News We’re not at the finish line yet, but this is turning out to be a banner year for visual arts in the Knight Arts Challenge: of the 69 finalists, you’ll find included InLiquid, Philadelphia Sculptors, David Guinn, BAJ Design, Theresa Rose, Vox Populi and Grizzly Grizzly. The full list includes many more of our fav. Good on all of you! The full list of finalists, selected from over 1,200 applicants and their project ideas, is available online at the Knight Foundation. The Arts & Business Council wants to enlist you in determining the award recipients for the A&BC Awards Celebration ... More » »
News It’s time to light 20 candles for Pentimenti! Happy anniversary to one of Philly’s best galleries – it’s great to see them running strong! To celebrate, they’re presenting 20 in 2012 vision, an exhibition featuring the work of sixteen of their artists, all of whom have created new work specifically for the show. The only guideline they had to follow was the use of emerald and/or white (apparently traditional 20th anniversary colors) as their basic palette. The particpating artists are: Steven Baris, Kim Beck, Laura Bell, Cecilia Biagini, Matthew Cox, Anthony DeMelas, Kevin Finklea, Kiki Gaffney, Judy Gelles, Matt Haffner, Joseph Hu, Mark Khaisman, Jacob Lunderby, Margaret Murphy, Hadieh Shafie and Jackie Tileston. The exhibition opens on September ... More » »
The streets may have been deserted, But the few galleries that were opening for First Friday on the July 4th holiday weekend still had a surprising number of attendees, if not exactly major crowds. And since I began at Bambi at the Piazza, everything seemed quite celebratory.
Here’s my Weekly First Friday picks. Sarah Gamble recently received one of the coveted Pew Fellowships. But before that, her year was a mess. Her house was struck by lightning and vandalized. She lost her job. And she got sick and wound up in the hospital. In her show Unemployment Paintings at Bambi Gallery , Gamble displays the fruits of her turbulent year in a handful of new work. One standout piece is an untitled painting of a dark and quirky castlelike house bleeding from one side while a rainbow sits on its other shoulder. Gamble paints from imagination and ... More » »
First Friday falls on the official July 4 holiday this month so it’s slim pickings but we found these gems for you. Friday, July 3
If you’re on the road this summer, or hanging out far and wide, we have some tips here of Philadelphia artists who are all over the place. Italy to Cyprus by way of L.A.
The rainbows were finer than my camera could capture The rainbow was sudden. We were racing up to Little Berlin Friday along I-95 when Murray and I spotted it. We were so excited we missed our exit and almost drove off the road. The first thing that struck me was how yellow it was at the base, shimmering and golden. I’d never seen that effect before, but I bet the legend about the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow comes from that. The second thing the struck me was I wasn’t going to be able to get ... More » »
Tempera on paper, drawing by Sarah Gamble from her show at Pageant Gallery. Sarah Gamble paints a particular type of girl-goth. I’ve been intrigued with Gamble’s work for some time partly because I don’t really “get” it but I want to. (You can see her work now in a solo show at Pageant Gallery through April 8). The work is goth in the sense of Gothic (cathedrals, dark mountains, the woods — things that are overwhelmingly big, beautiful and scary). But also goth in the sense of dark night of the soul where weird devils and fanciful emanations prowl. This ... More » »
by Anita Allyn I don’t have time to write a real post, but I wanted to squeeze in a word about Minty at Vox. It’s the new members group show, that includes a returning member, M.Ho, as well as truly new members Anita Allyn, Leah Bailis, Micah Danges, Sarah Gamble, M. Ho, Roxana Perez-Mendez and Joseph Protheroe. All the work looked pretty snappy, but Anita Allyn’s video installation and mural were what I brought home with me in mind, a wall supergraphic of a sunset and road with a video inset where the sun would be. The video is a ... More » »