Quote of the day

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read."

-- Groucho Marx

New Frida Kahlos discovered!

Is it me, or does this auction in Charlottesville have a lot of "undiscovered" works by major masters???? there's two Kahlos... cough, cough... two Diego Riveras, one Juan Gris, one Toulouse-Lautrec, one Braque....

See them here.

Frida at auction

Anybody like Frida? This very cool painting that I did in art school and which sold originally almost 15 years ago, just showed up at an auction house! Follow the link! At a really good starting bid - Only $100!

https://www.auctionzip.com/auction-lot/lot_44743D7916?utm_source=azemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alerts

Jessica Drenk at Adah Rose!

Opening at Adah Rose Gallery
adahrosegallery@gmail.com
www.adahrosegallery.com

"The Evocation of a Moment..a Gesture" - Jessica Drenk

Vernissage Saturday January 20 6:00-8:00 pm.
Live Music by Bud Wilkinson

Tactile and textural, the sculptures of Jessica Drenk highlight the chaos and beauty that can be found in simple materials. Jessica's work is influenced by systems of information and the impulse to develop an encyclopedic understanding of the world. Jessica’s interests in archaeology, paleontology, biology, botany and geology influence not only the shapes and textures of her sculpture, but also lend a visual framework for creating, collecting and classifying her own specimens of the present. The sculptures are both fragile and strong, complex and simple; always elegant and unique. Her materials  are as varied as marble, PVC pipes, toilet paper, books, pencils, wood, coffee filters, and q-tips. 

Jessica was raised in Montana, where she developed an appreciation for the natural world that remains an important inspiration to her artwork today. Jessica was awarded the International Sculpture Center's Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award.  Her work has been pictured in Sculpture Magazine and she has exhibited in shows at the International Grounds for Sculpture in NJ, Skidmore College, the Albuquerque Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art, the Everhart Museum, Yale University and the Brooklyn Public Library. Her work is in many prominent individual and corporate art collections. Jessica has exhibited in numerous solo and duo shows in Washington DC, Dallas, San Francisco, Hawaii, Florida, Massachusetts and Arizona. She has exhibited with the gallery at PULSE Miami, PULSE NY and the Silicon Valley Art Fair. This is her third show with Adah Rose Gallery.

Jessica Drenk received an MFA from the University of Arizona in 2007 and a BA from Pomona College in 2002. She currently lives and works in Florida.

Adah Rose Gallery
3766 Howard Ave
Kensington MD 20895
Thursday-Sunday 12:00-5:30 and always by appointment

Censorship as False Morality

The most recent attempt at art censorship comes from a petition started by someone named Mia Merrill who complained about a Balthus painting at the Met titled Thérèse Dreaming. I suggest that Ms. Merrill next task should be to have Nabokov’s Lolita removed from libraries and burned.

Notice the progression of her argument—it begins with the image and its description. Then, she makes a judgment about Balthus’ personal life, and ends with the main reason of why the painting should be removed.

Read the article in Splice Today by Emina Melonic here.



Thérèse Dreaming by Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski) c. 1938  

Nan Montgomery at Addison/Ripley

NAN  MONTGOMERY

 Intersections/Dialogues

January 20 - February 24, 2018

opening reception for the artist

Addison/Ripley Fine Art

Saturday, January 20th, 5-7pm.

Although we have been aware of Nan Montgomery's work for quite some time, this is the first exhibition of it at Addison/Ripley. Color rich, her paintings combine a pure geometry, in the tradition of Piet Mondrian, and style of Josef Albers and, more recently Burgoyne Diller and Al Held, with a seeming reverence of nature that, ironically, Mondrian processed away from. Mondrian began "...as a naturalistic painter and.....very quickly felt the urgent need for a more concise form of expression and an economy of means. I never stopped progressing toward abstraction." Montgomery clearly shares this aesthetic although her affinity for Malevich in this work, in particular is clear. 

The newest of the paintings in this exhibition have a dynamic quality, an implicit movement and, at the same time, measured strength. Whether in smaller scale egg tempera or the much larger oils on linen, these are the boldest, most assertive works by the artist to date. Strong titles like "Intersection", Decision", "Circlet" and "Cadence" and equally firm compositions demonstrate Montgomery's mastery of her medium and her art. Montgomery's "less is more" credo is evident in an exquisite collection of small works included in this collection.

Cadence, 2015, egg tempera on gessoed wood, 10 x 10 inches each

In a recent essay by Jean Lawler Cohen, the critic notes an evolution to the mature artist Montgomery has become. "But now an accommodation prevails, as if the painter has negotiated a temporary truce between impulses. Hard-edge blocks and stripes advance across dark or light grounds, ensuring a stability that holds until the peripheral insertion of a softer, textured vertical. Indigo, for years her darkest, near-black signature color, still appears but, at times now, co-exists with a new velvety black. Early, outright, heraldic encounters seem to have given way to more contemplative engagement. "

After attending the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts and graduating from the Yale University School of Art with a BFA, the artist moved to Washington and took classes at the Corcoran School. Nan Montgomery has been an essential member of the Washington Art Community for more than 30 years. Her work is represented in the permanent collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Watkins Collection of the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, the Washington Post, the Artery Organization, the American Federation of Teachers, the Washington Convention Center, The Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC, as well as in private collections. Committed to abstraction and purity of form, her work is unified in the dichotomies of natural and material, restriction and freedom, hard edge and soft, all consistent with her personal history.

The gallery is located in Upper Georgetown at the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and Reservoir Road and is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 until 5:30 and by appointment.



The Complete Guide to 2018 Artist Grants and Opportunities

If you consider yourself a professional artist and not a hobby artist, then start 2018 by working the system(s) and target yourself to apply to six of these...

Click here.