February at Studio Gallery

Exhibitions: February 3 - February 27, 2010
First Friday Reception (as part of the Dupont Circle Galleries openings): February 5, 6 - 8 pm
Artist's Reception: Saturday, February 6, 5 - 7 pm
Artist's Reception: Saturday, February 27, 4 - 5:30 pm

Solo Show: Synthesis
Suzanne Yurdin

"Synthesis" is a collection of work featuring Italian landscapes and other work from the artist, in mixed media on both canvas and paper.

Duo Show: Playing with Fear
Trix Kuijper

Duo Show: Oblivion

Iwan Bagus

Four at Foundry

NEW MEMBERS' EXHIBIT

Artists

Fran Abrams, polymer clay

Sarah Alexander, photography

Katherine Blakeslee, watercolor

Nancy Donnelly, glass sculpture

Exhibit dates: February 3-28

Exhibit hours: Wednesday-Friday, 1-7 pm; Saturday-Sunday, 12-6 pm

Opening Reception: Friday, February 5, 6-8 pm

Members' Monthly Exhibit in Gallery 2

Foundry Gallery

1314 18th Street, NW, 1st Floor

Washington, DC 20036

One Week Left at our Dupont Location

We will be moving on Sunday, January 31 to our new location at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Silver Spring, MD. While we at WPG have loved our Dupont location, the chance to partner with Pyramid Atlantic was one we simply could not pass up.

If you haven't heard of it before, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center is an arts organization involved in printmaking, bookbinding, and papermaking. Their extensive programming includes Artist-in-Residence programs, workshops, educational and community outreach, as well as a series of exhibitions and events. We look forward to using their workshop space to develop our own series of workshops as well as co-hosting new events. As these new programs take shape we will post them on our website and send out invitations via email.

Please visit us in our new location for our 25th Anniversary Reunion Show, featuring over 50 artists, all current and former WPG members. The show runs Feb 4 - 28, with an opening on February 5 from 5:30-8 (additional receptions TBA). Best of luck to all our art friends in Dupont!

New Location, opening February 4:
Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, 2nd Floor
8230 Georgia Ave
Silver Spring, MD 20910

By metro: Take the Red line to the Silver Spring stop. From the station, follow Wayne Ave to Georgia Ave, turn Right. The red Pyramid Atlantic building is 2 blocks down Georgia at Ripley Street.
Driving: Pyramid Atlantic is on the South Bound (West) side of Georgia Avenue at Ripley Street, 2 blocks south of Wayne Avenue. A small parking lot in front of Pyramid Atlantic offers free parking, and there are several public garages withing walking distance.

At Micheline's Studio, Talk and Transformations

Sing, O Muse, of a place where the like minded can gather and converse, as the greatest of orators, about the most divine of mortal pleasures, art.

At artist Micheline Klagsbrun's studio, artists and academics alike did just that last night. Studio Gallery's inaugural Artist Salon was both intellectually stimulating and visually rewarding for those in attendance. Approximately 30 guests convened in a post-industrial space, at 52 O Street Studios, with soaring ceilings and paint on the floor which hinted at the creation that takes place there. Though Micheline normally uses the space to paint and host weekly drawing classes, last night she welcomed anyone enthusiastic about the artistic dialogue of Washington, DC.

Standing among paintings in various degrees of completion, a swordfish, and a large oriental style umbrella, Klagsbrun cited inspiration as eclectic as her surroundings with particular interest in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Indeed, after hearing Klagsbrun's vivid invocation of her poetic inspiration, one could have believed one of the several mannequins that surrounded her could have sprung to life as if Pygmalion's sculpture, at least after several glasses of wine seemingly poured from the generous hand of Dionysus himself.

Upcoming at Studio Gallery

Exhibitions: February 3 - February 27, 2010
First Friday Reception (as part of the Dupont Circle Galleries openings): February 5, 6 - 8 pm
Artist's Reception: Saturday, February 6, 5 - 7 pm
Artist's Reception: Saturday, February 27, 4 - 5:30 pm

Solo Show: Synthesis

Suzanne Yurdin

"Synthesis" is a collection of work featuring Italian landscapes and other work from the artist, in mixed media on both canvas and paper.

Duo Show: Playing with Fear

Trix Kuijper

Duo Show: Iwan Bagus

Studio Gallery

2108 R Street N.W. Washington, DC 20008 202.232.8734

Gallery Hours:
Wednesday and Thursday, 1 - 7pm
Friday, 1 - 8pm
Saturday, 1 - 6pm

Javier Cabada at Aaron Gallery

Beethoven
59''x59''
acrylic on canvas

It begins with the music. The first few gentle notes of a sonata drift through the gallery as Javier Cabada stands before a large, empty canvas. This white void serves not to intimidate him, but to provide an expansive playground for the possibilities of his imagination. Today he will be painting the portrait of a man he has known well for years but whom he has never met. With a decisive first few brush strokes, Cabada quickly breaks up the empty space by loosely mapping out the major landmarks of the face. Once this has been accomplished, he immediately dives into color using broad, sweeping applications of thick paint with the palette knife. As indications of light and shadow begin to emerge, he continues to sculpt the planes of the face with a series of long, jagged brush strokes that twist and turn with a bold spontaneity. The mood of the music gradually builds as the painterly elements of line and form intermingle with one another. Cabada continually steps back to contemplate his progress every so often. It is a dance guided by the sounds of the piano and intuitive response. This process continues for several hours until at last the image of Frederic Chopin is fully realized.

Javier Cabada’s successful artistic career has spanned the course of many decades. Born in Barcelona, Spain in 1931, he has painted nearly every type of subject matter and experimented with a wide variety of materials since his first introduction to painting at the age of 17. Although each of his endeavors have taught him something unique and insightful about what it means to be an artist, Cabada finds his greatest inspiration through painting large scale portraits of composers from the Romantic period. His passion for the music is always evident in his work. Even after nearly 40 years of painting the same people, he still discovers something new and exciting about each of them. To this day Beethoven, Chopin and Paganini remain personal favorites and are the most sought after paintings that he produces. For Cabada it is not enough to simply recreate the likeness of a composer, but to capture their personality and essence as well. He does this by immersing himself in the experience of listening to the music and expressing his own interpretation of it on canvas. The result is more than just a portrait. It is a glimpse of raw, human vitality.

The paintings themselves are highly expressionistic and push the boundaries between representation and abstraction. Heavily stylized paint strokes secure the physical similarities of the composer while also providing an ambiguity that allows for personal interpretation from the viewer. Though the paintings are grounded in the realm of the physical, they generously explore the delight found in the metaphysical. This is most effectively demonstrated through Cabada’s exceptional palette where vibrant color plays a crucial role in establishing mood and energy. He takes great liberties with the color he puts down in layers by creating unexpected variations which cause the painting to vibrate and evoke a highly emotional response. Each passage of color effectively activates the one next to it. Although many of his color choices are rather unexpected for rendering the tones of human flesh, they always coalesce together to form a perfect balance. His use of marks are equally confident. Often times he will mix color directly on the canvas or apply paint right from the tube in great globs that are enticingly tactile. It is moments like these where Cabada’s strength as an Expressionist painter truly shines. The results of the brush strokes and various marks are often left to objective chance, but are applied so deliberately that everything has a purpose within the composition.

When one views a painting by Javier Cabada, it becomes clear that his process is not merely about the act of painting, but the act of feeling alive. His enthusiasm for creating art and being moved by the music he loves is something which he regards as deeply spiritual. For Cabada, a painting must transcend its role as an object or style and reach its full potential by reminding people that life is full of illusions. In order to escape these illusions, we must look beyond what is tangible and contemplate what it means to us.

Javier Cabada has the honor of maintaining exclusive representation at Aaron Gallery and has been exhibited at many museums and galleries nationally and internationally. His paintings have been on view at Aaron Gallery for over 30 years and continue to be shown today. Cabada works and lives in the D.C. area and frequently enjoys painting in front of visitors at Aaron Gallery.

Jennifer Woronow
January, 2010

Jennifer Woronow is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design where she received a B.F.A. in Illustration. She currently interns at Aaron Gallery while pursuing her own art.

www.javiercabada.com

Gallery 10 Sculpture Invitational

Dec 30-Jan 30 1519 Connecticut Ave. NW

Gallery 10 is hosting a sculpture invitational this month and like any group show, you wonder and look for common themes or a cohesive message which is not always the intent. The artists showing are a very disparate group, and no text is given to explain any of the works so it is up to the viewer to infer the message or intent of the artists.

Some of the standouts in the show for me were Jessica Braiterman, Sam Noto (whom I am acquainted with), Mary McCoy and Elizabeth Crisman. Jessica Braiterman's installation piece Mutation is composed of broken umbrellas and yarn, and she very cleverly uses each broken umbrella to imbue it with anthropomorphic qualities, specifically spiders. I immediately thought of Louise Bougeois and her recent show at the Hirshhorn museum. The umbrellas are set across the walls in the first room, and Braiterman very cleverly and beautifully varies the use of yellow yarn that she wraps around various parts of the umbrella. Each piece is unique but a wonderful part of the whole installation.

Sam Noto's two sculptures, Radio Days and Crisis of Faith, use very different materials: the former painted steel and the latter steel and stone. There is a simple elegance to the two pieces and a wonderful balance in each piece. I know Noto often places his sculptures in gardens, and both his pieces would be wonderful in a natural setting.

Mary McCoy has a beautiful and somewhat haunting piece, Flora and Fauna in the show. The piece is made of wood and bone, and the effect she achieves in placing the bone within the driftwood is quite elegant as the bone seems to flow from the wood. You get the feeling of some ancient human artifact or relic, and yet it feels quite modern as well.

Elizabeth Crisman works with wood and inkjet transparencies to create simple wood boxes that seem to be using dental xrays in a three dimensional layering that is particularly interesting and creates a little world within the box. In her piece Nightmare in my Dreams I too got an uncomfortable feeling when looking at the piece (I am quite squeamish at the Dentist) but really liked her layering of the images and use of materials.

There are many other works in the show and I invite anyone interested in seeing sculptors use a variety of materials to visit the show.

Adah Rose is the Director of The Studio Gallery, located in Dupont Circle.