Glen Echo Park Partnership Galleries Presents April Exhibitions

J. Jordan Bruns
Playing with Reality: 15 Years at Glen Echo Park
April 1 – 30, 2023 // Popcorn Gallery

Virtual Artist Talk: Thursday, April 27, 7 pm (Zoom)
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The Popcorn Gallery is proud to present Playing with Reality: 15 Years at Glen Echo Park, a solo exhibition by Glen Echo Park Resident artist J. Jordan Bruns. Bruns has been painting a variety of work in the Stone Tower Studio since joining the Park 15 years ago. He is known for his large-scale abstractions depicting themes of order vs. chaos. This retrospective show celebrates his range as an artist, featuring a stunning collection of paintings with varying degrees of realism. From portraits and landscapes that evoke mood and personality through their respective mediums, to still life paintings that border on “trompe l’oeil” realism, utilizing expert oil painting techniques, there’s something for
everyone.

Artist Biography
J. Jordan Bruns is a full-time artist living and working in Maryland and a Glen Echo Park resident artist working in the Chautauqua Tower. He recently returned from a three-year sabbatical in Tokyo, Japan (2018-2021) where much of his current aesthetic influences stem from. In 2004, he received BFAs in Painting and Illustration at Maryland Institute College of Art. He then went on to earn an MFA in Studio Painting at Indiana University in 2007. After grad school, he instructed at and managed the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery, at Glen Echo Park in Maryland. His love of teaching  has led him to branch out and become Director of Art Clinic, a painting and drawing school at Glen Echo Park in 2022.

His work is in the public collections of Novartis Pharmaceuticals and Kaiser Permanente. Solo exhibitions include Long View Gallery (Washington, DC) and The Indiana University Art Museum (Bloomington, Indiana). His numerous group shows include “Transient Geometries” at The Antelope Valley College Art Gallery (Lancaster, California) and “Color Schooled” (Long View Gallery, Washington, DC). His work has also been exhibited in Scope Miami in 2014, Context Miami in 2017 and 2018, as well as Aqua Miami in 2019 during Art Basel.

Exhibition Opening:
Saturday, April 1, 2023, 6pm-8pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays & Sundays, 12pm – 6pm
Tom Doyle
Navigations
April 1 – 30, 2023 // Stone Tower Gallery

The Stone Tower Gallery presents Navigations, a solo exhibition by artist Tom Doyle. In Navigations, Doyle uses clay, wood, and plaster to create tactile artifacts that live somewhere between the historical and the functional. Many of these sanded and worked objects take the form of low-tech tools designed to build with precision. Other sculptural works and drawings reference celestial navigation and how we construct ways to find our next north star. Text on the surface takes the form of word searches, providing linguistic clues to the artifact’s function. This body of work speaks to the ambiguities of wayfinding and decision-making in our world despite our craving more accuracy. Doyle creates his work to remind us of the beauty and phenomena of the everyday through seemingly benign objects.

Artist Biography
Tom Doyle is an educator and artist based in Washington, DC. He received his BFA in ceramics and Masters of Arts in Teaching from Maryland Institute College of Art. He creates functional and sculptural work made of clay, wood, and everyday construction materials.

Artist Statement
I love an old tool. I revel in the way its storied surface rests reverently in my hand while it whispers nostalgia and  boasts of what could be. I cherish the crispness of a hanging plumb bob’s line and marvel at a level’s bubble, situating me against the truth of a pure horizon, and its opposite. Each tool seems to distill a phenomena into something specific and now tangible. They point towards, divide evenly, center us, steer us. I am particularly fascinated with tools which measure and guide, whether to build or navigate – although they are sometimes the same. In my practice, I reimagine these tools and create artifacts that speak to wayfinding, decision-making, and placehood in a modern world. In these new versions, there is absurdity in their materiality and folly in their choice for empathy over precision. But I don’t mind. Word searches cover them, participating in an act of selection as they offer their guidance. I build with clay as a way to speak directly in a dual language of fragility and permanence. And I layer construction materials so that the tools won’t be far from home.

Exhibition Opening:
Saturday, April 1, 2023, 6pm-8pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays & Sundays, 12pm – 6pm
Abbey Alpern
Out of the Box
April 1 – 29, 2023 // Park View Gallery

The Park View Gallery presents Out of the Box, a solo exhibition of collages by artist Abbey Alpern. Using the leftover cardboard delivery boxes she started collecting during the pandemic, Alpern creates collages resembling local landscapes and abstract compositions. This body of work calls attention to the abundance of waste leftover from everyday consumerism and highlights her resourcefulness as an artist to turn refuse into works of art.

Artist Biography
Abbey Alpern works in various media, including repurposed materials. She studied art at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland and has taken classes at Glen Echo Park in Glen Echo, Maryland. In 2013, she was an artist-in-residence at St. Elizabeth School, leading a project based on her mini-art museum rooms. In 2010, Alpern was featured on Voice of America.

Artist Statement
I like to use repurposed materials to create art. I would rather incorporate “throwaway” objects into my works than have them end up as landfill. During the pandemic, cardboard boxes have been in great abundance due to all the deliveries coming to our house. I have used these boxes as the primary material in my collages. I like the three-dimensionality of the cardboard
collages that I can use to create landscapes. My husband and I often go to the C&O Canal, a treasure of our local area. We like to ride our recumbent trikes, which gives me an opportunity to see the canal from a unique perspective.

Much of the work in this exhibit is inspired by what I have seen on the canal, particularly between Sycamore Landing and Violette’s Lock. Shenandoah National Park is another treasure of our area. Prior to the pandemic and the many deliveries, I used repurposed materials to make wire sculptures including abandoned wire from telephone installations, plastic mesh bags from grocery purchases, and buttons that a friend’s family had collected over 100 years. I also used beads, pipe cleaners, burlap, door screening and whatever else I find interesting. Photos of these additional works are available on my website: https://www.abbeyartstudio.org/

Glen Echo April 2023 Exhibitions
Exhibition Opening: Saturday, April 1, 2023, 6pm-8pm
Gallery Hours: Mondays-Saturdays, 10am – 6pm
Glen Echo Park is located at 7300 MacArthur Blvd., Glen Echo, MD, 20812.

About Glen Echo
The Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture, a non-profit organization, manages the arts programs and historic buildings of Glen Echo Park, a vibrant arts and cultural center in Montgomery County, MD. The Park offers classes and camps in visual and performing arts, art exhibitions, children’s theater performances, summer concerts, environmental programs, special events and festivals, and a lively social dance program. Glen Echo Park is located at 7300 MacArthur Blvd. in Glen Echo, Maryland, six miles northwest of Georgetown along the scenic Potomac River palisades.