Every Month or so, you can find amazing art, right here on campus and down the hill from Center for Design, Media and the Arts. The place? The Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center!!! Artists from all over the world display here and come for opening receptions and gallery talks.
This past Saturday September 22nd, there were dozens of people hobnobbing and absorbing all the art, between 2-4pm at the opening reception for three artists, currently on view at the Schlesinger’s various galleries: Saya Behnam, Teresa Jarzynski and John d. Antone.
Saya is an Iranian artist who moved to America to flee the war and revolution. Her work is not political but a means for universal experience from the essences of color.
Saya Benham who’s stunning color work, currently graces the Forum Gallery show tremendous forethought and effort before the brush ever moves across the canvas. Saya doesn’t just paint, she hunts and forages forests, gardens and other countries for had picked flowers, spices and minerals to boil and extract into her own colors, much as they did in prior centuries and still do in many countries around the world.
She explains her particular piece, made entirely of hibiscus colorants.
The flowers often produce different coloring that varies according to their extraction processing. Reds for example, can be run the gamut between deep red to a lighter mauve.
After viewing the main gallery we journeyed upstairs to the Passage Gallery to meet the artist Teresa Jarzynski’s and view her lovely landscape paintings.
Teresa work revolves around the ‘beauty and mystery’ of nature mixed with the particular visual elements of shape and form.
Between these combinations, resides the “ephemeral, a dream come and gone, a moment in time captured and then dissipated like the passing of a cloud.” A perfect description of her art and show: “The Inscape of My Landscape: Clouds Revisited.
Along the passage is the opening to the Margaret W. & Joseph L. Fisher Art Gallery which is featuring the amazing bronze sculptures of John Antone.
His studio resides at the foot of the Alps, in Komenda, Slovenia. He uses the, ” lost was technique’ for his bronze castings.
John, explains, many of his sculptures are, “Created by gathering branches through walks in the forest, imagined and transformed in bronze, my sculptures invites us to reflects upon the beauty of the natural world and our humanity. I often use the universal symbol of the house in my work as an abstract way to invite people to think and to dream.”
All three artist’s work is on view now through November 4th and the gallery hours are from 10:00-4:00pm weekdays and weekends and during public events. Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center, 4915 East Campus Drive, Alexandria, VA 22311
For more information contact Mary Higgins at Mhiggens@nvcc.edu
And while you are looking for artistic events, this is where our Music Department FREE concerts occur among the many regional shows the concert hall provides.
Please come to our NOVA student and community concerts at the hall:
Tuesday, Oct. 16: NOVA Community Chorus & the GMU choruses, 8-9:45pm, Schlesinger Concert Hall, 8pm
Thursday, Oct. 25: NOVA Alexandria Concert Band & the GMU Wind Symphony, 8-10pm, Schlesinger Concert Hall. Come here both bands perform compositions by NOVA students! Also hear French horn guest artist from the Air Force Band, Kate Fitzpatrick.
Tuesday, Dec. 11: Alexandria Campus Music Dept. Holiday Concert, 8-10pm, Schlesinger Concert Hall, 8:00Pm
Blog Post by Britt Conley