Archives for Claudia Rousseau, Ph.D.
A timely exhibit of works by artist Chawky Frenn is on view at the Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington, DE featuring a series of forty-seven mixed media paintings made on posters of the United States Constitution. Begun in 2010 in response to Citizens United, the series morphed into a broader range of social critique. Read More
East City Art Reviews—The Song of Earth Has Many Different Chords at Adah Rose Gallery
Adah Rose has moved into a new space with more exhibition area and more light. The inaugural show there features two artists who work with the subject of nature and earth processes. Showing are paintings by Gabe Brown and sculpture by Scott Hazard, work characterized by techniques that, in a sense, mimic the natural structures they are referencing. Read More
East City Art Reviews—Sculpture Now 2020: Washington Sculptors Group at McLean Project for the Arts
Sculpture Now, with work of 54 artists, is on view at the McLean Project for the Arts. Though there was no a priori stated theme, many, if not most of the works, can be seen to reflect the current environmental crisis, either by their specific content or by the incorporation of found materials recycled into their construction. Read More
East City Art Reviews—Aceptar: Una Exposición Colectiva at the Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery
The concept of acceptance, or more precisely “to accept” and continue to live the immigrant dilemma of separateness and inclusion is the theme of an exhibition now on view at the Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at the Smith Center. Read More
East City Art Reviews—The Bethesda Painting Awards 2020
The annual painting competition, the Bethesda Painting Awards, sponsored by the Jim and Carol Trawick Foundation was postponed from its usual spring date, and the work of the eight finalists is now on view at Gallery B in Bethesda through the end of October 2020. Read More
East City Art Reviews—Carol Barsha: Within My Meadow
With summer winding down, and leaves beginning to fall, Carol Barsha’s solo exhibit at gallery neptune & brown may feel nostalgic for spring—a spring we largely lost this year because of the pandemic. Nevertheless, while viewing the show in person, surrounded by these works in the small but bright gallery space, the words that came to me were “uplifting” and “refreshing”. Read More
East City Art Reviews—Wayne Paige: Not out of the Woods
If you’re up for a ride in the Virginia countryside, you can just catch a small but fascinating exhibit at the Middle Street Gallery in Washington, VA of new work by Washington DC artist Wayne Paige. Not Out of the Woods is a series of ink drawings made this year in response to recent events, and the artist’s own experiences during these dark and uncertain times.
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East City Art Reviews—The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards 2020
If you google the phrase “what is art” or “what is the purpose of art” you get a plethora of responses. The work of the winners and finalists of this year’s Trawick Contemporary Art Awards competition generated these questions in my mind as fairly all of the work in the exhibition, now at Gallery B in Bethesda until the end of the month, expresses political opinions and social themes with varying degrees of aesthetic interest. Read More
East City Art Reviews—Andrew Sovjani, Pages & Paper: Explorations of Light and Form
An exhibit of the work of Andrew Sovjani is on view at Calloway Fine Art in Georgetown and online. Sovjani is a magician, using his knowledge of physics and chemistry to create unique manipulated prints that incorporate painting and performative practices in their production. The results are both aesthetically remarkable and visually compelling. Read More
East City Art Reviews—Degas at the Opéra: An Artist’s Journey
Degas at the Opéra is an exhibition produced collaboratively by the Musée d’Orsay, Paris and the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Given its particular emphases, this broadly aimed exhibit will provide viewers with a yet fuller understanding of Degas’ artistic relation to the theater, and in particular to the ballet. After the long closure of the museum, the exhibit has been extended at the NGA, and is viewable through October 12, 2020 by reservation. Read More
East City Art Reviews—W.C. Richardson: Blind Spot at Addison/Ripley Fine Art
An exciting group of recent paintings by W.C. Richardson opened in early March of this year at Addison/Ripley Fine Art. Not long thereafter, the gallery was forced to close, but has reopened by appointment. These works represent the artist’s most recent stage in a 40 year interaction with abstraction that has formed a remarkable trajectory. Read More
Plague Pictures or Art in Times of Pestilence
The massive toll that the current pandemic is wreaking is already affecting the art world. We thought it would be both interesting and appropriate to take a look back at the artistic response to widespread pestilences of the past. A simple look at art made during and after outbreaks of the plague in western Europe alone produces a huge and fascinating inventory. Read More
East City Art Reviews—Dialog: Landscape and Abstraction—Freya Grand and the Permanent Collection of the Art Museum of the Americas
Freya Grand does large scale landscape paintings. The key to understanding her work is to realize that her paintings are not so much descriptive of the places she visited to make them, but are about the experiences of being there. This exhibit pairs her work with abstract paintings by Latin American artists in the OAS/AMA collection. Read More
East City Art Reviews—Dialogues at Stable
Dialogues, the inaugural exhibition in the gallery of STABLE, the new art studio space in northeast Washington, opened last fall. Featuring the work of 32 artists working there, it is slated to be the first and last of its kind there as the organizers plan never to repeat this group show idea. Read More
East City Art Reviews—Looking In: Edward Hopper’s Hotel Interior Views
Edward Hopper and the American Hotel is a major exhibition of paintings, watercolors, prints and never before exhibited drawings at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. With a focus on Hopper’s representations of hotel interiors, it includes works that show Hopper’s extensive influence in this genre. Hopper’s works were designed to encourage the viewer to look in—even in cases where they’d rather not. Read More