Art Watch Radio Podcast with ceramic sculptor Rhoda Kahler on March 31, 2021

March 31, 2021

Amie Potsic interviews ceramic sculptor Rhoda Kahler about her upcoming exhibition, Form and Image at Church Street Gallery, and her latest experimentation with new sculptural concepts in her tile work.

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Rhoda Kahler is a ceramic artist living in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Drawing from nature, much of her art bends toward the organic, making use of abstraction and collage.

Kahler’s handmade tile murals appear in public and private collections throughout the Delaware Valley —
her most recent murals are located on the new E.O. Bull Center for the Arts at West Chester University.
Others include the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry and the Historical Kearsley Building in Philadelphia. Her tile work has also been featured in magazines, newspapers, and on television, including on the Home and Garden Television network (HGTV).

Kahler has taught classes and workshops at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, at regional art centers and has participated in a wide range of residency programs, including most recently a Guest Artist Residency in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Form and Art Program. Kahler is an adjunct faculty member at West Chester University and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from WCU.

For more information, visit: http://www.rhodakahler.com/index.html
Follow her on Instagram @rhodakahlerstudio

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© Rhoda Kahler, Foreign Object II, Stoneware, 20 x 20”

© Rhoda Kahler, Orange Sky, Stoneware, 14 x 14”

© Rhoda Kahler, Red Velvet Landscape, Stoneware, 12 x 12”

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Statement

”In this exhibition, you will see that I am exploring with color, and have added brighter colors to my palette, as well as a more painterly effect. To me, my tiles are three-dimensional paintings that are my interpretations of life and places. I am also experimenting with new sculptural concepts for my tile work, and I am very excited to share these ideas.” -Rhoda Kahler

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About the exhibition

Rhoda Kahler’s exhibition, Form and Image will be on view at Church Street Gallery from April 2, 2021 - May 1, 2021, with an opening reception on Friday, April 2 from 5 to 8 PM. The Church Street Gallery is located on 12 South Church Street in West Chester, PA. For more information about the exhibition, visit: https://www.churchstreetgallerywc.com/home.html

Art Watch Radio Podcast with Ana Vizcarra Rankin and Marguerita Hagan on March 17, 2021

© Marguerita Hagan, Life, shield details, Flora series, Ceramic, 3.5" x 12.5" x 13", 2021

March 17, 2021

Amie Potsic interviews Ana Vizcarra Rankin and Marguerita Hagan about their new exhibition, Biospheres, at Hot Bed Gallery in Philadelphia.  The artists discuss how their work references science, the environment, and humanity's impact on our world.

About Biospheres
Biospheres is a collaborative exhibition by visual artists, Marguerita Hagan and Ana Vizcarra Rankin. Curated by James Oliver Gallery, Biospheres is a conversation about the extraordinary complexities of the known universe. Though each artist works within a different medium (drawings, paintings, mixed media, and ceramic sculptures), they each make art that seeks to visualize what has enabled life to thrive for eons. The dynamic spirit of their work gives a visual voice to the wonder, responsibility, and necessity of interconnected life. The artists are partnering with local organizations and charities in an effort to raise awareness around the environmental issues important to them. Biospheres is open by appointment and limited walk-ins from March 20 through April 24, 2021, with an opening reception on March 20 from 6-9 pm.

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© Ana Vizcarra Rankin, Sleeping With The Tides, Mixed media on canvas, 8 x 8’, 2021

© Marguerita Hagan, Breath, shield detail, Flora series, Ceramic, 2.5" x 8.5" x 8.5"

© Ana Vizcarra Rankin, Lagoon Nebula, Oil on panel, 16 x 16”, 2018

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About the Artists
Ana Vizcarra Rankin makes art about mapping, travel, and the phenomenology of being in and of the universe. Her work ranges from monumental canvases to delicate, diminutive works, and considers events that occur in subatomic spacetime all the way to global and cosmic perspectives. Born in Uruguay and raised in both South and North America, Rankin works and lives in Philadelphia.

Rankin received her MFA from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and BA in art history from Temple University. She has exhibited extensively, and her work is held in numerous private and public collections, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Brandywine River Museum of Art, Uruguay Cultural Foundation for the Arts, Peoria Riverfront Museum, Brooklyn Art Library, and Print Council of Australia.
She participated in the first TrueQue Artist Residency in Ayampe Ecuador, was a Barnes Artist in Residence in Umbertide Italy, and is the founder of BrobDinGnag International, a curatorial incubator focused on diversity and inclusion.

Marguerita Hagan is a ceramic sculptor based in Philadelphia. She is an advocate for the thriving of all life in mutually sustainable communities and environments. The concept of interdependence plays throughout her sculpture, teaching, and community arts.

Throughout her career, Hagan has brought to light the beauty and engineering of our planet’s diverse ecosystems and our powerful role as stewards. At this climacteric time of change, her work focuses on the largest and essential element on earth, the ocean from its micro to macro scale. The intricate ceramic forms shine a light on the wonder and respect for the fragile, diverse life of the sea with which our lives are intrinsically linked. Hagan’s practice is an ongoing discovery, magnifying our awareness, reciprocal responsibility, and protection of each other and our planet.

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About HOT•BED

Established in 2017, HOT•BED is a gallery and creative lifestyle space in Philadelphia that unites art, horticulture, and design. Founded by Bryan Hoffman, a design visionary, and James Oliver, an established gallerist, HOT•BED is a catalyst and a conduit for futures not yet realized. It’s a gathering place, not unlike the Paris Salons of the Nineteenth century, where visitors and artists alike have the opportunity to collaborate, exhibit, and explore new ideas in a welcoming and judgment-free environment. For more information, visit: https://www.hotbedphilly.com/

Art Watch Radio Podcast with Rebecca Segall, Gross McCleaf Gallery Owner on March 3, 2021

Inside Looking Out installation image. Photo courtesy of Gross McCleaf Gallery.

March 3, 2021

Amie Potsic interviews Rebecca Segall, Gross McCleaf's new Gallery Owner and Director about her acquisition of the gallery, her artistic connections to PAFA, and her perspective on stewarding the gallery into the future.

Rebecca Segall is the President of GMG Arts, Inc. dba Gross McCleaf Gallery, an institution in Philadelphia’s Fine Arts community for the last half-century. An accomplished artist herself, Rebecca is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and has also had a career in consumer products sales as an on-air specialist for the QVC television shopping network, as well as in real estate brokerage representing developers in the sale of residential properties.

Rebecca is a member of the Board of Directors of the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization focused on meeting the therapeutic needs of children who have experienced trauma in the city’s diverse communities. She is also a member of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s South Asian Art Committee.

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Outside Looking In installation image. Photo courtesy of Gross McCleaf Gallery.

Outside Looking In installation image. Photo courtesy of Gross McCleaf Gallery.

Inside Looking Out installation image. Photo courtesy of Gross McCleaf Gallery.

Outside Looking In installation image. Photo courtesy of Gross McCleaf Gallery.

Outside Looking In installation image. Photo courtesy of Gross McCleaf Gallery.

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About Outside Looking In
Douglas Martenson paints observationally in various locations in Maine and Pennsylvania. He meticulously documents the light, atmosphere, and environment of each view through a variety of painting techniques. While the painted objects appear with local color firmly established, a sensitive eye will begin to perceive deep reds, light purples, golds, chromatic grays, and a spectrum of ever-present blues. Martenson’s careful handling of paint opens up worlds within each object, giving way to a conceptual interpretation over time.

Martenson is a Professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and teaches Drawing at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been exhibiting in Philadelphia with Gross McCleaf Gallery for over two decades and has shown his work regionally and nationally throughout the United States.

About Inside Looking Out

Douglas Martenson curated Inside Looking Out with the intention of creating a dialogue between this group exhibit and his own solo show, Outside Looking In. GMG is pleased to present works by Brian Boutwell, Betsy Eby, Deirdre Murphy, Celia Reisman, Rebecca Segall, Sterling Shaw, Mickayel Thurin, Alexandra Tyng, and Leigh Werrell.

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Both exhibitions are on view at GMG from March 3 - 27, 2021. For more information, visit: https://www.grossmccleaf.com/

Art Watch Radio Podcast with Photographer RA Friedman on January 20, 2021

RA Friedman, 10 28 20, Drafting lead on acid-free drawing paper, 7” x 7”, 2020

January 20, 2021

Amie Potsic interviews RA Friedman about his Philadelphia COVID-19 Portrait Project, which memorialized Philadelphians lost to the virus. Friedman discusses how to bring a portrait alive from minimal photographic sources and how others can get involved and collaborate on his project.

RA Friedman is an accomplished artist whose work involves the interplay between the objectivity of the camera and the subjectivity of the hand made.  Adept at photography, drawing, and recrafting older technologies, Friedman’s work melds the human figure’s ability to convey intimate and complex states of being with the expressiveness of mark-making and time-based discovery.  Deeply introspective as well as collaborative, his work gives voice to our personal, artistic, and collective histories.

Friedman’s current focus, The Philadelphia COVID-19 Portrait Project, seeks to honor and memorialize the thousands of Philadelphians lost to the virus.  Working from obituary and family provided photographs, Friedman has gained national attention for drawing portraits of COVID-19 victims as a means of documentation and artistic dialogue.  While RA does not personally know the individuals, he spends time with them, in silence, at his easel, with the light traces captured by the camera.  Feeling that he is not so much looking at them, but into them, his portraits invite us to think about who they were, what their lives were like, and how America failed them.  Their faces, their spirits, burned into our memories.  Incorporating the drawings and the voices of loved ones into projection-based installations, Friedman memorializes individual lives and reflects in dialogue with their humanity.

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RA Friedman, 07 06 20, 7 ½” x 6 ½” Drafting lead on acid-free drawing paper

RA Friedman, 08 28 20,  9” x 6” Drafting lead on acid-free drawing paper

RA Friedman, 10 30 20, 7” x 7” Drafting lead on acid-free drawing paper  (DB56)

RA Friedman, 08 31 20, 9” x 8 ¼” Drafting lead on acid-free drawing paper

RA Friedman, 11 05 20, 5 ½” x 5 ½” Drafting lead on acid-free drawing paper (DB57)

RA Friedman, 07 02 20, 8” x 7 3/8” Drafting lead on acid-free drawing paper

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Get Involved

RA Friedman is seeking to grow the project and honor more individuals by inviting families of those lost and artists to collaborate. If you are a family member of a loved one lost to Covid-19 in the Greater Philadelphia area and want to contribute an image of your family member to the project or you are an artist wanting to join the portrait drawing project, you can find more information and contact RA directly at rafriedman.com and on Facebook at The Trouble I've Seen: Portraits of Philadelphians Lost to COVID-19.

RA Friedman Biography

RA Friedman is an accomplished artist whose unique approach involves photography, drawing, and recrafting older technologies.  Friedman received a BA in Technical Theatre from Harpur College, SUNY, and an MFA in Painting from Louisiana State University.  He has exhibited his work nationally in venues including The Merchant’s House Museum, Pratt Institute Manhattan, and Stephen Romano Gallery in New York.  In 2019, Friedman was awarded a residency and solo exhibition at the Center for Arts and History in Lewiston, Idaho.  Friedman founded “Tsirkus Fotografika” (The Circus of Photography) and has created public art projects with Mural Arts of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.  Friedman is an instructor at Pratt Institute and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and has published his work in Peau Magazine, F-Stop, What A Roll (Spain), and the Supplementaire (UK).  His current work, The Philadelphia Covid-19 Portrait Project, has been featured on ABC and NBC TV and published in the Broad Street Review and The Philadelphia Inquirer.