PhiladelphiARToverload.

Whoa! It's been a good week for cramming in art-related things. Besides working on my own painting - which is an ongoing, never-ending lifetime project - I've had some great art encounters this past week.

• Number one: Bambi! (A gallery here in Philadelphia in the Piazza) It never fails to delight. This past time around, I caught the very tail end of the show "Lil Pus" by Joseph Hasenauer - an absolutely awesomely silly series of women hanging out with... an octopus. Ha ha. I loved the idea and the paintings so much, that I bought a print (more within my price range than an original painting, sad to say.) This isn't the print I bought, but it's a good example of the series: A painting by Joseph Hasenauer from his "Lil' 'pus" show at Bambi Gallery • Eggs! I learned a great deal about egg tempera this week, part of that through a presentation at the Philadelphia Sketch Club by artist Jeff Gola. He showed us his work and discussed his path as an artist, and his methods in working with egg tempera. Though I'm personally a disaster with pretty much any fast-drying media, and I'm terribly impatient with the slow build-up process involved in using this particular fast-drying medium, I have to say I'm rather intrigued by the notion of using such a natural painting medium... never mind the potential for toxicity in the raw pigments! Anyway. Here's one of his egg tempera paintings: Two Sheep, egg tempera, 16" x 20" by artist Jeff Gola. • Speaking of eggs, I brought some new paintings over to Square Peg Artery & Salvage the other day – here's one of the newer pieces: who's first?, 2010, oil on printed fabric, 10"x10", by me, Diane Feissel. • Friday night I ambled on over to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for the US Artists show, and caught a ton of great stuff within a relatively small space – lots of galleries and artists represented from a fairly wide time range. Many of the galleries present were showing the usual Philadelphia-area suspects: Stuart Shils, Randall Exon, Bo Bartlett, Nelson Shanks, Andrew Wyeth, Al Gury, Maxfield Parrish, some Peales in there, etc. Arcadia Fine Arts was there representing some of the non-Philadelphia area usual suspects: Jeremy Lipking, Malcolm Liepke, Ron Hicks, Brad Kunkle, Robert Liberace, Joseph Todorovich, Daniel Sprick, etc. "Where are the women?" you might ask... I was definitely asking the same thing. It was a challenge, but I did manage to find some representation from the other half of the population (some of them even still living!) in works by Christine Lafuente, Nancy Depew, Anne Harris, and Kerry Brooks... Cecilia Beaux and Mary Cassatt were there, of course, representing the 19th century. I have to say, out of all of that Great Art, this one particular painting by Anne Harris - who we've featured on the "Women Painting Women" blog to which I contribute – nearly blew my mind; it positively glowed. I'd never before had the good fortune of seeing her work in person, and I'm so glad I did: Portrait (Pink), 2010, oil on linen, 44 x 30 inches by Anne Harris. • Afterwards I remembered that it was First Friday, and that there were a couple of galleries I wanted to check out down at the Piazza in Northern Liberties. I stopped by Bambi again for the new show, which included a personal favorite, photographer Anna Tas (who, I just learned, is based here in Philadelphia... yay for Philly!!). I also checked out Vincent Michael Gallery, which I still haven't made up my mind about overall... but they definitely have some interesting work; check out the info on the current show here. • The rest of the weekend I studio-sat for fellow artist Mark Bullen during the first weekend of Philadelphia's Open Studios. While there I stopped in to the studio next door to check out the latest work from artist Tom Kohlmann – here's a sampling, photos courtesy of fellow artist Garth Herrick: Paintings by artist Tom Kohlmann, pics by artist Garth Herrick Phew! Now off to do some of my own painting... haha. More on that soon!

Inspiring figures.

Continuing on the theme of women painter-related activities and exhibitions (from yesterday's post), I want to give props to the women who are exhibiting in The Butler Institute of American Art's "Inspiring Figures" exhibition, a project of the Cecilia Beaux Forum of the Portrait Society of America. One of the exhibiting artists is the Philadelphia area's own Alexandra Tyng, who will also be in the "Women Painting Women" exhibition and on the painting expedition in South Carolina this fall. Below is the painting Alex has in the "Inspiring Figures" exhibition, and this link will take you to her recap of the opening reception for the exhibition which she posted on her blog; her blog's main page is http://alexandratyng.blogspot.com, take a look!

Claude and Pamela Frank, oil on linen, 52" x 48" by artist Alexandra Tyng.

The women who are Women Painting Women.

It occurred to me the other day that I haven't yet fully explained Part Deux of the Women Painting Women exhibition events this November in Charleston, South Carolina. I'm very, very much looking forward to the exhibition at Robert Lange Studios of more than 50 amazing artists from around the country and abroad... but I'm also really very much looking forward to our very first "Women Painting Women" painting expedition on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina (just northeast of Charleston itself). A dozen of us - all artists also showing at the Robert Lange Studios show - will be gathering for a week of plein air and figurative painting. Yay! And I realized this picture from last week in NYC outside of Kelley and Ping includes 1/3 of our posse...

Left to right: Alia El-Bermani, Alexandra Tyng, Sadie Valeri, and Diane Feissel - photo by Garth Herrick.

It's going to be a great time, we've got a great group! The rest of our dynamic dozen, not pictured above, include the following artists: Catherine Prescott, Cindy Procious, Katherine Stone, Linda Tracey Brandon, Lisa Gloria, Mia Bergeron, Rachel Constantine, and Stefani Tewes.

Sorolla + Sadie.

Had a lovely day yesterday checking out some art in NYC!

Friends and fellow Women Painting Women contributors Sadie Valeri and Alia El-Bermani and I checked out the Hispanic Society of America, where the Sorolla murals of life in Spain have recently been re-installed. The pictures I took came out terribly, as usual – but I'll throw one or two out here just to give you a sample:

These murals and their re-installation were the motivation for the trip to the Society, but the building itself in addition to the rest of the (small-ish) permanent collection definitely had significant appeal:

A gorgeous Diego Velázquez painting, poorly photographed by me (sorry)

A painting of, not by, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres…

Sadie and Alia on the second floor

Afterwards we went down to Soho for the opening of Arcadia Fine Arts' Small Works Show - Sadie had a beautiful piece in the show - entitled "The Wave" - pictured below:

PhiladelphiART.

You may actually know this already, dear reader, whoever you are, but I would like to share with you nonetheless that Philadelphia is chock full of really great artists. I say this here because I feel as though Philly and its awesome residents don’t always get their due. So let's give them their due, shall we? We shall do.

Always a source for great discoveries, I stopped by Artists' House gallery over the weekend, here in Philly's Old City neighborhood. The last time I was there, I fell in love with the work of painter Patrick Crofton; this time around, I was blown away by the work of painterSamuel Evensen. I love low-contrast studies in white, and this guy delivers the goods with some serious skill:

Snow, 10" x 10.5", oil painting by Samuel Evensen

Also excellent to see was a show by Philadelphia artist Asya Livshits at PII Gallery in Old City:

Girl with Cat by painter Asya Livshits

More posts on this front to follow, no doubt, Stay tuned. And – come to Philly and see some art, fer chrissake!

Women Painting Women: The Exhibition

Stay tuned for more information on a very exciting event in which I will be participating this November! I will be one of approximately 50 women painters from around the globe exhibiting at Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, South Carolina for their "Women Painting Women" exhibition. The exhibition concept was inspired by friend and fellow painter Sadie Valeri's "Women Painting Women" blog (to which I am a contributor). Here's some information on the show and the participants on the Robert Lange Studios blog... more info coming soon!

Here is the first press coverage for the show - more to come!
• Charleston City Paper

Poof!, 2010, 30" x 30", oil on birch with map fragments and ink, by Austin, TX painter Jennifer Balkan

Richeson.

One of my paintings of friend and fellow painter Juliette Lemontey (who makes a great model!) is a finalist in the Richeson 75 Figure and Portrait Exhibition for 2010. You can see the paintings which made it into the show at this link.

I've posted the painting to this blog before, it's this one:

the search, 2009, oil on panel, 12"x12", by me.