Andrew Chalfen
Sentient Test Pattern
2021
ink on paper
unframed: 12"x9"
framed: 17"x13"

About the Work:

"Sentient Test Pattern" is part of a series of drawings I made during the Winter of 2020-21 in which I was exploring different compositional approaches using a more or less set number of design elements. Some of these drawings will be used in larger work that will involve ink transfer to a canvas, which will destroy the paper of the original drawing, leaving only the ink. A few drawings from the series have been rescued by collectors from a looming watery demise.

About the Artist:

I am a visual artist living and working in Philadelphia. I work mainly in acrylics but have been increasingly incorporating mixed media and three dimensional elements into my pieces. I am fascinated by patterns, how they ripple, radiate, refract, bloom, and cluster. The show I propose will feature recent works that allude to aerial views, cartography, architectural renderings, musical notation, urban-like densities, and other natural and man-made patterns, which soften pill out over edges, suggesting unseen continuations.

My process mirrors that of my songwriting and music arranging, involving the repetition of a small selection of formal elements, subtle variation, the timbre of color palate, rhythm, and randomization strategies. The viewer may not know what to focus on first, becoming overwhelmed and subsequently absorbed in the details, an experience reminiscent of mediation or a divine/psychedelic journey.

More recent abstract geometric pieces, including painted sculptures, explore themes of nostalgia, anxiety, climate change, play, and allusions to impenetrable data, all reflective of, and perhaps counter to, accelerating social and psychic instability in the world.

Rebecca Schultz
Stone Ruins: Wissahickon
2020
graphite on paper
14" x 11"

About the Work:

This drawing is part of a series examining the complex relationship between humanity and nature through abandoned stone structures. It depicts a spring house in Wissahickon Valley Park, an artifact of water-powered industry along the Wissahickon Creek in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Portions of this drawing were used in the installation piece Reclamation, which I created with Dana Scott and exhibited at the Da Vinci Art Alliance in September 2020.

About the Artist:

Rebecca Schultz is a multi-disciplinary artist and arts educator living in Elkins Park, PA. Her practice includes painting, drawing, printmaking, and collage; installation; and public art projects. Rebecca's work is driven by a sense of wonder for the web of life and a desire to raise awareness about humanity's impact on the environment. She has exhibited in the Philadelphia region and New York and completed two mural commissions with Mural Arts. Rebecca has two decades of experience facilitating community-engaged art projects, including work in public schools. She holds a BFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design and an MA in Education from San Francisco State University; in June 2021 she will begin the Hartford Art School's Nomad MFA program.

Lee Lippman
Untitled #4
2014
Oil encaustic and crayon on archival paper
30" x 20"

About the artist

Lee Lippman (1927 - 2020), lived and worked in Philadelphia most of his life, except for twelve years in Mexico with his artist wife, Arlene Love. In his youth, he studied in Mexico with the famous muralists, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. He also experimented with new media at the Instituto Polytecnico Nacional. Lippman worked on a mural crew with Siqueiros before returning to school at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts), where he was awarded the senior prize for painting. His work is in collections in various places in the United States, including (among others), The Phillip Morris collection, many Pennsylvania universities and colleges, the Hollis and Generalis collections in Philadelphia, the Nelson collection in Denver, and collections in Mexico. For many years he worked as an art director and graphic designer and began painting full-time in 1975. Lippman played the clarinet and tenor saxophoneperforming with small bands in Philadelphia.

Lee Lippman

Untitled #7
2014
Oil encaustic and paint stick on 300 lb. prepared Arches paper (archival)
30" x 20"

About the artist
Lee Lippman (1927 - 2020), lived and worked in Philadelphia most of his life, except for twelve years in Mexico with his artist wife, Arlene Love. In his youth, he studied in Mexico with the famous muralists, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. He also experimented with new media at the Instituto Polytecnico Nacional. Lippman worked on a mural crew with Siqueiros before returning to school at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts), where he was awarded the senior prize for painting. His work is in collections in various places in the United States, including (among others), The Phillip Morris collection, many Pennsylvania universities and colleges, the Hollis and Generalis collections in Philadelphia, the Nelson collection in Denver, and collections in Mexico. For many years he worked as an art director and graphic designer and began painting full-time in 1975. Lippman also played the clarinet and tenor saxophone performing with small bands in Philadelphia.

Michael DeLuca

Big Puffy

2019

Pastel on paper

17" x 17"

About the Artist

Michael understands drawing as a medium unto itself. Working exclusively with pastel on paper, he uses 2-dimensional graphic shapes as subject matter to explore ideas of gesture, motion, and cause & effect. His shapes are flat, but malleable; minimal, but full. Sometimes they're observed, and sometimes they're invented. Either way, it's their ability to expand, stretch, slouch, or bend that interests Michael the most.