Wednesday, September 19, 2007

All-Media Members Show at the Art League

Juried by Berthold Schmutzhart, Prof. Emeritus from the Corcoran, and someone who has juried Art League shows many times in the past, the current exhibition at the Art League delivers the usual strong group show almost guaranteed by the Art League’s two-thousand plus artists’ pool. These are his award winners.

Isil Ozisik“All of the works that I selected as award winners are very strong technically,” said the juror.

From his award winners I gravitated towards Christine Cardellino’s acrylic titled “Tower of Babel #9,” a very strong piece, and I also liked Isil Ozisik (who seems to win an award every month and deserves it) “The Harbor.” Over the years I’ve watched Ozisik win award after award at the Art League, but I have never actually seen the Art League feature this talented Turkish-born painter in a solo show.

A suggestion to the Art League: Give Isil Ozisik a solo show soon!

Photographer Fierce Sonia has been consistently pushing new buttons as she discovers new approaches and techniques to photographing her own image, in “Dis-Chord,” a photographic collage made from torn strips of her own work, she steps gingerly into new waters and delivers a really good photograph in the process.

I also like C. Wang’s “Nude Study,” an elegant charcoal drawing, that although executed flawlessly was vastly overpriced by a factor of 10, especially when compared to better, more established figurative artists who consistently deliver strong work, such as Jackie Saunders, whose ink drawing of Stephanie Regal delivers her usually austere but effective minimalist figure.

The exhibition goes through October 1, 2007.