Campello Comes Down Tomorrow

My current exhibition at the Fraser Georgetown space comes down tomorrow.


Below is the review of the show published in the last issue of the Georgetowner newspaper by John Blee:

The Obsessions and Duende of Lenny Campello

F. Lennox (Lenny) Campello, one of the lynchpins of the DC art scene, is having a show in Georgetown at the Fraser Gallery (1054 31st St. NW, Tues. - Fri. Noon - 3pm, Sat. Noon -6pm).

Campello renders mythic scenes with mystery. He has complete mastery of his medium and works on a ground that seems to come from deep dreaming.

Campello writes on his dcartnews.blogspot.com, the premiere art blog of DC, "For some reason snowy days seem to inspire me to get down and draw. And I was up and early this morning and finished (a) somewhat silly drawing."

The drawing, "Woman on the Moon About to be Swept Off Her Feet by a Flying Bald Man," has a relation to Goya's darkness, or duende. Unlike Goya, Campello does not offer a social or political message. Like Goya, he creates enigmatic juxtapositions of figures or figure and space (as in "Another Obsessive Jackie Kennedy Portrait"), hinting at something disquieting.

Campello states "Myth is one of the driving forces in my work! I love it when someone discovers a bit of legend, or history or religion through one of my works."

Being a gladiator at heart, Lenny takes on some of the major myths from Marilyn to John the Baptist to Frida Kahlo to Saint Sebastian. He is fearless.

His Frida Kahlo is an homage to the Mexican artist and icon. The work presents a calm Kahlo, but in its off-placement on the page there is something that makes it not quite rest-in-peace. It is Campello's uneasy atmosphere of dream that is as much the subject of the work as the stormy Kahlo herself. Campello has been drawing Kahlo since 1977. He has also done hundreds of portraits of Marilyn and Che.

In his "Saint Sebastian" it is the flight of the arrows that is as much the drama as the piercing of the flesh of the poor saint. The enclosure and evocation of the space in the drawing is again the subject as much as the arrow's fight and their unfortunate trajectory.

Campello's drawings from the female nude, including "An Unmarried Woman" and "Woman Thinking of the Sun" present a different aspect of this artist. Here there is a quiet and devout sensuality: a worshipper at the source. (through January 18, 2006)

New blog

Adrian Parsons has a new arts blog: In the City for Art and a Job.

Visit here.

And already Adrian has gone dumpster-diving and come up with some good art!

Unpleasant memory

DC artist Christopher Goodwin is auctioning off a very unplesant memory/art on Ebay.

Bid on it here.

Here we go again...

Bailey is having fits (funny fits anyway) over Blake's plan for the Smithsonian, while Kirkland and his readers are discussing Gopnik's use of new adjectives to describe the status of artists.

Mid City

The Mid City Artists are holding their Winter Art Exhibition at the Results Gallery at Results the Gym Capitol Hill January 17 – March 12, 2006.

The Mid City Artists are a group comprising some of Washington’s most exciting artists whose talents are helping fuel the art scene in the City’s dynamic Dupont/Logan corridor.

The diverse group of visual artists, sculptors, and photographers participating in the Winter Art Exhibition at Results the Gym Capitol Hill includes Sondra Arkin, Jody Bergstresser, Kristina Bilonick, Tanja Bos, Robert Cole, Gary Fisher, Glenn Fry, Charlie Jones, Betto Ortiz, Anne Marchand, Regina Miele, Mark Parascandola, Byron Peck, Brian Petro, Mary Beth Ramsey, John Talkington, Peter Alexander Romero, Mike Weber, Angela White & Christine Williams.

Please join them for an opening reception held for the artists Thursday evening January 19, 2006, 6:30 – 8:30 PM at the Results Gym, 315 G St. SE, Washington, DC 20003.

Brit painter wins inaugural Sovereign Art Prize

British painter Susan Gunn has beaten 30 shortlisted competitors from 22 countries to win 25,000 euros (a ton of dollars) in the first ever Sovereign Art Prize.

The prize was set up to celebrate the best in contemporary European painting and raise funds for the arts.

"This is a beginning for me... I'm not represented by a gallery yet and that's the next step," said Gunn.

Read the story here and see all thirty finalists here.

Interface opening

The opening for Interface: Art & Technology last night was very packed, and the whole performance of "Hopscotch" by Trawick prize winner David Page at 7PM was very interesting (and well-documented by the many people filming it). More later, but meanwhile here are some photos:

Hopscotch by David Page

Detail of the amazing kinetic sculpture by Claire Watkins

The above is one of four magnetism-driven sculptures by recent VCU Sculpture program graduate and now New York resident Claire Watkins. In the piece, a plastic armature suspends a square magnet, tilted askew, which is then rotated slowly by a hidden motor. The needles approach the magnet from several angles throughout the corner of the gallery where the sculpture has been installed, and float towards it, attracted and suspended by the power of the magnet. And as the magnet rotates, the needles dance a sensual dance driven by the magnetic fields of the ever-moving magnet.

And the talking, moving collaboration by Thomas Edwards and Scott Hutchison

In this piece, Hutchison has created a series of oil paintings of his eyes, looking in various directions. Working with Edwards, he has then created a video of the eyes that is governed by a computer program written by Edwards, that allow the eyes to follow you as one walks in front of the piece (it has a motion detector); as the eyes follow you, a hidden voice whispers to you.

Kathryn Cornelius discusses her new video with Catriona Fraser

David Page discusses Hopscotch with Grammar.Police's Kriston Capps

David Page preparing the first of two volunteers for his performance

The volunteer is nearly all suited up. Page made all the outfits used in the performance

David Page preparing the other volunteer

And the second volunteer all suited up and prepared to be "launched off"

David Page finishing off the first volunteer

And then hanging her from the machine

And the performance begins as one volunteer is lifted while the second one is launched off beneath her

The performance continues

David Page discussing the performance with painter Chawky Frenn and soon-to-be-gallerist Zoe Myers

Claire Watkins by one of her amazing, moving magnetic sculptures

Photographer Dean Kessman and painter and videographer Scott Hutchison

Painter Andrew Wodzianski and DCAC gallerina Kristina Bilonick

The talented Kathryn Cornelius and me