Rockwell Kent
1946
A Commission from
The Print Club of Rochester
"Echoes of the Past" is a juried exhibition that will open this week at the University Gallery at R.I.T.
In case you have not been there before, the gallery is part of the new Vignelli Design Center, and this space has beautiful light and it is a wonderful space to show your work. The idea behind this new show of prints comes from the Print Club, and members selected for the show were asked to interpret a work from the Print Club Archive, and I chose the etching above by Rockwell Kent as my inspiration. First of all I love the Adirondacks pictured in Kent's fine work, and I thought that I could do something with this composition. You can read a review of the show, and see my work if you go to this link: DemocratandChronicle.com: http://on.rocne.ws/1X3yz7v
Kumi Korf at
ArtSpace
in Ithaca, New York
On the newly refurbished Commons in downtown Ithaca, New York, we stopped to look at buildings going up, and also to view the repairs to the building that housed Simeon's ( where I once had a studio upstairs in the mid 1970's). There was a concert going on outside and we ducked into ArtSpace to view "Sublime is the color" - a new show of prints and artist books by Kumi Korf. Kumi is a friend and classmate of mine from Cornell University. She is an architect by training as well as an artist and printmaker, and today she is having a solo show of intaglio prints, some of which were made into artist books featured in a glass vitrine on the premises.
Kumi Korf
artist books
Kumi Korf has had a long career in the arts, and for years she has made abstraction and color work for her, and she does so again in this new show. Her large prints that she calls "Petroglyphs" can remind one of the kind of gestural mark making one might associate with Henri Matisse, and Kumi's prints are vibrant - not only for their gestures but for her color choices.
Kumi Korf shows "Petroglyphs"
at
ArtSpace, Ithaca, New York
Kimi's artist books like "Alphabet of My Phobias" feature verses by Maia Vidal and the images are like poetic flags - prints that evoke personal credos and testimony. In her show we can view intimate pages from her development, especially in a work like "Green Metamorphic" - which combines gestural marks ( like a private calligraphy ) with puffs of violet fog that perform an interesting duet on paper. So, if you are in Ithaca this summer, look for Kumi Korf's art at 171 The Commons, downtown.
Sheldon Berlyn
at
Warren Phillips Fine Art & Frame
Hungerford Building
Rochester, New York
Back in Rochester, I just had a moment to take in a two person show at Warren Phillips Fine Art & Frame which runs thru July 8th and it features the sculpture of John Nihart and the paintings of Sheldon Berlyn. Mr. Berlyn has just been exhibited at Rochester Contemporary Art Center only a few months ago, so it was something of a surprise to see this new exhibition coming on the heels of the other. Here we mostly have smaller works - all abstractions - some with distinct divisions as with the painting above. In these works we find a play between the structural and the gestural - all with strong color choices and with the artist's signature curves often executed with a knife or a squeegee full of paint.
Sculpture by John Nihart
Some of the dimensional work by John Nihart has distinct Art Deco flavors with quotes from a kind of amusing mixture - Brancusi and Nadelman. The summer is just getting started but there is a lot to see and enjoy, so go out and take in some art!
Finally, I want to take a moment to thank the readers of this blog, especially because we passed a milestone this week, surpassing 40,000 page views. I know that doesn't sound so amazing in the current world of BIG DATA... but I am thankful there are people out there who appreciate my thoughts and observations. Thank You!
