CFEVA at the Icebox

©Tim Portlock copyright notice

Tonight we went to the opening of "Construct" an Exhibition by CFEVA Career Development Fellows, curated by CFEVA's Amie Postic. The show was well worth going to with sculpture, paintings and digital images of a very high standard.

I say digital images because Tim Portlock's work is neither painting nor photograph, they are renderings of urban spaces that are vaguely recognisable as real places but only truly exist in Tim's computer. Such is the complexity of the 3 dimensional images that to render them at the size and resolution they are printed at he has to send the files to a supercomputer where they render them at off peak times and then send the huge files back.

We have been working with Tim on his images for some years now and they get better and better. I am sure that at some moment in the near future some fancy New York gallery will pick him up and they will suddenly attain stratospheric prices and he fame and fortune - you heard it here first!

©KImberly Witham - Still Life with Fox and Steak

On the photography side Noah Addis has some really nice images, as did Kimberly Witham - seen here Still Life with Steak and Fox whose work is whimsical and slightly sinister. On a professional note I have to wonder why she have them printed as digital C prints, this is where photographic paper is exposed using lasers, this used to be the way to print color glossy images but inkjet printing, especially Epson's have caught up and overtaken the quality in the last few years. Of course I may be just a little biased :)

The show is up at the Icebox until June 29th.

Posted by Rick

Art Institute Schmooze

©Corey Palmer 2011 see copyright notice Copyright Notice

 Tonight Michal Smith - ex Silicon and the Print Center, now doing good things at www.cradlestocrayons.com, visited the Sketch Club at 235 South Camac St., for the Art Institutes spring photography Schmooze, sponsored by the Art Institutes Photography department.

The event is designed for local photographers, designers and the like to get together, have a drink and generally mingle. Jill Sherman, another ex Silicon person, teaches as AI and was there along with a bunch of seniors showing off their final projects, very impressive, especially a series of images by Corey Palmer, which were beautifully presented and fabulously printed but I am too modest to say by whoom.

I took some pictures of the event with my fabulous and trusty Sony NEX-5 but forgot to put in the "film" (read memory stick)  . . .

Posted by Rick

First Friday June 2011 - Part 2

The second best show in town was at our own Katie Tackman's new gallery / work space in Fishtown; GRAVY.  Showing at Gravy fabulous prints (by Silicon, natch) all the more amazing because they are from the cell phone of Silicon Alum Kaitlin Mosley.

Left to right Kaitlin Mosley and Katie Tackman

This is the second show we have printed recently from cell phone images. The first was Tristin Lowe's highly erotic images at Fleisher Ollman Gallery.

It was quite a scene at GRAVY and the renowned Philly artist Rachel Bliss turned up with her kids. If you know Rachel's work you probably covet it, so the good news is that Rachel will be at Art For the Cash Poor this weekend, June 11 - 12 at the Crane Arts Building in Kensington, with stupendous prints of her work. The rule is everything must be under $200 so there are bargains to be had!

Left to right Freda, Rachel Bliss and Rosalie

Posted by Rick

First Friday June 2011

Busy, busy, busy First Friday in June, loads of shows around with prints by Silicon but I have to mention the two best shows in town. The first by our own Colleen Rudolf at Hollandia in Old City. Yes, yes, I know Hollandia is a place that sells high end beds but Stefan at Hollandia is committed to showing new work every month and I must day that he has had some pretty good shows so far. But, of course, none as good as Colleen's paintings of rescue dogs.



















And. . . not be be outdone she brought along a couple of her friends who came complete with wonderful dogs desperately in need of adoption. Below you can see the adorable Woolfgang with the equally adorable Kate - Woolgang's foster Mum - with Colleen in the background. No . . . that's Colleen behind the guy.





We are happy to report that Woolfgang was adopted on Saturday!
If you are interested in a fabulous loyal dog, or slightly less loyal stinking cat, just around the corner from Silicon is PAWS  Philadelphia's Animal Welfare Society. If you become a member of PAWS you get discounts at Silicon (don't tell anyone!)

Posted By Rick

Last Day in Japan - at Rate Hole Gallery

Our last day in Japan we managed to get together with our friend Caroline Elder who gave us a private tour of Rat Hole Gallery where she works.

Rat Hole Gallery is one of the few contemporary galleries in Tokyo and is currently showing Cheyney Thompson "Chronochromes, Data, Motifs".
The paintings are made so that they track their own time of creation using the Munsell Color System which is based on Hue, Lightness and Color Purity. It's kinda complicated but if you are really interested I would be happy to send you the abstract.

A few years ago we also made some very interesting prints using color, time and music as the basis for the imagery. Philadelphia artist Nancy Herman made some beautiful large format prints based on musical annotation, my favorite was Bach's Cello Suite. You can find Nancy's take on this at http://www.nancyherman.com/www.nancyherman.com/VISUAL_MUSIC.html.

Posted by Rick

Kyoto - Japan - May 25

Yet another temple in Kyoto which, like all of them, is made of wood and this one dated back to 1100, amazing that they survive really. (another one we went to was built in 1050, destroyed by fire in 1123 and rebuilt in 1245).
This one was notable for it's original drawings and ceiling decoration dating back over 800 years. The party looks amazingly contemporary as does the bulging eyed dragon.

We at Silicon have not been around quite that long and it remains to be seen if any of our prints will be around 800 years from now. We are told that if they are kept in a dark cool place there is a chance!

Posted by Rick

Kyoto - Japan - May 24

My how different is Kyoto from Tokyo, here there are ancient temples and shrines and it has an overall feeling of calm after Tokyo. This temple or shrine was interesting, it reminded me of Linda Brenner and (Silicon friend and aritst) Judy Gelles's show at Pentimenti in Old City check it out and you will see why.

At this and many of the other Japanese shrines visitor pay a small amount of money to purchase a bamboo tile and then record their prayers on the tile and hang it up. Of course most of the prayers were in Japanese but there were a surprising number in English, Spanish and a smattering of other languages.

Unlike European Temples, oh wait we call them churches, there is not the feeling of power and dread when you enter them more an overall impression of calm and meditation, very cool.

Posted by Rick 

Japan - Museum - May 23rd

Our recent trip to Japan included a visit to the main art museum in Tokyo and I must say we were both pretty disappointed with the collection it struck us more of the kind of museum you would find in a in third world country than one of the busiest and richest cities on the planet (the Ginza region of Tokyo has the most expensive real estate in the World). As we have been told many times by our Japanese friends modern art is not a part of the mainstream culture here.

A couple of things did strike my eye, one was this interesting painting of some geisha’s looking through what looks like a modern telescope. I think the image was from the 30’s which made it more interesting.

This series of images from Naoya Hatakeyama – River Series were, surprisingly, from 1993 – 1996, I say surprisingly because they are mounted on DiBond® which is all the rage at Silicon at the moment. They were also perfectly photographed and presented.

Posted by Rick