Tag Archives: Featured

Art Impact USA: Caribbean Jubilee

Art Impact USA’s second annual art exhibition celebrating Caribbean-American Heritage Month.

This exhibition in Sites 2 and 3 showcases 20 artists who have been inspired by the Caribbean, either being from the region or having Caribbean background or affiliation. Thirty-six beautiful works of art give voice to the artists’ humanity and spirit of jubilee. The genre and media span from abstract to figurative, landscape to portrait, utilizing paint, collage, photography, and art quilt.

RSVP for the Opening Reception on Saturday, June 11, 2 – 5 pm.

The artists featured in this exhibition are:

  • Al Harden
  • Alexis Goodridge
  • Andrea Clement
  • ya’aqhub Ben ya’aqhub tate
  • Brinille Ellis
  • Carolyn Goodridge
  • Clifford Darrett
  • Desi Meade
  • Fenton Sands
  • Helen Burroughs
  • Ida Mitchell
  • John Anderson
  • Jonathan French
  • Laura Farrell
  • Lenee Freeman
  • Pauline Barrett
  • Roslyn Cambridge
  • Shantelle Fuller
  • Tarver Harris
  • The Tierra Bomba Children

Please Touch

Public Reception: Thursday, June 9 • 6 – 8 pm • Gallery Talk at 7 pm

Target Gallery, the contemporary exhibition space for the Torpedo Factory Art Center, encourages people to touch, feel, dine upon, and even lick the artwork in Please Touch.

Sixteen national and international artists, including four people from Virginia, were juried into this group show. This all-media exhibition features 20 works with which audiences should engage.

“I chose work that specifically challenged the traditional expectation of experiencing art,” said Cynthia Connolly, Arlington County’s special projects curator and juror for the exhibition. “In this case, one must touch the artwork in order to completely understand, appreciate and experience the intention of the artist.”

For example, Colleen Ludwig’s Pod Field is a series of wooden forms affixed with long pod stalks. The audience is invited to brush against the pods as they walk through the installation, triggering the bamboo chimes. The more people in the space, the more it fills the industrial surroundings of the Torpedo Factory with sound, reminiscent of insects in nature.

Jeni Hansen Gard’s Project Share is two ceramic dish sets and a social art project. One set stays in Target Gallery for display, the other is for visitors to borrow and use for a meal with a stranger. There is no fee for this project, participants are merely asked to snap a few photos and write a blog entry. (See the blog from a similar project in Columbus, Ohio.) The dishes are a vehicle to engage in conversation over the intimate act of sharing food.

Fumi Amano, of Richmond, Virginia, created one of the most intimate works in the show with Look at Me. An immigrant from Japan, Amano’s work is a reflection of her sense of isolation and the challenges of connecting with others through a language barrier. In her work, visitors sit on opposite sides of a frosted pane of glass, unable to see each other. The person on the frosted side then licks the pane, revealing a face. This intense and visceral act mimics Amano’s own desire to break through barriers and communicate with others.

“We are told not to touch fine art, and definitely never to lick it,” said Kaitlyn Ward, Target Gallery director. “I want the gallery experience to be completely interactive, and for the visitor to feel like he or she is breaking the rules.”

The participating artists are:

  • Fumi Amano – Richmond, VA
  • Marcelyn Bennett Carpenter – Bloomfield Hills, MI
  • Brielle DuFlon – Charlottesville, VA
  • Sherman Finch – Cypress, TX
  • Magdalene Gluszek – Show Low, AZ
  • Jennifer Hansen – West Olive, MI
  • Dana Lynn Harper – Columbus, OH
  • Tim Harper – Midlothian, VA
  • Katie Hudnall – Indianapolis, IN
  • Young Suk Lee – South Bend, IN
  • Colleen Ludwig – Detroit, MI
  • Charles Benjamin Rosecrans – Sandy Hook, CT
  • Kurt Treeby – Buffalo, NY
  • Art Vidrine – Alexandria, VA
  • Dukno Yoon – Manhattan, KS

 

About the Juror

Cynthia Connolly is a photographer, curator, letterpress printer and artist who lives in Arlington, Virginia. She graduated from both the Corcoran College of Art and Design, and Auburn University’s Rural Studio, worked for Dischord Records and booked an avant-garde performance venue, d.c. space. In 1988, she published Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes from the DC Punk Underground (79-86) through her independent press Sun Dog Propaganda. Internationally shown and a prolific artist, her photographic work, postcards, and books were exhibited in Beautiful Losers in the United States and Europe from 2004-2009 establishing herself as a pioneer in DIY culture. Reviewed internationally, her photography is in many private collections, as well as the J. Paul Getty Museum, Smithsonian Museum of American History and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. She was the visual arts curator of Artisphere and continues as Arlington County’s special projects curator.

St. George Art Gallery: Daniel Taye

DSC_1122For the month of June, the Torpedo Factory Art Center partners with Alexandria’s St. George Art Gallery to host painter Daniel Taye, of Addis Abiba, Ethiopia, in the New Project Studio.

Once named by CNN as the “Van Gogh of Africa,” Taye traveled from Africa to participate in this month-long residency. His work has been shown at St. George Art Gallery for more than 15 years and some of his work is on permanent exhibition.

Taye is known for his evocative landscape and figurative work as he experiments with different mediums, color composition and depth. He has been described as an artist who inspired more puzzled expressions than praise, but his uninhibited flow of thought and rare perspective are ultimately his forte. Taye’s paintings do not fit the usual categories of Ethiopian fine art, traditional religious art, or abstract impressionism, but the strokes and the enchanting color schemes over the canvas bring his work to life.

St. George Art Gallery, which has locations in both Alexandria and Ethiopia, was the first art gallery to open in Addis Abiba and is still considered the foremost gallery in the country. Through the years, it has catered to a number of dignitaries and heads of state over the years, including President Bill Clinton, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, Natalie Portman, and Calvin Klein.

Taye grew up involved with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and eventually became a deacon. The church played an important role in his education and was the cornerstone of his formative years. He entered the Addis Ababa School of Fine Arts in the late 1980s, and graduated with Distinction in 1990. He worked on the Gold Mine Documentation Project for the Ministry of Mining until 1993. His art has been exhibited in numerous venues throughout Ethiopia such as the National Museum, Goethe Institute, and Italian Cultural Institute. His work has also been showcased in the United States, Europe, and Africa.

He is spending June working in the New Projects Studio (Studio 8), which is a new endeavor for the Torpedo Factory Art Center that offers a short-term space to test new program ideas, spotlight underrepresented voices, and enhance community engagement. Tenants rotate on a regular basis.

Public Reception
Sunday, June 26
6 – 9 pm

The public is invited to meet Taye and hear him speak about his work during an after-hours reception on Sunday, June 26; 6 – 9 pm. In addition to St. George Art Gallery, the Torpedo Factory will also welcome the Ethiopian Community Development Council, the Ethiopian Community Center of Washington, D.C., the Ethiopian Community Center in Maryland, and the Young Ethiopian Professionals. A speaker from the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art will also paint a picture of how Daniel’s work fits into contemporary Ethiopian art. The evening will also feature a sampling of Ethiopian foods and music.

About St. George Art Gallery

St. George Art Gallery opened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1991 and was the first art gallery in the city.  From the very beginning, the mission of St George was to promote Ethiopian art and culture and to support artists and crafts people throughout the country.  Although there are now many galleries in the city, St George remains the foremost gallery in Ethiopia and still offers the best in Ethiopian and African art and crafts. St. George Gallery of Alexandria opened for business in December 2010 and, like in Addis Ababa, features the best in Ethiopian furniture, art, jewelry, antiques, hand-woven textiles, books, and objet d’art.

 

Eames Armstrong: SPELL

#EamesSpell

Stay a spell, spell a word, cast a spell.

D.C.-based performance artist Eames Armstrong‘s premieres Spell at the Torpedo Factory Art Center. This experimental new performance looks at how we mark time, language that is unspoken, and the everyday rituals that permeate our lives. Can we evade fixedness through abstraction, can gestures be transformative? This performance is about searching through the ordinary for new processes of becoming.

On the eve of the May full moon, dance is an invocation, a celebration of confusion and multiplicity. Armstrong developed the choreography and performs Spell with Hayley Cutler/darlingdance. The duo responds to the unique architecture and long atrium of the Torpedo Factory Art Center. Chris Rasley‘s live electronic music will accompany them.

Spell is an evening-length event with a discussion following the performance. It is best suited for 18+ audience.

The event is free, but RSVPs are requested via Eventbrite or email: [email protected]

 

About Eames Armstrong

Eames Armstrong works in performance, noise, language, and time. Eames has performed at the Fringe platform at the Venice International Performance Art Week (Italy), Houston International Performance Art Biennale (Texas), Transmodern Festival (Baltimore, MD), Mobius, Inc. (Cambridge, MA), Rats9 (Montreal, Quebec), Grace Exhibition Space (Brooklyn, NY), Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery (Chicago, IL), Capital Fringe Festival (Washington, D.C.), and many other artist-run and alternative spaces. They curated the 2013 Supernova Performance Art Festival (Rosslyn, VA), programmed a monthly performance seriesSoapbox at Hillyer Art Space (Washington, D.C.), they have co-curated events at Panoply Performance Lab (Brooklyn, NY) and Massachusetts College of Art and Design (Boston, MA), and have organized exhibitions in D.C. at Delicious Spectacle, 87FLORIDA, Studio 1469, Hole in the Sky, and Gallery 102 at George Washington University. Eames received a BFA from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2010 with focus in painting, performance, and art history, and will complete an MFA in studio art with an unofficial minor in dance from George Washington University in 2016. Eames likes challenge, and art that is difficult.

Highest Honor: Site-Specific Sculpture

  • Where: Studio 8 in the Torpedo Factory and in the Main Hall
  • Public hours starting May 1: Monday to Friday, 11:30 am–12:30 pm; Saturday, 4:15–5:00 pm; Sunday, 10:00–11:00 am

In collaboration with military veterans from The Art League’s IMPart program, artist and League instructor Andy Yoder will construct a site-specific, suspended, 25-ft triangular banner for the Torpedo Factory Art Center’s atrium.

Titled “Highest Honor,” this banner created from sheets of handmade paper will be an oversized version of the Army-Navy “E Award,” which took the form of a swallowtail pennant, and was presented to companies during World War II for excellence in the production of war equipment. The U.S. Naval Torpedo Station, as it was known during that time, received this award. It was an honor reflecting the hard work and collective excellence of the factory’s employees, each of whom received a lapel-pin version of the pennant.

Working with veterans to create the sculpture, Yoder’s intent is to extend the spirit of the original award to the present day. The paper pulp used to make the piece will largely consist of surplusmilitary hospital garments, along with cleaning rags from the present-day factory’s maintenance staff, and paper from the art studios. The veterans may incorporate personal letters, documents, or meaningful objects into the sculpture. They may also add military insignias, tattoos, or other personal imagery the “E,” anchor, and stars. Like the original award, one of the goals of this project is to acknowledge the contributions and enormous sacrifices of these individuals for the sake of the common good.

Another goal of this project, besides creating a dynamic, compelling visual experience, is to demonstrate the power of art to cut across boundaries and bring people together. It also has to do with reviving history by connecting it to present-day events, while allowing participants and viewers to benefit from the power of art to heal invisible wounds.

Our special thanks go to Patrick Sargent, Torpedo Factory artist & papermaker, for his invaluable role in this production.
This project is sponsored by The Art League.

About the lead artist: Andy Yoder has exhibited work at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Queens Museum of Art, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Commissions include works for ESPN, Continental Airlines, Progressive Corporation, David and Susan Rockefeller, and the Saatchi Collection. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Art in America, the New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal. He is a current instructor at The Art League.

Lisa Kellner: Always into Now

Exhibition Dates: April 16 – May 29
Reception: Saturday, April 16 • 3 – 5 pm • Artist Talk at 4 pm

Always into Now is both an environmental sculpture and a painting in space. Using silk organza in a painterly process, she sews thousands of bulbous shapes and creates structures that seem to grow from the walls and ceiling.

The work is immersive, yet intimate, and will envelop the entire gallery in a room-sized singular form. Maine-based Lisa Kellner plays with the translucency of the organza to further cast color and shadows across the walls, floors, and viewers, inviting them to become part of the painting.

This is the first exhibition as part of Target Gallery’s New Media Invitational, which invites artists to transform the space with a site-specific installation.