Pennsylvania Art Shows- Andrew Wyeth at Brandywine Museum of Art

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Drawing, Painting / Painters, Pennsylvania Art Shows
Jun 132025
 

“Adam”, 1963, Tempera on panel

“Adam”, 1963, Tempera on panel (detail)

The Brandywine Museum of Art is currently showing Human Nature, a selection of work by Andrew Wyeth focused on the human form. The museum has an extensive collection of the artist’s paintings and often has shows focused on him and his artistic family.

From the museum about this exhibition-

One of the artist Andrew Wyeth’s enduring legacies is his highly original response to the subject of the human body. Alongside his iconic landscapes and visionary responses to buildings, botany, and beyond, his figure paintings and drawings offer particular insight into how this unique creative journey took shape, and how he was connected to the history of art.

The rarely seen paintings and drawings on view in Human Nature reveal an artist who was steeped in the tradition of Western art, engaged in a diligent study of the human form via the long-tested methods of sketching from live models and plaster casts, and who found in his portrait subjects ways of evoking enigmatic narratives and inner lives.

The works in this exhibition, drawn from the Brandywine and Wyeth Foundation collections as well as one exciting loan from a private collection, present a unique opportunity to understand Wyeth’s eye. Case studies include early figure drawings made in his father’s studio, self-portraits, intimate depictions of close family members, a little known and fascinating body of commissioned portraits, a broad representation of his mature practice including many major figural temperas and watercolors, and a final section on how he approached the nude figure. One highlight is the loan of Wyeth’s portrait of Professor Joyce Hill Stoner, a leading art conservator who shares in the exhibition’s wall texts some firsthand reflection on the process of being painted by Wyeth. Visitors will come away with new understanding of a remarkable lifelong practice that clarifies the operations and values at work across his art.

The painting above is of Adam Johnson who raised chickens and pigs a short walk from Wyeth’s studio in Chadds Ford. When this was painted, Wyeth had already known him for thirty years. Other interesting paintings in the show include the two very different portraits of Wyeth’s sister Ann, from earlier in his career, pictured below.

“Ann Wyeth in White”, 1936, Oil on canvas

“Ann”, 1939, Egg tempera on panel

From the museum about these two works-

As a young artist, Wyeth made a few dozen works in oil on canvas before abandoning this medium for good. There is a stark difference between the two portraits of pianist and composer Ann Wyeth, the artist’s sister, made three years apart. This depiction is handled very freely, in contrast to the more tightly painted tempera to the right, in which the artist and, by extension, the viewer loom over the subject in a most unsettling way while Ann Wyeth ignores our gaze in her peripheral vision.

This exhibition closes 6/15/25. A new exhibition of Wyeth works, Andrew Wyeth at Kuerner Farm: The Eye of the Earth, will open on 6/22.

Throwback- NYC Murals- Tomokazu Matsuyama

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Drawing, New York Art Shows, Nyack, Painting / Painters, Public Art
Jun 122025
 

This mural was created in 2019 by Tomokazu “Matzu” Matsuyama as a commission for The Houston Bowery Wall in NYC.

Matsuyama recently completed the painting Morning Sun Dance, inspired by Edward Hopper’s 1952 painting, Morning Sun. An exhibition of his paintings and works on paper centered around this new work opens at Edward Hopper House Museum in Nyack, New York, on Friday, 6/20/25.

From the museum about the exhibition-

The exhibition centers around Matsu’s new large-scale painting Morning Sun Dance. Of the work that inspired his painting, Matsu says, “While Hopper’s Morning Sun captures a moment of introspective stillness within the psychological landscape of mid-century urban life, his treatment of solitude, light, and constructed space continues to influence my own approach to thinking about isolation as well as my approach to painting.”

In Morning Sun, Hopper depicts a woman sitting on her bed in the sun, alone in an empty room, wearing a plain orange dress and a simple, contemplative expression. In Morning Sun Dance, Matsu paints a solitary woman with a similarly meditative demeanor. However, her environment is far more richly layered: the room is filled with personal artifacts—dogs, magazines, and a luxurious couch—reflecting contemporary material life. Notably, the presence of dogs, while suggesting companionship, also references historical depictions such as Toutou, le bien aimé by Rosa Bonheur (1885) and A Nurse and a Child in an Elegant Foyer by Jacob Ochtervelt (1663), in which dogs symbolized wealth and ownership. In Matsu’s work, these animals subtly underscore solitude rather than alleviate it—suggesting not connection, but the heightened self-awareness of being alone.

Her clothing fuses Western and Japanese motifs—a William Morris textile layered with traditional patterns—while a Sports Illustrated poster of Muhammad Ali nods to her alignment with diversity, strength, and modern identity. In contrast to Hopper’s figure, who gazes outward toward the cityscape, Matsu’s subject turns inward, facing her domestic space. This shift in gaze implies a broader narrative: solitude, once externalized and meditative, is now negotiated through personal space and cultural consumption.

The exhibition will also feature Matsu’s process drawings, which reveal how the artist engaged with Hopper’s use of light, figuration, and abstraction. Two additional smaller paintings by Matsu also reinterpret Hopper’s iconic figure in the orange dress—one from Hopper’s original perspective, and the other from an external vantage point, as if observing the figure from the outside.

“This exhibition offers a fascinating dialogue between two artists from different eras, both grappling with the complexities of modern life and the experience of solitude,” says Kathleen Motes Bennewitz, Executive Director of the Edward Hopper House Museum. “Matsu’s vibrant and layered response to Hopper’s work invites us to reconsider themes of isolation and introspection through a contemporary lens, highlighting the enduring relevance of Hopper’s vision while embracing new perspectives.”

Flashback- Ohio Art Shows- Lari Pittman from “New Narratives” at Cleveland Museum of Art

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Cleveland, Ohio Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Printmaking
Jun 062025
 

Pictured above is All that Glitters is Gold (for Liberace), 2000, from the portfolio 1989. A Portfolio of 11 Images Honoring Artists Lost to AIDS, by Lari Pittman. It was on view last year as part of Cleveland Museum of Art’s group exhibition, New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper.

From the museum about the work-

Lari Pittman made this print as part of a portfolio honoring visual and performing artists lost to the AIDS epidemic. Dedicated to pianist and singer Liberace (1919-1987), Pittman referenced the performer’s renowned love for glitz and glamour through what he calls over-decoration. The male profile (perhaps representing a young Liberace), diamonds, sunbursts, and undefined architectural elements in layers of bright, complementary colors celebrate artificiality, or in the artist’s words, “frippery” that defines both Pittman’s practice and Liberace’s public persona.

 Art21 also has several videos of Pittman discussing his work worth checking out.

NYC Public Art- The High Line- Teresa Solar-Abboud

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Mixed Media, New York Art Shows, Public Art, Sculptors / Sculpture
Jun 042025
 

Currently on view on the High Line in NYC is Teresa Solar-Abboud‘s colorful sculpture, Birth of Islands.

From the High Line’s website about the commission-

Teresa Solar-Abboud creates sculptures, drawings, and videos characterized by an interest in fiction, storytelling, natural history, ecology, and anatomy. In her work, she alludes to material entities in states of transformation and the tension between the organic and synthetic, interior and exterior, gestation and birth, and embryonic and advanced. Solar-Abboud wields these tensions as a tool, not to draw binary juxtapositions, but rather to suggest that they co-exist in a quantum world, in a constant flow state of evolution. This is articulated in her work through an interest in and re-imagination of life’s diverse and sophisticated networks—cultural, geological, industrial, and anatomical—and how these systems overlap or sometimes clash.

For the High Line, Solar-Abboud presents Birth of Islands, a new sculpture in her series of zoomorphic shapes inspired by animals and prehistoric life forms. Birth of Islands, is composed of slick, blade-like foam-coated resin elements that emanate outward from the pores of a muddy, gray ceramic stump. When visiting New York, Solar-Abboud was struck by the landscape—building after building rising from the soil in a fight for prominence, just as vegetation in the forest combats for sunlight in order to survive. Birth of Islands refers to this competitive ecosystem, while also evoking human anatomy: two yellow, tongue-like emanations have seemingly tunneled their way from underground onto the High Line. The forms are spoon-like in their appearance, concave or convex, depending on one’s vantage point. The result appears simultaneously post-human and primordial, sophisticated and elementary—a representation of our own unending transformation alongside nature’s ever-evolving state.

This sculpture will be on view through July 2025.

Caturday- Cindy Bernard’s “Dangle”

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters
May 312025
 

Cindy Bernhard‘s Dangle, 2024, was part of PLATO gallery’s 2024 inaugural group exhibition, Double Vision.

In a recent interview with Overstandard, she discusses her practice and specifically the use of cats-

Cats and dogs frequently appear in your paintings as stand-ins for humans, adding layers of humor and empathy. What inspired this choice, and how do these animals enhance the narratives within your work?

Cindy: I was trained in figure painting, and I was making figure paintings for many years. I found that when painting the figure, the dialog about my work became a conversation about identity politics. In my painting practice, that is not of interest to me. My interests lie in the human experience, not gender, or body type, or the color of someone’s skin. I’m interested in shared human connection, shared emotions like grief, pain, beauty, suffering, and joy. There are days I miss painting the figure and I can see it returning in my work again one day.

With that in mind… What do you think it is about cats that resonates so well with you?

Cindy:  I love looking for the cats and dogs in old master paintings: they are always so weird and expressive.  Even though they are in the background and very small, they have a lot to say. In my work the cats become the main character, I think it adds humor, and it’s easier for people to connect to the cat than a figure, which is interesting.  There’s also a song I love, by one of my favorite bands, mewithoutyou.  For some reason this part of the song ‘a glass can only spill what it contains’ always stuck with me…

A cat came drifting
On my porch from the outside cold
And with eyes closed, drinking
Warm milk from my bowl
Thought, “Nobody hears me, nobody hears me
As I crept in so soft
And nobody sees me, nobody sees me”
As I watch six steps off

In my mind I would always see this cat creeping along….not wanting to be caught.  I think it’s about when we do things in the dark and think no one knows, God still sees.

Flashback- Florida Art Shows- Tania Figueroa at The Werk in St. Pete and Upcoming Exhibition at The Studio @620

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Florida Art Shows, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Pinellas County, St. Pete
May 302025
 

Tania Figueroa‘s painting Oronym, pictured above, was part of a group exhibition at The Werk Gallery in St. Pete, Florida, in April of 2023.

About the artwork from the artist-

Expressing a point of view feeling restricted. Throwing your truth only between the lines. Not being able to express your thoughts openly because of fear, pressure or prejudice. In that restriction, we feel trapped, we feel with two faces. The one the world wants to see and the genuine face.

Like an oronym.

You might hear one thing, but what is it really saying?

The  artist is currently part of the three person exhibition, Between Worlds on view at The Studio @620, also in St. Pete. The other Florida artists included are Sketzii (Ketsy Ruiz) and Alexa Espinosa (ArttByLexx).

From the gallery-

In Between Worlds, artists Sketzii, ArttByLexx, and Tania Figueroa bring together layered narratives of memory, identity, and cultural connection. Their work moves across genres and materials—painting, digital illustration, and mixed media—to explore what it means to exist in the spaces between home and heritage, past and present, tradition and personal truth. Each artist offers a unique lens through which to view belonging, storytelling, and the way art creates meaning across generations.

Sketzii is a celebration of her Puerto Rican heritage and the experience of living within the Latinx diaspora. Her bold, vibrant compositions honor communities that are often overlooked—uplifting stories of cultural pride, displacement, and the longing for connection that spans across geography and time.

ArttByLexx’s practice centers on her connection to ancestry and the inward journey of self-discovery. Her practice embraces nature’s rhythms and emotional depth, creating intuitive pieces that blur boundaries between past and present. Through her exploration of joy, grief, and transformation, her art becomes a spiritual and reflective space.

Tania Figueroa brings a rich history of movement to her visual art practice. Trained in classical ballet and theater, her work now lives in the textures of mixed media—combining textiles, sand, and paper to evoke memory, place, and care. Her pieces draw on deep personal experience, blending the sensorial and the sacred to reflect both resilience and tenderness.

Together, their work maps a shared space between worlds—charting stories of belonging, resilience, and the quiet beauty found in complexity.

This Saturday, 5/31/25, there will be a reception held from 1:00 PM – 3:30 PM with an artist talk at 2:30 PM.

Delaware Art Shows- Maurice Evans at Bridge Art Gallery

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Collage, Delaware, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Wilmington
May 282025
 

“Khola”, Mixed media, acrylic paint, fabric and collage on canvas

“Kanga Amricani”, Mixed media, acrylic paint, fabric and collage on canvas

The images above are from Fabric Secrets, Maurice Evans‘ solo exhibition of mixed media paintings, on view at Bridge Art Gallery in Wilmington until 5/31/25.

From the gallery-

Born in Smyrna, Tennessee, Maurice Evans discovered his artistic passion through music before transitioning to visual arts. After studying Fashion Illustration at the Art Institute of Atlanta, he pursued a career that blended bold colors, cultural narratives, and mixed media. In 1994, his independent career took off with a successful exhibition at the Black Arts Festival in Atlanta, leading to national and international recognition.

Evans’ work, often incorporating photography, painting, and sculpture, explores themes of music, culture, gender, and politics. His distinctive style has been showcased in numerous galleries, museums, and collections, including Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and the Hammonds House Museum.

Residing in Atlanta, Evans continues to push artistic boundaries, living by the mantra, “Create art for art’s sake,” inspiring artists and audiences alike.

It’s also worth checking out his Instagram account where he posts videos of his process, as well as his most recent work.

Delaware Art Shows- Mia Fabrizio at The Delaware Contemporary

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Collage, Conceptual Art, Delaware, Furniture, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Photographers / Photography, Sculptors / Sculpture, Wilmington
May 222025
 

For Mia Fabrizio’s installation in the lobby of The Delaware Contemporary, Pull Up A Chair, she has created several sculptures that use domestic objects to explore a variety of social issues. It is part of the museum’s Winter/Spring three-part exhibition, Dinner Table.

From the museum-

Mia Fabrizio is an interdisciplinary artist creating mixed media portraits, freestanding sculptures and installations composed of building materials and domestic items. She carves away, mends, and cobbles together assemblages from a domestic landscape that is both nostalgic and full of pathos.

In these works, Fabrizio explores the power structures and cultural paradigms associated with, “having a seat at the table.” Fabrizio reveals how furniture conventions can grant power to the user. It is the “power to be seen, power to be heard, and power to contribute to the framing of a society” that Fabrizio aims to scrutinize. The chair sculptures become vessels for memories with details that reference labor, gender, and cultural constructs. Her multilayered constructions toggle between tearing apart and memorializing her personal experience. The assembly and material choices subvert the basic understood function of a “seat” and reveal illusions of functional space. She asserts that, “these seats are invitations in name only, token representations.”

Mama Liked the Roses links past to present by combining images and materials from Fabrizio family home with images collected from regions in Italy where her great grandparents had originated. The details within the piece reference labor, food, gender and religion.

And from the artist-

I am an interdisciplinary artist. Mixed media portraits, freestanding sculptures and installations are composed of building materials and domestic items. Multilayered concepts relating to identity and social constructs are presented through a variety of artistic mediums and processes. Consumed with hidden and exposed structure, my investigation of physical construction, cultural paradigms and their relationship, originates from the framework most familiar to me, the house in which I grew up. Contradictions within this space spark my desire to highlight the fluidity of perceived binaries, particularly those relating to feminine and masculine, public and private and modern and traditional.

Ascribing to the visual context of home as well as the ethos of homemade I paint, adhere, carve and chip away at plywood, drywall and paper. I vacillate between tearing apart and tenderly memorializing my personal experience, concurrently the work points outward to larger societal conversations around immigrant status, feminism, and queerness.

This exhibition closes 5/25/29.

Delaware Art Shows- “Take A Seat” at The Delaware Contemporary

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Ceramic Art, Conceptual Art, Delaware, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture, Wilmington
May 222025
 

Work by Adam Ledford

Painting by Sierra Montoya Barela

Painting by Sierra Montoya Barela

Installation by Debra Broz

Take A Seat, at The Delaware Contemporary, presents three artists whose work focuses on aspects of domestic life. The sculptures in Adam Ledford‘s installation, and Debra Broz’s porcelain creations both explore items found around the house and encourage viewers to take a longer look beyond the initial familiarity. Sierra Montoya Barela‘s still life paintings, with their bright colors and unique compositions, balance out the exhibition.

From the museum-

The dinner table recalls memories of cuisine, traditions, faces. Many of these memories are not clearly outlined but are rather assembled together through the periphery of our experiences. At the edge are small details such as decor or furniture, all of which complement the feeling and evoke emotion that registers our memories of the moments. The settings themselves often define the sensibility of the dinner table. Working within and beyond these domestic settings, Sierra Montoya Barela, Debra Broz, and Adam Ledford each contribute their distinct techniques to a larger place setting, inviting visitors to reminisce on tables past and present.

Sierra Montoya Barela is a painter of modern-day still life, capturing the spaces we exist in, but specifically the life that exists alongside us. Barela’s use of perspective composes a portal of access, one that feels like a peephole into the domestic items that capture our impression of a space. Each painting offers a scene that imbues surrealistic comfort. Plants that grow as we move around them, food that waits to be consumed, isolated hands or feet that are suggestively attached to a body. Barela’s spatial acuity combined with her use of color and pattern is multidimensional and lively, highlighting the surroundings that outline our lives.

Also questioning elements of space, Adam Ledford melds multiple mediums together to create installations that are dimensionally varied. The mixture of sparse line work directly applied on the wall with hand-crafted, two-dimensional ceramic vessels create a composite scene of domestic familiarity. Evocative of furniture found in our homes, the drawings support the elegant pots that rest on their implied surfaces. The nature of the entirely non-functional dioramas are deceivingly simple; their whimsical nature feeding into our sensibilities of space and depth, while subverting those perceptions into new spaces of disbelief.

Debra Broz also works within the composite. Broz alters found porcelain sculptures, seamlessly combining various pieces together to craft new creatures altogether. These small figurines are reminiscent of lovingly coveted trinkets that decorate our shelves and tables. Broz leans into our memories, appropriating the figurines’ normal representation and twisting them into something fantastical. As an actual conservator of porcelain goods, Broz’s technical skill leaves little room for error; enabling her audiences to jump into the sublime and become collectors of her newly constructed tchotchke.

This show is on view until 5/25/25.

 

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