Artful Weekend March 26-27 – The Art League

Welcome to Artful Weekend, our guide to fun and interesting ways to enjoy art in person or virtually.

 

This weekend: Two photography exhibits and a member show at the League; Linda Stein’s and Mil Lubroth’s abstracts at Culture House DC; Renee Balfour’s nature-inspired wooden sculptures at Amy Kaslow Gallery;  and Michael Crossett’s layered silkscreens at Long View Gallery.

 

 

March Open Exhibit

Open Exhibits at The Art League present an array of works in a variety of mediums created by our member artists. March’s Open Exhibit features 97 artworks, and was juried by Gage Branda, artist, educator and Development & Curatorial Coordinator at the American Visionary Art Museum.

Jennifer Allevato received the Best-in-Show Award for her painting Cornflower Blue Lines and Flowers. Says the artist:

“These are not flowers, they are paintings of flowers: pieces created 100% by my hands. The movements, the lines, the brushstrokes, the drips: all indications that a person was here. These eye-popping, imperfect borders are just another reminder of the act of creating. Perfectly imperfect.”

Allevato presented Seated, an exhibition consisting of colorful, mixed media paintings of interior spaces with unoccupied chairs, as our May 2021 Solo Artist. Here she talks about it.. 

The March Open Exhibit is on view through April 3.

 

 

Women Around the World

During Women’s History Month we are excited to present Women Around the World, a photography exhibition by Solo Artist Kathryn Mohman. As a globetrotting photographer, Mohrman is fascinated by people with one foot in their traditional culture and the other in the modern world. For her exhibit Women From Around the World she trains her lens on women living that type of duality.

“The photographs reveal women from around the world: working, celebrating, enjoying their children, looking curiously at the photographer,” says the Mohrman. “These images celebrate the many ways in which women around the world pursue the same goals in life that you and I do.” Women around the World is on view through April 3.

 

 

Special Exhibit: The Photographic Process

The Photographic Process is a special exhibit that highlights the wide scope of photographic techniques and the unique approaches that photographers use to create their work, from hand developed negatives to digital photography, tintypes, cyanotypes, and more. This exhibit was juried by Em White, a visual artist and documentarian, specializing in historic photographic processes and large format work. It is on view through April 3.

 

 

Seen/Unseen: Linda Stein and Mil Lubroth

 

Jewish-American artists Linda Stein’s and Mil Lubroth’s late abstract and early contemporary paintings, works on paper, and collages have largely escaped the public eye. Connected by their semi-abstract, colorful aesthetics as well as a shared sense of being outsiders, both artists’ styles broke from the artistic norms of the 1960s-1990s. Seen/Unseen is a conversation about the necessity of breaking convention, the ways artists reconcile the vulnerability of authentic expression with the solace of creative expression, and what it means to be remembered after historical exclusion. It is on view through May 14 at Culture House DC, 700 Delaware Avenue, SW.

 

 

Renee Balfour: Nature Unbound

Sinewy, smooth, sleek and utterly multi-dimensional, Renee Balfour’s sculpted works come from nature’s treasure of trees, the cherry and black walnut growing in White Oak Canyon along Virginia’s Blue Ridge. Manipulating large band saws and small chisels, her skilled hands open up the grains of these majestic woods; her turns create new lines with space and color. Nature Unbound, at Amy Kaslow Gallery, includes nine of Balfour’s works installed along whitewashed walls, their curves and spikes casting shadows that transition in density and length throughout the day and into the night. It is on view through April 3; 4300 Forham Road, NW.

 

 

Michael Crossett: Flipside

Michael Crossett’s layered silkscreens are influenced by urban landscapes and his existence within them. However, locked indoors during the pandemic, he had to seek alternate inspiration and turned to music and album art.  Flipside was inspired by a song of the same name by one of his favorite bands, Everything But The Girl. The song asks the same questions Crossett seeks to explore in his work: Was life better in the before-times (both in reference to one’s youth and in a pre-pandemic world)? It is on view at Long View Gallery through May 1; 1234 9th Street NW.

 

Enjoy the weekend!