All Eyes on Mary Chiaramonte’s “Murmur” Series

We are getting a great response to Mary Chiaramonte’s “Murmur” series and wanted to share some of the press with you from the Examiner and washingtonpost.com.

Thank you to Robin Tierney for highlighting the exhibition in Thursday’s Examiner and to Chris Klimek for his thoughtful article in the Art Life section of the Examiner’s Weekend edition.

And to Julia Beizer of washingtonpost.com who included the show in the Going Out Gurus blog.

The exhibition will be on view August 1- September 2, 2007.
Opening Reception Thursday, August 9 from 6 until 8 pm

Recent Work by Laurel Hausler

Another talented artist featured in the March “Women’s Work” exhibition, Laurel Hausler, brought some of her recent haunting and mysterious works to share with us that we now have on display in the gallery. In addition to a few of her paintings, we have two lithographs and four mixed media constructions which incorporate found objects and handmade dolls contained in wooden crates.

Top: Laurel Hausler, Blue Bottle Box, 2007, mixed media (found objects/handmade dolls), 12" x 15"
Bottom: Laurel Hausler, The Pilings, 2007, painted lithograph, 16" x 19"

Mary Chiaramonte "Murmur" Series Opens August 1

Show runs August 1 – September 2, 2007.
Opening Reception Thursday, August 9 from 6 until 8 pm.

Local painter, Mary Chiaramonte, will unveil a new series of paintings called “Murmur” at the Nevin Kelly Gallery. The show will run from August 1 through September 2. The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist on Thursday, August 9, from 6 until 8 o ‘clock p.m. Mary participated in the gallery’s “Women’s Work” exhibition earlier this year.

The artist explains the series this way: “I wanted to create a series that worked as a narrative as one progressed around the room. This past February, I learned that I would need to have surgery. The idea terrified me. I saw an immediate image of a theatrical stage with a wooden cutout of a dark cloud moving across the stage from right to left. As it reached the center, a bolt of lightning came down from the cloud, cymbals crashed, and the cloud retreated stage left. The vision made me realize that we all have things we must do but don't want to do. With perseverance, or luck, or grace, or some other way out, we can get past the things that hold us back or keep us down.”


“Murmur” shows the struggle to “overcome life’s difficulties and limitations using the image of individual attempts to escape from a box.” Each painting tells a different story. In the final painting, the box is empty: the individual has broken free. The title “Murmur” refers to the faint remnant one hears a moment in time after the original thunderclap.

above left: Mary Chiaramonte, “Nightshade”, 2007, mixed media on canvas, 22" x 17.5"
right: Mary Chiaramonte, “The Balance of the Good and the Bad”, 2007, mixed media on canvas, 22" x 17.5"

Photo Op

Gallery friend Lindsay Coates looked so perfect next to the work of Wesley Wheeler and Gretchen Feldman that we had to take a picture! To the left is Wesley Wheeler’s “Blondes 2” and on the right hangs Gretchen Feldman’s mixed media on paper piece. The gallery is featuring a variety of work this summer by local, national, and Polish artists.

Left: Wesley Wheeler, “Blondes 2”, 2006, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches
Right: Gretchen Feldman, “Untitled 8”, 2004, mixed media on paper, 29 x 37 inches (framed)

Art in Heat

This past Saturday, I attended the opening of a very fun exhibition at the Warehouse Gallery Complex, 1021 7th Street, NW, in Washington. "Art in Heat," curated by Washington artist Scott G. Brooks, showases the work of 18 artists that the show's website describes as "the best of DC's Outsider, Lowbrow and Pop Surrealist Artists." This show is not for everybody. But if your tastes and sense of humor are just a little twisted, you might enjoy it a lot. The show takes a look at the dark side of life, examining (often with great humor) subjects such as loneliness, sexual perversion, death, sadism, fear, and a general sense of the macabre.

There are very impressive (albeit disturbing) monumental works by Scott G. Brooks, Margaret Dowell and Ben Tolman. Other artists with a strong showings include Laurel Hausler (who participated in our Women's Work exhibition earlier this year), her husband and studio-mate John Lancaster, and newcomer Emily Greene Liddle, whose sadistic treatment of luscious fruits is both funny and oddly unsettling. Take in the associated events, such as live burlesque drawing classes and live music.

Top left: Laurel Hausler "Weeds." Lower right: Emily Greene Liddle "Pincushion"

JULIA'S BACK

The peripatetic Julia Morelli returns to the gallery today to work part time for the rest of the summer. Our itinerant Deputy Director left in early May to spend time with her family in Maine and then travelled to Vencie for the Biennale and then elsewhere in Europe. I'll let Julia describe her esperiences in a separate blog. For now, please join us in welcoming Julia back (and enouraging her to stay!).

Joan Belmar "Color Transparencies" Extended Until June 24th

Due to popular demand and our own personal pleasure in having the work up in the gallery, we are extending Joan Belmar’s Color Transparencies show for another week.

Mysterious compositions of undulating organic forms from afar, when studied up close Belmar’s sculptural wall pieces reveal strips of mylar shaped into circular and curvilinear forms blanketed in sheets of frosted acetate along with found objects including glass, metal hooks, bits of plastic, and other remnants.

Joan Belmar Color Transparencies will be up through Sunday, June 24th. Also in the gallery, Ellyn Weiss Time of War on display through June 30th. Check out this Thursday’s Express WeekendPass section which highlight’s Ellyn’s work.

Above: Joan Belmar, Toy Box (Green), 2007, mixed media on plywood with mylar, acrylic, acetate, and plastic, 25 x 21 inches.

Meet Our Summer Intern

Please meet our summer intern Amanda Bowes. Amanda is a rising junior at Simmons College in Boston and is majoring in Arts Administration. She enthusiastically jumped in right away even before she officially started by helping us hang Ellyn Weiss’s Time of War show.

Amanda will be helping out in the gallery through August, and Ellyn Weiss Time of War will be on view until June 30th.

Escape the Heat and Enjoy Art!

Joan Belmar and Ellyn Weiss just sent us new images of their work currently on view in the gallery. Please come by and enjoy the work in person. Belmar’s mixed media constructions of mylar, acetate, acrylic, and found objects are mesmerizing. As “mediations on the pain of war,” Weiss’s new series of monoprints are emotive while at the same time hauntingly beautiful.

Joan Belmar’s Color Transparencies will be on display until June 17th and Ellyn Weiss’s Time of War will be up until June 30th.

Above Top: Joan Belmar, Toy Box (Light Blue), mixed media on plywood, 2007, 25" x 21"

Above Bottom: Joan Belmar, The Telegraph, mixed media on canvas, 2007, 13" x 17"

Above Top: Ellyn Weiss, Not My Son 2, monoprint with drypoint and chine colle, 2006, 14" x 14"

Above Bottom: Ellyn Weiss, Take Me, monotype, 2006, 14" x 14"

Time of War Opens Tonight

Ellyn Weiss's new series of monoprints and monotypes opens tonight, with a reception at the gallery from 5 until 8 p.m. These prints were prepared last summer in Provincetown on a press once owned by Robert Motherwell. How cool is that? The prints are meditations on the horrors of war, yet they are quite beautiful. The show, called "Time of War," runs until June 30.

Joan Belmar's "Color Transparencies" is also on display until June 17.