Diane Marimow: Philly Flux Bowl, 2018, stoneware and glazes, 6" x 18" x 21"

About:

Construction crews, cranes, scaffolding, towers, skyscrapers, tunnels, bridges, underground pits, and concrete wall dominate the cityscape.

In 2019, the environment of center city Philadelphia (where I live) is constantly changing. My ceramic sculpture celebrates the energy and the excitement generated by the machinery, the materials and the colors seen everyday as I walk through the city.
Although the ongoing construction often creates tension in the city neighborhoods, the ultimate goal of "recreating the city," hopefully will enhance many of our lives.

Bio:

Diane has been a ceramic artist for over 30 years. She is also an educator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Diane received a graduate degree form Tyler School of Art. She has exhibited her ceramic sculptures and wall pieces in Pensylvania, New Jersey , Florida and Arizona. In 2016 her sculpture was displayed at the International Terminal of the Philadelphia Airport.

Her sculptures reside in private collections throughout the U.S - including one totem that was purchased by the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University.

Yelizaveta Masalimova: Woven Top, 2019, glazed English porcelain, 16" x 14" x 8"

Courtesy of Orchard Art Collective Gallery

About:

I am interested in the notion that what is deemed valuable requires a measure of labor and pain to achieve its worth. Throughout my work I explore how something considered beautiful can quietly tolerate an underlying violence or turmoil. Pain, suffering, and exploitation seem intrinsically tied with valuable objects. Is pain or sacrifice necessary for the attainment of beauty? My artwork is a visual investigation into this question. My sculptures explore this human condition by juxtaposing realistic and surrealistic elements within the human figure. These distortions aim to promote a dialogue about the body symbolically and physically.

Clay is ideal for my practice and allows me to make complex changes and experiment with repetitive forms created through molds. This type of transformation through labor is integral to my work's conceptual and formal qualities. I feel it is important to exemplify both the physical and intellectual labor that goes into creating art. I celebrate the craft and labor that goes into an artwork as part of the sacrifice that gives it value.

Bio:

Yelizaveta Masalimova was born in 1986 and immigrated to Connecticut from Kiev, Ukraine with her family in 1991. For her bachelor studies, she attended Lyme Academy College of Fine Art in Old Lyme, Connecticut, where she earned a BFA in Sculpture, and was the sole recipient of the Adams Academic Four-Year Grant. Yelizaveta received her M.F.A. from the University of Connecticut in May 2012, where she received a Full Tuition Waiver Grant, a Graduate Teaching Assistantship, and a Graduate Research Travel Grant. From 2014-2015, Yelizaveta studied sculpture and ceramics as a Post Graduate Resident Artist at The Pennsylvania State University.

Yelizaveta's work has been exhibited throughout the US, most notably at the William Benton Museum of Art (CT), the Delaware Contemporary Art Museum, and SoHo20 Chelsea Gallery, NY. She had her first international Solo Exhibition at Schiller International University in Madrid, Spain. She has competed in the National Sculpture Society Figure and Portrait Modelling Competitions in 2013, 2015, and 2016. Yelizaveta currently teaches ceramics at Temple University's Tyler School of Art & Architecture in Philadelphia. She currently resides in Philadelphia, PA.

Charlie Cunningham: Coronation of Emil Antonowsky, 2016, polymer clay, acrylic, and enamel on panel, 12" x 10" x 3"

Courtesy of Orchard Art Collective

About:

My work invokes contradictions within subjects both dubiously humorous and revolting. These objects attempt to catalyze the viewer's awareness of humor's underappreciated power, a power contingent on repulsion. Humor's duality of menace and enlightenment is my fascination. I feel humor's multifaceted capacity is often overlooked. This dualism embodies the irony of our own mortal futility. Given our inevitable perishing humor seems itself a cruel joke, or possibly a fundamental necessity for carrying on. We constantly battle forces beset on our destruction, to revert us back to the collective primordial ooze from which we sprang. All are victims of cruel circularity from birth to death. My art portrays this defining human condition with a comedic and grotesque flair. Utilizing campy motifs and visceral materials it searches for humorous optimism in mortality and satirizes the perverse nature of our destruction, both at the hands of time and each other. I see my work as an exploration of our duplicitous existence, ever in awe of the unanswerable irony we find ourselves born into.

"The Coronation of Emil Antonowsky" is an homage of the death of the fictional character in 1987 film Robocop. Emil is a criminal henchman who is dowsed in industrial waste and run over by his cohorts. This scene in the movie has always intrigued me because of it duplicitous nature. I always found my self gleefully cheering on the carnage even though its obvious horror. This sculpture celebrates this cult phenomenon.

Bio:

Charlie Cunningham is an artist originally from Connecticut who currently works in Philadelphia. Charlie received his BFA in painting from Lyme and Academy College of Fine Art and went on to attend The Pennsylvania State University for an MFA in Sculpture. Charlie exhibits his work throughout the country and has been featured at the Governor's Island Art Fair in NYC, Burlington City Arts, and The Delaware Contemporary Art Museum. He is also the recipient of several awards and honors including a Teton Artlab Residency, Governors Island Residency, Rasquache Artist Residency, and the Penn State University Creative Achievement Award. He currently teaches at Tyler School of Art and Saint Joseph's University. He is also the co-founder of the Orchard Art Collective in Frankford, Philadelphia.