New Art BLOG

Matt Hollis has a BLOG!

Visit Enough for All often.

For Matt: You better start posting more!

The Shape of (Some) Things to Come

The Art League Gallery is currently (until Monday) having their annual Student/Faculty show, which is a perfect opportunity to look at the work of art students of all levels, ages and backgrounds in one of the area's largest galleries, and certainly one of the more popular art schools.

I decided to focus on the work of the students, at the expense of not discussing the work of superbly talented teachers such as Danni Dawson, Jacqueline Saunders, Scott Hutchison (represented by us) and many others.

Instead, I turned my eye for quite a while to the students, hung salon-style on all three of the The Art League Galleries on the ground floor of the Torpedo Factory.

The first piece that stood out was a small, superbly painted self portrait by Marjorie Forgues (taught by Danni Dawson). I don't know Forgues' formal background, but in this small elegant piece she shows brushwork and technical skills that will revive feelings of envy from painters of all levels of expertise and experience. It is a delicate and yet vigorous application (and understanding) of paint, and light, which makes Ms. Forgues small self portrait jump out from a sea of 2D work.

Two drawings caught my attention next: An untitled pencil drawing of a difficult subject (a seated, clothed bearded man) by Leslie Chekin (taught by Priscilla Treacy) and an elegant female nude charcoal by Linda Wharton titled "Horizontal," from a class taught by Robert Liberace. They both show remarkable understanding of that most diverse of subjects: the human figure.

A small, delicate painting titled "Pear Pairs" by Cathy Messina (taught by Joe Kabriel), a watercolor titled "Evening Colors" by Meg MacKenzie (taught by one of my favorite area watercolorists: Susan Herron) and an amazing chalk drawing by Laura Kipple titled "Claire," (taught by Liberace again), completed my selections as the best from a very good crop of student artwork.

Prices are incredibly low for the most part, starting at $60 for a framed original watercolor!

Monday is the last day of this show... hurry!

Wanna Go to an Opening Tonight?

Gallery West is having an opening reception tonight from 6-9PM. On exhibit is Elsa Gebreyesus' "Meditations," a solo show of mixed-media paintings by Gebreyesus, whose work combines modern materials and techniques with universal themes and ancient African symbols.

Gallery West is located at 205 South Union Street, in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. Tel:703-549-7359.

See ya there!

Bethesda Magazine

The new glossy Bethesda Magazine has a multi-page spread on the gallery scene now developing in Bethesda. Written by Virginia Myers Kelly, it is armed with interesting observations such as "Bethesda is home to more than a dozen galleries - but fewer art buyers than you might expect."

There's a large panoramic photo of one of our openings which captures some of the Art-O-Matic artists that we had a couple of months ago, including a great shot of one of Chris Edmunds' sculptures and background images of Mark Jenkins "Pubic Hair Tapestries," John Bata's landscape of New York City and a Michal Hunter painting.

On page 103 of the same issue there's a terrific profile (by Dr. Claudia Rousseau) of legendary photographer Lida Moser, now in her late 80s and retired in Rockville, and whose first ever DC area solo show will be our next Georgetown show, opening on March 18.

Gallery visits

Yesterday I dropped by the Art League Gallery in Alexandria to look at their Student Show, and then to the Target Gallery to see their crop of new Torpedo Factory artists, and finally Factory Photoworks (now re-named Multiple Exposures) to see their current membership show.

Later that night, Cyndi Spain, Arts Editor for DCist, and I visited most of the Dupont Circle Galleries, which were having their extended First Friday hours; several terrific surprises there!

More on both later today.

The Usual WaPo Bashing

Today's Style section has a large and bright article by WaPo fashion critic Robin Givhan.

It's one of nearly 100 fashion reviews a year that Givhan produces for the Style section. Usually brightly accompanied by a color image of some gaunt, sour faced woman, wearing funny-looking clothes and walking oddly.

And yet, this same Style section, in the world's second most powerful newspaper, deems it acceptable to only offer their readers about 25 gallery review columns a year. That's from a potential pool of around 1,000 visual art gallery exhibitions that occur per year in the Greater Washington, DC region.

If you don't get it, you don't get it.

I sincerely hope that the new Style editor gets it. Her name is Deborah Heard, and her email is heardd@washpost.com.

And the Rare WaPo Praise

An editor who does get it for the most part, is Joyce Jones, who is the editor of the Weekend section of the WaPo.

In fact, I submit that Weekend now offers a much better view of the area art scene than Style. And Michael O'Sullivan certainly is the only WaPo art critic who is actively involved and an integral and knowledgeable part of our area's art scene. By the way, read his excellent take on "Modigliani: Beyond the Myth" at the Phillips here.

Although... Weekend... ehr... could be better. I mean, they do capsule mini reviews for theater, and for movies; why not visual art shows?

Why not?

First Fridays

Tonight is the Dupont Circle Gallery Crawl, with extended hours from 6-8PM.

See ya there!