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.

 

Delaware Art Shows- Nicole Nikolich at The Delaware Contemporary

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Delaware, Fiber Arts, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Sculptors / Sculpture, Wilmington
May 212025
 

The Delaware Contemporary is currently showing several exhibitions that reflect on the theme of the dinner table. In one room Nicole Nikolich has created the installation Can I Please Eat In The Computer Room Tonight? which includes an old Macintosh desktop computer surrounded by her colorful textile pieces. The work evokes the nostalgia of a childhood spent eager to be on the computer, even in its then limited capabilities.

From the museum about the installation-

The dinner table is a place of routine and tradition, the daily ritual of which can consist of eating, sharing, and storytelling. However, the dining room is not always the location for eating a meal. Food can be served on the sofa in front of the TV or outside under the stars, and in Nicole Nikolich’s experience, these special occasions were spent in her computer room. Seeking solace as a young teen, there was an excitement in experiencing space and time alone. Nikolich reclaims this memory, reflecting on nostalgic moments through her textile practice.

Nikolich’s artistic interests varied until she taught herself how to crochet; a medium that combined her intrinsic interest in color and texture. Based in Philadelphia, she was jointly inspired by street art and the ever-increasing yarn bombing movement and so took her developing techniques to her surroundings. These early experimentations eventually led to larger projects and commissions; enabling opportunities to further explore the medium on an increased scale. Her bright colors, varied textures, and whimsical designs explode on different surfaces and in all types of environments.

Can I Please Eat In The Computer Room Tonight? is a site-specific installation in response to Nikolich’s sensorial memories, her retelling of these early moments of youth. Combining both two and three-dimensional textiles, Nikolich inserts her audience into a youthful memory that is both individually personal and collectively reflective. The space is transformed by Nikolich’s signature experimental style and bold color, constructing a portal into a textile explosion. In doing so, the installation offers audiences an opportunity to reimagine their adolescent abandon; those remembrances in which routine breaks and adventure begins.

And from Nikolich-

Can I Please Eat In The Computer Room Tonight? explores the positive and transformative view of tech from a preteens perspective growing up in the early aughts. This installation is a memorial to this fever dream of a time period where you could only access the internet in a specifically designated computer room, often decorated in brown hues and overstuffed with knickknacks and office supplies. This space, an escape to another part of your life, often felt like an oasis to explore who you were becoming for the first time without the microscope and confinements of adults and societal expectations. Swapping sandboxes for CD-ROM games and mixed tapes. Inside jokes with friends in chat rooms and staying up until way too late messaging your crush in your own secret language. Taking selfies on the front facing camera and looking at yourself in a slightly different way for the first time. Learning about yourself and the world all from the glow of a little square box in the middle of a little square room.

This exhibition will close on 5/25/25.

Tax Day- Joseph Christian Leyendecker’s painting for The Saturday Evening Post

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Delaware, Illustration, Painting / Painters, Wilmington
Apr 152025
 

Artist and illustrator Joseph Christian Leyendecker created this painting in 1926 for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. Leyendecker produced annual covers featuring timely takes on “Baby New Year” for several years.

This work was part of Delaware Art Museum’s 2024 exhibition Jazz Age Illustration, which focused on the art of popular illustration in the United States between 1919 and 1942.

Delaware Art Shows- Howard Pyle at Delaware Art Museum

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Illustration, Painting / Painters
Mar 052025
 

Pictured are two paintings by artist and illustrator Howard Pyle, The Mermaid (1910) and The Flying Dutchman (1900), currently on view at Delaware Art Museum. Pyle played an important part in the history of the arts in Delaware, especially in Wilmington, where he was based. The Mermaid was his last painting. He passed away in Italy in 1911 and the painting was left unfinished on his easel. It was completed by his student Frank Schoonover.

From the museum about the artist-

Howard Pyle captivated American readers and aspiring illustrators with his passion for storytelling. Based in Wilmington, Delaware, Pyle illustrated and wrote for the nation’s most popular magazines. His art breathed life into fictional villains and historical heroes. Pyle taught a generation of students including Violet Oakley, Frank Schoonover, and N. C. Wyeth. Today, illustrators, filmmakers, and animators still celebrate his lasting imprint on the nations visual culture.

Launching his illustration practice in the 1870s, Pyle built a successful career that spanned thirty years. He excelled throughout rapid industry expansion and vast changes in printing technology. Pyle published thousands of images in books and magazines. Beginning in 1905, Pyle transferred his skills as a storyteller into mural painting. When he died, his students and friends came together to preserve his extraordinary legacy. They formed the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts, which became the Delaware Art Museum.

Howard Pyle was born on this day in (3/5) in 1853.

Delaware Art Shows- “Pixel Promenade Remix” at The Delaware Contemporary

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Conceptual Art, Delaware, Installation Art, Sculptors / Sculpture, Wilmington
Dec 272024
 

This is the last weekend to see the interactive installation Pixel Promenade Remix by Radiance (Erin Barry-Dutro and Kyle Steely) at The Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington. The work, located in its own room, is activated by body movement and creates fun multicolored light shows for participants.

From the museum-

Baltimore-based artist duo Erin Barry-Dutro and Kyle Steely, known as Radiance, construct site-specific installations that merge technology with active sensory participation. Their individual practices inform the ultimate collaboration; Erin Barry-Dutro is a visual artist and Kyle Steely is a designer/maker working with coding programs. Together, they envision products and environments that are aesthetically dynamic through functionality. Largely, the resulting projects have responded to music, movement, and the senses, ultimately addressing our humanity and how we interact with our environment.

In response to the theme of “Design”, Radiance proposed an interior version of the Pixel Promenade, which was originally installed for the Baltimore Light City Festival in 2016. Based on the original concept, Pixel Promenade Remix invites visitors to move within the installation, acting as the catalyst for oscillating color and light. Participant body movement is captured and tracked to orchestrate a light show orchestrated and centered on the individual. This simple gesture enables a sensorial experience; a direct connection between our bodies and a reactionary force.

This revitalized installation offers not only an elegantly crafted encounter but additionally initiates a dialogue about the nature of technology-based art forms and their inevitable decay. When invited to re-create the installation, Radiance took the opportunity to reflect, update, and consider the space with new possibilities. In doing so, they sought to answer questions about design innovation; what does it mean to reuse and recycle these materials? How can artwork that relies on technology be adapted to more closely resonate with contemporary topics and ideas? Pixel Promenade Remix presents the conceptual argument that “the new” is not always necessary, rather the importance lies in its relevancy and ability to reflect its participants.

This exhibition closes 12/29/24.

Delaware Art Shows- “we are what we lose” at The Delaware Contemporary

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Ceramic Art, Conceptual Art, Dance, Delaware, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Performance Art, Performances, Photographers / Photography, Sculptors / Sculpture, Video and Film, Wilmington
Dec 202024
 

Chau Nguyen, “Bài Học Về Phong Cảnh / Landscape Didactics”, 2022, sand painting

Zalika Azim, “Blood Memories (or a going to ground)”, 2023, video

Azza El Siddique, “Vessels”, 2019, ceramic, rust

Suneil Sanzgiri, “Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken)”, 2023, video

Currently on view at The Delaware Contemporary is we are what we lose, an exhibition featuring artists Zalika Azim, Suneil Sanzgiri, Azza El Siddique, and Chau Nguyen. Through sculpture, dance, video and photography, these artists investigate issues of loss through what gets left behind.

From the museum-

“The real phenomenon of loss is both the inventory of what no longer exists and the impossible measure of what survives.” —Canisia Lubrin

What does the fugitive offer to sites of ruins? Is it a hum, a murmur, a cry, a shadow, a haunting, a poem, a memory, a scene, a loved one, a vessel, a movement, a gathering?

Fugitivity routes and unroutes our understanding of topographic terrains created through the unfolding of displacement, relocation, and exile. In the wake of migratory catastrophes, ruins are the aftermath of loss and devastation, leaving behind vestigial remnants and residuals. Reaching for traces, illegibility, and livability, the fugitive attempts to depict and texture multiple lifeworlds within ruins marked in loss and devastation. Gesturing towards the specter, how might placing what happens within sites of ruins —the permeable, usable, corporeal, and inhabitable—at the heart of our critiques and interventions enliven our imaginative possibilities?

Ruins present a set of spatial, material, visual, and psychic dimensions of un/being and becoming, as well as modes of fugitive resistance and expression. Tending to the juxtaposition of being unplaced, we are what we lose focuses on the provoking void that ruins leave behind and expresses spatial, narrative, and material practices actively and painstakingly situated in the hold of the catastrophes as means of reworlding and unworlding towards livable possibilities.

Partaking in worlding decomposition, Zalika Azim, Suneil Sanzgiri, Azza El Siddique, and Chau Nguyen present visual, narrative, and sonic performances that desire and action towards the otherly present meaning and aliveness by uncomposing time and working with the permeability of the artistic mediums. By engaging with the barely perceptible imaginations, unplaced yearnings, and tactile and vulnerable terrains, the artists orient toward spectral terrains that suture, resist, and refuse the knowability of the fugitive. Viewers will reflect on the histories of ruins haunting our contemporary sites and their capacity to mutate to make complicated ways of knowing, feeling, and seeing the world.

More information on Suneil Sanzgiri’s video installation, pictured above, from his website–

How do we live through and narrate moments of revolution and revolt, and how do we understand these experiences across time and distance? Using imaging technologies to meditate on what it means to witness from afar, Suneil Sanzgiri explores the complexities of anti-colonialism, nationalism, and diasporic identity. His work is inspired by his family’s legacy of resistance in Goa, India, an area under Portuguese occupation for over 450 years until its independence in 1961. Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?), the artist’s newest two-channel video installation, combines archival footage, animation, interviews, and a script written by poet Sham-e-Ali Nayeem. The film tells the stories of the mutual struggle in India and Africa against Portuguese colonialism, highlighting the solidarity that developed between the two continents during the 1960s and 1970s.

This exhibition closes 12/29/24.

Delaware Art Shows- “The Dream Expedition: A Design Exhibition” at The Delaware Contemporary

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Collage, Conceptual Art, Delaware, Fiber Arts, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Sculptors / Sculpture, Wilmington
Dec 202024
 

Work by Carl Durkow (cloud chair), Trish Tillman Wood sculpture far left and sculpture far right pictured below) and Langdon Graves installation (blue walled area)

Installation by Langdon Graves, mixed media sculptures and framed drawing

Trish Tillman, “One Last Drink”, 2018, vegan leather, tweed, ultrasuede, chrome edging, wood, foam, thread, and glass

Trish Tillman, “One Last Drink”, 2018, vegan leather, tweed, ultrasuede, chrome edging, wood, foam, thread, and glass (detail)

Trish Tillman, “Candy Cigarettes”, 2024, hand-dyed leather, UV print on leather, thread, leather buttons, wood, foam, and metal hardware

Trish Tillman, “Giving Space”, 2023, hand dyed and UV printed leather, wood, foam, thread, polymer clay, and acrylic

Carl Durkow (left to right) “Cloud Side Tables”, 2023, MDF, formica, aluminum; “Diced Pineapples”, 2021, fiberglass, pigmented resin, polystyrene; “Musque Benches”, 2023, fiberglass, pigmented resin, polystyrene; “Peek Lamp I”, 2023, MDF, formica, aluminum, fabric, and “Peek Lamp II”, 2023, MDF, formica, aluminum, fabric, neon

“Musque Benches”, 2023, fiberglass, pigmented resin, polystyrene; “Peek Lamp I”, 2023, MDF, formica, aluminum, fabric, and “Peek Lamp II”, 2023, MDF, formica, aluminum, fabric, neon

Langdon Graves, Trish Tillman, and Carl Durkow all bring a distinctive vision to their sculptures for The Dream Expedition: A Design Exhibition, currently on view at The Delaware Contemporary. The intriguing works combine the familiar with the enigmatic to capture the viewers imagination.

From the museum-

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Surrealist movement. Introduced by poet and critic André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto (1924), Surrealism reaches beyond reality to explore dreams, unconsciousness, and absurdities of the human condition. The movement greatly influenced the future landscape of design through the phenomenon of Surrealist Objects–exemplified by the work of artists like Méret Oppenheim or Man Ray. The Surrealist Object, and other surrealist sculpture, presented three-dimensional manifestations of unconscious symbolisms offering introspective and reflective opportunities.

Over the last century, the field of design and the concepts of surrealism have consistently informed one another; design objects were often the focal point of surrealist sculpture or assemblage, while designers incorporated surrealist processes into their design work. Today, contemporary artists and designers continue to draw inspiration from surrealist concepts to reflect a diverse range of emotions, ideas, and experiences. The Dream Expedition aims to celebrate the elements of surrealism that influence contemporary design and sculpture to further bridge the divide between “Fine Art” and “Design.”

Each of these three artists pushes preconceived notions of sculpture and design to their limits. Carl Durkow’s works are fully functional design objects, yet they venture into the surreal through their abstraction of forms and aesthetics. Langdon Graves’ sculptural works engage familiar design and organic objects in new, unexpected ways questioning our relationship to memory and the world around us. In her work, Trish Tillman incorporates materials that we typically associate with design–vegan leather, cushions, wood, or upholstery–creating sculptures that seem to morph and bend with dreamlike movement.

This exhibition closes 12/29/24.

Delaware Art Shows- Nate Harris at The Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Delaware, Mixed Media, Printmaking, Sculptors / Sculpture, Wilmington
Dec 192024
 

“Fire in the Fishtank (Synchronized Dance)”, 2022, oil on birch, white oak, cherry, walnut

“Blue Like Jazz”, 2022, oil on birch, oak, and “Who more Sci-Fi than us?”, 2023, acrylic on mdf, walnut

“Blue Like Jazz”, 2022, oil on birch, oak, and “Who more Sci-Fi than us?”, 2023, acrylic on mdf, walnut (detail)

“Even Keel”, 2019, various wood, and “Yellow Butter, Purple Jelly, Red Jam, Black Bread”, 2023, acrylic on mdf, cherry

“Even Keel”, 2019, various wood

“Crowd IV”, 2016, woodcut print on BFK Rives cream

Multidisciplinary artist Nate Harris’s work for Arrangement, his solo exhibition at The Delaware Contemporary, highlights his ability to use his training in graphic design to create unique work using a variety of materials.

From the museum-

Design begins with the fundamentals; lines, shapes, and colors create compositional variety. No matter how complex the resulting product is, it can be broken down into these foundational elements. A keystone of design is “arrangement”. It defines whether the composition is representational or abstract, if it is a pattern and showcases repetition, or highlights key moments of visual interest. Multidisciplinary artist, Nate Harris, understands the critical nature of arrangement and by examining several mediums, showcases his expansive power of this knowledge base.

Based in New York City, Nate Harris is a formally trained graphic designer, who utilizes these fundamental elements as a launching point to direct variable bodies of work. While Harris produces with an array of mediums and in a range of scale, wood is a central throughline in much of his work. In his practice, wood can be utilized as an incised tool to create graphic prints or carved as an added sculptural element. Inspired by experimentation, Harris does not discard materials, opting to hold onto wood shards and other spare pieces. These leftovers are saved, sometimes for years, as shapes destined for unknown, future works. Harris navigates this “library of materials” as an iterative resource and a welcome limitation; the path into his experimentation that is also influenced by spatial constraints within his studio.

With a deep understanding of graphic elements, Harris can combine this education with his innate comfortability with wood as a medium. As a young man, Harris liked to work with his hands; fixing his bike and building skate ramps with friends, and this foundation has allowed Harris to transcend the medium within his practice. Through shape, color, and line, Harris consistently redefines his aesthetic. His woodblock prints can depict geometric figures animated with movement, while others may showcase abstract and clean duplication, ultimately becoming patterns themselves. Harris will expand from the surface itself, layering wood in conjunction with other materials, or will use numerous types of wood to create a free-standing sculpture.

Harris’s approach is based on fundamentals, uniquely propelled through material, and grounded in experimental vigor. These works showcase his keen sensibility as a designer, while simultaneously blurring this concept with fine woodworking. Harris is in dialogue with these two constructs continuously to create a style that expands definitions of design and fine art together.

This exhibition closes 12/29/24.

Delaware Art Shows- “Fissures in the Frame” at The Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Collage, Conceptual Art, Delaware, Drawing, Fiber Arts, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture, Wilmington
Dec 192024
 

Lillian Bayley Hoover, “a planet swayed by breath”, 2024, oil on Dibond panel

Lillian Bayley Hoover, “a planet swayed by breath”, 2024, oil on Dibond panel (detail)

Marion Fink, “A mountain top full of achievements-a woman thinking of the sea.”, 2022, monotype, oil color and wax pastel on paper (left) and Lillian Bayley Hoover “here, witnessing now”, 2021, oil and pastel pencil on Dibond panel (right)

Marion Fink, “Night Sky Dreamer”, 2022, monotype, oil color and wax pastel on paper

Lillian Bayley Hoover, “the grass still sings”, 2019, acrylic and oil on Dibond panel, and “no ruined stones”, 2020, oil on Dibond panel

Teresa Shields, “Trending Threads”, 2016-17, embroidered felt and wool letter blocks, wood

Part of The Delaware Contemporary’s series of exhibitions exploring the intersection of art and design, Fissures in the Frame presents work from three artists- Marion Fink, Lillian Bayley Hoover, and Teresa Shields.

From the museum-

Although technology has increased the ease and availability of interaction, human connection has arguably become more difficult. Our daily lives have become reliant on those systems that enable, and even promote, us to interact. Modes of interchange have become more mediated; physical spaces and resources are afforded to those with access, while digital realms are accessible, but commandeer attention away to fabricated unrealities. The undercurrents of which reveal cracks; and fractured existences due to disconnect. Marion Fink, Lillian Bayley Hoover, and Teresa Shields probe these fissures, unveiling their nuance and paradox.

Marion Fink creates layered, large-scale monotype portraits that are rich with narrative elements in surrealistic settings. Raised in the early years of the digital age, Fink’s portraits allude to moments of fragmented realities; the paradox of actual, lived experiences conflated with their existence through the internet. Figures are isolated within fabricated spaces, revealing the parallels between emotion and circumstance. Fink beautifully captures these moments through competing perspectives and complex feelings.

Lillian Bayley Hoover paints landscapes that reveal features realistically while omitting others. These visual fissures that bar the viewer from accessing the remaining painting reflect the perceived separation between nature and the “human world”; one that frequently feels disconnected even though we are all of one world. Hoover investigates how nature is a witness to human life; the designed spaces that shape our world, but also those that we have inherited and how nature acts as a historical record of us.

Multimedia artist, Teresa Shields, presents an interactive installation consisting of 140 individual wooden panels that represent the maximum characters of a post on X (formerly a Tweet on Twitter) and are meant to be moved to form a message. Shields explores our relationship with language; the contradiction between the immediacy of a digital post versus that of a physically crafted message. The activity is simple but offers the opportunity to slow down, collaborate with others, and make new meanings entirely.

This exhibition closes 12/29/24.

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