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Aaron Gallery’s
“20th Annual Small and Miniature Show contains a wonderful
mixture of representational and abstract art, all of which are fascinating in their own way. There are the very, very tiny paintings, measuring no more than 3 x 3 inches, of Freya Grand such as The Sea, whose use of a monochromatic color palette
imbues the pieces with a certain moodiness as well as strength.
Josh George’s exquisite mixed media pieces present a powerful statement by the artist on man’s ability to wreak havoc upon himself so vividly depicted in his Pollution Makes
Pretty Sunsets. The piece with its lush and vivid use of color does depict a “pretty sunset”, but this beauty is tempered by the fact that this is the result of the overwhelming clouds of pollution which literally
consume the city below.
Sondra Arkin’s small delicate abstract encaustic
pieces, with their subtle and soft colors, convey a sense of calm and tranquility to the observer,while Megan Chapman’s works, with their dark, yet very deep and
intense colors, convey a sense of power and strength so aptly expressed in her piece titled Implosion. Carlotta
Hester’s playful use of encaustic and melted crayon in her work evokes a wonderful sense of playfulness and charm in her pieces of which Lacing Through is a delightful example.
Joan Belmar’s well balanced combination
of collage, acrylic, and oil paints is very obvious in his work,
as is so well displayed in his La Noche de San Juan. The juxtaposition of “real” and “visual” textures in his pieces creates a sense of intricate
detail while his use of layering and overlapping resulting from his use of collage creates a profound sense of depth and space as well. David Friedhiem’s small welded figurative
sculptures titledSmall Monsters are refreshing in their playfulness and childlike
quality as they seem to run about
and interact one with the other.
Aaron Gallery’s 20th Annual Small and Miniature Show offers to the visitor a wide range of pieces that may be
small in size, but are monumental
in their overall effect. This writer would strongly suggest that you take some time and treat yourself with the opportunity to wander through this creative and delightful display of work at the Aaron Gallery.
Ron Riley is the President of the Foundry Gallery.
The Examiner
Seeing way beyaond,deep within...or a reflecction?
By Robin Tierney
May 26,2007
Northern Virginia Art Beat
Written by Kevin Mellema
Thursday, 11 December 2008 10:42
There are ways to make an arts district.
One is to have a seriously run down area with cheap rents because artists as a group are perpetually in that "just
getting by" segment of the population. The area in question also needs to have spacious lofts suitable for studio use.
As unlikely as it all seems, this is usually the way things happen. Soho in New York was known for developing along this
format. Crummy part of town where nobody wants to live. Artists settle the urban wilderness, and make it a cool hip and trendy
place to be. Suddenly, people with more money, and less nerve, want to be there. The artists slowly get priced out of their
own development, leaving them to find another crummy part of town to settle. And the cycle starts all over again.
Needless to say, this scenario leaves a lot to be desired on all levels. If you do the math, you can see that nobody gets
what they're after for very long. The other way to do it is to actually plan an arts district. It almost never happens that
way.
A drive up Rhode Island Avenue (also known as Maryland Route 1, and Baltimore Ave. depending on where you are at the moment)
through the Mount Rainier, Brentwood and Hyattsville areas (just north of the D.C. border) plainly shows that urban revitalization
has taken root, and good things are happening in the area. Labeled as the "Gateway Arts District in Prince George's County,"
there's no doubt that the arts community is a vital part of this plan.
Shelter for the Arts
Gateway Arts District Open Studios, etc. in Mount Rainier-Brentwood-Hyattsville Maryland from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. this Saturday,
Dec. 13. (Times vary with location.) For more information and a downloadable map of the entire arts district, as well as a
complete list of venues and times, visit www.gateway-cdcpg.org.
With over a hundred lofts within the arts district specifically set aside for artists housing, in at least three live/work
unit complexes, we can safely say that this area has, or will have, the highest density of professional artists in the greater
D.C. Metro area. Keeping in mind that the area reportedly had a substantial artist population base before any of this came
about, it's not too difficult to see this area is on track to becoming a serious hot spot for the arts inside the Beltway.
What was obviously a run down area, won't be for long... assuming we manage to avoid a full blown economic depression in the
meantime.
One artist housing complex was developed by an unusual non-profit development group, Art Space, Inc. (www.artspace.org).
They have similar artist housing developments all over the country.
Much has been made of trying to develop the arts here in Falls Church, but little if any thought seems to have been applied
to the notion of actually creating studio space for artists to work in, much less actually housing them here. It's a vital
part of the equation, and is the difference between an ersatz arts district and a self-sustaining vibrant arts friendly community.
Prince George's County has been quietly at work on this for some 15 years, and it's all starting to gel in a big way.
At the moment, housing and studio space in the Gateway Arts District is up and running, with more galleries and museum space
in the works. A new non-profit (they all are) community art gallery will be opening before Spring, and possibly before New
Year's Day.
It's just jaw-dropping to see this happening in what is traditionally a sleepy southern town based on federal bureaucracy
as its sole major industry. Well, the census bureau says we have the fourth largest artist population in the country behind
New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Seems like more than just numbers when you see this sort of thing going on.
H+F Fine Arts Gallery (3311 Rhode Island Ave., Mt. Rainier, Md.) is showing a pair of artists who use circles/spheres,
and line to express egalitarian notions about humanity.
Alan Binstock, a NASA architect, and long time resident of the area, manipulates 3/4-inch plate glass to form his sculptures
of captured colored orbs. The basic thinking behind Binstock's work is that we, and everything around us, is made up of particles
originating from the Big Bang. And thus we are all more alike and connected than we typically give credit for being.
Similar, but slightly different thinking drives Joan Belmar to make his complex multimedia sculptures. Based of the notion
that how we perceive people varies with our perspective and relationship to them, Belmar makes mylar ribbons, standing them
on edge so they nearly disappear as we look directly at the work. As our view point becomes more and more oblique the work
becomes more and more two dimensional. Each piece is different, but they all change in significant ways as your view point
changes. It's complex and entertaining work.
Three old white warehouse buildings make up the artist studios complex on Otis Street, and Wells Ave. Inside you'll find
the Washington Glass School and Studio where area art star Tim Tate works his own brand of magic. Appearing on the art scene
after an "Artomatic" showing several years ago, Tate now shows his work nationally, and recently had a show in London.
We've reviewed Tate's work here several times.
Without doing a strict head count, I'd say the entire ceramics group making up the fabulous 10th floor exhibit at this
year's "Artomatic" have their studio spaces within this three building complex. Seemingly every studio has several
kilns off in the corner.
Of special note, Margaret Boozer's Red Dirt Studio is among that group. Margaret recently showed some excellent and innovative
clay earth work at McLean Project for the Arts, and the Arlington Arts Center, both of which were reviewed here. Boozer was
a busy girl this week, opening her latest show at Project4 (903 U St. NW, Washington D.C.; www.project4gallery.com) from 6
- 8:30 p.m. this Thursday.
Also in the Otis Street complex is painter Janis Goodman, a full professor at the Corcoran College of Art and Design,
as well as an arts reviewer for WETA's "Around Town" program. Goodman has also shown extensively on both a national
and international level. Another busy lady, Goodman is also in a five-person show that opened this month at Reyes + Davis
(923 F Street NW, Washington, D.C., Suite 302; www.reyesdavis.com).
The Northern Virginia Art Beat is compiled by Kevin Mellema. See www.fcnp.com for photos and more. To e-mail submissions,
send them to kevinmellema@gmail.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view
it .
Inspired by Duchamp, artist aims to disorient
By Maria Longley/staff
July 10, 2008
Joan Belmar (pronounced "Joh-on") has shown his abstract artwork in several major cities, including Chicago,
New York and throughout Europe, as well as Santiago, Chile, and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Advertisement
So what has drawn the Chilean-born Belmar to Staunton? An e-mail from Kevin Postupack, owner of Kronos Gallery.
"My pictures are online on a Web site, and after I got an e-mail from Kevin, I went to his Web site," said the
soft-spoken Belmar. (He switched comfortably from English to Spanish and back again during a recent interview.) "His
vision he's having in Staunton is what caught my attention. He invites very (avant-garde) artists."
That's a "very important" role for a gallery to play in a small yet growing rural area, said the 36-year-old,
and the reason he accepted Postupack's invitation to show here.
Belmar, whose studio is in Washington, D.C., has created an unusual technique in 3-D painting with his recent work. He
combines his former painting and collage methods with painted and untreated Mylar a flexible plastic used to preserve books
and archival texts and acetate strips. He works mostly in circles and curvilinear shapes that he places perpendicular to a
painted background and then covers it (but not always entirely) with a lightly frosted Mylar. The effects it produces involve
changes in transparency, as light and the viewer move in relation to the work.
The process of making his abstracts can be tedious at times, he said, because he has to cut and dye several times.
"Some take me a long time, and others are more fluid," Belmar said.
But the results he gets are well worth his time, he added.
"When you look at it, you get disoriented," he said. "You don't know the technique, and you get confused,
because you're not sure of what you're looking at."
Belmar's upcoming Kronos exhibit, "The Exile," is a nod to the radical French artist Marcel Duchamp, who is
often remembered for his playful digs at art marketing through actions such as exhibiting a urinal that he called "Fountain"
in 1917.
"It was a big scandal when he did that; he was a revolutionary artist," he said of the late Duchamp. "He
changed the way people view art, or people's perception of art. I'm also playing with perception, and how people imagine art."
Belmar's work has attracted the attention of art consultants, curators and collectors in D.C. He has been asked to exhibit
in venues sponsored by the Washington Project for the Arts and is included in the art bank of the D.C. Commission on the Arts
and Humanities.
He grew up two hours south of Santiago, Chile, and at age 24 moved to Ibiza, Spain where he started going by "Joan,"
the Catalan version of his first name, John. He settled in Washington, D.C. in 1999 and was granted permanent residency in
the United States based on extraordinary artistic merit in 2003.
Belmar's pieces are showing around Washington at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and at the American University Museum. These
days, however, Belmar is focused on his upcoming visit to the Shenandoah Valley.
"I feel really good about Staunton," Belmar said. "I'm very much looking forward to it."
By Michael O'Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 4, 2008; Page WE26
Multi-artist exhibitions built on a single broadly interpreted theme too often deserve the description "all over
the map." Normally, that's not a compliment, but with the Association of Ibero-American Cultural Attaches' 16th annual
art salon, the phrase is fitting and flattering.
This Story
'Migration': Universal Truths
The Story Behind the Work
Maps figure prominently throughout "Migration: La Diaspora," which addresses the theme of movement from one
culture to another. That's true in a series of five photo-based portraits by artist Marianela Salgado ( Costa Rica) collaged
atop maps. But it's also true in "Human Settlements," a painting by Evangelina Elizondo ( Argentina) that features
an array of small, anonymous figures that have been positioned, like playing pieces from the game Risk, against an abstract
backdrop that is part map, part board game.
Both works embody the show's central message. In a nutshell, it's that the issue of migration is not just political, but
personal. For every map, for every fragment of a national flag, for every abstract reference to geography, there's a human
being involved.
In almost every case except Salgado's, the features of their faces are blurred, obscured, generic or absent, emphasizing
not their individuality, but our common humanity. Take "Hombre" by Julio Perez ( Spain), featuring a seated Everyman
whose face is distorted beyond recognition in the manner of a Francis Bacon painting. Or how about "Take Off" by
Juliana Moncayo ( Colombia)? On the right in her flat, posterlike diptych is a queue of human silhouettes, apparently waiting
to be evacuated by air from some unnamed trouble spot. On the left is an expanse of sky, empty but for a flock of birds. They
represent, presumably, the universal yearning for freedom -- or a better life.
One of the show's most powerful pieces is "Maldita Brisa III" by Gerard Ellis ( Dominican Republic). Echoing
Moncayo's none-too-subtle allusion to the kind of political winds that carry migrating men, like birds, away from their homelands,
the title of Ellis's painting translates to "Damned Breeze." Yet his work rejects the promise and hope suggested
by her painting. In "Maldita," a solitary, hooded figure moves across the canvas, painted to look like a sheet of
ruled composition paper. Here, the somewhat underdressed man lowers his head against a far stiffer gust than the one that
carries Moncayo's migrating subjects. In fact, it suggests a violent burst of gunfire to the head, along with a spatter of
blood and brain matter.
The experience of this particular immigrant is an extreme example in a show that offers views of cross-cultural flow as
varied as the artists involved, many of whom are themselves immigrants.
Chilean-born Joan Belmar, for instance, lives and works in Washington, as does Katya Romero of Ecuador; Venezuela's Sara
Nu¿ez is based in Vienna, Austria ; Ellis in New York City . Of the association's 21 member nations (which include Spain,
Portugal and the countries of Latin America), only Bolivia, Cuba, Guatemala and Nicaragua are not represented this year.
But the preponderance of immigrants among the show's artists is completely coincidental. That's according to Patricia
Abdelnour, the Venezuelan Embassy's cultural attache and the association's vice president. She chalks it up to globalization
and the rootlessness of the contemporary human condition.
In the end, what ties the art in "Migration," though, is a shared sensibility. It's one underscored by the recurrence
of the figure, by the slight but significant edge of the personal over the political. "Migration" is not about the
places people come from, but the people who come from them. At once faceless and universal, they remind viewers that this
nation has always been a haven for folks from someplace else.
Migration: La Diaspora Through Feb. 2 at the Mexican Cultural Institute, 2829 16th St. NW (Metro: Columbia Heights) Info:202-728-1628.
http://www.iaculturalattaches.org. Hours: Open Monday-Friday from 9:30 to 1 and from 3 to 6:30. Admission: Free.
Artist Feature 4: Joan Belmar
NKG BLOG
Pictured Above:
*Duplex and Concentric Green, 2007, mixed media on plywood, 21 x 25.
*Duplex I, 2007, mixed media on plywood, 21 x 25
This week's Artist Feature (posted earlier than usual, due to the Thanksgiving Holiday), takes a closer look at Chilean-born,
Washington DC based, lyrical Mylar collage mastermind Joan Belmar. Pronounced "Joe-on," Belmar might be unfamiliar
to some NKG visitors as he does not yet have a page on our official website, but his work is certainly not to be overlooked!
He started out with paintings, but in recent years has moved towards the world of abstract collages. Though one might observe
that there are echoes of OP Art and minimalist qualities in his general body of work, Belmar's mixed media collages are certainly
one-of-a-kind. They are a reflection of the inner workings of his spirit, and do not imitate the work of anyone else: he is
his own, unique person.
Pristine strips of solid-colored Mylar are delicately placed under the glass of a plywood frame, constructed into circles
of all shapes and sizes; some slightly more representational than others. There are usually no more than 4 colors/hues represented
simultaneously. Some of these compositions easily can be compared to a 3-dimensional approach to the biological system of
the human body, found in the science textbooks of today. Due to his use of modern materials, such as plastic, acetate, Mylar
and glass, an optical illusion is easily created. Viewing these works allows one's sense of curiosity to leap out, to question
the purpose of his art and to be able to reach in and physically feel the materials in order to fully grasp the concept of
each collage. Undeniably, there is also a deep sense of nostalgia connected to Belmar's collages that urges the viewers to
take a deeper look at their own respective lives in light of his art. That somewhat uncomfortable, tingly sensation never
dies, and an air of mystery prevails.
Strongly influenced by Anish Kapoor's scuplture at the Hirshhorn, which depicts a bisected egg painted blue, Belmar's
work exists in order for us to test our eyes and abilities to perceive the things that take place around us. His constant
exploration with circles (specifically with the mandala principle) helps us realize the importance of constantly accessing
deeper levels consciousness, that life is not perfect and that we as humans are all in this together. This is why Belmar creates
worlds in his art where some things are clear, others opaque. It makes the journey of life more interesting to discover.
Prior to moving to the United States in 1999, Belmar lived and experienced "multiple lives" in both Spain and
his native Chile. His response to the events of his life is blatantly reflected in his artwork, which he describes with adjectives
such as "alienation" and "disconnectedness". Through the daring use of his concentric collages, Belmar
excels in his goal of not only examining critical social structures, but also of [psychologically] analyzing those who struggle
within them, including himself. It is like reading the artist’s autobiography in his artwork, making himself completely
vulnerable to the masses and allowing us to respond in light of our own life experiences. This is what the circle of life
is all about.
Three of Joan Belmar's works (including the two pictured in this entry) will be on display AND for sale at our Third Annual
Attainable Art show. Please join us for our open house on December 1, 2007 from 4-7pm. Till next week, I hope you ALL have
a happy Thanksgiving holiday!
POSTED BY LAURA KUAH AT 12:49 PM 0 COMMENTS
LABELS: ABSTRACT, CHILE, CIRCLE, CONSTRUCTION, CONTEMPORARY ART, JOAN BELMAR, LAYERS, LIFE, MINIMALISM, OP ART, PHILOSOPHY,
SPAIN, WASHINGTON
Three of Joan Belmar's works (including the two pictured in this entry) will be on display AND for sale at our Third Annual
Attainable Art show. Please join us for our open house on December 1, 2007 from 4-7pm.
POSTED BY LAURA KUAH
LABELS: ABSTRACT, CHILE, CIRCLE, CONSTRUCTION, CONTEMPORARY ART, JOAN BELMAR, LAYERS, LIFE, MINIMALISM, OP ART, PHILOSOPHY,
SPAIN, WASHINGTON DC
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