August 2010

Germination Projects

Pam Rogers’ work propels viewers into a nurturing, cocoon-like state of being. Using the natural world as a set focus, both her paper based and sculptural installations evoke a sense of their own potential for organic growth in the viewer. The quite nature of plants and vegetation transcend the canvas and become something of an unrequited mentor, demonstrating patience, empathy, and the innate struggle to survive.

Using germination as a metaphor for the human growth process, Rogers deconstructs the essence of the human condition. Her instruments of sculptural creation consist of plants, plant pigments, and soil collected throughout her travels in the US; thus, weaving her own personal experience of nature’s re-birth into her artwork.

Visit Rogers’ website at www.pamrogersart.com.

Ben Ferry, Shadow Shark, 2009

Ben Ferry, Gentrification, 2009

Ben Ferry, Comrades, 2010

Ben Ferry, Rising Sun or Sinking Ship?, 2010

Ben Ferry, Timmy The Killer, 2010

June 2010

Paint is Paint, Surface is Surface

Ben Ferry has always been fascinated with the varying physical characteristics of paint media and exploring the divergent ways in which the pigmented material reacts with different surfaces. He will present a mix of his forays, especially those into oil and watercolor painting, in his new solo exhibition Paint is Paint, Surface is Surface at Hillyer Art Space.

Visit Ferry’s blog at www.benferry.com.

Judith Peck, Veiled Identity

Judith Peck, Veiled Judgments

Judith Peck, Veiled Gender

Judith Peck, Unveiling

Judith Peck, Veiled Theory

Judith Peck, Thickest Veil

June 2010

Original Position

Inspired by philosopher John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, Vienna, VA fine artist Judith Peck has taken a legal concept and translated it into a powerful series of paintings.

“John Rawls’ thought experiment, using a veil to cloak our knowledge of individual’s attributes, renders us able to effectively consider the interests of all people especially the least advantaged members of society,” Peck shares. “Basically, he asks us to imagine what would happen if societal roles were completely re-fashioned and redistributed, and that from behind your veil of ignorance you do not know what role you will be reassigned. Only then, he believes, can you truly consider the morality of an issue. The metaphor of the veil is a powerful one, and what I use to enable the viewer’s experience in this collection of work.”

Peck, who is sister to two lawyers, and mother to an aspiring law student, explains that Rawls ideas spoke to her long-time devotion to painting about social justice issues.

Visit Peck’s website at www.judithpeck.net.

May 2010

Flipped

Reflection, repetition and pattern are central themes in Flipped, a new series of paintings by Valentine Wolly. Examining the way in which reflected surfaces often play tricks with our sense of the “real” world and the “other” world created by these surfaces, Wolly hones her techniques to create images from natural distortions that could be mistaken for the work of a surrealist or Photoshop expert.

The works featured in Flipped draw the viewer into an ambiguous space where all manner of faces, figures, structures, and objects appear, dissolve, reshape and reappear somewhere else. In this shifting universe of real and surreal impressions, questions of what’s up, what’s down, what’s in and what’s out are all a matter of vantage.

Visit Wolly’s website at www.valentinewolly.com.

April 2010

Wundergarten: Sa[l]vaging the Family Archive

Clarke Bedford, a.k.a. F.D. Kalley, William Tecumsah Sherman, Coleslaw Baklava and Professor Benjamin J. Dreadnought PhD, applies his wry humor and assemblage ingenuity to a many-layered body of work in Wundergarten: Sa[l]vaging the Family Archive. Combining a wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities) and winter garden, Bedford’s installation plumbs the history of vernacular photography while framing the chronicle of an American “every-family” through the found archives of an actual family.

Visit Packard’s website at www.clarkebedford.com.