2008

The Opening Reception for this exhibition is Thursday, October 30, 5 – 7 p.m.

Family Arts Workshops in conjunction with the Alex Rosenberg exhibition:

• Collectable Collages, with Octavia Beard. Students will explore text and images and create self referential collage-box art pieces. Saturday November 1st, 9:30-11:30.
• Mono Printing Workshop, with Caroline Henderson. Students will learn to create unique images using traditional techniques in a fine art printing studio. Saturday November 8th, 9:30-11:30.
• Grades K – 6. Snacks will be provided. (610) 921-7715 for reservations and information.

An exhibition of work that showcases the contributions that Dr. Rosenberg has made to the Freedman Gallery and Albright College.  His support has helped to make the Gallery one of the nation’s premier galleries in the liberal arts tradition. Included in the exhibition will be works by Romare Bearden, Salvador Dali, Lee Krasner, Leon Golub and Nancy Spero.  Dr. Rosenberg has worked directly with many of the artists and brings academic and personal insights into the creative processes and techniques employed by some of the leading figures in modern art.

• Podcast: Freedman Gallery Director, Michael Howell discusses the exhibit
• Read the Reading Eagle story on the exhibition

Opening reception: September 4, 5-7 p.m.

Master Drawing Class with the Artist
www.amundart.com
Sponsored by the Friends of the Freedman
Sunday, September 7, 1 – 5 p.m.
$30, reservations required, 610 921-7715

• See Bill Amundson on the Albright Scholar on BCTV
• Listen to or download Bill Amundson’s opening lecture

Amundson is a Denver based artist who works in the “Suburban Regionalist” mode, a style devoted to capturing and celebrating the true American scene rather than the idealized version so often pictured in the art of our time. His work reflects an interest in the contemporary landscape, particularly as reflected through such distinct American staples as the subdivision, the chain restaurant, retail franchises, interstate travel, SUV’s and the ubiquitous cell phone. His work has been described in various publications as “ironic, compulsive, sweet, irreverent, whimsical, fanatical, hysterical and banal,” which leads one to question the veracity of the publishing world…. http://www.amundart.com

William Amundson Self Portrait With Pricey Mountain Homes
William Amundson Christina Franchise, pencil on paper	William Amundson Frida Franchise, pencil on paper
William Amundson Still Life With Art, Wine, & Cheese pencil on paper

The exhibition is designed to showcase significant works from the Freedman Gallery and the educational role they play within the context of a Liberal Arts environment. The exhibition calls attention to the symbiotic relationships between patrons, donors, and the mission of Albright College.

Stephen Brown, Self Portrait with Hoop, 1982, Oil on canvas	Romare Bearden, Pilate (Misty Island), 1979, Lithograph	Salvador Dali, Port Lligat, 1970, Lithograph	Jose Ortega Composition, 1972, Embossed lithograph with pochoir
	Henry Moore, Reclining Figure, 1979, Etching	Marilla palmer, Creator Destroyer, 1984, Oil on Canvas

Contemporary artists Eric Doeringer and Nancy Drew address issues of copyright and ownership, transformation and authenticity in the upcoming exhibition MineMine at the Freedman Gallery. Where are the legal, moral and ethical lines drawn in the 21st Century when the Internet and the media place images seemingly in the public domain everywhere we look? What is “yours” and what is “mine” in an age when images, text, and ideas become commodities to be purchased, hoarded, and manipulated by a select few?

Doeringer calls the collaged paintings in his Bootlegs series “home made copies.” In another signifying twist, Doeringer is making paintings of murals of Saddam Hussein destroyed in the war in Iraq. Rather than glorifying Hussein, he means to create cultural understanding and head off future global conflicts. The oversized glitter and flocking canvasses in Drew’s Artist Seriesare “portraits” or “reproductions” of her favorite Abstract Expressionist paintings. She constructs makeovers on masterpieces from the 20th century with sparkly feminine materials. Each artist attempts a new translation of the definition of appropriation, narrowing the gap between imitation and transformation.

Eric Doeringer

		Julian Opie 8×10, acrylic and giclee on canvas
	opening reception, Friday, March 28, 2008

Nancy Drew

Nancy Drew How My Mother’s Banana Cake Batter Unfolds In My Life, 2003 60 x 50, glitter and flock on canvas
	Nancy Drew Gorky’s Shadow, 2005 66 x 68

Trace Miller’s expressionistic landscapes are metaphors for life, renewal, loss and reconciliation.  He says that his work is, “Contemplative in nature, with a feeling of quiet isolation, my work allows the viewer to delve into each individual mark, wind their way through the entirety of the surface, and discover content on a personal level.”  Utilization of twentieth century art explorations help reconcile the personal narrative with social science, and creates thought-provoking, soul-searching, works of art.  Miller lives and works in Baltimore, Md. where he is an artist and instructor of painting and drawing.

With imagery that is rooted in art, literature, and popular culture the artists challenge our concepts of memory and myth, desires and journeys.  Sensitive, intimate, and often humorous, these exquisitely crafted works take us on a series of travels through the Renaissance and Hitchcock’s sky full of birds, with a short side-trip through the mountains as Marco Polo struggles with new hiking boots.  Thought provoking scenes ask us to re-examine a variety of characters as well as concepts rooted in childhood stories and things we thought we knew.

M.M. Dupay

Ms. Dupay¹s collages are rooted in sensibilities developed and explored by artists from the Renaissance to the 21st Century. From the biting social and political critiques created by artists such as the Dadaist Hanna Höch, to mysterious and disturbing images reminiscent of Max Ernst¹s Surrealist works,Ms. Dupay gently, and sometimes humorously, brings us into conflict with our own experiences of beauty and youth, adulthood and reality, truth and the media generated concept of personal value. By juxtaposing and combining, and yes, manipulating the familiar with the obscure she creates images that drastically curtail our expectations of what we think we are looking at.

Visual triggers, such as the smile on a baby¹s face or an Arcadian landscape, are often in conflict with the Rococo frame and the gown from Modern Bride magazine. But somehow they work, and they engage us in a dialogue that makes us conscious, and perhaps self-conscious of our memories and desires.

Ms. Dupay is a graduate of Bowling Green State University where she received an MFA in Two Dimensional Studies.

Hitchcock Had it Easy

Wednesday’s Child

Nora Sturges

MARCO POLO’S TRAVELS  A few years ago I did a painting of Marco Polo bringing back spaghetti from China, and a friend who saw the painting suggested I read Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities. The book is fiction consisting only of Marco Polo’s descriptions to the Kublai Khan of the cities he has visited in his travels. Sometimes it is easier to see clearly the formal narrative qualities of a work of writing than of a work of art. I loved the mood created in this book by the fact that the reader is only provided a series of shifting and clouded descriptions with which to weave a larger narrative. This reminded me of Renaissance manuscript illuminations and the Persian, Indian, and East Asian paintings that illustrate stories, where the story’s text is not present (as is usually the case for the viewer of such paintings in art books or museums). The viewer is prompted by the picture to construct a vague and changing story, a story with the mood of a dream or a half memory.

In my recent paintings of imaginary events in Marco Polo’s travels, I am attempting to use a group of paintings in a similar way– to form an absent story, and at the same time to explore ideas of xenophobia, tourism, exoticism and cultural difference. In these paintings, Marco Polo is cast as the quintessential tourist; he gets blisters from his new shoes, gets lost in inhospitable landscapes and is forced to try new foods. A wealthy westerner, he is both drawn to and made uneasy by the foreign-ness of the exotic places he visits.

Marco Polo Sightseeing, 2006,
oil on panel, 8.75×12 inches