Portraiture 2.0


Portraiture 2.0, curated by Michael Pollack, and part of FotoWeek DC opens this coming Thursday November 12th from 6:30-8:30PM at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center’s Main Gallery, 8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910-4511, and runs until December 5th 2009.

Work by Victoria F. Gaitán (that's her work above), Chan Chao, Matt Dunn, Nicholas Pye & Sheila Pye, Paul Vinet and Josh Yospyn.

Novie Trump at MPA

Titled "Uncharted Sky: Recent Sculpture by Novie Trump", the exhibition that just closed at the McLean Project for the Arts certainly charts a new path for this talented DC area artist and in my opinion can be considered as the breakthrough exhibition by Trump.

At McLean Trump flexes her artistic muscles in 11 works in ceramic, porcelain, glass, found objects, metal, stoneware, cork and an elegant assortment of porcelain bees. She also joins an emerging new movement centered around the Greater DC area that is breathing artistic life into genres of art historically associated with craft rather than high art. It is clear to see that over the years, artists like Margaret Boozer and the various artists working out of her Red Dirt Studio, as well as the wondrous Laurel Lukaszewski have begun to do to clay and to porcelain what the artists of the Washington Glass School, DC Glassworks and others have been doing to glass over the recent last few years. They are all the Alfred Stieglitzes of their genres.

And you can add Novie Trump to that select list of new revolutionaries dragging clay and porcelain away from the "crafts only" realm and erasing the lines that segregate craft from high art.

The exhibition is not only a triumph of technical skill, an inherent part of the genre itself, but sheer minimalism begins to emerge from some of the work as well. In "Out of the Fire," a gorgeous porcelain set of wings installed in a row on the wall, Trump uses the repetitive motif of the wings to set a sense of order to the piece and extend that sense of order and alignment to the rest of the show. It is the key work in the exhibition, the simplest and inherently the most elegant. It was also red-dotted, and so it will soon adorn a collector's home somewhere in the area.

Novie Trump. Out of the Fire. Porcelain. 7" x 50" x 2"
It happens again in "The Way Home", a dizzying wall piece of dozens of porcelain bees and a Stoneware hive that makes us wrestle with the visual idea offered in such elegant stylized manner that it allows Trump to marry a traditional piece in the Stoneware hive with a minimal and repeatable bee form that distills the art to its simplest offering. This piece also begins to demolish the Berlin Wall of art between art and craft.


Novie Trump. The Way Home. Porcelain bees, Stoneware Hive. 6' x 6' x 8"
And here is a quick 49 second walk through the show...

And the award goes to...

On Saturday I dropped by the Potomac Valley Watercolorists annual exhibition at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, VA to select the awards for the show.

It was a lot more difficult than what I had anticipated, as the talent and skill was abundant in nearly every member of the PVA and I spent quite a lot of time walking around and debating with myself.

In the end the award winners that I selected were:

Best in Show - Jill Poyerd
Second Prize - Julie Smith
Third Prize - Jane Thomas
Honorable Mention - Carolyn Grosse Garewicki
Honorable Mention - Jackie Saunders
Honorable Mention - Barbara Sullivan
Honorable Mention - Peter Ulrich
Clearly the men got their palette's kicked by the female artists and it was good of Mr.Ulrich's gorgeous "Contemplating Calder" watercolor to save a shut out by the female members of PVA.


When the doors opened to the public at 4PM, I was astounded to see artwork fly off the walls as sales started right away from both the work on display on the walls as well as the many bins.

I say astounded because one rarely sees a buying frenzy like that in a gallery exhibition anymore. This exhibition is a perfect example of an organization looking for alternative venues for their members' work to be exhibited and sold, and after several years of doing this, they have a set of collectors who puts their money where their art collecting sensibililites tell them to.

As always, I was honored to be asked to jury the show for the awards. Here's a quick walk through the award winners:

OUT Auction NYC 2009


The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is staging their 8th annual OUTAuction NYC - their annual art event to celebrate established and emerging artists, while recognizing GLAAD’s Top 100 Artists.

Since 2002, GLAAD has produced this annual fund raising event to support their programmatic work. Part art auction and part glamorous cocktail reception, I am told that OUTAuction NYC is one of those NYC "must attend events" of the fall season. Vanessa Williams, and others are on this year’s Honorary Committee and will be there that night as will the brilliant artist Ross Bleckner, who will be there to accept their "OUT In Art" award that will be given on the night of OUTAuction.

This is a great cause. You can view the works online and bid for them here.

And I have been honored to have been invited and selected as one of their 100 artists this year, which include:

Joshua Abelow, Liam Alexander, Ron Amato, Jennifer Andrews, Dee Ann and Tom McCarthy, Drora Bashan, Mark Beard, Jazzmine Beaulieu, Mikeal Beland, Bruce Bellas, Matthew Benedict, Bob Brisley, JaclynBrown, Jessica Burke, F. Lennox Campello, Luis Carle, Marc Van Cauwenbergh, Michael Cavayero, K-soul Cherix, Chad Chisholm, Meagan Cignoli, Juliette Conroy, Cesar Cornejo, Francisco Correa-Cordero, Aaron Czerny, Gabriel Dawe, Guerra De La Paz, Peter Doig, Favi Dudo, Troy Dunham & Jeff Eason, Dan Elhedery, Jeff Elliott, Hugo Fernandes, Eric Freeman, Ted Gahl, Gina Garan, Keith Haring, Hugh Hysell, Chasen Ingleheart, Leslie Jenchel, Wassily Kandinsky, Justin Kim, Michael Kirwan, Steven Klein, Lars Klingstedt, Aaron Krach, Enrique Limon, Marc Lodovico, Aimee LoSecco, Frank Louis, Richard Lund, Jane Martin, Caroline McAuliffe, James McKissic, Patrick McMullan, Trevor Messersmith, Emmy Mikelson, Matthew Miller, Adia Millett, Joan Miro, Daniel Monteavaro, Dave Muller, Kenneth Nadel, Math-You, Namie, Patrick Neal, Olek, Stephen Olivier, Kenneth Pietrobono, Pedro Pena, Adam Pendleton, Haq Qureshi, Benjie Randall, Gina Raphaella, Akili Richards, Pau Richmond, Herb Ritts, David Rohn, Kay Rosen, Lisa Ross, Heidi Russell, Andrew Salgado, Jamison Sarteschi, Chris Schiffelbein, Laurie Schorr, Larry Schulte, Jay Shinn, Deborah Sosower, Deborah Standard, Greg Stephens, Christopher Stout, Rivka Tabak, Nikki Terry, Jeffrey Teuton, James Totulis, Glenn Tramantano, Matteo Trisolini, Ryan Turley, Joel Voisard, Corey Willis and Becky Yazdan.

Check it all out online and bid for artwork here.

I have this piece in the auction... it would be nice if it stayed local and one of you would put up a good bid for it.

"Woman who Finally Figured Out a Way to be Outside the Influence of Men"
Charcoal and conte on paper, c.2008
35 x 30 inches by F. Lennox Campello
Click on it for a larger image and then bid for it here.