January 25, 2020, 2-4PM, Walter Kravitz, Elizabeth Vorlicek, and Kirsty Little
October 19, 2019 2-4PM Art Opening – Sally Kauffman, Jean Hirons, Cathy Abramson and Veronica Szcalus
Please join us on Saturday afternoon October 19, 2019 from 2-4PM for the Final 2019 art openings at the Fisher and Schlesinger Center Art Galleries. We will be celebrating the work of four talented local artists. The artist are Sally Kauffman in the Forum Gallery, Jean Hirons in the Passage Gallery and Cathy Abramson in the Margaret W. & Joseph L. Fisher Art Gallery.
Forum Gallery
Chill Out: Paintings by Sally Kauffman
October 12, 2019 – December 23, 2019
Kauffman is best known for her abstract yet allusory large-scale paintings that celebrate and exude pleasure. Her gestural brushwork and sensual application of paint reference the figure in landscape. Kauffman draws on personal experiences as a source for her images; Friday Jazz in the Garden concerts at the NGA and recent strolls through Porto provide the setting for the series “Chill Out”. Kauffman captures moments in snapshots and digitally manipulates the composition and intensity of color. The dense, saturated images become the source for the paintings. Almost human scale figures painted in saturated, flowing oil color on large format canvas entice the viewer to engage in their own narrative.
Passage Gallery
Winter Light: Pastels by Jean Hirons
October 12, 2019 – December 23, 2019
Jean Hirons has spent 20 years specializing in the art of soft pastel. Jean’s passion is for the landscape, particularly buildings in the landscape. She began by painting New England houses and rural farms. Since 2015, she has focused on various areas of Washington, DC: Capitol Hill, Georgetown, Chinatown, and Dupont Circle. She finds this subject matter both challenging and satisfying. Composition is always the starting point in any of her paintings and she often looks for abstract shapes. For color, she may use what she sees but, more often, uses color from her imagination. She wants color to be real enough, but not necessarily what was there! Jean also loves complex, broken color and finds pastel to be a perfect medium for achieving this effect.
The Passage Gallery exhibit, “Winter Light” displays 6 pastels capturing the moments of one day in winter on the C&O Canal in Washington DC.
Margaret W. & Joseph L. Fisher Art Gallery
Dreams of the Underground: Oil Paintings by Cathy Abramson
Cathy Abramson’s oil paintings investigate the stories of the city. These representational paintings examine the emotional subtext of change; the connections or estrangement of people in transitional neighborhoods. She sees moments of poetry in the ordinary. Although she paints particular people and scenes, these paintings about daily life in Washington, DC resonate with everyone. Cathy spent two years investigating and painting the neighborhood and people around Kennedy Street, NW. She recorded scenes that are about recent history, change, nostalgia and social struggle; the joys and frustrations of contemporary urban life.
February 13th, 2019 6 -8PM Artist Talk – Azadeh Sahraeian
You are invited to join us Wednesday evening, February 13th, 2019 from 6PM – 8PM for an engaging talk with the artist, Azadeh Sahraeian. Azadeh will be discussing the extraordinary abstract drawings in her Schlesinger Art Center solo exhibition, “Form and Formation” as well as her artistic process.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My artistic practice is more focused on the formation process rather than the form itself; hence, my drawings represent the process of genesis and growth; the lines grow from points that have been set on motion, as the plant grows from its seed. Each drawing begins with a single element, a “center”, and continues with duplication process in which strong centers evolve in levels of scale, pronounced boundaries and alternative repetition.
Emerging new centers continue till the whole drawing evolves. In this process there is a reciprocal insight between centers and the whole; as one finds ways to better understand the centers, the whole becomes better defined and the clarity of the whole makes centers more clear and yet they say more about the whole. Thus, my meticulous art works come along with a gradual formation in level of details. They are harmonious whole yet developed step-by-step; organic yet abstract; unpredictable yet mathematical; ordered yet chaotic; still yet fluxing. There is a continuous mutation in the process of emerging; an ongoing dialogue between formation and deformation in which my drawings unfold only a spectrum of it. As an architect and artist I like to create living things; not biologically alive but things that have a perceptible degree of life.
Observing natural and man-made patterns and complex systems enable me to define my method in art. Hence, instead of replicating finished forms that are already settled, whether as images in the mind or as objects in the world I’d rather follow the order of these natural and artificial structures in order to generate my artworks based on their properties and characteristics.
Please leave plenty of time to navigate DC traffic. There will be plenty of parking in the Visitors Garage.
Address is 4915 East Campus Drive Alexanria, VA 22311
January 19th, 2019 2-4PM Opening for Brian Dailey, Azadeh Saheraien and Reem Akked Dardari
The Schlesinger Forum galleries is pleased to present the two major projects by Brian Dailey in collaboration with the Photography and Media Department of Northern Virginia Community College. The first opening event for this exhibition is this Saturday at the Forum Galleries.
American in Color and WORDS by Brian Dailey
Over the course of a two-year period, Brian Dailey traveled across the country with the objective of capturing individual portraits of the uncelebrated American electorate. He organized impromptu photo shoots with more than 1,200 citizens, including those with no interest in politics or voting. In the portraits, each individual expresses their personal identity casually in dress and pose, while their political identity is a chosen backdrop: blue for Democrat, red for Republican, grey for Independent, green for the Green Party and orange for those who do not vote. The resulting body of work, “America in Color” challenges our perceptions of the many components and individuals that shape the American political process.
Form and Formation by Azadeh Sahraeian
As an architect and artist I like to create living things; not biologically alive but things that have a perceptible degree of life. Observing natural and man-made patterns and complex systems enable me to define my method in art. Hence, instead of replicating finished forms that are already settled, whether as images in the mind or as objects in the world I’d rather follow the order of these natural and artificial structures in order to generate my artworks based on their properties and characteristics.
Syriana: Paintings by Reem Akkad Dardari
Syriana is a series of very personal statements of intellectual and emotional reflections on the humanitarian catastrophe we now lightly call, the Syrian conflict. They vary in color, from the blue of the Mediterranean, swallowing thousands of unwanted refugees, to the grey of flattened cement and the rubble of deformed “skylines”. Unidentified figures of children frozen by fear, with a man weeping in silence.
Artists Reception Saturday May 5, 2018 4-6PM
You are invited to join us for a joint reception for our two current exhibiting artists Barbara Frank and Chee-Keong Kung. The reception will be held this Saturday May 5th, 2018 from 4-6PM. Light Refreshments will be served and parking is available in the covered visitor garage across the street from the Schlesinger Center. The address is 4915 East Campus Drive Alexandria, VA 22311.
These are two stylistic different artists who are held together by a passion for movement, and the mythic beauty in all aspects of the natural world.
For more Information you can visit the Schlesinger Center website.
Daybook by Lisa Rosenstein
The Passage Gallery at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center at Northern Virginia Community College’s Alexandria Campus is excited to present the work of Lisa Rosenstein in the art exhibition Daybook. The show will be on display Nov. 10, 2017 to Jan. 15, 2018 with an artist’s reception scheduled for 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11.
Terminal Flux: A Site-Specific Graphite Wall Drawing by John M. Adams
Artist John M. Adams is one of our first artists of the 2017 season for the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center art galleries. Adams has created the site-specific graphite drawing Terminal Flux on the wall of the atrium of the building. Terminal Flux is the Schlesinger Center’s very first wall drawing. The exhibit for the drawing opens Monday, Jan. 16 with an artist’s reception from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11.
Adams’ site-specific drawings are created on location, for that specific location, and last for a predetermined amount of time before they are painted over or destroyed. He has completed more than 12 site-specific drawings in the Washington, D.C., area. At more than 20 feet tall and 30 feet wide, Terminal Flux is Adams’ largest site-specific drawing to date. This drawing will be the Schlesinger Center’s second site-specific art exhibit but the first exhibit where the artist draws directly on the walls of the building. Terminal Flux will be on display all year. See East City Art‘s review of Adams’ drawing here.
Stanley Clarke Series: Mixed Media Drawings by Winston W. Harris
The art galleries at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center at the Northern Virginia Community College Alexandria Campus will open its 2017 season with The Stanley Clarke Series with Special Guest “Midnight Jazz Hour & Time Experience.” Artist Winston W. Harris will display his jazz-inspired work in the Forum and Fisher galleries from Thursday, Jan. 5 to Sunday, Feb. 26 with an artist’s reception from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11.
Harris’ mixed media drawings are heavily inspired by legendary electric and acoustic bass player Stanley Clarke, who is a four-time Grammy Award winning artist also known for being a gifted performer, recording artist, composer, producer and conductor. Harris often listens to music while he creates and uses both sound and instruments as blueprints for his work.
Artists Speak with Raye Leith and Tanya Ziniewicz
Blueprints: Recent Drawings by Raye Leith
Blueprints: Recent drawings by Raye Leith installation photographs by Greg Staley in the forum and passage gallery of the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center- Northern Virginia Community College – Alexandria Campus. This exhibit is open through September 11th. Gallery hours are Mon-Fri 10-4PM and on weekends during events.
