March 19, 2015
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Join Us Tonight for the Opening Reception of Hothouse Video: Donna Conlon & Jonathan Harker and South Capitol Skyscape: Avi Gupta


Join us this evening at the Capitol Skyline Hotel from 6-8pm as we will celebrate the dual openings of South Capitol Skyscape: Avi Gupta and Hothouse Video: Donna Conlon & Jonathan Harker. 
WPA Partners with TechShop to Provide New Benefit for Members




 
WPA is constantly working to provide our members with valuable opportunities to connect to a creative community, gain exclusive access to industry experts, and opportunities and resources so that they may achieve more in their artistic practice and go farther in their creative careers than they might without us. We are thrilled to announce that we have added TechShop DC-Arlington to our growing list of partnering regional businesses and arts-oriented retailers that offerer special discounts exclusively to WPA members!

 

TechShop DC-Arlington is a membership based do-it-yourself workspace. Part fabrication and prototyping studio, part hackerspace and part learning center, TechShop offers artists, hobbyists, entrepreneurs, tinkerers, crafters, scientists, and students of all ages and skill levels access to over $1 million worth of professional equipment including laser cutters, plastics and electronics labs, a machine shop, a wood shop, a metal working shop, a textiles department, welding stations, and a waterjet cutter. TechShop members are provided open access to design software, featuring the entire Autodesk Design Suite. Huge project areas with large work tables are also available for completing projects and collaborating with others.

 

WPA member artists interested in learning more about TechShop, equipment offerings, and facilities are encouraged to join us on Saturday, April 11, 2015 at 2pm for our Professional Practices: TechShop Experience Tour at TechShop DC Arlington. Space is limited and RSVP is mandatory. For more information and to register please visit our website.

  

If you would like to learn more about WPA/TechShop Member pricing or other WPA Membership Benefits or to Become a Member, please email Membership Director Jeremy Flick at [email protected].


Save the Date: Artist Directory Launch Party-April 16
 


 

Its Here! WPA is happy to announce the launch of its 2015-2016 WPA Artist Directory. Published by East City Art Media and printed in the United States, WPA's full-color, fully-illustrated WPA Artist Directory is the definitive guide to established, emerging, and mid-career contemporary artists throughout the region. Used by curators, art advisors, collectors, artists, editors, designers, and people with an interest in the arts, our bi-annual print directory is the primary resource for access to art and artists in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia region.

 

Purchase Your Copy Today


The directory features each participating WPA member artist on a full 8-1/2 x 5-1/2" page with contact information and a high-quality image selected by the artist as representative of his or her work. 

Our bi-annual print Artist Directory is complimentary to our online resources highlighting the work of WPA member artists. Along with our new and improved online artist registry ArtFile Online and WPA Art Map, the 2015-2016 WPA Artist Directory further solidifies WPA as the BEST resource for finding contemporary art, raising awareness of, and promoting the contemporary art and artists throughout the region.


 

SAVE THE DATE: We will celebrate the official launch of the Directory with a Launch Party on April 16.


 

Purchase your copy TODAY by visiting our online store at: https://www.wpadc.org/store


 

WPA Members Write About Their Work and Process
 


This Spring, WPA will mount the next installment in its Hothouse exhibition series at the Capitol Skyline Hotel, Hothouse: ImPRINT. The Hothouse exhibition series was created as a way to provide new opportunities for WPA member artists and to forge new connections within DC's creative communities.

 

Juried by Robert Bettman, Hothouse: ImPRINT highlights the creative work of WPA member artists Damon Arhos, Fallon Chase, Michael Fischerkeller, Jennifer Pizzillo, Maryanne Pollock, Rebecca Silberman, and Sylvie van Helden. Complementary to and enhancing the exhibition experience, each participating artist will publish articles in the arts magazine Bourgeon about their own work and creative process.  

 

In the weeks leading up to the May 7 exhibition opening we will be highlighting each of the participating artists and sharing their personal writing about their work and creative process. The first artist featured is Michael Fischerkeller and his article "Due Process."


 
Taking from others has a bad reputation, but I believe in appropriation, and use it as a central element in building my compositions. Appropriating art historical images within my compositions allows me to use juxtaposition and context in a way I find particularly satisfying. I resonate with the statement by filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, "It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to."

 

I look to create dialogue between history and cultural iconography through the appropriations, and through the dialogue, contemporary meaning...


 


EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS
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March 18 - May 3, 2015

Hothouse Video: Donna Conlon & Jonathan Harker

Opening Reception:
Thursday March 19, 2015, 6-8pm

 

WPA presents renowned Panamanian video artists, Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker, for their first solo exhibition in Washington, DC.

 

 

 


February 5 - April 24, 2015

Lobby Project: Erin Curtis

WPA Presents Diamond Landscape, a Dynamic New Installation by Erin Curtis

Diamond Landscape is a 6 foot x 21 foot installation of 126 brightly-colored, one-foot-square birch panels that are assembled to form a cohesive abstract geometric work. 

 

 

 

February 2 - April 30, 2015

 

 

WPA presents a new work by DC-based artist Avi Gupta for the third and final installation of its South Capitol Skyscape series.




COMMUNITY NEWS
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Benefit Art Auction: The Works of Maria Josephy Schoolman

Maria was a dedicated artist leader and important member of the DC Arts Community.

This collection of Maria's best-known paintings and sculptures will be sold to benefit the Washington Sculptors Group, the non-profit Maria supported for many years.

View Auction Guide for detailed rules for bidding. Bidding will close on April 10th.

MEET A MEMBER 
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Marcel Richter

Marcel Richter, Erebus. Watercolor on paper, 11" x 14."


I am fascinated by the concept that paint laid down on canvas or paper in a non-representational pattern can engender powerful emotions like joy, wonder, and awe in the viewer. I believe that, when this occurs, a painting must have a meaning beyond itself, and it must represent a kind of heightened energy state with which the viewer resonates at some level.

When I paint, I am also trying to capture this kind of heightened energy state. This "energy" is difficult to define and describe, yet I am certain that it exists. As I've strained to will an energetic charge onto a canvas, I've often found paint self-organize in remarkable and wonderful ways. There is something very mysterious, almost mystical to me in the act of painting.

 

As I explore the energetic potential of different media and combinations of media, I also explore different facets of abstraction: Abstract painting is traditionally divided into two categories: Abstraction that is still in some measure representational, where objects are distilled to their essence, and, on the other hand, abstraction that is completely non-representational and self-referential. My body of work straddles these two kinds of abstraction, but falls mostly into an area between them: I believe a painting can represent or mean something beyond itself, without divulging what that meaning is - often even to the painter him- or herself.

 

I hope that my works reflect and transmit, even to a small degree, the exhilaration and joy I feel when I create them.

 
- Marcel Richter

 

 

MEMBER NEWS
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We want to share YOUR News! If you are a WPA Member and have an exhibition or piece of news you want us to share, you can submit via our Newsletter Item Submission Form.  

 

SELECT WPA MEMBER EXHIBITIONS:

 

Openings:

 

Rachel Schmidt at Hierarchy on March 19

 

Chris Bohner, Rita Elsner, Roxana Alger Geffen, Jay Hendrick, Leslie Holt, Elizabeth Holtry, Wayson R. Jones, Chee Keong Kung, Kyujin Lee, Carolina Mayorga, Anthony Palliparambil, Jr., John Paradiso, Pam Rogers, Rahshia Sawyer, Anne Smith, Marsha Staiger, Patricia Underwood, Alice Whealin, Amy Wilke, and Andrew Wodzianski at Gallery O on H on March 21 - March 28

 

Jonathan Monaghan at bitforms gallery on March 22 - May 3

 

Freya Grand at gallery plan b on March 25 - May 3

 

Georgia Nassikas at the Affordable Art Fair on March 26 - March 29

 

Amy Hughes Braden, curated by Jessica Kallista at Olly Olly on March 28 - April 11

 

Cynthia Bickley-Green at b.j. spoke gallery on April 11 - April 30

 

H. K. Anne at Workhouse Arts Center on April 11 - May 10

 

Zofie Lang at NVCC Margaret W. & Joseph L. Fisher Gallery on April 18 - May 17

 

Andrea Collins at Spitzer Art Center on April 3 - April 30

 

Brian Feldman at Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts (Orlando, FL), Kogod Courtyard, Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery (Washington, DC), and LOVE Park (Philadelphia, PA) on May 10

 

Phyllis Jaffe at Strathmore Mansion Gallery on June 6 - July 26

 

 

Ongoing: 

 

Phyllis Jaffe at Watergate Gallery through March 21

 

Richard Paul Weiblinger at ArtSpace Herndon through March 22, Maryland Federation of Art through March 28, Photoworks Gallery through April 12, and at Maryland House of Delegates through April 13

 

Susan Holloway at Washington ArtWorks through March 27

 

Maggie Gourlay at The Gray Gallery through March 28 

 

Mary D. Ott at Touchstone Gallery through March 29

 

Stephen Schiff at Montpelier Arts Center on through March 29, and Off Rhode Gallery through April 17 

 

 

Catherine Day at Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art through March 19

 

Kung Chee Keong and Steven Pearson at School 33 through March 21

 

Gordon Binder at gallery plan b through March 22

 

Rosabel Everard-Goodman and Judy Southerland at the Korean Cultural Center through March 25

 

Sondra Arkin, Anna U. Davis, Mary Early, Cheryl Edwards, Rania Hassan, Ian Jehle, Nate Lewis, Kathryn McDonnell, and Martine Workman at DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities through March 27

 

Nancy Daly at Hamiltonian Gallery through March 28

 

Jane Forth, Marilyn Hayes, Phyllis Jaffe, and Cynthia Farrell Johnson at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center  through March 28 

 

Susan Eder and Craig Dennis at Marsha Mateyka Gallery through March 28

 

Becca Kallem and Stephanie Williams at Aferro Gallery through March 28

 

Helen Zughaib at University of Maryland University College through  March 29 and Arab American Museum through April 19


 
Billy Friebele, Maggie Gourlay, Mariah Anne Johnson, Nicole Salimbene, and Dawn Whitmore at Arlington Arts Center through April 4

 

Scott G. Brooks at Last Rites Gallery through April 4

 

Philip Hinge at Page Bond Gallery through April 4 

 

Maggie Gourlay at Workhouse Arts Center through April 5

 

Jennifer Barlow at Bodzin Art Gallery, JCCNV through April 6

 

Stephen Schiff at American Center for Physics through April 10

 

Christopher Baer at Susan Calloway Fine Art through April 11

 

Joel D'Orazio at VisArts at Rockville through April 12

 

Lee Gainer and Jon Malis at Maryland Art Place through April 14

 

Julia Kim Smith at Institute for Women and Art at Rutgers University through April 15

 

Diane Szczepaniak at University of Hawaii, Hilo through April 15

 

MG Stout at Northern Virginia Community College through April 17

 

Monika Stroik at Artisphere through April 24 

 

Margery E. Goldberg, Joan Konkel, Donna McCullough, and Lynda Smith-Bugge at Zenith Gallery through April 26

 

Joan Belmar at Busboys and Poets through April 30

 

Arlette Jassel at Strathmore Mansion Gallery through May 31

 

Brian Feldman at American Poetry Museum at The Center for Poetic Thought through December 27 (Sundays)

 

Howard and Mary McCoy at Robert E. Lee Park through December 31


MEMBER OPPORTUNITIES
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We want to provide our Members with Resources to help them further their careers.  We are always updating our Member Opportunities page for our Artist Members to find the latest Calls and Opportunities. Log into your account on our the WPA Website to view current listings.

SUPPORT CONTEMPORARY ART IN DC
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IMPACT. CREATIVITY. VISION. 

WPA educates, inspires, and activates the arts community which in turn drives social, cultural, and economic impact for the broader community. Your donation will help WPA continue to offer its programs and services free of charge throughout the year. Support Contemporary Art in DC and help make a difference today!