Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Philly Art Center To Showcase Emerging Artists

Contact:
Dominic Mercier
Director of Communications
Phone: 215-922-3456 ext. 302
Cell: 267-319-20920


Fleisher Art Memorial Announces 37th Annual Wind Challenge Exhibition Series Artists


PHILADELPHIA, PA (August 6, 2014) - Fleisher Art Memorial has announced the nine artists participating in its 37th Annual Wind Challenge Exhibition Series. Since 1978, the series has introduced regional contemporary art from over 300 artists to a broad audience and has helped emerging artists advance their professional careers. Each series features nine artists to be featured in one of three-artist exhibitions.

Past Wind Challenge artists include photographer Robert Asman and sculptor Syd Carpenter, both of whom were later awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts; beloved Fleisher teaching artist Charlotte Yudis; and brothers Billy and Stephen Dufala, winners of the 2009 West Prize.

A panel of five jurors chose this year's Wind Challenge Artists from a field of hundreds of applicants. The jury, composed of local artists and curators, included John Dowell, Maixa Hixson, Miguel Horn, Katie Johnson, and Jennifer Levonian.

CHALLENGE 1 - Jenny Drumgoole, Peter Morgan, Justin Webb
On view Sept. 26 to Nov. 8; public opening Sept. 26 at 6:00 p.m.


What began as a project inspired by a series of YouTube response videos, Jenny Drumgoole's Make & Do (Happy Trash Day!!) series quickly shifted toward a social critique of power, social structure, and audience. This project hinges on the artist's interest in the City of Philadelphia's department of sanitation and its trash workers' rights. Drumgoole held weekly celebrations of "trash day" and created an aesthetic world built around her main character, Soxx. The resulting installation is an in-progress work that breaches the art world, existing in a real-time context.

 

Peter Morgan's work is an exploration of issues of perception and representation and how these concerns mold our understanding of the world. Morgan is interested in both actual representations and cultural perceptions of the way things are and what makes each significant. The work examines how much of what we know of the world is through illustrations and representation rather than from personal experience and the difference between "real" versus simulated experiences.

More often than not, Justin Webb's intentions typically rely on making things - specifically images and paintings - in which a narrative is communicated through incomplete, nonlinear, and run-on sentences.

CHALLENGE 2 - Jesse G. Engaard, Mami Kato, Theresa Rose
On view Dec. 5 to Feb. 7; public opening Dec. 5 at 6:00 p.m.


Jesse Gorham Engaard uses video installations and public performance to explore improvised community, instinctual mythology, and forgotten stories. Engaard likes to make up the parts of history and legend that he believes have been removed and changing the common knowledge that does not make sense to him. He represents motion and form in his videos using antiquated and often obsolete techniques, sometimes borrowed from other disciplines.

 

Mami Kato's work revolves around examining and reconnecting with her early life. An example of this tendency is her use of rice stalks as a material for her sculptures, something that has a close connection to her childhood surroundings and a historical and symbolic implication of Japanese culture. The forms of the pieces might be loose references to Japanese daily commodities, metaphors of home, and the use of traditional Japanese craft techniques as a way to connect to the root of that culture. As her personal life in the United States has changed, Kato's most recent work - influenced by Japanese Buddhism - has shifted to presenting intangible energy or order throughout nature and the universe.

For Theresa Rose, the city is a magical place that offers a multitude of shape, light, color and texture. Abandoned warehouses, empty parking lots, a neighbor's front stoop, the bustling marketplace, each tell a story. Pairing the images she witnesses and photographs with color monoprints and creating something newly imagined is her limitless pursuit. 

CHALLENGE 3 - Cynthia Back, Darla Jackson, Lynn Palewicz
On view April 3 to May 5; public opening April 3 at 6:00 p.m.


Cynthia Back's intaglio prints have long been concerned with natural forms. Starting with observation, the final image is culled from memory and shaped by my experience. In recent prints Back reference's our changing landscape: the spread of suburban environments, mining and other industries, the subsequent destruction of habitats, and the homogenization of much of suburban growth. Using simple motifs to suggest natural forms and suburban landscapes. Repeated motifs stress fragmentation and explore composition creating create fresh, exciting images that are powerful in their simplicity.

 

Darla Jackson's sculpture is an exploration of the human psyche in which she strives to show the duality of emotions. In order to express these ideas, Jackson implements feelings that have been turned into recognizable visual objects, or symbols, and juxtapose them with other elements to create. Through the anthropomorphism of animals, the use of strong body language of figures, and the use of symbolism, she conveys her emotions and ideas in a way that is more approachable for viewers. The end result is familiarity with an oddness that makes it compelling.

Lynn Palewicz combines photography, sculpture, and drawing to explore different approaches to self-portraiture, examining the self as subject, the self as material, and the self as creative impulse.

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The Fleisher Art Memorial was founded by industrialist Samuel S. Fleisher in 1898 and is renowned for its mission of making art accessible to everyone regardless of economic means, background or artistic experience.  Fleisher Art Memorial is one of the nation's first community-based art centers, providing free and low-cost studio art classes along with opportunities for beginning and seasoned artists to exhibit their work in a professional gallery setting. Fleisher's arts education programming reaches deeply into local schools and community centers, and has brought the organization national recognition and powerful opportunities to advocate for and shape arts education initiatives throughout the region and the country.  

Fleisher Art Memorial
719 Catharine Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19147
www.fleisher.org || 215.922.3456

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