Nicole Fall (MD)

Nicole Fall (MD)

February 5-27, 2016

The Essential Visible

“…on ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.”
It is only with the heart that one can truly see – for what is essential is invisible to the eye.
-Antoine de Saint Exupery

This installation represents three years of making. The apparent exuberance of some of the work belies the painstaking, slow process that has been at the heart of it. The success is that I kept moving forward no matter what, feeling my way in the forest, in the dark, only recently finding the light and the pathway here.

The imagery from nature is used to explore the human condition. It is based in the observation of nature, its life cycles, and the visceral responses that humans make every effort to control. Is man a part of nature or an aberration of it?

Autobiography seeps into the work including the legacy of violence that permeates American history. That trauma ripples into the present and the future; the slaughter of the native people, slavery, war, the unbridled use of natural resources, to almost any American city’s streets.

The kinesthetic, call-and-response making process, that includes: clay, welded steel, cast bronze, fiber, and printmaking employs color through the use of acrylic, oil, enamel and chemical patina. All of the formal aesthetic decision-making is in play as the work seeks to meld form, color, and concept.

A native Washingtonian, and first and second generation American, Fall inherited family stories of World War II and the Holocaust. Her early childhood was spent in Paris, France (her father was French) and Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The 1960s and 70s were writ large for Fall as her father was killed when he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam in 1967 where he researched and wrote about the Vietnam War. They attended peace marches and other political rallies as a childhood pastime. All of this informs her work.

Fall has been an educator for most of the past 30 years, and has taught in a variety of settings in Baltimore, Maryland.
Selected specifics: BFA Maryland Institute College of Art, MFA Towson University. Teaching: Associate Professor; Baltimore City Community College, Teacher of sculpture; Carver Center for Arts and Technology, Community Arts Programs Director; Baltimore Clayworks, Adjunct; MICA. Grants: Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artists Fellowship 1992, Phi Beta Kappa Foundation 1990, MidAtlantic Arts Foundation residency at the Clay Studio 2002 , Philadelphia, Pa. Representation by the former Gallery K, Washington DC (1990-2003, several one person shows),Groups shows: Makere University, Kampala Uganda ( 2010), Hanoi College of Fine Arts (2000).

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Marc Robarge (VA) + Alex L. Porter (DC)

Alex L. Porter
Marc Robarge
Alex L. Porter
Marc Robarge
Marc Robarge

February 5-27, 2016

Branching Out

Branching Out brings together the graphic pen and ink drawings of Alex L. Porter with Marc Robarge’s biomorphic sculptures. Through the carefully detailed rendering of limbs and branches, Porter’s art depicts the language of this natural process. The gesture of these landscape elements is of greater importance than the scenes than they eventually compose. Robarge’s work consists of two related, yet distinct, directions. Both paths are rooted in a reverence for natural forms, materials and processes.

Marc Robarge (Falls Church, VA)
This body of work consists of two related, yet distinct, directions. Both paths are rooted in a reverence for natural forms, materials and processes. One branch presents biomorphic sculptures conjured from tree limbs conjoined with pods, bark, berry and leaf-like forms. These works affirm the mystery of regenerative processes within the cycle of life and death. The second branch juxtaposes mass produced machined or technological elements with organic forms that offer an open ended commentary on cultural, societal, and environmental issues.

“Listen to the Rhythm” offers a wry commentary on the “wired in, tuned out” culture of the technological age. “April Showers” suggests an elegant coexistence of organic materials and mass produced plumbing parts alluding to the importance of water stewardship in a world of increasing population.

With a nod to the surrealists, these sculptures are slightly other worldly, illogical, dreamlike or contain incongruous parts, yet they are made of familiar things. They communicate through empathy with the objects and materials, in realms of emotion, sense perception, intuition, and memory, sparking wonder and reflection about the condition of the world.

Alex L. Porter (Washington, DC)
Growth defines the landscape, whether or not it is hampered by human intervention. Through the carefully detailed rendering of limbs and branches, Alex Porter’s art depicts the language of this natural process. The gesture of these landscape elements is of greater importance than the scenes than they eventually compose. His pieces represent a vital chaos, one that is a constant presence wherever it can take hold.

Alex’s process was developed primarily in consideration of this way of looking at the landscape. His pieces are laboriously hand-drawn ink-on-paper works entirely comprised of careful, purposeful marks.This is done, not in the service of crafting an illusion of nature, but rather committing to meditating on its process. To avoid becoming primarily ‘scenery’, the content of his images is displayed in form, but without color or depth.

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Duly Noted Painters

January 8-30, 2016

CUBA

The inspiration for this project evolved from a desire to connect with our painting on a deeper level. Working in Cuba took us far from the comforts of our day-to-day life in Washington, D.C. Traveling to Cuba allowed us the opportunity to breathe new life and culture into our paintings. Cuba, although only 90 miles from the United States, felt like a different world–a world simply known as Cuba.

We stayed in a small fishing town called Cojimar, the town where Hemingway lived and wrote his most well-known novel “The Old Man and the Sea”. The paintings from our trip communicate the corrosion of the buildings and homes in Cuba. These paintings captures the smell of the ocean and the spirit of Cuba. Though the homes and architecture are crumbling, the people living among them carry a beautiful soul.

We were aware that access to materials would be limited, so we brought our own brushes and canvases. To stretch the canvases, we used a large piece of wood that was found in a trash pile close to our house. During the days, we would go out and draw in the surrounding neighborhoods, beaches, and streets of Havana. In the evenings, we created paintings based on the day’s sketches; some combined multiple drawings, while others were based on one composition.

Duly Noted Painters are the Washington, D.C. based artistic duo consisting of Kurtis Ceppetelli and Matthew Malone. The two painters met in 2009 while working at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. They soon discovered a way to explore something new, artistically; capturing and expressing real-time experiences and interactions on canvas. “Our creative process is a true collaboration, similar to jazz musicians, at times we work together simultaneously, while there are times where one steps back to observe the other until inspired to take action.”

In general, each piece starts with an exploratory idea or goal in mind. Their work pulls from multiple sources that ultimately guide them to a conclusion. Some things are left as is, re-positioned, altered, or removed entirely. Their process does not adhere to a set formula dictating who does what, when, rather their approach allows for dramatic changes within each artist and piece, leading to surprising and often unexpected results.
Whether hidden or exposed, everything left for the viewer to see contains bits and pieces from each of them. Together as Duly Noted and with an inherent understanding of their craft, they pick up the tools left by the artists before them in effort to continue a tradition in redefining what painting is.

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Michelle Lisa Herman

January 8-30, 2016

I Just Want to Know You’re There

Interdisciplinary artist, Michelle Lisa Herman maintains two artistic practices. In this exhibition “I Just Want to Know You’re There,” Michelle is showing these two bodies of work side-by-side.
In one practice, she paints using a pressing technique that allows her to achieve an element of chance and to remove the artist’s hand from a material that compels it. Using the technique of “decalcomania”(as coined by Max Ernst), Michelle manipulates sumi ink between multiple layers of Mylar to reveal abstract “fractal” patterns. The effect: faces, or “Masks” that seem to emerge from the ink itself while providing room for the viewer to make associative connections.

The second practice—new media installations—she explores the ideas of communication and the desire for connection in the digital age. Michelle is showing three of these works: a mixed-media installation called “Invisibility;” an interactive video installation that utilizes facial recognition “Mirror Mirror;” and her newest work, an interactive sculpture “Sad Bear.”

Michelle Lisa Herman is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Washington, D.C. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Maryland Institute of College and Art in 2008. Her work spans a variety of media from abstract painting to interactive installation, often exploring ideas of communication and a desire for connection in the digital age. She has exhibited her work nationally in a variety of spaces including the Smithsonian Institution International Gallery, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, DC Arts Center, Artisphere, and the Washington Project for the Arts.

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Jack Warner

January 8-30, 2016

Heuristic Defenses

We are all defensive creatures who need security to develop purposeful lives. In an attempt to look objectively at the structures and mechanisms erected in the mind and physical world, my work traverses the superficial argument of defense politics and global security to place the viewer in a moment of self and social questioning. Defense mechanisms, naturally and socially fashioned, allow the individual to find his or her role in society and reach a level of cognitive equilibrium of self-worth and purpose. In turn, a society that upholds the ideal of a community of free and fulfilled citizens must create the physical structures which allow this work to take shape. My work becomes a physical representation of the often disregarded link between the individual struggle to protect the Self in its constant state of flux and change, and the communal obligation to prevent physical harm.

Jack Warner is an  former Marine and graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a B.A. in Studio Art and Art Education. He currently teaches Drawing and Design in a Montgomery County public school and has been accepted to the Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University.

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