New show opens tomorrow at DWIGHTMESS!

Two shows, One night! Contemporary art + Comics!

NOIR TOUR

March 7-April 30, 2025

Opening Reception: March 7, 2025, 7-9PM

Celebrate contemporary art created by artists from the Washington, DC region (and also from California!) in this exhibition that meditates on darkness by way of saturation, illumination, and invitation to contemplation. Selection of artworks ranging from painting, to photography, & new media.

Artworks by Chris Combs, Edie Fake, Victoria F. Gaítan, Erick Jackson & Theo Morrow!

ALSO, a comics show in the secret/tiny gallery upstairs!!

Intimate Jam

March 7-April 20, 2025

Opening Reception: March 7, 2025, 7-9PM, 2nd Fl.

JAM/Index, an AutoBio collective sponsored by Dwightmess this year, offers a peek at their intimates, exploring the personal, the fantastic, and the poetic in adult comics and artworks.

Max Barnewitz, John Borstel & Athena Naylor

Location: DWIGHTMESS

805 Silver Spring Ave, Silver Spring, MD 20910

This event is free and open to the public.

Light refreshments & beverages served.

Gallery Hours: By Event & Appointment  

Inquiries: adam@dwightmess.com

Barbara Januszkiewicz: The Power of Big Color

 Exhibition: "Big Color" at Jo Fleming Contemporary Art

📅 Artist Reception: Saturday, March 8, 5-7 PM (Artist Talk at 6 PM)

📍 Jo Fleming Contemporary Art, 68 Maryland Ave, Annapolis, MD

A Celebration of Color and Movement

Barbara Januszkiewicz is no stranger to the transformative power of color. As a contemporary artist deeply influenced by the Washington Color School, her work expands the conversation of color abstraction, layering rich, translucent hues to create movement, depth, and emotion on canvas.

Her latest exhibition, "Big Color," opening at Jo Fleming Contemporary Art, is a bold statement in large-scale abstraction. Through fluid, luminous compositions, Barbara merges color fields with gestural forms, creating an immersive experience that invites viewers to feel color in a way that goes beyond traditional painting.

Color as a Language

Barbara’s technique involves staining unprimed canvas, allowing color to soak deep into the fibers, much like watercolor on paper—creating a luminous, almost ethereal effect. Her paintings breathe and flow, echoing the rhythms of nature, music, and emotion.

Her work has been featured in museums, embassies, and private collections, and this new body of work continues her lifelong dialogue with color, light, and form.

Why You Should See "Big Color"

For collectors, art lovers, and those who simply appreciate the emotional impact of color, this is an exhibition not to be missed. The artist reception on March 8 will provide a unique opportunity to hear Barbara speak about her work, her influences, and how she continues to push the boundaries of abstraction.

More Info: https://www.joflemingcontemporaryart.com/exhibitions

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this mutant trying to rip off artists!

Alexandra - alexandra345654@gmail.com

Hello,

I discovered your artwork on artbuy and I'm impressed by your talent. I'm currently curating pieces for a project and would like to inquire about the availability and pricing of certain works from your portfolio. I eagerly await your response.

Thank you.

Bryan Jernigan upcoming solo show: “Sound of Line”

Coming to Links Bridge Vineyards:

Arlington abstract painter and instructor Bryan Jernigan came to the DMV from rural Oklahoma more than 35 years ago and his upcoming solo show called “Sound of Line” will debut at Links Bridge Vineyards in Thurmont, MD on Saturday, April 5, 2025.

“When I came to Washington, D.C. to live, it wasn’t my first time, but I had only visited once before,” Jernigan said. “Like most young people, I planned to make my name professionally and move on or move back to where I was raised. But D.C. had other plans for me, I guess. Instead, I saw most of my friends peel off and return home, taking back a little piece of urbanity with them. Unlike them, I absorbed the realities of living here – internalizing the highs and lows, taking in the triumphs and suffering through the realities of living the city life, digging in and getting to learn about cultures separate and apart from my own and enduring the everyday realities of things as mundane as seemingly unending traffic commutes.”

Jernigan said coming from the country but choosing to live a city life shaped how he sees the world and how he responds to it in his art.

“In this series – that comprises more than 50 original works on paper and wood panel – the things I noticed most were lines; how they keep us connected, but at the same time how tenuous they are,” he said. “They are less about real things and more about my responses to the things I see - power lines that carry communications from all who use them or lines in pavement that show the age of some parts of the city. The pieces have a gritty feel to them, which is another aspect of living in the city, this juxtaposition between the dirty and the pristine.”

The pieces that span from 12-inch to 3-feet squares include expanses of vibrating actions, scratchy marks and calm respites of undulating non-colors punctuated by bold vibrancy.

“Living in a city is often chaotic, but we do our best to control that craziness in our daily lives. I want the pieces to feel like the embodiment of city living. An homage, so to speak,” Jernigan said. “I hope they are exciting and make viewers feel something akin to a car crash on an otherwise uneventful commute. They are real and they are palpable, and I hope they will resonate with others who live here. We are all different – different backgrounds, different ethnicities – but we all share the same experience of living here and navigating it and getting by.”

Jernigan’s pieces have already received critical acclaim. One of them was chosen by juror Jeffrey W. Allison, the Paul Mellon Collection Educator and Director, Statewide Programs and Exhibitions at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) for the McGuffey Art Center’s Mid Atlantic Juried Exhibition in Charlottesville.

“I’d say one of the artist’s worst fears is that they will muster up the courage to be vulnerable enough to create a body of work and then it gets a bad reception,” the artist said. “So, I entered a show with one of them who offered a well-regarded juror I knew it would be a good test. Happily, I was rewarded by having him choose my piece to include in the show. That little test helped me realize I was on the right track with this series.”

Links Bridge Vineyards will host an opening reception with an artist talk between 1 and 3PM on Saturday, April 5 and the show runs until Friday, April 27. See all the works online at www.bryanjernigan.com.

USS Saratoga (CV-60)

Found these old photos -- this is USS Saratoga (CV-60) doing flight ops somewhere in the Med in 1975!

USS Saratoga (CV-60) flight ops in Med in 1975

Harriet Lesser

Harriet Lesser notes that she "started out as a poet. Slowly the images behind the words and phrases overwhelmed the words themselves, and I became a painter."

She adds that she "lived as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria, where I met artist Uche Okeke and had the great opportunity to understand narrative line.

In India I experienced working with a new palette and met fearless artists.

In Belgium I encountered new outlooks in art history, and in Rwanda I could work and teach in two languages."

Lesser has been a magnetic leader of the DMV art scene for decades - she has not only exhibited her work, but also curated countless exhibitions and notes that for her, "curating is another form of composing. It is producing artwork of another genre."

Behold "Sugar Cane", a wondrous mixed media work that allows Lesser to showcase her artistic super powers - it will be part of the Women Artists of the DMV survey show coming to eight venues around the DMV this Fall!"

From Instagram to art world darling: The meteoric rise of Danielle Mckinney

From CNN:

Danielle Mckinney’s ladies are in a permanent state of relaxation.

They lounge alone on couches or in bed. They sleep. Some are playful — toying with a butterfly or eying a praying mantis. Others are naked and seemingly unaware of the viewer, cigarettes in hand and gazes soft.

The 44-year-old artist has been painting these women her whole life, she said. As a little girl, she painted little girls, too, but her subjects have aged as she has. In conversation, Mckinney refers to them singularly as her “lady,” and, taken together, the moody portraits reflect intimate moments of solitude and repose.

For years, however, these works were private endeavors by an artist who formally trained as a photographer and only painted on the side. They were never meant to see the world.

Now, a little over four years after first publicly posting her portraits on social media, Mckinney has become one of the art world’s buzziest painters. 

Read the full article here.

For the record: "prints" of a painting are "reproductions", not "prints" - cough... cough...