Alchemical Vessels 2015

Alchemical Vessels 2015

March 27 - May 22, 2015

Opening Reception: Friday, March 27 | 7-9pm

Benefit: Friday, May 1 (By Contribution Only)

 

The Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at Smith Center for Healing and the Arts recently announced the return of the super-popular Alchemical Vessels Exhibition and Benefit in 2015! 

This year's exhibition will run from March 27 - May 22, 2015, with the special by-contribution-only Benefit on Friday, May 1st, where everyone who makes a $150 Benefit-Vessel contribution (beginning Tuesday, March 10th at 10am) can select one of the works in the exhibition to add to their collection! The vessels are selected in the order contributions were made, so the earlier you make a contribution, the earlier you can select your work of art! Below is my piece in the show.

"Eve, Running Away from Eden"

This year's exhibition and benefit features works from over 100 new artists hand-selected by 20 prominent curators. See below for a list of this year's incredible line-up of artists & our invited curators, and visit www.smithcenter.org/benefit to learn more.

Artists:
David Alfuth, Beth Baldwin, Rhoda Baer, Emily Biondo, Ed Bisese, Julia Bloom, Raya Bodnarchuk, Joseph Bradley, Judy Byron, Lenny Campello, Jessica Cebra, Mei Mei Chang, Hsin-Hsi Chen, Patterson Clark, Billy Colbert, Susan Cole, Paula Crawford, Michael Crossett, Sarah Dale, Catherine Day, JD Deardourff, Jennifer DePalma, Robert Devers, Jessica Drenk, Patricia Dubroof, Pam Eichner, Dana Ellyn, Margo Elsayd, Susan Finsen & Michael Holt, Sharon Fishel, Kathryn Freeman, Marcia Fry, Adrienne Gaither, Michael Gessner, Carol Brown Goldberg, Pat Goslee, Matthew Grimes, Andrea Haffner, Courtney Hengerer, Jeff Herrity, Maurice "Mo" Higgs, Ryan Hill, Joseph Hoffman, Jeff Huntington, David Ibata, Martha Jackson Jarvis, Njena Surae Jarvis, Rose Jaffe, Mike Johnson, Mariah Anne Johnson, Wayson Jones, Maria Karametou, Sally Kauffman, Elizabeth Kendall, Joanne Kent, Hana Kim, Micheline Klagsbrun , Kitty Klaidman, PD Klein, George Koch, Yar Koporulin, Peter Krsko, Bridget Sue Lambert, Maria Lanas, Toni Lane, Khanh Le, Jun Lee, Kyujin Lee, Nate Lewis, Mimi Logothetis, Steve Loya, Akemi Maegawa, Alex Mayer, Donna M. McCullough, Kathryn McDonnell, Maggie Michael, Vanessa Monroe, E.J. Montgomery, Lucinda Murphy, Ziad Nagy, Leslie Nolan, Frederick Nunley, Cory Oberndorfer, John Paradiso, Elena Patiño, Miguel Perez Lem, Brian Petro, Thomas Petzwinkler, Jeneen Piccuirro, Michael B. Platt & Carol A. Beane, Pattie Porter Firestone, Tom Raneses, Red Dirt Studios, Ellington Robinson, Carolyn Roth, Bonner Sale, Jean Sausele Knodt, Matt Sesow, Foon Sham, Janathel Shaw, Lillian Shaw, Bernardo Siles, Steve Skowron, Jeffrey Smith, Anna Soevik, Langley Spurlock, Stan Squirewell, Rebecca Stone Gordon, Lynn Sures, Tang, Lisa Marie Thalhammer, Valerie Theberge, Michael Torra, Kelly Towles, Dan Treado, Ruth Trevarrow, Tariq Tucker, Pamela Viola, Ellyn Weiss, Lee Wheeler, Catherine White, Sharon Wolpoff, Sue Wrbican, and Jenny Wu

 

Curators:
Sondra N. Arkin, Artist & Independent Curator | Philip Barlow, Associate Commissioner, DC Department of Insurance, Securities & Banking; Board Member, District of Columbia Arts Center & Millenium Arts Salon | Chuck Baxter, Artist | Robert Devers, Professor of Fine Arts and Ceramics, Corcoran School of the Arts + Design, George Washington University | Thomas Drymon, Curator, doris-mae | Charlie Gaynor, Realtor and Photographer, member of the Mid City Artists | Aneta Georgievska-Shine, Lecturer in Art History, University of Maryland and Smithsonian Institution | George Hemphill, Gallery Director, Hemphill | Francie Hester, Visual Artist | Don Kimes, Professor, Director Studio Art Program, American University Department of Art; Artistic Director, Visual Arts at Chautauqua Institution | Zofie Lang, Artist | Mary Liniger, Executive Director, Art Enables | Akemi Maegawa, Artist | Jayme McLellan, Director and Founder, Civilian Art Projects | Twig Murray, Gallery Director, Athenaeum Gallery | Victoria Reis, Co-Founder, Executive and Artistic Director, Transformer | Nancy Sausser, Curator and Exhibitions Director, McLean Project for the Arts | Andy Shallal, Founder, Busboys and Poets | Stan Squirewell, Artist

Wanna go to an opening tonight?

Thank You Artist Friends on Facebook

by Akemi Maegawa 

March 13 - June 21 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ARTS CENTER

2438 EIGHTEENTH STREET NW WASHINGTON, DC 20009 • 202.462.7833 EMAIL: INFO@DCARTSCENTER.ORG

Opening Reception: Friday, March 13, 7-9 pm
Gallery Talk: Sunday, June 21, 5 pm 

"Majority of my Facebook friends are artists and art related people whom I have met before or artists whom I would love to meet in person one day. Facebook has become a virtual art salon to me. Of course I would prefer to meet friends and discuss things face to face but everyone's busy schedule and different location (many of them are international friends) won't allow us to meet face to face easily.

Because of the Facebook I feel so close to far away friends and family as getting everyday information is so easy. We can discuss our concerns or social issues anytime and pass around important news instantaneously. It is the biggest power of social media and I think artists are playing an important part in supporting our freedom of speech and expression through social media like Facebook.  

My “Thank You Artist Friends on Facebook Project” allowed me to look closer at each of my artist friends. This project made me think about our crazy everyday life and let me take a longer time to reflect and question how we process any single image from the Internet.

I decided to reproduce a small profile picture of each of my artist friends on a small ceramic tile to be able to feel his or her presence real and make the moment permanently frozen in time. I was hoping that those portraits, being the physical images on tiles, would remain to be “real” despite being shared only virtually with friends. I had looked thoroughly at each of my artist friend profile picture on my cell phone and when I finished making a tile portrait I got a feeling that each time I learned something new about this person.  

I had made porcelain tiles and sketched/etched each artist profile picture directly on them. There was no eraser or pre-sketch practice tiles. I prepared only one tile for each friend and used only a needle tool to make each sketch. I had really stayed focus and be careful not to damage their "face" which they chose to share with public on Facebook. As an artist and an art supporter, I tried my best to focus- during etching of each artist portrait- on our time together and concentrating my thoughts on the person and how to show my appreciation and respect for each of them. I am very happy to have a chance to show those portraits at the exhibition and share my admiration to their persistence and achievements. I plan to keep adding the tiles as I make new artist friends on Facebook."

                      - Akemi Maegawa, February 4th, 2015

Art Scam Alert

Beware of this mutant trying to rip off artists! 

From: Sally Riding (riding_sally@yahoo.com)
Greetings
Am Sally Michael,

Am interested in buying artworks from your esteemed organization for my new apartment and you still have for sale and i will be glad if you can Send me recent art work you have for sale with the asking prices,also my method of payment is by (BANK CHECK) as means of payment.

 Kindly email me some of the artwork you have in stock with the name and prices now. Looking forward to an early response.

Regards, Sally Michael

Amy Marx on Phyllis Plattner at The Katzen

Amy Marx reviews Phyllis Plattner at The Katzen Center at American University - hurry to see this show, as it ends March 15!

 In 1770 Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  These words are as relevant today as they were then.  There are, in the history of the visual arts, many examples of artists “doing something”, speaking in images rather than words.    

     In 1830 Eugene Delacroix painted “Liberty Leading the People.”  He renders “Liberty” in feminine form leading the people over the dead bodies of the old order, in one hand holding aloft the tri-color flag of the French Revolution, the epic violent battle for freedom, and in the other hand she carries a bayoneted musket.  This iconic painting of the July 1830 Revolution depicts the overthrow of King Charles X of France.  Delacroix wrote his brother:  “If I haven’t fought for my country at least I’ll paint for her.”   
 
     In 1814 Francisco Goya painted “The Shootings of the Third of May 1808 in Madrid.”  It is a gut-wrenching portrayal of a man with arms upraised before a firing squad.  He has an expression of horror on his face.     His comrades lie in a bloody heap at his feet. Goya’s emotionally charged depiction of this man’s last minutes of life was unprecedented.  The painting graphically illustrates the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion and occupation in the Peninsular War.  Art historian Kenneth Clark has said this is "the first great picture that can be called revolutionary in every sense of the word, in style, in subject, and in intention".

Chronicles of War/Saints and Martyrs

        Oil and gold leaf on linen on panel           

2007     40”x50”

     In 2001 Phyllis Plattner began the creation of a series of artworks in which she made meticulously rendered copies of art historical paintings in the style of the original artist, and photographs culled from newspapers and magazines.  In “Chronicles of War, Saints and Martyrs” she utilized Goya’s historic painting, mentioned above, and amplified its effect.  She placed Goya’s painting in the center of a sixteen-paneled piece.  To the left of Goya’s work is the arrow-pierced Saint Sebastian, an early Christian martyr (288 AD) from “ The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian” by Andrea Mantegna, (1480).   On the right is Christ, blindfolded and bound, about to be scourged, painted by Van der Weyden, (1450).  Further heightening the effect of “Chronicles of War, Saints and Martyrs” is a horizontal row of images along the bottom, a format known as predella panels.  From left to right are painted the following: The Twin Towers ablaze on September 11, Christ’s feet nailed to the cross, the well known image of an inmate in Abu Ghraib, a World War Two survivor with a prosthetic leg, and finally the tangled heap of stainless steel, a ghostlike cathedral, the remains of the World Trade Center.  A cherub from Raphael’s Sistine Madonna glances heavenward atop all of this with additional angels on either side.  And there’s more, even in this one piece. 

Chronicles of War/Heads and Hands

          Oil and gold leaf on linen on panel           

2009     67”x 45”

     This is one of twelve complex pieces that make up “Chronicles of War,” the epic two-part show at The Katzen Center at American University.  The other half is entitled “Legends.”  The two together form “Gods of War!”  “Legends” details the Zapatista uprising in San Cristobal, Mexico, which Plattner witnessed.  She and her archaeologist husband later lived in Italy.  She tells the story of the Zapatista uprising utilizing Italian Renaissance paintings, substituting Zapatistas for the saints and apostles.  For example, “Legends, Deposition” is after a painting by Caravaggio, (1585), and “Legends, Mary Magdalene in Glory,” is after a painting by Domenichino, (1600). The succession of places in which they lived is reflected in the subject matter, style, and technique of the work.  Italian Renaissance meets Liberation Theology.

     The soft-spoken, long time professor at The Maryland Institute College of Art is profoundly anti-war.  In order to speak against war and violence she employs images of violence.  Though the images are deplorable, the overall effect is beautiful.  “Chronicles of War” is a pastiche of images of human violence borrowed from art historical paintings and photo-journalism across cultures and across time. She juxtaposes violent images with the bucolic and the divine, skies at sunrise and at sunset, cherubs and angels, Jesus and Mary.  Eight or more panels are assembled into one artwork.  She also adds borders of gorgeous motifs from a multitude of cultures and intricately carved and gold-leafed frames and borders. The overall shapes of each work are based on Renaissance altarpieces, copied directly from the Italian in the “Legends” half of the show, and more loosely based on Asian, German and Italian altarpieces in “Chronicles of War”.  Plattner has done all of this work herself.  It is a fourteen year project, to which she plans yet to add.  It represents an immense labor of love.

      Plattner enumerates the vast array of violence throughout human history.  From the guillotine to napalm, to a pyramid of human skulls, from child soldiers to suicide bombers, from Napoleon to the Samari, from Guernica to the Mayan Bonampak murals in Chiapas, Mexico.  Could there possibly be something she has left out?  Plattner’s work has a continuing relevance to  our present condition as the world is menaced by ISIS.  

    One might say that the destructive history of all humankind is represented here.  The forms of destruction are assembled by the type of destruction so that each artwork has a theme.  In “Chronicles of War, Heads and Hands,” 2008, the subject is beheadings.  In “Chronicles of War, Swords and Lances,” 2008, a pastiche of death by blade, the central image is the “Battle of San Romano” by Paolo Uccello, (1432).  Above fourteen panels of death and destruction, cherubs alight in the vault of heaven.  With fist-fulls of flowers  they rain rose petals over the bloody folly of humankind.