Reviews

In Deep Space Jordann Wine finds healing through an exploration of patterns and movement at Honfleur Gallery. Read More

The numbers are staggering. Americans use approximately 35 billion plastic bottles and containers each year. Since its invention, which completely transformed consumer culture, we have only increased our plastic footprint, particularly since major plastic production began in the 1940s and 1950s. We need to do something about this now, and Kirsty Little is trying to draw our attention to this inalterable fact by creating a work that calls the viewer to recognize the problem. Read More

At Studio Gallery, Pam Frederick and Veronica Szalus explore various themes prevalent in urban environments. Frederick creates photographic collages while Szalus employs found materials to discuss the interaction of building and decay, as well as the distinction between human memories against factual documentation. Read More

A small group of standing bronze sculptures by sculptor Squire Broel is currently in the outdoor sculpture area at American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. At significant distances from one another, there is a strong sense of loneliness in this installation. In the bright sun, with angled shadows from the building, totems in the American desert may come to mind, although the aesthetic seems more universal, potentially recalling various primitive or prehistoric sources. Read More

Strictly 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 More

At HEMPHILL Fine Arts, Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi examines the complexities of cultures clashing through her vibrant works, incorporating both Persian and American influences. Read More

Through innovative cross-disciplinary gallery programming at the Greater Reston Art Center, the playfully compelling objects made by Stephanie Williams are visually engaging on a personal and a metaphorical level. The artist investigates themes of identity through individual objects hung on the wall in a collective grouping that may look like specimens in a lab. Working with throwaway objects and remnants, Williams’ objects are unsettling and sensually alluring. Read More

Gallery B in downtown Bethesda is hosting the finalists of the annual Bethesda Painting Awards competition. This year’s selection exhibits a pronounced showing of painting, in the traditional sense, both figurative and abstract. It’s been some time since we’ve seen such a strong feeling of hand is in the works represented, that is, of paint on surface, made into recognizable or abstract imagery. Read More

The retrospective exhibition of the work of Venetian artist Jacopo Robusti, known as Il Tintoretto, is still on view at the National Gallery. Although Tintoretto was enormously successful in his own time and place, he remains relatively unknown to the general public. The reasons for this are many. Not least among them are the many myths that stubbornly follow the artist’s reputation portraying him as an outsider, a rebel, a difficult and bizarre personality, and perhaps most problematically: a Mannerist. Read More

The exhibition Underlying Borders aims to address the psychological impact of living between two places. The work of five artists explores identity, gender and nationality as they relate to geographical distances and the sense that one’s body and memory can become zones of transition. Read More

Through their experimental, colorful, and dynamic works, Steve Wanna and Marcel Taylor aim to address the process and effects of D.C.’s changing landscape – an occurrence that is prevalent and continuous in Historic Anacostia. Read More

Arlington Art Center’s exhibition Spring SOLOS 2019 presents the unexpected artistic perspectives of seven artists from the Mid-Atlantic region, including an art teacher-Marine veteran and a photographer-butcher. Together, they challenge viewers to reflect on their surrounding natural, institutional, and political environments. Read More

Indelible: 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 More