Artist Highlight

UNDER THE SUN: ARTISTS OF THE SOL PRINT STUDIO

A sneak preview from our upcoming exhibition, Under the Sun: Artists of the Sol Print Studio which will be open between September 4th and the 26th. Under the Sun highlights the recent works of 14 SPS artists, including Gloria Askin, Catherine Behrent, Oletha DeVane, Jane Eifler, Ken Houston, Joe Kabriel, Katherine Kavanaugh, Michelle La Perriere, Christine Neill, Ruth Pettus, Leslie Portney, Randi Reiss-McCormack, Soledad Salame, and Ruby Yunis. From landscape to text-based and figureative to abstract, the prints reflect an engrossing range in subject, while revealing the rich technical potential in solar plate etching and non-toxic printmaking.

Pictured above are two prints, the first from Randi Reiss-McCormack and the second from Ken Houston. Come by Hillyer on First Friday, September 4th from 6 to 9PM to get a peek at them in person!

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PULSE15

The FINAL #Pulse15 highlighted artist is Arlington-based artist, Pam Rogers, whose work focuses on nature and botany in order to “explore how individuals nurture and develop relationships, societies and ideas and then create carefully crafted identities based in these themes.” She collects plant materials from all over the US as she travels to create her own pigments, paints, and dyes.

Allison’s pick is “After Durer” – “I own a piece of Pam’s that is very similar to this one, I believe made around the same time. Pam uses pigments and papers she often makes her self from plants she has grown or collected. This piece is so peaceful, and has a lovely sense of movement with the way the graphite is lightly applied across the panel. The faint application of the pigments and gestural lines reminds me of how everything is transient and fleeting, but can still be beautiful.” $400

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REMEMBERING A DC ART GIANT: WILLEM DE LOOPER

Mr. Willem de Looper was one of those rare, incredible people who slipped quietly into the DC art scene and, over the course of 59 years, from his immigration here in 1950 until his death in 2009, changed it forever.
Born and raised in The Hauge during the second World War, de Looper was fascinated by American culture from an early age. During his childhood, he told Archives of American Art,
“My only art experience was – well, it’s not really art experience. It was exposure to the United States, and that took form in two ways. We listened as soon as we could after the war to the AFN… And so I became very early quite interested in America… I mean, also Americans – let’s face it – they were looked at – and Canadians and the British – they were looked at as liberators.”
This fascination grew until 1950, when de Looper –only seventeen years old– set sail on the New Amsterdam bound for America. It was during the subsequent years, while he attended American University, that de Looper’s ambition to be a professional artist solidified. Trying to be practical, he at first turned his talents toward illustration. Fate had another plan for Willem de Looper, however: just as he was hired to join the illustration staff for a department store catalog, his life was turned upside-down. “In retrospect again it looks like a total disaster – I got drafted in the American Army,” de Looper explained. “And without making a peep or anything or making any attempt to go into graduate school, I just went.”
De Looper drew and painted as much as he could during his two years in a transportation company of the US Army, and upon his return he found work as a security guard at the Philips Collection. Surrounded by art, de Looper’s painting went into overdrive. In his studio apartment on 20th and N de Looper spent every spare moment painting. His style slowly evolved from figurative painting to abstraction. In his own words,
“I painted in many styles, developing my first interest, which obviously had been born somewhat earlier, towards abstraction. And always, you know, it’s one of those things that people are constantly asking me about: do you – how do you start painting abstract paintings? You do that by learning how to deal with form and – but also you have to create not only the colors but also the form and all that sort of thing. And I did that, I think, by painting first landscapes and figures that became more abstract or – to use that word fairly loosely, as I went along from painting to painting.”

“I started really using my eyes when I was at the Phillips,” de Looper explained.By 1966, the security guard was showing his work in a solo exhibition at Jefferson Place Gallery, one of the premier exhibition spaces for the emerging Washington Color School. By 1975 de Looper had a solo exhibition at the Phillips Collection, where he was now an assistant curator. He was head curator of the Phillips Collection by 1982, a post he held for five years before retiring in 1987 to focus more on his own painting.
De Looper never stopped experimenting. His paintings phased through horizontal geometry in earthtones during the 1970s to freer brushstrokes of vibrant color during the 1980s, switching also between oil paints or water-based acrylic paints, canvas or paper. His various processes also shifted dramatically over the years, from pouring paint onto a canvas laid out on the floor to traditional easel painting to dyeing paper.
Willem de Looper died of emphysema on January 30, 2009, at the age of 76. He left an indelible mark on the Washington D.C. art scene, and is deeply missed to this day by his many friends and admirers.

International Arts and Artists, the parent organization of the Hillyer Art Space, is looking to sell Unknown, Willem de Looper, 1979 63″x 48″ acrylic on canvas (pictured above) to benefit the Hillyer Art Space. Please direct any inquiries to (202) 338-0680 or rachelw@artsandartists.org

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MEMBERSHIP SPOTLIGHT: AMY HUGHES BRADEN

Membership Associate Ginny DeLacey sat down with Amy Hughes Braden as she was installing her show, Red and Grey Paintings, in Hillyer’s NIN9 Members’ Gallery. Amy discussed her fascination with relationships, her issues with ownership and her love of collaboration. Amy’s show will be on view from February 1-25.

Ginny DeLacey: What is your background as an artist?
Amy Hughes Braden: I had supportive parents so I took art classes growing up. It never seemed like an unreasonable idea to be an artist. It was always just the track I was going down.
I went to Pratt right out of high school, but I ended up graduating from the Corcoran. I liked the Corcoran’s program because it was really open and I had a lot of freedom.
GD: Can you discuss the importance of relationships in your paintings and collages?
AHB: Personally, I find family dynamics very interesting. I’m interested in the relationship of relatives, of people you’re related to but you may or may not know. I have a stack of photographs of my grandma when she was about my age that I love to look at because I’m interested in exploring the artifacts of lives lived. Also, I’m a huge extrovert so I need to be constantly interacting with people, even if it’s within a painting.
I’m also into exploring relationships in a more formal way. My husband and I were just discussing how each of the works function more like a paragraph so when you see them all together they are understood in a different, perhaps more complete way.
GD: You’ve recently started mixing painting and collage, could you explain that transition?
AHB: I’ve always kept and collected bits of paper, interesting images from magazines or pamphlets. I have boxes of these papers and every so often I take them out, sort them and reexamine the images. Recently I’ve been using photocopied image. To me they bring up issues of copyright, ownership and authorship in the age of the internet.
I like to take other people’s work and use it in mine. I’ve stolen my brother’s sketchbook and built works on top of his art. I call it a collaboration, but sometimes he gets mad at me. I look at it as I’m not doing anything new, no one’s doing anything new so I think it’s silly to cling onto claims of ownership.
GD: What artists or artistic movements inspire you?
AHB: I’m so bad at answering that question. Francis Bacon and Philip Guston have inspired some of my recent work. The Dada movement has always been appealing to me; they were just fed up with everything. I think their ideas still have a lot of relevance today.
GD: When you start a work do you have a final painting in mind or does it evolve as you go?
AHB: Sometimes they evolve. One of the paintings in this show was originally a portrait that I had done for my thesis. I decided I didn’t want it anymore so I painted over all but one tiny section. I’m very reactionary when I paint, which can get me into trouble. I use source images for any figures that I include in my work, but I don’t usually have the whole composition pre-planned. Like I said, I’m reactionary. I’m very impatient when I paint, which is one reason why I don’t use oils. I work very impulsively and instinctually.
GD: How long does it take you to create a work?
AHB: It depends. I always work on at least three paintings at a time and then I always have a few collages going at once. I’ve found that this helps me make better decisions, or it keeps me from getting tunnel vision on one piece and overworking it. I made that painting [referring to Mrs. Henry White, above] in three hours. I was challenged to create a painting in three hours and that was the end result. There was a lot of energy going into it, knowing I had such a limited amount of time to work, and I became less inhibited. I only had time to execute my idea; there was no time to hem and haw over the process.
But then other paintings can take months. I don’t necessarily churn out works quickly, but I do like to make marks and paint quickly. Sometimes I’ll start a painting and then set it aside for a few months to mull over before working on it again. I didn’t always do this, but I’ve seen that it is a vital part of the process.
GD: When you work on paintings or collages at the same time, do they wind up looking similar?
AHB: Yes, because I use the same palette on each one so the colors are fairly consistent in each painting. When I paint, I paint whatever I’m thinking about. It’s very stream of consciousness so the works come from the same head space which makes them thematically similar by default.
GD: Do you think this show has an overall theme?
AHB: I didn’t have a theme in mind at the start so it’s hard for me stand back now and say, “Oh, this is the theme.” I’ve always worked with portraiture so formally these paintings are about trying to evolve from simply rendering faces on a canvas. I thought a lot about formal elements as I painted and also about how to incorporate collage elements into the paintings, while maintaining a level of refinement. Ideas about my family and relationships on all levels will always be a part of my work and I believe that shows here as well.
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Come visit Amy’s show Red and Grey Paintings along with John Reuss’ Mind & Matter and Marcia Wolfson Ray’s Rhythms on view in Hillyer until February 25.

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MEMBERSHIP SPOTLIGHT: MATT MALONE

Membership associate Ginny DeLacey sat down with member artist Matt Malone as he installed his exhibition Hot Pink in Hillyer’s NIN9 Members’ Gallery. Matt discussed the inspiration for his series which features photographs of deflated, pink balloons strategically placed in urban sites. He explained the way the juxtaposition of a pink party balloon in an unexpected setting can transform a scene into a completely different image. Matt’s show opens December 7 and will be on view until December 21.

Ginny DeLacey: What is your background as an artist?
Matt Malone: I began making art in 2003. I studied printmaking and painting at VCU. I had originally studied business at William and Mary, but one of my professors encouraged me to do art which led me to VCU.
GD: Do you work as an artist full-time?
MM: No, I used to work at the Philip’s Collection but now I have a regular 9 to 5 job. I’ve been doing this series since 2005 and I also am working on a collaborative project called Duly Noted Painters with Kurtis Ceppetelli where we paint on the same canvas at the same time.
GD: What’s the inspiration for this show? How did you come up with the idea of using pink party balloons in urban environments?
MM: I was really influenced by the artist Andy Goldsworthy who goes into nature and finds things like colored leaves, for example, arranges them, takes a photograph and then leaves them to revert back to nature. In art school you get strange assignments, once we were given a word and had to create a project around it. My word was “celebration.” So I thought about the word for a while and thought of a party store. When I went to a party store these pink balloons immediately stood out, as they do in the photographs, so I decided to work with them. I wanted to do what Andy Goldsworthy did but in an urban environment by contrasting these balloons with their surroundings.

Most of the environments were construction sites which are always changing. They’re also hard to get into, you can’t go when people are working so you have to sneak in after hours. I would pass by these sites on a daily basis and get inspiration, but if you don’t act almost immediately the opportunity for a certain shot is gone. You have to act on impulse. Also light is key in these photographs. The play of shadows is very important. That one there [referring to Division, above] would look totally different at any other time of the day.

Construction sites are great because there are tons of weird things that you don’t see on a day-to-day basis. For example, that one with the drill bit, most people don’t see that every day. Artists are always searching for inspiration and it’s good to see new things and generate new ideas.
GD: Have you ever been caught sneaking into a construction site?
MM: I haven’t been caught by anyone who’s kicked me out. I’ve had people stop and watch what I’m doing for a little while. I try to be careful.
GD: What would you say is the over-arching theme of the series?
MM: I think one theme is the idea of using an object in a different way than is intended. When I started the project I knew that I didn’t want to blow up any of the balloons. When I shoot these images I carry around a bag of 100 pink balloons, which is a lot so I don’t always use all 100 in each image. This may sound weird, but once I arrange them each balloon begins to take on an individual personality and characteristics. They start to personify things, what they personify isn’t always clear but they absolutely take on a life of their own. It would be easy, actually it would be hard, to make each balloon look the same but I don’t really fret about that. I like the way that none of them looked the same.
GD: Are you still making works for this series?
MM: I’m still making them. The last one I took was of a power reader outside of Hillyer [above, first image]. I did it at night, which is a new thing for me that I may try to explore more. I was trying to show my process. I put my bag of balloons on the wall and shot it so it looks like my shadow is holding the bag.
GD: Was it different shooting at night?
MM: It was completely different. The light doesn’t change since it’s all artificial. I also didn’t light them myself, I just relied on the existing light. But even though the light doesn’t change you still have to balance the light and shadow.

GD: Could you explain the process of making one of these photographs?
MM: I live up in Brookland where there’s a lot of construction. So I’ll pass a site and get an idea, but it’s not fully formed until I get onto the site later on. I usually go to these sites when the sun is setting because, as most photographers will tell you, it’s the most dynamic part of the day. At midday when the sun is directly overhead the shadows and light don’t move but at sunset they are always changing.
Depending on the shot, it usually takes me 10-20 minutes to arrange the balloons. If it’s windy it takes longer because the balloons will get blown down. Then I have to anticipate when the shadows will be right and wait until the sun moves into the perfect position. I usually take four to five images at different times. Each one can be very different depending on how the sun and shadows were at that exact moment. Of course some images don’t rely on the light and shadows as much, but a lot do.
GD: Are all of these shot in DC?
MM: I started making them in Richmond. My first one was called “Holed Up” where I placed balloons in two pot holes. Then I moved to Vienna which also has tons of construction. I would see things along 66 commuting into work and stop to arrange shots.
One from along 66 features a huge six foot high graffiti of the word “Showtime” spray painted on a power reader. It was painted over two weeks later, but it’s preserved in my photographs.
You can see, especially in this image, how the balloons can also act as an indicator of scale. They show just how huge this graffiti actually was.
GD: How important is the idea of juxtaposition?
MM: Before I got started on this series, I would take a picture of just a site. Which is fine, but I needed to bring something more to it, to add something to it. In that way I use the balloons as drawing tools to highlight different passages just like you highlight different passages of text in a book. Works have to have something to catch your eye, for me that’s balloons. But it’s a fine line between being cheesy and…
GD: Artistic?
MM: Yeah. I don’t want to be cheesy.
GD: I like the way you’ve stuck with one color of balloon, it unifies all the works even though you use the balloons in such different ways.
So you’ve been doing this series since 2005?
MM: Yeah, off and on since then.
GD: Has your process or the images evolved since you started?
MM: After a while you start to run out of ways to arrange balloons and you need to take a break. I’ve made them concave, folded them over but it gets harder to stay creative. I don’t want to fall into the same patterns.
When you draw, say with charcoal for instance, you find different ways to depict line and shape, or how to direct the eye. It’s the same with the balloons, now that I know how to use them it’s easier to make the images turn out how I want them to.
Every time I move I come back to the series. I moved here from Richmond in 2007 and have moved five or six times since then. When I move to a new environment I get new inspiration.
GD: Have you ever experimented in a more natural site?
MM: No, not really. Not all of the sites are construction. One is a crate that you see every day in the street. A few are from an old gas station that was about to be torn down. I’m not really interested in experimenting in nature, it’s not what I see on a daily basis and I like the contrast of the balloons and the urban scenes.
GD: What would you like viewers to take away from this show?
MM: I hope that it helps people start to look at their daily environment differently. To make them think, oh if I had pink balloons on hand, or whatever object they like, I could put them here. It’s a challenge to be inspired by what you see every day. Finding an idea is a big part of making art, the execution is the biggest part, but the idea is very important.

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