Daniel "Danny" Simmons: This deep desire, 2019, print, 26" x 20"

Courtesy of Rush Arts Philadelphia

About:

Working artist, poet, gallerist.

Bio:

Daniel "Danny" Simmons, Jr. is an abstract-expressionist painter. Older brother of hip-hop impressario Russell Simmons and rapper Joseph Simmons ("Rev. Run" of Run DMC), he is the founder and Vice Chairman of the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation and Rush Arts Gallery. In addition, Simmons converted part of his loft in Brooklyn into the Corridor Gallery. Along with his brother Russell, Simmons established Def Poetry Jam, which has enjoyed long- running success on HBO. In 2004, Simmons published Three Days As The Crow Flies, a fictional account of the 1980's New York art scene. He has also written a book of artwork and poetry called I Dreamed My People Were Calling But I Couldn't Find My Way Home.

Simmons is the son of Daniel Simmons, Sr., a truant officer and black history professor who also wrote poetry, and Evelyn Simmons, a teacher who painted as a hobby. He earned a degree in social work from New York University and a master's in public finance from Long Island University. He began painting after he realized how much he hated his job with the Bureau of Child Support.

Simmons, an abstract-expressionist painter, has had his work shown nationally. Chase Manhattan Bank, the United Nations, and the Schomburg Center for Black Culture all show his work as part of their collections. He is also an avid collector of African art and comic books.

Christina Massey: Monoprint Collage Study in Red, 2017, linocut, collagraph, silkscreen, 21" x 17" x 1.5"

About:

Made during the SIP Fellowship at the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in NYC. Works are a combination of collagraph, linocut and silkscreen prints. Each print is original, hand cut and collaged together using chine-collé techniques.

Plates were created as drawings of the artist's wall sculptures and translated into various forms of types of printmaking plates. The term "Carbonation" in their title hints at this origin as the sculptures are largely made from repurposed craft beer cans. It also refers to the carbonization of the environment.

"Collection" refers to the work as a series, but also their fabric inspirations. Each is titled after a season of the year that the fashion industry often uses to describe their collections and encourage consumerism.

The work has an abstracted botanical, almost vintage fabric appearance and this is a commentary on the way we think and describe seasons with Climate Change. Where we associate certain colors with temperatures and seasons that are now not what they used to be.

Bio:

Christina Massey's work has exhibited extensively in over a dozen solo exhibitions including such locations as the Blackbird Gallery in NYC, Dacia Gallery in NYC, Noyes Art Museum in Atlantic City, Rush Arts Galleries in NYC and Brown University in Providence, RI. She has won multiple awards for her work including most recently an FST StudioProject Fund Grant, Brooklyn Arts Fund Grant, SIP Fellowship at the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, Puffin Foundation Grant and Mayer Foundation Grant. Massey's work has been featured in such publications as Hyperallergic, Art Spiel and Art Fuse and is in the collections of the Janent Turner Museum, Art Bank Collection in DC, and multiple private collections. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Pamela Tudor: Green and Rust (Hard Rain's Gonna Fall 1), 2016, digitally pigmented print, 17" x 21" x 2"

About:

This piece is the first in a series called "Hard Rain's Gonna Fall". I paint oversized, close-up raindrops, from icy ones to colorful/blue green ones to hard-edged ones.

My connection to the earth and how we are destroying our planet and harming people, places and species preoccupies me. I have been painting this concern for a while - in a series I call Mother Earth, so ravaged now by rising global temperatures and sea levels, melting ice, and torrential rainfalls. The beauty and desecration of our one-and-only, amazing, sacred home are my themes.

We still have much to cherish in our world, and much beauty. I hope to express that in my work, using color, expressive form, subtle imagery and deep feeling. It is my way of communicating, in the language of art, that we must pay attention, band together and say "yes" to being true stewards of our mother planet, our Earth.

Bio:

Pamela Tudor is a painter and creator of three-dimensional shadow boxes. She works in acrylics and mixed media. Her expressive paintings focus on concerns about climate change and our beautiful planet. After receiving an M.A. in Applied Psychology from New York University, she attended art school for four years- the Art Students League of NY and the New York Studio School. Pamela has shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Fairmount Waterworks, the Marriott at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the Noyes Museum in Oceanville, NJ, the El Paso Museum of Art, and the Emerging Collector Gallery in NYC. Her work is in private collections in NY, NJ, Philadelphia, Miami and Los Angeles.

Gilvan Nunes: Remember, 2010, 1 of 2 serigraphy prints on Arborio paper, 19" x 27" x 1"

Bio:

Gilvan Nunes is a Brazilian artist, currently living and working in the Philadelphia area.

Gilvan Nunes: Everyday, 2010, 2 of 2 serigraphy prints on Arborio paper, 19" x 27" x 1"

Bio:

Gilvan Nunes is a Brazilian artist, currently living and working in the Philadelphia area.

Paula Mandel: Awakening, 2010, giclee, 20.5" x 16.5" x 1"

About:

The human experience is explored using non-human references.

Bio:

Paula Mandel, a native of Philadelphia, received degrees in Fine Arts and Psychology from Temple University. She worked in oils/mixed media for 30 years, creating psychological portraits. For more than a decade she has studied all methods of manipulating glass with internationally reknowned artists and has morphed into a glass/mixed media sculptor.

Mandel's interactive sculptures based on toys are included in volume 1 of Best in America: Glass Artists and Artisans. Along with multiple solo exhibitions, she has been invited to exhibit her work in numerous museum and gallery exhibitions including the "Best of Philadelphia Glass Artists" exhibition at the National Liberty Museum, Snyderman/Works Gallery, "Women in Glass" at the Wayne Art Center, Rosemont College, Drexel University and Philadelphia's City Hall. Mandel, along with fellow artist Joan Myerson Shrager, has curated multiple exhibits in the area. In addition, the two artists co-founded and co-direct the nationally award-winning Philadelphia After-School: The Stained Glass Project: Windows That Open Doors, now in its 15th year.