Freight Gallery, a new exhibition space in northeast DC’s Langdon neighborhood, creates experiential moments by displaying works in a non-traditional environment. With the passing of the artist this fall, the installation represents her final, fully-realized solo exhibition.
Read MoreWhat does it mean to have an Arab identity? Are there commonalities between regional identities as one journeys from the Atlas Mountains eastward to the Persian Gulf? This question is posed by the artists in the Middle East Institute’s inaugural gallery exhibition Arabicity|Ourouba.
Read MoreTimber, now on view at the Mansion at Strathmore, explores the versatility of wood as a medium of artistic expression. The group show features both regional and national artists who place wood at the center of their practice. The exhibition is notable for the way in which it mixes works of fine art with those of fine craft. By blurring the lines between “fine art” and “craft”, the exhibition highlights the similarities between these approaches to woodworking.
Read MoreThe continued fascination with the sociopolitical concerns that have come to prominence around and since the 2016 election is explored in America Is… on view at Touchstone Gallery. Artists explore, ask and answer: “What is America today?”. Here, the curatorial lens is focused on the way our recent political choices reverberate through the tenuous fabric of a multi-cultural society and is more concerned with broader issues such as racism, homophobia, gun violence and income inequality
Read MoreWorks by Nancy Sausser and Madeline Stratton, now on view at IA&A at Hillyer, provide an ideal laboratory for discovering affinities between artists using dissimilar media to uncover those hidden memories or experiences that connect the individual to the world around them. While their bodies of work may have parted at a fork in the road, the paths they travel run remarkably parallel.
Read MoreFlesh + Bone III, now on view at IA&A at Hillyer, presents a cross-section of approaches to capturing the human physique. Though national in scope (works come from as far away as Georgia and Oregon), half of the artists selected hail from the DMV area, giving viewers a sense of how our region’s artists participate in contemporary dialogues regarding the intersection of abstraction and realism in modern, figurative work.
Read MoreStrictly Painting 12, the title of McLean Project for the Art’s current exhibition is something of a misnomer. A more apt title for the 63-work exhibition might well be Strictly Color 12. Jurist Adah Rose Bitterbaum has selected 56 artists whose approach to color (or even its creative absence) defines the visual forms displayed on canvas and paper.
Read MoreIndelible: That Which Cannot Be Erased examines the toll racial animus has taken on this country, adding to the voices and experiences that have given rise to the #BlackLivesMatter movement. What seems to set Indelible apart from other exhibitions is its desire to ground contemporary injustices within an historical framework.
Read MoreFor thirty years, the District of Columbia Arts Center has weathered the changing vagaries of the DC’s artistic landscape; few local arts organizations can lay claim to such an extensive history of showcasing visual and performing arts. Then/Again: A Gallery Exhibition 30 Years Later marks this noteworthy anniversary, inviting artists who participated in the gallery’s inaugural exhibition to display works that document their current interests.
Read MoreWhile known internationally for public, outdoor sculptural vessels that dwarf the human figure, this survey of von Rydingsvard’s recent work (the majority of which were produced in the last ten years) gives viewers a more complete picture of her artistic musings. Stand in front of these monoliths, she seems to say, and know there is a deeper, richer part of the universe beyond the visual spectrum waiting to be explored.
Read MoreAn in depth review of the Washington Sculptors Group’s 2019 annual juried exhibition at the Brentwood Arts Exchange. This year’s exhibition focuses heavily on nonrepresentational work. As a result, the exhibition takes on distinctly architectural tones, with individual components of each sculpture building like blocks upon one another. The highlights of the exhibition weave the various threads of architecture, (non)representation and narrative to reach a harmonious conclusion.
Read MoreThe 2019 Hill Center annual juried exhibition spreads across three floors of the Old Naval Hospital and features the work of more than 80 local artists. Works were judged by Caitlin Berry, Director of Hemphill Fine Arts in Washington, DC. Berry has selected a body of work noticeably free from commentary on current events; the mood is more pastoral than political. The dominant themes of the show included representational scenes of nature as well as portraiture.
Read MoreEric Hope’s review of Moving Visuals attempts to delineate the differences between the performative and narrative videos presented in the exhibition with an inquiry about what separates movies and documentaries from fine art.
Read MoreA review of “Micro-Monuments II: Underground” at IA&A at Hillyer featuring German sculptors alongside artists from the Washington Sculptors Group.
Read MoreAn indepth review of Matt Pinney’s current solo exhibition, now on view at the Brentwood Arts Exchange’s Lab Gallery. Pinney is interested in connecting ancient myths and archetypes to situations in the modern world. Though the cacophony of ideas is at times jarring, Pinney’s exuberance for his subject matter is visually palpable.
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