Nocturne is the theme for our first exhibit of 2022. It refers to the feeling of nighttime: a moment of rest and stillness, a particular mood that envelopes the hours between twilight and dawn. It includes 102 artworks in various mediums that reference night in color scheme, narrative, or emotive power. Strong atmospheric impressions which can suggest an other-worldly quality, time, or place are often a central pillar in Justin T. Worrell’s art. He says that for his his Best-in-Show Award-winning painting Dream Awake, “At some point during the creation of this particular image, I began to recall a quote by Thoreau when he said, ‘Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.’ It was an uncommon instance where painting and prose merged into something new, perhaps elevated into something akin to art.”
“This painting was based on an iPhone photograph I took driving back on 95 from Richmond, ” says Honorable Mention awardee Rachel Garcia-Palmer. “The sky that evening was phenomenal. Sunset at 95 began with a notan in acrylic to block in the lights and darks on the canvas. Subsequent paint layers and glazes were applied using oil.”
“I was inspired by the sight of a ploughman and his draft horse cutting furrows into his tiny plot before the towering Andes,” Stu Searles says about his honorable mention painting Foothills of the Andes. “I imagined him under snow-covered mountains and crystalline-clear starry skies visible most nights in Purmamarca, Jujuy, Argentina. I took photos. I painted a night sky with mountains and collaged my subject onto the canvas. I reworked the piece many times and only recently got it to my satisfaction by painting over the man, horse, and traces to give the small shapes prominence. I added gold-flake mica medium to the sky to pick it up.”
“As an artist I draw my inspiration from my imagination and my dreams. I’ve spent a lifetime attending to my dreams to find greater self-understanding, as well as inspiration for my images,” says honorable mention awardee David Mosher. In Memories, we experience the groggy state of awakening from a dream and remembering impressions of scenes from our dreams the night before. In these scenes, images are juxtaposed in ways that can only exist in the irrational subconscious mind.”
Nocturne is on view through January 30. Join us for the online opening reception via Zoom on Thursday, January 13. from 6:30 – 7:15 p.m.; register here.
Here’s a virtual art event that you can enjoy form the comfort of home. The Phillips Collection presents Moon Medicin: Mosaic Performance, a Centennial commission combining music and dance, and engaging Sanford Biggers’s sand-floor installation created in dialogue with Gee’s Bend Quilts from the Phillips’s permanent collection as part of his Intersections project Mosaic. It will feature harpist Parker Ramsay, dancers Nicoletta de la Brown and Daniel Phoenix Singh, and DC-artist Sheldon Scott. Directed by Biggers, the dancers will respond in an improvisational manner to the sound of Omolu, a piece written for solo harp by Brazilian-American composer Marcos Balter that invokes the Yoruban spirit of healing. Through this performance, Biggers’s sand-floor piece Fool’s Folly, which references Tibetan mandalas, will be activated then dismantled, emphasizing the temporal aspect of art. Watch Moon Medicin: Mosaic Performance Saturday, January 8, from 6:30 – 7:15 p.m. Get free tickets here.
Bethesda Fine Art presents #Corcoran1970s, an exhibition celebrating the circle of abstract artists who showed, taught, and were affiliated with the Corcoran Gallery of Art in the 1970s. The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an artistic center for Washington, D.C. artists, particularly abstractionists, during the 1970’s. Active in the Corcoran’s orbit were Washington Color School notables such as Leon Berkowitz, Cynthia Bickley-Green, Gene Davis, Sam Gilliam, Mimi Herbert, Dan Yellow Kuhne, Howard Mehring, Paul Reed, and Kenneth Young. It is on view through January 30, 4931 Cordell Avenue, Bethesda, MD. The exhibition can be viewed online on Artsy and Artnet.
“I paint directly from life; a live and immediate response to what I see,” says artist Maggie Siner. In her newest exhibition Field of Vision, at Calloway Fine Art, every painting demonstrates her mastery of translating what—and how—she sees. Her subject matter spans figures, landscapes, and still lifes—each their own nuanced observation of Maggie’s reality; on view through January 18, 1643 Wisconsin Avenue NW. view it online here.
The Patrons’ Show, our biggest fundraiser of the year, is just around the corner! It’s an excellent opportunity to acquire high-quality, original fine art at a bargain price while supporting a great non-profit organization and community of artists. In light of continuing restrictions surrounding COVID, we’re keeping a virtual format so nobody misses out on this perennial favorite. Don’t miss out! Learn more about The Patrons’ Show and purchase tickets here.
Stay warm and enjoy the weekend!
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