Artist Talk: Jonathan Ottke, May 23rd, 2019 6:30 – 8PM

Atist Talk with Jonathan Ottke: May 23rd, 2019: 6:30-8PM.

Jonathan Ottke lives by Lake Braddock in the Washington DC area where he took many of the photographs in this series. He has lived in many places including in Waldenbuch, Germany, Nairobi, Kenya and Vienna, Austria. His travels and his training as a biologist affect his art. He has exhibited in numerous exhibitions in the Washington DC region including Falls Church Arts, Art Enables, and Del Ray Gallery. He has an M.S. in Biology from George Mason University with a focus on environment microbiology and a B.S. in Fine Arts and German from the University of Virginia. “In a Drop of Water” is his first solo exhibition.

These series of photographs of water taken by Lake Braddock focus on the small often overlooked beauty that is in the details of nature. Raindrops falling on a leaf, a blooming flower after a rain, the frozen lake, are all the sources and materials of these photographs.

Jonathan takes inspiration from William Blake’s quote “see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower”.

“With my photography, I observe the world closely around me looking for the beauty in the everyday. I am especially interested in the spiritual implications of materials in art and the way we create the world every time we see it anew. I hope my photography gives people a timeless, universal feeling and shows the otherworldly in the everyday.”

May 4th, 2019 Gallery Reception for Norma Schwartz, Jonathan Ottke and Nataliya Gurshman

You are invited to join us Saturday afternoon for the gallery reception for three outstanding exhibitions at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center. The artists will be present between 2 and 4pm to greet the guests and answers questions about their art work.

The shows are currently public and will run through June 9th, 2019.
Gallery Hours are Monday – Friday 10AM – 5PM

The exhibitions are as follows:

shape of memories: sculpture by Norma Schwartz
Margaret W. & Joseph L. Fisher Art Gallery

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a Drop of Water: Photographer by Jonathan Ottke
Passage Gallery

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Russian Soul: Paintings by Nataliya Gurshman
Forum Gallery

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

America in Color 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

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

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.

Cyanotyped Sail by Katherine Akey

Katherine Akey’s solo exhibition “Behind the Silent Hills” runs through July 28, 2018. The summer hours for the gallery are 11-4PM. Monday – Friday and during public events on the weekend.

Katherine Akey: Behind the Silent Hills

” When I began to create work about the poles, I had to do just that: create. I had felt the burn of rope in my hands and the spray of saltwater on my face, but I had never heard the fizz and crackle of ice in the water or seen the emerald and lavender hues of snow in the dull arctic autumn. And so the sail was born — a labor of love and perseverance. I walked for miles in the snows of Long Island to gather it up, canvas and hemp, from an old marine depot. When I returned home I thought I had gotten bed bugs, but the spots covering my legs were just hives from the cold.”

“I wanted to create my own iceberg, but having never seen one in person what I created was this; cyanotype, the bright prussian blue of the 19th century, cracked and wrinkled and exposed in the hard spring sun. My interpretation of the berg, much like a medieval drawing of a lion, is a little clumsy and ill formed, with a funny snout and preposterous proportions. But what innocence is there in that malformed lion, drawn from a description passed from mouth to mouth from Africa to the Netherlands! What joy is there in the iceberg made in Long Island, born from the dreams passed from year to year in the sleep of a young woman. ”

The Sail – Installation Shot

Installation Shot of The Sail

Installation Shot

Installation Shot

Fisher Art Gallery Installation Shot