Projects Gallery Philadelphia (which represents my work in Miami and in Philly) has a great exhibition coming that deserves a mention in DC's best art blog (since I lived in the Philly suburbs from 2006-1009... cough, cough).
They will showcase The Frontier, a solo exhibition by Frank Hyder. Works being featured
include mixed media paintings on Mylar and illuminated sculptures. This show is held in conjunction with Hyder’s installation
“Sea Dream“ on display in Terminal C of the Philadelphia Airport.
Hyder has reached into his past and leans into the future
with this dynamic series of works. For more than thirty years, innovative use
of woodcuts such as “Sea Watcher” in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and shaman
prints, again part of the PMA and the Library of Congress collections, have
been signature works for this native Philadelphian and now Miami resident. In
recent years, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Caracas and the Museum of
Catholic Art and History in New York City have provided venues for his
large-scale installations, combining sculpture, prints and painting to create
narratives about the forest and traditions of the Americas.
The
Frontier series began as a site-specific installation painting for
the Miami Beach host site of the Select Art Fair during Art Basel Miami 2012.
The main element of this installation was a 7 x 20 ft. mixed media work on
Mylar that filled the stairway glass walls connecting two floors of the fair.
Moving up or down these stairs immersed the viewer into the painting and
environment of the forest. The work is peppered with digital prints on tracing paper,
supplying sporadic bursts of color throughout. The forest is dominated by black
and white contrast, a contrast that continues throughout the works of the show.
Developing on the concept, Hyder has made paintings that focus on these prints and how they are fitted into the invented landscapes that surround them. He continues using this black-and-white-versus-color concept in a series of 3-dimensional LED illuminated prints on shaped Plexiglas, which create a small, lighted installation in one room of the gallery. The artist also steps off the wall here with freestanding sculptures from his “Chrysalis Series.” These sinuous standing forms are abstractly animated by collaged black and white woodcuts and eerie luminous colored light.
Developing on the concept, Hyder has made paintings that focus on these prints and how they are fitted into the invented landscapes that surround them. He continues using this black-and-white-versus-color concept in a series of 3-dimensional LED illuminated prints on shaped Plexiglas, which create a small, lighted installation in one room of the gallery. The artist also steps off the wall here with freestanding sculptures from his “Chrysalis Series.” These sinuous standing forms are abstractly animated by collaged black and white woodcuts and eerie luminous colored light.
This truly
international artist has had over 100 solo exhibitions, including nine in New
York City and throughout all of the Americas, Europe and Asia. In the past year he has shown in Atlanta,
Hong Kong, London, Miami, Singapore and Toronto. He is one of the few North Americans to have had
solo exhibitions in major museums in Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela. Other solo museum exhibitions include the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art’s Museum of American Art, the La Salle Museum
of Art, the Susquehanna Museum of Art and the Carnegie Museum in California. For the past several years, he has
participated in “Giants in the City,” whose heroic inflatables exhibit during
Art Basel Miami.
His works are in the
collections of art museums in Philadelphia, Grand Rapids, Ontario, Caracas and
Maracaibo, Venezuela, as well as the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Library of
Congress and in numerable corporate and private collections. Major awards include a Senior Fulbright
Research Grant to Venezuela, U.S. Embassy Cultural Grants, MidAtlantic NEA, two
Pennsylvania State Council Grants and an International Art Programming Network
Partners Grant. Public commissions
include the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program “Hanging Garden of I-95”,
“Honey’s” and “Bell’s Pond” wall murals; Terminal Freezer, Oxnard, CA, ceramic
wall mural; and the Museo Jacobo Borges “Bridge of Life” ceramic walkway in
Caracas, Venezuela.
The Frontier will run April 5 –
June 15, 2013 with an artist reception on First Friday, May 3rd from 6-9. The
reception is free and open to the public.
Projects Gallery is located at 629 N. 2nd St. in Philadelphia’s Northern
Liberties section. A preview of works may be viewed on the gallery’s website at
www.projectsgallery.com. For more information and images, please contact
Projects Gallery at 267-303-9652 or info@projectsgallery.com
