Noesis

Pyramid Atlantic founder Helen Frederick has curated the exhibition Noesis: 12 Printmakers Looking Intuitively at the World at the Cosmos Club.  The Cosmos Club is a private club, but we did want to mention the exhibition because we saw so many familiar names, including current members Rosemary Cooley, Jenny Freestone, Trudi Y. Ludwig and Margaret Adams Parker.  Additionally, we’re pleased to see former member Fleming Jeffries and WPG friends Elzbieta Sikorska as exhibitors.  If you are a member of the Cosmos Club (or friends with one!), this exhibition will be up May 16-September 8.

Artist Update: Matina Marki Tillman

“Arabesque” by Matina Marki Tillman

Artist member Matina Marki Tillman will be participating in the New York Society of Etchers 3^rd National Exhibition of Intaglio Prints at the National Arts Club in New York. Matina will be exhibiting a representative work from her new series of direct etchings of charcoal drawings onto solarplates as part of this show. The exhibition will run from May 20^th to June 7^th, 2013.

For whoever hasn’t already visited, the National Arts Club is a beautiful, historic gallery in one of New York City’s most elegant neighborhoods. For artists and visitors alike, National Arts Club exhibitions are experiences well worth attending. The opening and artists’ reception will be Wednesday, May 23^rd from 6:30-8:30 pm at the National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York City.

Artist Update: Elise Nicol

“Morning Spills from the Wreckage” by Elise Nicol

WPG member Elise Nicol has an upcoming show at Corners Gallery in Ithaca, NY!  Strange How Hard it Rains Now, an exhibition of pigment transfers on paper, will be on view Friday, May 10 to Saturday, July 6.  Opening reception is  Friday, May 10, 5:30-8 pm.  If you’re in the area, check it out!

In Memoriam: Nuong Van-Dinh Tran

“Floating” by Nuong Van-Dinh Tran

We are sad to announce the passing of one of WPG’s founding members, Nuong Van-Dinh Tran, this past Sunday.  Nuong was part of the original group of printmakers that moved into WPG’s first location on Jefferson Street (just south of Dupont Circle) in 1985.  She continued to support the gallery through three subsequent moves, including the latest move to Pyramid Atlantic.

Nuong trained as a painter and printmaker at the Corcoran, and then received her MFA from George Washington University.  The influence of her Vietnamese culture can be seen in her prints, as she consciously brought feeling and emotion to many of her landscape works using traditional visual short-hand, regardless of whether the subject was Vietnamese or American in nature.  Her work is in the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the National Museum of American Art, The Smithsonian Institution, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Library of Congress Fine Prints Collection, to name a few.

“Lin Lin’s Autumnal Dream” by Nuong Van-Dinh Tran

The wife of professor, diplomat, and author Dr. Tran Van Dinh, Nuong was also an activist dedicated to the promotion of visual arts, environmental stewardship, and understanding between cultures.  She voiced strong opinions, but also listened graciously to everyone, and was always quick to smile.  Always a strong supporter of her fellow printmakers, she showed up to every possible opening, and, if she missed one, made sure to come and see the show at another time.  Her dedication to the gallery, unstinting generosity, and stead-fast friendship will be missed by all.

Saturday Slideshow: Robin Gibson

Exclusively on DCimPRINT: a sneak peek of Robin Gibson’s prints that will be up in the Press Room in May.  These prints aren’t even on the website!  Come by to see In My Nature next week.

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Sneak Peek: Signs and Seasons

Next week is the opening of Margaret Adams Parker’s solo exhibition, Signs and Seasons (and also the Press Room Mini Solo In My Nature by Robin Gibson).  Saturday is the opening reception as well as the artist talk by Margaret Adams Parker.  In case you missed it in the Spring Newsletter, here’s a reprint of part of the article on this upcoming show:

As I write this in early February I am lamenting – through two complex images – the frailty of advanced age.  Sunt lacrimae rerum is printed from an assemblage of 14 etched plates: five of them are based on drawings of my mother’s decline; the other nine “spacers” are darkened with dots and jagged lines – like the tangle of her mind.  Et mentem mortalia tangent pairs an etching of my mother with one of a man who is elderly but still alert.  I am experimenting with different arrangements and may possibly include counterproofs in the final composition.  The counterproof impression – a pale (and reversed) version of the etching- seems an apt metaphor for the losses that come with aging.  (The titles for these works are taken from Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 1:462, where Aeneas weeps as he stares at murals picturing his comrades lost in the Trojan War:  “Here are tears for things, and thoughts of mortality touch the mind.”)

But all is not lament.  I am eager to work on more joyous images:  a fiddler playing jigs with his band; three young women sharing photos on the subway; my granddaughters.

In the etchings of the natural world, I depict the skeletal remains of once flourishing life:   ancient trees, fading leaves, bones, and seed pods.  But I couple these with images of new birth.  Signs and Seasons, the work that gives the show its title, celebrates the improbable return of life to a tree wrenched apart by a storm.  To accompany this work I have written a poem (an entirely new endeavor for me), reflecting on new life out of death…[this poem makes] explicit the commonality that I see between seasons in our lives and in the natural world, the words forming a bridge between these two parts of the show.

You can read Peggy’s poem, as well as see her etchings, sculpture, and drawings, May 1-26.  The opening reception is Saturday, May 4, 1-4 pm.

Congratulations to Fawna!

Former WPG intern Fawna Xiao just had Lost Land, her current show at Hillyer Art Space, reviewed by Mark Jenkins in the Washington Post.  You can read the review at the link.  Congrats, Fawna!

Cool stuff going on at Wesley Seminary

“The Exposure of Luxury” – several prints along with the plate itself (second from Left) by Trudi Y. Ludwig

We love the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary in NW DC.  WPG artist Trudi Y. Ludwig completed the carving for her (life-size!) print The Exposure of Luxury while a resident there last year, and we’re excited to see WPG members Margaret Adams Parker and Ellen Verdon Winkler as the printmaking residents there in upcoming semesters.

Beyond that, they sent us an email choc-full of wonderful opportunities we’d like to pass on.  First, a fascinating-sounding lecture by Dr. Patrick Madigan entitled “Expressive Individualism, the Cult of the Artist as Genius, and Milton’s Lucifer,” which discusses the character in question as well as the West’s obsession with “Expressive Individualism” will take place on Thursday, April 25, from 12-3 pm.

While there, check out Dadian Gallery for the current exhibition Rites and Remedies by Paul Rooda.  Using found objects and discarded Bibles, Rooda comments upon the intersection of faith and medicine.  This exhibition will be up through May 24.

Finally, if you are an artist, The Luce Center is looking for artist residents.  This generous residency carries the potential for on-campus housing and a work stipend, in addition to one free Wesley class per semester.  Hurry the deadline for applications is May 15!  The application can be viewed/downloaded here.

Saturday Slideshow: April Exhibitions

Check out the work by Pyramid Atlantic Member artists as well as WPG member artists!  Opening Reception today 2-4 pm.  We suggest parking in the (free!) municipal parking garage one block south of us on Silver Spring Avenue–it’s going to be a busy day!  Enjoy the pictures and see you this afternoon!

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Collaborations on Paper

“Changing Tides” by Pauline Jakobsberg-print on handmade paper

We’re just crazy about some videos this week!  Check out this one on paper collaboration.  You want to know something cool–sculptural paper making, letterpress, and artist collaborations are all happening downstairs at Pyramid Atlantic!  You can even take some papermaking and letterpress courses down there.  Check out their spring offerings, here.