... More » »

Wrestling your way to drawing

Post from Rob Matthews Nice post on the smiling wrestler. Thought you might be interested in another collision of wrestling and art. Here are some quick ink drawings I made in grad school. They’re part of a larger group of about 40 drawings. Rob Matthews, Wrestler 2 They were made at a time when I could barely muster the concentration to spend more than 8 hours on a painting or more than 15 minutes on a small ink drawing. My how times have changed. Anyway, I would take photos off of World Wrestling Federation videos that I got from Blockbuster ... More » »

Guston, de Chirico, and della Francesca, too

Post by Rob Matthews Hey. Cool about the Guston show. I like him a ton even though my work wouldn’t suggest it anymore. I figured out a long time ago the best way to appreciate Guston is that everyone should stop trying to make work like his. His work gets played off as the epitome of “honesty” due to its rawness but I think that’s just Guston’s honesty- not everyone else’s. Some painters get confused in that regard. Philip Guston, retrospective image Artistic honesty comes in all shapes and sizes right? The KKK hood shape is present in his AbEx ... More » »