Picasso Girl at the Beach

From the art school files: "Picasso Girl at the Beach", c. 1979 and done at Printmaking class at the University of Washington of Art in Seattle. A couple of different pulls from the same plate.

A master class in presentation

Room 493 at the just ended ARTOMATIC is where the very talented multimedia artist Christine Krizsa Uskievich not only displayed her smart explorations of photography among other work, but also teaches a lesson which combines installation skills with a novel and effective strategy for the visitors and potential buyers of her elegant work. 

Moment by Christine Krizsa Uskievich

First, the highly sophisticated work is beautifully presented in minimalist float frames that highlight the art without detractors.

And then she delivers a masters' class in presentation skills. She transformed room 493 into a warm living space, like in your apartment or my house.

Christine Krizsa Uskievich room 493 at Artomatic

The work is hung, and the room is transformed to deliver an impression that says: "this is how it will look in your home." It is clever, clean, and professional! 

Well done!

What's next?

What's next on the fine arts agenda for The Lenster?

1. The Affordable Art Fair Austin Texas is May 16-19 and my work will be in booth B9 along with Jodi Walsh, Shannon Leigh, Kathy Hope and Seth Fairweather!

2. The Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art's Fine Arts Festival will be May 18-19 at the Reston Town Center in Reston, Virginia and I'll have a booth there as well!

Come say hi! Below is "Homage to Celia Cruz"

Homage to Celia Cruz by Florencio Lennox Campello, 2024

Heading to Austin

The very first Affordable Art Fair Austin, Texas is coming May 16-19 and we're gonna be showcasing work by Shannon Leigh, Seth Fairweather, Kathleen Hope and Jodi Walsh!

The below work of mine will also be featured at the fair!

When Death arrived, she was the first one to post it on TikTok

Suddenly, she wasn't afraid any longer

The Incantation of Frida Kahlo

The Incantation of Frida Kahlo

Artomatic: The erotica award

As ARTOMATIC is about to end this Sunday, I want to give whoever this artist is - the signature says "Parrilla", but there's no "Parrilla" in the ARTOMATIC roster of exhibiting artists. Nonetheless, he or she gets the top EROTICA award for 2024 ARTOMATIC. 

Enjoy these gorgeous paintings!

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Call for Women Photographers

The 2024 Prix Virginia

This photography  competition is open to women photographers, regardless of their nationality or age. The competition is organized every two years by the Association Sylvia S. from Paris, France. 

Each candidate must submit 12 – 18 photographs on any subject (one cohesive body of work rather than single images). 

Photos submitted to the Virginia Prize must never have been exhibited in France. 

No Entry Fee. 

Details here.

After ARTOMATIC... what?

Hopefully, an ARTOMATIC 2025, but knowing how immensely difficult it is to arrange, work and set up this amazing spectacle and most impressive gift to the planet's art scene, I suspect that it may be a year or two.

ARTOMATIC ends this weekend (April 28) and I want to be the first to send a most effusive WELL DONE to George Koch, the Godfather of ARTOMATIC and to the hundreds of volunteers that made this gorgeous event happen.

The end of such an important art gift to the DMV always brings a bit of sadness, but it also leaves our artistic batteries super charged!

What next?

Maybe an art fair... a really no shit art fair like New York, London, half a dozen Asian cities, and next month Austin have? The city commissars at the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities are thinking about it...

Read my thoughts here.

Open Studios at DC Arts Studios coming up!

 SAVE THE DATE

Sunday, April 28th, 1pm to 5pm

Meet the near 50 artists of DC Arts Studios - oil painters, acrylic painters, fiber artists, photographers, mixed media artists and more!  Visit their studios!  Explore their work!  Artwork large and small available for purchase. Commissions also accepted.  The event is free and open to the public.

6925-D Willow St. NW, Washington, DC 20012

Embracing Our Differences - Call for Quotes

Embracing Our Differences is seeking original quotations for an outdoor juried art exhibit featuring 50 billboard size images paired with the quotations. 

The theme is “embracing our differences.“ 

The exhibit will be on display January through April 2025 in two locations in Florida.

Cash prizes totaling $4,000 will be awarded. 

Entries can be no longer than 20 words. 

No Entry Fee. 

Details here.

Signal Boxes Public Art Project: Call for Artists

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District announces a Call for Artists for a new public art project in downtown Bethesda, MD. The A&E District will select 15 artists whose original designs will be printed onto a vinyl wrap to adorn 15 Signal Boxes located throughout downtown Bethesda. This new project will beautify the signal boxes, provide an opportunity to local artists and bring more public art to our community. We are especially interested in having high school artists participate in this project. If you know a young artist in your life, please encourage them to submit their work

Artists must be 14 years of age or older and residents of Washington, D.C., Maryland or Virginia.

Each selected artist will be paid $650 for the use of their design, and the deadline to apply is Monday, April 29, 2024.

Details here.

Art Bank Program Call for Artists

For many years, I have been a member of the advisory panel that recommends to the City of Washington which art to acquire for its city collection via its ART BANK program.

I am always shocked how few submissions we get each year! And the artists who "know about it" keep it up every year to the point that by now, there are artists with almost twenty works of art in the collection of the District of Columbia!

Interested?

In support of local visual artists, District art galleries, and art nonprofit organizations, CAH acquires fine art. The ongoing annual acquisition of art from metropolitan artists becomes a part of the Art Bank Collection. CAH manages artwork in the collection. It is then loaned to District Government agencies for display in public areas and offices of government buildings. The Art Bank Collection, which started in 1986, has nearly 3,000 artworks.

The Commission on the Arts and Humanities (CAH) requests applications from qualified artists and District nonprofit art galleries or organizations for its Fiscal Year 2025 Art Bank Program. Award amounts vary but eligible individual applicants may be awarded up to $15,000 and nonprofit art galleries or organizational applicants may be awarded up to $20,000.

Submission Deadline: 9 pm ET, Tuesday, May 28, 2024

Details here. 

Tips: If your artwork involves any kind of nudity - do not even bother.

Political art? Only one side of the aisle usually considered... cough... cough...

Artomatic: The Seventh Floor (Partial Review)

Last night I spent only about 90 minutes on the 7th floor, and was thus unable to get to all of the rooms - I will be back to expand and finish this look at this floor.  I was accompanied by my wife on this trip, and below I will include her very savvy observations, fine tuned over decades of both practicing, teaching and being a strong voice for nearly every facet of the art scene on a worldwide scale.

As with all my previous floor visits, this floor proves again the unique and singular ability of ARTOMATIC to deliver on a scale that it is impossible to deliver in any other model but this one! The mind-overwhelming variety of subjects, skill levels, ideas, room-changing work and presentation forms is simply impossible to replicate unless the hive workforce and leadership of this kind of show is there.

First impression from the partial walk on the 7th floor? There is a lot of love with black light on this floor and also a lot of artists whose presentations include a wall assembly of a multitude of small, well-crafted and presented work!

My first recommendation comes for the work of Jenny Kanzler in room 7031.  I am always seduced by artists who are able through their work marry the subject with unusual and unexpected, and this very talented artist delivers all of that and more with gusto and skill.

Jenny Kanzler in room 7071 at Artomatic

In room 7006, Greg Skrtic offers an impressive array of large paintings which can best be described as brilliant rediscovery and modernizing of the traditional. In these works the artist subjugates the focus of the work to be recreated in a canvas of multi surfaces and images that force the eye to examine each minute details of the surface individually and them re-assemble them to deliver forms that seems to step out of medieval times and onto the 21st century.

Gregory Skrtic in room 7006

Skrtic notes on his website that:

I take inspiration from many sources, both natural and man-made. I use patterns from patchwork quilting, carpet or wallpaper designs just as readily as from a seashell, leaf, or seed pod. Incorporating these patterns into the overall composition in a way that they can co-exist in harmony is a recurring theme in my work.

It results in one of the more impressive "new-to-me" artists discovered so far at the event!

In room 7041, both my wife and I liked the somewhat "retro" work of Jeremy Arn. I note "retro" more in the sense of the muted palette, rather than just the subject, which is composed of interesting mechanical forms.

Jeremy Arn in room 7041

I also want to highlight the powerful drawings of Ricardo Mavin in room 7128, full of energy and zest which only a talented artist with a mission can accomplish. 

Also memorable are Christian Tribastone's explorations of the most humble of materials (cardboard) to deliver impressive works (room 7072) as he jumps the tracks in a very cool way.

In room 7078 Cory Oberdorfer showcases some of the impressive new takes on his fave subjects - Oberdorfer took these to NYC a couple of weeks ago to the Affordable Art Fair in Chelsea.

Cory Oberndorfer

In room 7063, Andrea Cybyk's elegant abstracts dominate the room - I've discussed Cybyk's works many times over the years, as her work has always been amongst the top at various previous incarnations of ARTOMATIC over the decades.

In room 7144, the flower paintings of Michal Hunter once again demonstrate the breath-taking painting gifts of this artist - the subject is new to me, as previously I've spent decades drooling over Hunter's figurative work. In that same room, the hardworking gift to the Greater Washington art scene that is Jack Rasmussen surprises with an elegant, almost obsessive display of collaged monochromatic works that are both interesting and immensely intelligent! 

Close by in 7061 we find the immensely intellectual works of the collaboration between wife and husband team of Lync Prince Harris and David Allen Harris. This brainy duo has created a series of works dubbed at the Wa PaPo series. She notes:

With the Wa PaPo project, launched in 2021 with my husband David Allen Harris (photographer), there’s an effort of revitalizing holistic histories and lore through reintroducing African-inspired elements with our own personal flair. This is a homage, rather than an ethnographic survey that accurately depicts any one place or culture. Instead, we hope to infuse new life and meaning into the ways of showing and retelling Black and Western folklore. 

 

Over the course of the Wa PaPo project, I’ve explored stories about different figures of the African diaspora through prose, art, and reenactments on film, using creative license to change details for more original and interpretive artistic effect. I’m an interdisciplinary artist with ties to social practice art, writing, bodypainting, muraling, and assemblage; David is similarly equipped as a photographer and software engineer/computer scientist. Together, we use traditional and new media to fully tell the tales we weave. 

Lync Prince Harris and David Allen Harris

See a cool video about the series here.

Over is space 746, I must highlight the printmaking of Cecily Abram, which is not only pleasing to the eye, but also showcases a clearly talented printmaker. These gorgeous prints tease the viewer by assembling both recognizable forms, but married to deliver a somewhat abstracted delivery.  They are also a great example of professional presentation: pH-balanced, acid free museum mats, etc. At $325 for the large monoprints, they are also one of the great steals of the show!

Cecily Abram in area 746

In room 7070, John Grunwell's colorful abstracts just about jump of the wall with the huge amount of energy that Grunwell manages to pop out of the painting surface.

Detail of a John Grunwell painting

By now it was getting a bit late as we had to pick up the son unit from a Caps' game - on this floor we also liked (again) the African-influenced works of the ebullient Shiri Achu in room 7059.  Achu was one of my top 10 Artomatic picks a few years ago and since then she has continued to deliver impressive works influenced heavily by her upbringing in Cameroon and then London.

Today: Meet the Artists at Artomatic!

April 13 @ 12:00 pm - 11:45 pm

Meet the Artists II: Sponsored by the DC Arts Commission

Artomatic at 2100 M Street NW

A majority of this year's artists will be sharing from their spaces after 7 PM. This is your second chance to discover the makers behind the masterpieces! You can wander from the 2nd floor to the 8th, and every floor in between, asking questions and getting a peek behind the scenes. 

Wanna go to an opening tomorrow?

COMPLEMENTARY COLOR - KAREN SCHARER AND MATTHEW LANGLEY

APRIL 13TH - MAY 11TH, 2024

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 13th, 2024, 4:00-6:00 pm

Matthew Langley be showing new works on paper at Calloway Fine Arts and Consulting along with paintings by Karen Scharer. 

For More Information:

Calloway Fine Arts & Consulting

1643 Wisconsin Ave NW

Washington DC 20007

Jai Marcus and the art of the collage

In room 4060 at Artomatic there's an artist channeling powerful messages via one of the most amplifying genres of art: the collage.

Jai Marcus in room 4060

First let me observe her presentation; she embraces the number one rule of showing o one's artwork: "Who are you?", a simple and powerful rule once art becomes a commodity,  and one which many artists often fail to heed.

Jai Marcus' artist statement

We then learn about the Artist via a well-written, concise and informative statement; now we know the "why" to the art.

The artwork delivers what is clearly an intuitive mind seeking to expand the hidden narrative behind the complex assembly of images. Are we looking at three face images combined to deliver a singular thought or narration? Perhaps, but also notice the attention-grabbing details of the exuberance of the color aspects of this work.

Explore the elegant and brainy composition of this work above. It starts in a geometric pattern, gets disrupted by erotic lips encasing metallic forms and a clock and then erupts into a riot of somewhat abstracted forms in the upper right.

In the above work, we see some compositional tracks that follow the same intelligent and mind-twisting arrangement: It starts with vertical forms on the right, the flowers transition the work to the central piece, and then in the art coup, the left marries abstraction with and end-casing of more vertical forms!

To end, a cyberspace WELL DONE to this collage master!

WAMU on local galleries

WOW! I cannot recall the last time that WAMU talked about DMV art galleries like Elliot Williams did with Tamika Smith on the air today!

Read it here.

More please!

When death arrived, she was the first one to post it in TikTok

Just finished and framed, and will be in NYC this fall at the Affordable Art Fair: "When Death arrived, she was the first one to post the video on TikTok," 16x12 inches, mixed media painting on paper.

When Death arrived, she was the first one to post the video on TikTok

WPA is hiring!

From the WPA:

WPA has received support from the DCCAH to develop a new digital archive, which will launch in January 2025, kicking off our 50th Anniversary celebrations. WPA’s digital archive will enable researchers, artists, funders, and the public to learn more about WPA’s rich history of presenting groundbreaking contemporary art in DC.

The Research Fellow will be a critical position in supporting the development of this archive by helping to build systems for digitizing and processing assets into the archive, while simultaneously supporting active research of WPA’s history by artists-in-residence. 

Learn more and apply for this position here.

Artomatic Review: The 6th Floor

Yesterday was my fourth opportunity to spend some hours looking at the work at ARTOMATIC. As I've noted many times over the last two decades, it is impossible to "see" this show in one or two visits. Any and all visits are welcomed (and free), but if you are serious about "seeing" the work of nearly 1,000 artists - then plan to return multiple times!

That's what folks who visit Art Basel week in Miami in December do - they know that they cannot visit all 26 fairs or so, and they also know that they can't even see the hundreds of galleries and thousands of artists in the two or three larger fairs, and thus they plan a week-long visit in many cases.

ARTOMATIC is in many facets, better than any hoity toity art fair on the planet, because an "open" show allows for a certain degree of freedom that no exhibition venue on this planet can match; more on that later.

Read and see my fifth floor review here.

Read and see my fourth floor review here.

Read and see my eighth floor review here.

First impressions: there's a LOT of really good photographers on this floor! A fucking lot of them! I liked Jose Valcarcel's "City Aperture" small photos with triangular compositions, also Khalil D'Jmaal's great out of control and entertaining room at 6106, Redeat Wondemu in room 6001, and Kathleen Weis in 6000. 

Also... whoever the photographer is with the SPECTACULAR photo installations dealing with slavery in room 6016! They are not only clearly a work of love, but also an important statement - this photographer can teach lessons in presentation and design! WOW! On purpose I have no images because I want all of you to go to room 6016 and see them!

Having said that, I have no idea who this photographer is... if it is the same photographer on the opposite wall (most rooms at ARTOMATIC are shared by two artists), then two things:

(a) You need to ID yourself on the left wall

(b) Your gorgeous landscapes photography identify you as a photographer of many skills and a superb eye for presentation!

If (B) is a gent named Damien T. Taylor, then I bow down to you sir!

Update: I am told that it is Taylor!

Michael Enn Sirvet is one of the region's best known artists and his skill in delivering awesome sculptures that flow and interact with the eye and light, etc. are well documented, and thus no surprise that his work in room 6108 is another brilliant delivery of talent and skill!

Room 6105 is another great example of why you can't do ARTOMATIC unless it is the ARTOMATIC model - not gonna bust it here: go see it and it's by catseye2thecosmos.com 

When you get out of the elevators on the 6th floor (yep! they're working again!), there's a wall on the side with a floor map - good luck with that! I started to the left of the map and was immediately greeted by this in wall 653:

Katie Flack Wall at Artomatic 2024 on the 6ht floor

These are gorgeous landscapes, superbly presented and because they're smallish, can get away with the salon style hanging scheme. They're brushy and fresh and showcases an artist with an enviable eye for nature and mastery over the brush. By comparison, I also liked the landscapes of Jim Halloran in room 6037, who is 180 degrees away from Flack on painting styles, but nonetheless delivers impeccable work done more in the classical realistic style. Both are terrific painters of the landscape (in Halloran's case his ten paintings have been inspired by Four Mile Run Park in Alexandria) and highly recommended! 

In room 6052, e.l. briscoe transforms Star Wars imagery into really good paintings and excellent and really deep thoughts - I really liked them! I also liked (room 6051) Shelley Picot's super clean presentation and talented wall sculptures in clay. Also loved the recycled material sculptures in room 6044 by Phil Charlwood.

Charlwood's "natural" work is perhaps another of the great success stories of ARTOMATIC. Here is a clearly talented artist who uses metallic scrap that usually gets discarded to create and recrate artwork and pieces and forms that echo his own ideas and channels what we all absorb as we grow. Go buy one now - this artist will hit the main stream soon.

Soon afterwards I walked into Bud Wilkinson's strong presence at the "end" of that side of the building is the area marked as 647.

Bud Wilkinson's Artists' Portraits at ARTOMATIC 2024

The screens show Wilkinson's portraits of dozens and dozens of DC area artists whom he has photographed over the years! A photographic catalog of Who's Who in the DMV Art Scene - the stickies on the wall are the names of the artists.  It is a wonderful project that generations from now will deserve a museum home in the DMV!

Opposite from the above wall, Brandon Hill showcases other and different artistic muscles in these elegant and intelligent wall sculptures - this is clearly a multi-faceted artist with lots of skills at his disposal.

Brandon Hill at ARTOMATIC 2024

In 6049 artist T. Rudis gets my award for Best Use of Light in a presentation of a work of art, which uses simple nature sculptures married to intelligent lighting to deliver a really cool work of art.

T. Rudis at ARTOMATIC 2024

In room 6047 Sarah Wardell has some really well done and (most of them) tiny landscapes that nonetheless showcase a really skilled painter - and the pricing is one of the best art deals at ARTOMATIC! Buy some of them!

Sarah Wardell landscape at ARTOMATIC 2024

Sarah Wardell wall

In room 6000 I really liked the pencil portraits by Todd Messer.

Todd Messer pencil portraits at ARTOMATIC 2024

I also liked the work by a young (judging from his photo) and subject-daring young artist named Brian H. Zambrano. I liked the way that he explores unusual subjects that most of us are not courageous enough to explore. No doubt that this young artist is one to keep an eye on! He also gets my Best Sardine Art Award! 

In room 6125, Michael Pacheco adds evidence to my thesis that no other exhibition venue or process in the world can do what ARTOMATIC can do. Here, Pacheco, like dozens of other hard-working artists have done at ARTOMATIC this year and over the past two decades, takes his painting skills to the room itself and delivers a painted room that takes us into the jungles of Apocalypto. Do not for a moment think that it is easy to accomplish this! Pacheco has some serious painting skills which make his hard work deliver... more evidence next.

Michael Pacheco transforms room 6125 at ARTOMATIC 2024

Evidence submission: Look at the below details from one of Pacheco's paintings in that room; this is a painter's painter, as my art school professor Jacob Lawrence used to say. He manipulates, seduces and commands the brush in what appears as a frenetic (but is in reality a superbly controlled) process to create the illusion of a Native American figure simply based on hundreds and hundreds of separate and individual strokes!

Detail of painting by Michael Pacheco 

For decades now I have been observing and admiring the evolution of DMV Überartist Pat Goslee, who has some gorgeous paintings in her unique and inimitable style in room 6090. I say inimitable because Goslee has refined her work process in such minute, hard-to-define style that it would take celestian intervention for someone to try to copy her spectacular works!

Over those decades, I have also always found something really sensual, sensitive, and bordering on erotica in her marriage of abstraction with forms and shapes and geometric designs, and stencils and colors...

Ages ago I dubbed that work as "vaginalism" in some review for some magazine or newspaper,  I also called it "vaginalia", and just outside the door from room 6090, is easily the greatest example of this field of art ever produced!

Vaginalia style art by Patricia Goslee

In room 6030 Mike Price wins the Best Wire in Art Award. These are not only intelligently designed, some kinetic, works of art, but also work to fool the eye as paintings!

Side view of Mike Price's wire artwork in room 6030 at ARTOMATIC 2024

The sheer genius in these works, is that in the elegant presentation, Price installs the wire sculptures within a solid painting background, where at first view they meld and blend to fool the eye!

"Werther's" by Mike Price

"Scissors" by Mike Price

Also in that room there are some impressive flower paintings by Peri Turns -- easily, and together with master artist Michal Hunter, the best flower paints so far!

My fave sculpture on the 6th floor? How about this precise and elegant and super cool assemblage of organic things (the wings are tree leaves) titled "Reluctant Predator" by Lee T. Wheeler in room 6002.

"Reluctant Predator" by Lee T. Wheeler in room 6002

Time for another award: The "Most Touchable Ever Award" goes to the cool (pun intended) flowing, moving and touchable sculptures in room 6054 by recycledworksart.com - and next a brainfart! I missed noting the name of the artist in room 6032, who deserves a shout out for his/her coooool paper installation and paper art skills! You rock! This is the ARTOMATIC 2024 Paper Room!

Does this room rock or what?

Every once in a while, a work of art speaks to the viewer as if coming from another dimension. Yesterday that was the case with this gorgeous painting by Adam Chamy in room 6040 and titled "Blood Bath."

BLOOD BATH by Adam Chamy

Vaginalia

For decades now I have been observing and admiring the evolution of DMV Überartist Pat Goslee, who has some gorgeous paintings in her unique and inimitable style in room 6090.

Over those decades, I've always found something really sensual, sensitive, and bordering on erotica in her marriage of Abstraction with forms and shapes and geometric designs, and stencils and colors...

Ages ago I dubbed that work as "vaginalism" in some review for some magazine or newspaper,  I also called it "vaginalia", and just outside the door from room 6090, is easily the greatest example of this field of art ever produced!