The Fisher Gallery is featuring three amazing artists, Nataliya Gurshman, Jonathan Ottke and Norma Schwartz, on view from April 27th-June 9th, 2019.
Nataliya Gurshman, adjunct for our Alexandria Fine Art Department filled the main Forum Gallery with her bold and colorful exhibit, My Russian Soul.
As a native of the former Soviet Union, Nataliya brought her childhood memories of Leningrad into her city scapes and energetic abstracted color work. The both provide a sense of place and feeling. My favorite piece of the exhibit sold outright at the opening reception.
Her exhibition offered the opportunity to connect with former students and find out how everyone is doing.
The second artist residing in the upstairs hall Passage Gallery is Jonathan Ottke. His photography exhibit, In a Drop of Water, looks at nature and views of water droplets.
Jonathan wandered Lake Braddock to focus on, “Raindrops falling on a leaf, a blooming flower after a rain, the frozen lake” with inspiration from William Blackes, “see a word in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower.”
He kept Mary Welsh Higgens, the curator for the arts center, busy dolling out red ‘sold’ dots.
She did manage to get a lot of quality time with nearly everyone for all three shows.
The exhibitors were also accompanied by some phenomenal musicians. The lovely sounds, filled the foyers and rooms.
The third artist showing this month is Norma Schwartz. Her exhibit, Shape of Memories: Sculptures by Norma Schwartz is on view in the Margaret W. & Joseph L. Fisher Art Gallery, also on the 2nd level of the arts center.
Norma’s work can be seen on her website as well. She explains, “As a sculptor, developing the technics, exploring new materials, creating new ways of inhabiting a three-dimensional space, realizing the importance of light, gave me the opportunity to express what for me was impossible to express in a different language; a language with no words.”
Norma was born just before the end of the World War, in Argentina. She spent much of her adult life in Spain, working with women and women’s issues from a psychoanalytic perspective and working on her art. By the 1990’s she moved to the U.S. and began undertaking a greater sculptural approach to her art. Her work beautifully carves into wood, creating all new spaces to explore.
Creating a show that moves the eye through the space and within each work is an artist’s dream. What a wonderful accomplishment!
The work for this and all three shows are still one view until June 9th! Come to campus and head over to The Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center. The galleries are open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday
For additional information about art shows and concert hall events, call the Schlesinger Center at 703.845.6156.
To join the NOVA Alexandria Fine Art Facebook Page, for more information on Campus Arts Department art exhibits visit www.facebook.com/TylerArtsLife