Adam Bradley

Adam Bradley

December 4-24, 2015

Desperate Ones

Adam Bradley’s work consists of small scale figures cast from both aluminum and bronze. Bradley uses expressive gestures as metaphors for emotional or psychological state of mind. The figures deal with themes of vulnerability, anxiety, desperation. These characters struggle to maintain their sense of self. They have the features of birds and fish to symbolize that they have moved away from what is rational and now are driven by instinct.

Bradley is a Washington DC based figurative sculptor. Narrative is important in his work. He tends to work with themes such as fear and anxiety, need and desire, isolation and vulnerability. His larger work is generally loosely constructed from steel, wood and found materials. His smaller work is cast in bronze and aluminum. Bradley received his Masters in Fine Art from Maryland Institute College of Art, the Rinehart School of Sculpture in 2000. Since the completion of his degree he has been teaching Foundations, Drawing and Sculpture at George Mason University, Northern Virginia Community College, and the Catholic University of America. He currently has a studio space at the Off the Beaten Track warehouse.

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Michael Corigliano

December 4-24, 2015

Stumbling Forward

Michael Coringliano’s work is a playful, yet introspective study of the embarrassing internal struggle of alter egos that befuddle a single father consumed by anxieties of middle age. This visual story is framed by the personal characters of a man propelled into an experience that challenges his identity and conflicts with his own needs and desires. As he begins to rediscover and reinvent himself, all of his internal egos surface and come out to play, in the most awkward way possible, in public. Stumbling Forward will feature photographs and sculptures from Michael’s recent performances he has been presenting throughout the city.

Based in Northern Virginia, Michael Corigliano is an artist and educator with a Master of Ceramics and Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University. He is currently a studio artist at Red Dirt Studio in Mt. Rainer, MD., who teaches at District Clay, the Workhouse Art Center, and Public High School. His work fluctuates between functional pottery, installation based sculpture, and street level art interventions. He focuses on how individuals interact within a defined bby space, within the frame work of a subject matter that concentrates on socio-political and environmental issues

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Chee-Keong Kung

December 4-24, 2015

Adjacent Amplitudes

Chee-Keong Kung begins each piece with the intention to capture the spontaneity and immediacy of the painting process. Washes, brush strokes, or lines are laid down as stimuli for subsequent moves. Kung responds to surface qualities, material characteristics, and the activity of mark-making in developing the work. Accidental drips, smears and fingerprints become impetuses for further moves and are integral components of the evolving composition.

Kung’s work is derived from a process that is based on responses to the materiality of materials and observations from the natural and built environment. Hard-lined geometry and improvisational gestures are applied over earlier layers, modifying and obscuring the underlying images. Recurring motifs–distilled from ambient visual stimuli–surface and recede, seeming to drift between concreteness and tenuousness.

Kung recently won a Juror’s Award at the biennial Strictly Painting Exhibit (2015) at the McLean’s Project for the Arts and was a Semi-finalist for the DC Art Bank Collection (2015). His work was selected for the Emergence 2014: International Artist To Watch at Galerie Myrtis in Baltimore. His works are in corporate and private collections, as well as the National Museum of Singapore. Born in Singapore in 1967, Kung studied art and architecture at the University of Houston and real estate at Cornell University. He lives and works in McLean, VA.

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My Kingdom for a Stage

November 6-28, 2015

My Kingdom for a Stage: Contemporary Iberian Staged Photography
Curated by Susana Raab

Photography is often equated to an indelible truth, but since its infancy the medium has been as much about promoting fantasy as reality. Staged photography has been employed since photography’s inception – in capturing the tableaux vivants of upper class Victorians the camera was used to record recreated historic and fictive events. Contemporary practices in documentary and staged photography employ a variety of approaches to the act of staging, which grants the creator full control of his or her narrative. The works created in this show illuminate this spectrum of staged photographic practice: from documentary to the purely conceptual, the performance is in the work. All are united in an Iberian identity, whether through the use of symbols, magical realism and whimsy, or the cultural forces that inform the Iberioamerican diaspora.

Conceptually, the work often follows the tradition of magical realism in recreating fantasy worlds meant to inform our current realities as in Mexican artist Dulce Pinzón’s “Global Warming,” or in Colombian artist Adriana Duque “Maria 2.” The latter image, recreates a world of childhood fantasy where a young Infanta sojourns resplendent and bejeweled, a modern interpretation of a baroque Colonial fantasy. Other conceptual works employ humor and wit as in the anthropomorphized objects of García de Marina “Untitled”, Irina Werning’s “Back to the Future” series, or Brazil’s “Mostra Tua Capa”, which takes 1970s Brazilian album covers and resets them in contemporary circumstances. Other photographers in the show pursuing the conceptual include Roberto Fernandez, Mario Santizo, Felipe Dulzaides, Eloy Mora, Rodrigo Valenzuela, Fausto Ortíz, and Hector Rene.

Documentary photography is considered to be the sacred terrain of the unaltered photograph, but it can employ elements of staged photography to powerful effect. Consider Salvadorian photojournalist Fred Ramos’ “The Last Outfit of the Missing,” which recreates a literal ghost from clothing recovered from exhumed graves. The empty outfits become the last representation of the missing, and one of the only ways to positively identify the deceased. Looking inwards, Ecuadorean photographer Paola Paredes, set a stage composed of three cameras recording the moment when she told her parents she was gay. The photographic series records pain, pathos, and humor. Both works restage or stage actual moments to powerful effect. Artists Norberto Duarte, Rafael Soldi, Miguel Proença, and Francisco Elías Prada also play within the parameters of the documentary photograph.

Contemporary and cultural concerns are revealed in these artists’ works as they explore their own emigrations, dying cultural customs, environmentalism, religious iconography, and other topics analogous to the Iberian identity. The borders of the original kingdom have become fluid and the stage has expanded to occupy a multiplicity of voices springing from one original platform.

This exhibition was made possible by the Ibero-American Cultural Attaches Association, a Washington, DC, based 501 (C) 3 organization that seeks to contribute in the dissemination and preservation of Ibero-American heritage and culture, past and present, to the public in the DC area.

Artists represented in the exhibit:
Argentina/Irina Werning
Brasil/Mostra Tua Capa
Chile/Rodrigo Valenzuela
Colombia/Adriana Duque
Costa Rica/Eloy Mora
Ecuador/Paola Paredes
El Salvador/Fred Ramos
España/García de Marina
Guatemala/Mario Santizo
Honduras/Hector Rene
Mexico/Dulce Pinzón
Paraguay/Norberto Duarte
Peru/Rafael Soldi
Portugal/Miguel Proença
Uruguay/Roberto Fernandez
República Dominicana/Fausto Ortiz
Venezuela/ Francisco Elías Prada

About the Curator:
Susana Raab is a documentary photographer and curator based out of Washington, DC. She works at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum as a photographer in addition to pursuing her own personal projects. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in the collections of the Library of Congress, the Art Museum of the Americas, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, among others. She was born in Lima, Peru and raised throughout the United States.

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Leah Appel

November 6-28, 2015

New Work: Holga Panoramas

When one looks through the lens of the Holga- a plastic toy camera- you see the present image in front of you. What you don’t see are the light leaks, blurring or vignetting the film is producing when you the click the shutter. That’s what I love about the Holga; you don’t know what you’re going to get until you develop the film. Sometimes you end up with blurry, non-useable film, but those times when you hold the film up to the light and see a wonderfully produced, sometimes crazy, sometimes haunting image, it can seem like magic. When you use film and the unpredictable Holga you leave everything up to the beauty of chance.

All of these images are taken with a Holga using 120 slide or color negative film. They were shot around popular Washington, DC and New York City landmarks. I have purposely tried to capture panoramic landscapes by double and triple exposing the film.

Leah Appel works both as a commercial and fine art photographer. She works in a variety of mediums including digital and film photography and is an avid instagramer. She has shown in numerous galleries and group shows in the DC area. She is a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design with a BFA in Photography. She splits her time between New York City and Washington DC.

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