Wanna go to a DC opening on Thursday?

How about the National Society of Arts and Letters’ 2007 arts competition?

Washington DC’s Nevin Kelly Gallery will host a traveling exhibition of works by the winners of The National Society of Arts and Letters’ 2007 arts competition. The 2007 competition was open to young artists ages 18 to 29 working in water media on paper. Local artist Jenny Davis, a previous exhibitor at the gallery, won this year’s $10,000 national first prize for her watercolor “Portrait of Tess.” The winning painting and works by the winners of 18 other local chapter competitions who competed for the top prize will be on display. The gallery will host an opening reception at 1517 U Street, NW on Thursday, February 28, from 5:30 until 7:30 pm. The public is invited.

The NSAL was established in 1944 as a non-profit, philanthropic, volunteer organization of art professionals, art educators and patrons of the arts. Its mission is to encourage and assist promising young artists through scholarships, career support and arts competitions. NSAL’s competitions rotate annually through six categories: fine art, dance, drama, literature, music and musical theater. The 2007 competition was NSAL’s first painting competition in 20 years (the 2008 competition will focus on voice). As winner of the Washington, DC Chapter’s local competition, Ms. Davis, was invited to Tempe, AZ in May 2007 to compete with other regional winners for the top prize: the $10,000 Nicholson-Nielsen Memorial Award. Jenny’s watercolor “Portrait of Tess” captured the award.

“We are very pleased to have been asked to host this very impressive exhibition and to welcome Jenny Davis back to our gallery,” says gallery director Nevin J. Kelly. “This exhibition provides an ideal fit with our goal of introducing talented emerging artists to the local art community.”

Other regional winners whose works will be on display (and the NSAL chapters whose competitions they won) include Carrie Tompkins, (Birmingham), Maureen Forman (Bloomington), Vanessa Monot (Boca Raton), Ryan Rocha (Central Illinois); Erin Saladino (Clearwater-Tampa Bay), Alfred Perez (El Paso), Tawni Shuler (Greater Arizona), Morgan Canavan (Greater Chicago), Danielle Trejo (Evanston), Will Anderson (Kansas City), Gerren Dugger (Kentucky), Amber Carraway (Little Rock), Adrian Lyjak (Mid-Michigan) Mattias Lanas (New Jersey), Kelsey Berkley (North Florida), Mark Bush (Ohio River Valley), Thommy Controy (Pittsburgh) and Timothy Rusterholz (Virginia-North Carolina).

Polish Artists

Stop by and experience "An Ideal Mix-Up," an exhibition of works by Polish and local DC area artists at the Nevin Kelly Gallery in DC next Saturday, January 26, 4 pm for a lecture by gallerist Nevin J. Kelly on the Polish artists featured in the gallery followed by refreshments.

Essentially this show is a group exhibition that includes works by the contemporary Polish artists that helped launch the gallery in May 2003 and the many local artists who have joined the gallery along the way.

The exhibition will feature works by DC area artists Sondra Arkin, Joan Belmar, Ellyn Weiss, Mary Chiaramonte and Laurel Hauler and by Polish artists Edward Dwurnik, Darek Pala, Krzysztof Kokoryn, Pawel Król, Lukasz Huculak and Michal Zaborowski.

The show will be on view in the gallery from now until February 24, 2008.

Wanna go to a DC opening tomorrow?

The Nevin Kelly Gallery, located at 1517 U Street, NW, Washington, DC, will host a solo exhibition of works by Chilean-born, Washington, DC artist Joan Belmar from May 23 until June 17, 2007. The exhibition, titled Color Transparencies presents Belmar's recent work in paint, acetate and Mylar.

The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist on Thursday, May 24, from 6 until 9 o'clock p.m. The public is invited. Show runs May 23 – June 17, 2007. Opening Reception Thursday, May 24 from 6 – 9 pm.

Wanna go to a DC opening tonight?

The very talented DC painter Sondra Arkin opens tonight at Nevin Kelly Gallery with an opening reception from 6-9pm. You best hurry, as I hear the show is already selling well even before the opening!

Tuss on Women’s Work at Nevin Kelly Gallery

By Katie Tuss

Six distinctly talented women younger than 30 have come to the forefront via Nevin Kelly’s current group painting exhibition Women’s Work. Nevin Kelly Deputy Director and the show’s curator Julia Morelli teamed up with five local female artists to create a show of varied sensibilities and styles, yet linked by a woman’s unique touch.

The five young artists include Abbe McGray, Laurel Hausler, Mary Chiaramonte, Molly Brose, and Jenny Davis — who is the youngest in the group at 18. Together they are eloquent, and yet a bit bashful, but all insistent that although they are women, gender does not have to be the central focus of their work.

The artists explained that gender enhances and enriches but certainly does not inhibit them in the larger art arena. “I was thinking about the show in terms of being women’s art, not necessarily feminist art or girly art, but possessing a sense of femininity in the work,” said Morelli.

Some of the artists had never met one another, and the work was created separately.

Brose’s work waxes nostalgic about family, friendships, and significant others in two groups of five paintings with titles all beginning with the directive ‘keep.’

In Keep in Mind, Brose’s two grandmothers are represented precisely in graphite against Brose’s abstracted watercolor ground. A rendering of a classic set of aluminum measuring spoons bridges the empty space between the two portraits. Brose is “trying to measure where I got what from these two people,” she said.

McGray and Davis both contributed portraits to the group effort. McGray explained that she paints people that “may be disadvantaged or looked over.” She wants to bring these people forward and give viewers the opportunity to look at them. Her subjects are inquisitive and somewhat beseeching, yet never asking for pity.

Conversely, Davis paints meticulous watercolors of her friends. The subjects are young women themselves, and are thoughtfully depicted down to the delicate links of a silver necklace or a wind blown strand of hair. Davis’s colors are seductive and her controlled hand impressive.

Mary Chiaramonte’s paintings are intensely personal, Thanks A Lot being a response to a negative response to one of her paintings. Chiaramonte mixes subtle collage elements and a slightly distracting signature with refreshing layers of graphite sketches under a thin paint application.

Laurel Hausler’s five paintings were all made with the show’s title in mind. Hausler’s liberal experiments with beeswax further the mysterious light in which her narratives unfold. Even while uprooting radishes or cavorting with an oversized rabbit, women seem to float through Hausler’s ethereal world with elongated lines, curved figures, and haunting eyes. Hausler concedes that “maybe there is something about storytelling that is inherent in some female art.”

Women’s Work is on view through this Sunday, April 8.

Wanna go to a great DC opening tomorrow?

Women's Work: Five Distinct Points of view from Young Female Artists, featuring the work of Molly Brose, Mary Chiaramonte, Jenny Davis, Laurel Hausler and Abbe Mcgray opens tomorrow at DC's Nevin Kelly Gallery on U Street. The opening reception is Thursday, March 15th, 6 - 9 PM.

Two of my favorite young artists are on this list: the super talented Molly Brose, whose work hangs in my house, and the equally talented Jenny Davis, whose work first amazed me when she was 13 years old.

This coming Sunday

If you saw the piece about the Nevin Kelly Gallery and the 4Traits on DC's Fox5 Morning News this morning then you may know that The 4Traits, a group of four artists doing assembly line portraiture, will be in the Nevin Kelly Gallery on this coming Sunday from 1-5pm. Stop by 1517 U St NW in DC to have your portrait drawn for free.

Last Nite

I dropped in to the opening of Nevin Kelly's first ever photography show, featuring work by Mark Parascandola and Yanina Manolova.

Considering how brutal the night was, and how icy U Street was, the opening was packed, and while there I ran into the talented artist Scott Brooks and also the ubiquitous Vivienne Lassman.

I particularly liked Yanina Manolova's "Death Time for my Body," a superbly twisted and odd dual body composition of a female body. This photographer's work is sexy and skilled and also a really good deal, as most photos are under $400.

I also liked Mark's visualization of the Alhambra, one of my favorite buildings in the world. His saturated colors really deliver striking images. I'm a little prejudiced, as Parascandola is a graduate of one of our "Bootcamp for Artists" seminars and is obviously doing well with his career in using the lessons learned there.