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Johanna Mueller @ Reyes+Davis

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

March 25, 2009

She Howls

Mueller and Goldman

This month, Brigitte Reyes is showing the engravings of Johanna Mueller, a just-minted MFA from the terrific printmaking program at George Mason, headed by Susan Goldman and Helen Frederick. Johanna was discovered by Goldman at a workshop in South Dakota and brought to Mason, where she has obviously thrived.

the artist at work

Mueller practices the well-nigh archaic technique of engraving on wood (and on plates made from HIPS - a newish plastic material like PVC). Unlike etching, where a line is graven into a plate and the ink that settles into the grooves is printed, engraving is a relief process, where the print is made from the ink that remains on the surface. Mueller’s work is incredibly precise and detailed – she uses a jeweler’s magnifying goggles to engrave the plates – and filled to overflowing with finely-wrought, evocative, almost ancient imagery. It powerfully recalls the illustrated books of the 17th and 18th century, yet the stories are her own, creating an idiosyncratic visual world of mythic animals, fetishes, childhood fever dreams. Only an artist strongly in thrall to her own imagination could spend the time required in that world to create these wonderful pieces.

Wright, Shafie, Cabazon and Tan at Civilian Art Projects

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

March 24, 2009

Jayme McClellan and Tory Wright's work To my eye, Tory Wright’s durotrans cutouts are the most beguiling pieces in the show at Civilian Art Projects that opened Friday night and that features the work of four female artists for Women’s History Month. I’ll talk about them in a bit. Meanwhile, let me get this digression out of the way up front: can we talk about Women’s History Month? The older I get, the more irritated I grow about ghettoization, balkanization, categorization, classification, typification and otherwise creating groups according to some immutable characteristic of birth. I just read today that the government will no longer require schools to identify students as black, white, non-white Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, etc. We are now officially permitted to check all the boxes we want. The primary opposition to acceptance of the obvious reality of what we see all around us apparently comes from the educational industrial complex, which needs to demonstrate numerical progress in each individual arbitrary ethnic category and pigmentation tint in order to satisfy the No Child Left Behind regulations. Talk about the tail wagging the dog.

Jayme, my friend at Civilian, please don’t think for a moment that I hold you responsible for the source of my grumpy digression – on the contrary, you’ve got a rewarding show up, so let’s turn to art.

Tory Wright's work

The aforementioned Tory Wright has recycled durotrans - the thin plastic sheets used for lightbox advertisements and department store cosmetic posters, cutting them into lacy pieces that hang about 6 inches from the wall and cast gorgeous shadows as they turn every so slightly in the wind generated by the passage of viewers. The material is both strong and sturdy, yet capable of taking a form of flexibility and great grace – not a bad metaphor for the feminine spirit, come to think about it. The cutting leaves the residue of the images behind, creating an almost unavoidable dialogue between there and not-there.

Hadieh Shafie's work

Hadieh Shafie’s work also caught my eye. The Iranian-born artist assembles box-like forms by rolling thousands of strips of paper into scrolls. Each roll repeats the Persian word of love, although that can’t be seen on the surface. The concentric forms are said to be inspired by the dance of dervishes and the pieces do create the feeling of movement.

Artdc.org in Hyattsville, The Final Frontier

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

March 16, 2009

Lustine Before

Lustine After

Hyattsville is a little old town in Maryland just south of College Park that has the misfortune to be bisected by Rte.1. That was a good thing in the 1930s when they built the first motels and roadhouses, but like most towns similarly situated between Florida and Maine, the old highway and its buildings have aged in place, and not always too gracefully. Hyattsville’s hoped-for route to regeneration, and it may well be a smart one, is to exploit the retro look of the downtown and to invite artists in to take advantage of new reasonably-priced housing. Thus, we have the Arts District of Hyattsville, townhouses and condos at pretty good prices, including some configured as live-work spaces, and ongoing efforts to bring in galleries, cafes etc.

Jesse seems to be excited about something

Pete Duvall at the opening - is he cute or what?

Part of that effort is the refurbished Lustine Center (the former Lustine Auto), which includes a compact gallery space that had its inaugural show as a project of artdc.org Saturday night. Artdc.org, the invention of Jesse Cohen, is a virtual community of artists, a website that hosts images of the work of its couple hundred artist members, discussions on a million topics, notices, calls to arms, etc. It has in a relatively short time become an indispensable part of the DC art scene.

auto nostalgia in the artspace

one of the photos - a coincidence?

Now artdc.org has emerged from the virtual world into the real Hyattsville. Jesse and his cohorts will run the new Lustine artspace for the foreseeable future. (I vote they call it LustArt) Their first show features local photographers and plans are for educational programming and, I imagine, any good idea will get a hearing.

Kip Deeds at H&F Fine Arts

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

March 13, 2009

Alasktic #2

Alasktic, #6

Lovely downtown Mt. Ranier has one serious commercial gallery: H&F Fine Arts run by Karen Handy and Cheryl Fountain. No decent coffee or food (I care about this because my studio is 4 blocks away), but we got art, and that’s a good thing. The current show, featuring Tinam Valk, Angela White and Kip Deeds, is said to be unified by the theme of travel and mapping, which I guess it is, loosely, although that feels a teench stretched to me. But who cares, anyway, since it’s the work that matters.
In this case, I am particularly attracted to "The Alasktic Print Series” by Kip Deeds. The 15 prints tell the story of an imaginary journey from Alaska to Mexico in text and pictures, rendered in a kind of faux primitive but affecting style. The texts are elusive, punny and just a bit skewed. These pieces make you think about them - always to be encouraged. Deeds, who teaches printmaking at Princeton, has developed a performance using a slide show of his work and it’s easy to see how this series could be effectively adapted to that. Maybe H&F could bring him down for a performance?

Judit Varga and Gregory Ferrand at Hillyer Art Space

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

March 8, 2009

Hillyer Art Space, a newish addition to the DC scene, is a project of International Arts and Artists. That sounds like some remote multinational mega-enterprise, but is a much more user-friendly non-profit. Located in the alley between the Phillips Collection and the Cosmos Club, Hillyer programs two series of exhibitions, alternating international with regional artists. The local programming is guided by a group of artists and curators who form its Artists Advisory Committee.

Gregory Ferrand

It's Hereditary, My Dear

Currently showing are Judit Varga and Gregory Ferrand. While this is apparently his first solo show, Ferrand’s paintings and drawing will be familiar to locals; he has been part of many group shows, including Artomatic, and his work is generally memorable. It’s cartoony, often noir, maybe a little twisted, usually telling a nasty/funny story. I find the black and white drawings, technically consummate, most compelling. The paintings are almost an overload of lurid.

Judit Varga

more Varga

Judit Varga’s sculptural clay pieces make good use of one of the most engaging aspects of the medium, that it is literally the most earthy of materials yet able to assume virtually any shape and color and to mimic any other material. Varga exploits this malleability quite intentionally, as she says she is “deliberately creating visual misinterpretation” to mimic the difficulty in communicating in spoken language between two cultures; her native Hungarian and the America to which she came as a adult. I love this work. It’s heavy and light at the same time, earthbound and ready to go.

Note to Hillyer: It would be terrific for you to use your ties to artists in other parts of the world to foster some more true collaboration with local artists.

Gretchen Schermerhorn at DCAC

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

March 7, 2009

Adams Morgan

more Adams Morgan

Ah, Adams Morgan. There are lots of vibrant neighborhoods in DC, and more than one where you can get an Ethiopian meal and an empanada within a block or two, but none is the delightful confection of slightly seedy cross-cultural, Spanish/Ethiopian/young non-profiteers, skinny-jeaned tatooistas, with just a pinch of last night’s barf, as Adams Morgan. Perhaps a few too many bars, but that’s just me. I go for two institutions: Amsterdam Felafel and DCAC (the DC Arts Center). And I had them both today.

Gretchen Schermerhorn

more Schermerhorn

Gretchen Schermerhorn, a local printmaker and paper maker has an ongoing solo at DCAC that’s definitely worth a visit. She calls it “Genetic Drift”, “an accumulation of random changes in a gene pool.” The work, mostly printing on a handmade paper that is both earthy in color and ethereally light, combines layers of imagery in a way that does recall random change. But the stars of the show are The Boughs – three ceiling-hung sculptural forms assembled from cast paper elements. Each piece seems to have grown organically and the word “mutation” comes immediately to mind. They are scary and sexy, and they could be the stuff of nightmares. And I mean that in the best possible way.

New Work

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

March 2, 2009

Just finished (I think) a couple of pieces I've been working on in the "gene pool" series. Each of them is going to be part of a large grid. They're wax, oil and collage (and pencil, actually).

Gallery O throws a party

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

March 1, 2009

Tim Ward and Dan Burton with painted ceiling chairs

Steve Hessler

There’s a new kid on the block: Gallery O just opened at 1354 H St. NE, across the street from the Atlas Performing Arts Center, in the neighborhood that the real estate and local nightlife people are trying to name the “Atlas District.” Steve Hessler, one of the Board members of the WPA and a great fan of outsider art, has refurbished the old townhouse and an adjoining lot. He filled the space with art, much of it specially commissioned from artists from DC and New Orleans, and gave a swell party last night to show it all to his neighbors, friends and some artfolk. There is a fabulous rocket ship installed in the yard and a dreadlocked fellow painted with both hands to reggae music under a tent. (Note to Steve: The quality of food and drink was many miles higher than anything served at the usual gallery event. You’re going to have to watch that, or you’ll be getting all the chow and boozehounds in town for every opening).
Gallery O is the first visual art space in the neighborhood. Steve is soliciting ideas for using the space from anyone who has them and I have put my thinking cap on. Yay and another yay or two. We can sure use a new exhibition space with so many going in the other direction. Stay tuned.

WPA Auction Preview

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

Feb. 28, 2009

Amy Jean Porter's freaked out monkey

Chris Saah's photographic image

Thursday night was the preview and curators’ talks for the 2009 WPA (Washington Project for the Arts) auction. The auction, which brings some serious local collectors together with serious art, is the primary fund-raiser annually for the WPA. This year is special, since it is, sadly for us, The Inestimable Kim Ward’s last as Director of the WPA. In her five years, Kim brought new life and spirit and great growth to the WPA and succeeded in separating it from the Corcoran (no mean feat) and installing it in a great new home in Dupont Circle. She also brought the WPA closer to the local artists who are its primary constituency and mission. Argh, I sniffle and weep.
Anyway, the preview exhibit and talks were at the Katzen Center. There is some good art and some very good art this year, along with a few also-rans, as ever. (Gotta say, since most of the work is an the small side, it does kind of tend to get lost in that soaring space a the Katzen, but that’s a nit, since it isn’t going to stay there, but will go home with some happy buyers next Saturday night.)

Katr Hardy's porcelain with decal

Jason Houchen's woodburnt moose

Some of my favorites are Jason Houchen’s woodburning on moose head, Amy Jean Porter’s goache from her “Freaked Out Monkeys in Trees” series, Kate Hardy’s porcelain vessel with vintage decal and Chris Saah’s electro-cinemagraph (huh?).
The consensus hit of the night, though, was Jack Rasmussen’s acceptance speech when he received the Alice Denny prize for his contributions to our arts community – an award which is richly deserved. Jack sang his speech to the tune of “My Way” with great gusto and shockingly good voice. It left the audience speechless. I am just pleased that I will be able to tell my grandchildren that I was present at this historic occasion.
The curators’ talks were often interesting and helpful, but a couple of them were overfilled with the kind of art blather of which I have grown increasingly intolerant. I just can’t sit through that stuff anymore and I’ll confess that I bolted like a rabid bat at the end.

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