I just got back from the reception for the Absolutely Abstract 2008 show at the Philadelphia Sketch Club, where my painting Figment received an honorable mention award.  There were 125 pieces in the show, seven honorable mentions, and three top prizes.

(Award winners, from left-to-right:  Daniel Buchler (?), Deborah Riccardi (co-chair), Ben Cohen (?), Michelle Marcuse, David Foss, Lisa Lawinski, Hunter Stabler, Andrew Werth, James Moss (?), and Don Brewer (co-chair))

I’m happy to report that one of my paintings, Figment, has been accepted into the Absolutely Abstract 2008 juried group show at the Philadelphia Sketch Club.  The exhibition is up through the end of November and the gallery is open Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 1-5pm.  The Sketch Club is located at 235 South Camac Street in Philadelphia.

I’m happy to report that I have recently joined Artists’ Gallery, an artists’ co-op in Lambertville, New Jersey. If you’re not familiar with the area, Lambertville is a small town on the Delaware River across the water from New Hope, PA, that features art galleries, antique stores, and other shopping and dining goodies. Artists’ Gallery has been around since 1996 and exhibits the work of some eighteen area artists working in a diversity of styles. I’m very excited about this opportunity to show my work more regularly, both as part of member shows each month as well as in a yearly featured two-person show (my first two-person show will be in September 2009).

This month (Nov 7-Nov 30) I’ll be exhibiting two of my “Strange Loops” paintings (Strange Loops 3 and Strange Loops 4) as part of the group show in the rear gallery space. Artists’ Gallery is located at 32 Coryell Street, Lambertville, NJ, and is open Fridays through Sundays from 11am - 6pm. The opening reception for this month’s two featured artists, Carol Sanzalone and Bonnie Schorske, is this Saturday, November 8, from 6-9pm. For more info, check out the Artists’ Gallery web site at

http://www.lambertvillearts.com/index.php

My painting, Arising, will be on display in a group show at Gallery 125 in Trenton from September 12 through November 8, 2008.  There will be an opening reception this Friday, Sep 12, from 5-9pm.  I should be there starting around 6pm if you’d like to stop by and say Hi.  Gallery 125, at 125 South Warren Street in Trenton, always has fun openings with a strong turnout plus food and drink and usually some live music.

I have one painting, Having in Mind, in the upcoming group exhibition “Inside/Out” at Ellarslie:

The Trenton City Museum @ Ellarslie
Cadwalader Park, Trenton
August 2 - September 14, 2008
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 9, from 5pm-8pm

Brooklyn-based artist John Zinsser, whose (highly recommended) New School class on Viewing Art Intelligently I have taken many times, will be giving a lecture this Wednesday on “The Fate of Painting.”  Here’s the info:

The Fate of Painting
A slide lecture by John Zinsser

Wednesday July 2, 2008
6:30 p.m. on the 6th floor
Mid-Manhattan Library — The New York Public Library
40th Street and 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10016
212-340-0871

Elevators access the 6th floor after 6p.m.
All events are FREE and subject to last minute change or cancellation.

Contemporary art and its audience are moving into ever new and challenging territory. Yet painting, as a historically-established medium, always remains central to the dialogue. John Zinsser will provide a larger art historical context to frame the current paradigm shift. He argues that we have entered a time of increased “lexical crisis” as artistic practices collide freely with viewer responses. Modernism, and its attendant painting developments-cubism, expressionism, geometric abstraction, pop and minimalism-have launched a hybrid visual genealogy. And its recombinant qualities have only just begun to be explored. The lecture will move forward from the European model of Picasso and Mondrian to the American response of Pollock and Warhol. Now, we see a 21st Century aesthetic forming from the likes of painters Luc Tuymans, Karen Kilimnik, Anselm Reyle and Wade Guyton. What marks this movement? And where will it take us?

At the opening reception of the Mercer County Artists show at The Gallery @ Mercer County Community College. (3/5/2008)

Photo courtesy Tom Maslowski.

This afternoon I participated in an artist panel discussion about the “personal landscape” at D&R Greenway, a land preservation non-profit organization in Princeton, NJ. Below is a view of approximately half of the main gallery, with my two pieces hanging along the left wall. Curator Jack Koeppel opened the discussion with an intro to D&R Greenway and explained why he felt that art was important to the mission of “The Greenway.” Mel Leipzig added some commentary about the nature of landscape painting and also about the social relevance and impact of making art. Each of the seven artists on the panel then introduced themselves and spoke a little about their work, particularly as it relates to the concept of the personal landscape.

Although my work was perhaps least directly a “landscape,” these paintings in my Embodiment series are indeed about how our “selves” are related to our environment. Landscapes are an artist’s personal interpretation of the external world, and in that way these paintings are my interpretation of how we perceive the world.

Other artists on the panel included Mel Leipzig, Linda Pochesci, Harry Naar, Dan Finaldi, Jamie Greenfield, and Jan Applebaum.

I am very pleased to announce that I have one painting included in the upcoming Mercer County Artists show at The Gallery @ Mercer County Community College.  This year’s juror is Cicely Cottingham, Art Director at Newark-based Aljira (a center for contemporary art).  The show runs from March 5 through April 3 with an opening reception on Wednesday, March 5, from 5-7:30pm.

On Sunday, March 2, 2008, from 2-4pm, D&R Greenway will be hosting an informal panel on their current exhibition, “A Matter of Perspective: Our Personal Landscape.” The panel will be hosted by Mel Leipzig and I will be participating as one of the artists in the show.