Reviews

This month there are two concurrent exhibitions featuring the later work of Kenneth Victor Young: one at CONNERSMITH, the other at Bethesda Fine Art. It also marks the fourth anniversary of the death of this remarkable but relatively little known Washington DC artist in 2017. At his death, at 83, he had had a career of over fifty years painting, teaching, and designing exhibitions. Read More

A large and emotionally charged solo retrospective of photographic work by Muriel Hasbun is currently on view at RoFa Projects in Potomac, MD. The exhibit fills a number of galleries in this large house venue, including an outside location, a miniature playhouse in the back yard. Read More

Two exhibits at the McLean Project for the Arts are in separate spaces but their pairing makes sense, even if at first this is not obvious. Each solo features the work of an artist concerned with pattern and texture, but each approaches these quite differently. Read More

David Carlson's latest series on view at Fred Schnider Gallery through the end of the year, gives expression to the Buddhist practice of feeling present and interconnected with all things or a “flattening” of time. Read More

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

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

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

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

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

Trevor Young’s current exhibition, Seeing in the Dark, on view at Addison/Ripley Fine Art, updates his series of dark, dusk, and dawn vignettes of seemingly abandoned landscapes. Unpretentious in its delivery and its subject matter, Young presents us with gas stations, overpasses, and billboards that appear in the still night air, reminding us of the constructed world we live in. Read More

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

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. Read More

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

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

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