Welcome to Philadelphia’s first fine art fair for important contemporary art. The boutique and tightly curated 4 day fair will feature 35 prominent art galleries. It will be held at the historic 23st City Troop Armory, between Market and Chestnut Streets, in Center City Philadelphia.

I am pleased to announce LGTripp Gallery has been selected to exhibit at Philadelphia Fine Art Fair 2019.

Visit us at Booth 131

April 4 – 7, 2019

Opening Night Preview
Thursday, April 4th, 
6pm – 10pm

Show Hours
Friday, April 5th, 11am – 7pm
Saturday, April 6th, 11am – 6pm
Sunday, April 7th, 11am – 5pm

www.philfineartfair.com

Featuring works by

Stephen Blackburn

Teebo | Stainless steel, mild steel, found objects | 37” x 17” x 2.5”

Jon Manteau

Jon Manteau | Child’s Play IV | House paint on neoprene playmat | 40” x 40”

Miriam Singer

Miriam Singer | Fairmount Route 2 | Pencil, marker, screenprint, monotype and watercolor | 26″ x 20″

Donna Usher

Donna Usher | Pink Stripe, Contemplation 14 | Acrylic on panel | 40” x 40”

Anthony Vega

Anthony Vega | Dalliance (beautiful, unknown, 3) | Acrylic on acrylic | 40” x 40”

LGTripp Gallery

contact@lgtrippgallery.com

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October 5 – 28, 2018
First Friday, October 5, 5 – 9 pm
Artist Reception, Saturday, October 6, 3 – 6 pm

Location
319 N. 11th St.
1st floor
Philadelphia, PA 19107

LGTripp Gallery is pleased to announce Prelude to SkyLand, an exhibition of new paintings by Philadelphia-based artist Jon Manteau. This is his fifth solo show with gallery director Luella Tripp and the first pop-up exhibition for LGTripp.

The first in a two-part exhibition, this presentation serves as an introduction or a “prelude” to a larger exhibition that will follow in 2019. In marked contrast to Manteau’s expansive past exhibitions, ‘Prelude to Skyland’ consists of works made for an intimate space, in which the artist deftly explores three themes connected by the notion of a place called SkyLand.

SkyLand, “A place where your dreams and nightmares come true, where metaphor and reality collide, where fact is fiction, fiction fact, both beautiful and hideous, love and death, light and dark.”, states Manteau. A photograph, based on an actual location, serves as both inspiration and invitation to his artistry. (Sky Land, a cabin/hotel complex, is located on Skyline Drive in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park)

“For Jagger’s Bedroom”, “paintings made for my fictional son, Jagger. My art works have always been my children, but at 55…I often wonder what having a child might have been like?” Evoking childhood memories of jigsaw puzzles, these small paintings on play mats are colorful, playful and interactive.

“Make America…”, in this series, constructed from Manteau’s personal collection of hand-painted “Americana,” the artist offers the viewer a portion of a slogan or phrase inviting them to interpret the work according to their own viewpoint and presumptions.

What may appear as seemingly disparate themes, all are connected, formally and conceptually, by the artist’s longstanding interest in mark making. As a child, Manteau copied his mother’s drawings (how he learned to make his first marks), through his teenage years as a graffiti-artist in the subways of Philadelphia (leaving his mark), his never ending interest in the historical (marking a time, place, event or object), or formal qualities of the picture plane (e.g., “stripe painting” – Manteau studied under Sean Scully in the early 1980s). The formal themes dominating his work for over 30 years remain the same; the warping of the figure-ground relationship, a seemingly endless accumulation of gestural mark making, one mark informing the next. Color-rich latex stripes of paint, poured with intentionality, cascade down and across the surface… all characteristic of Manteau’s unmistakable signature style. In this exhibition, he has sought to offset his formal concerns with a conceptual narrative – both personal and universal – creating a tension that encourages a visual dialogue with the viewer and challenges preconceptions of his work.

A native son of Philadelphia, Jon Manteau graduated from Central High School. He studied at Parsons School of Design, NYC, under Sean Scully and went on to receive a certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he was awarded the William Emlen Cresson Memorial Traveling Scholarship. He later earned an MFA from the University of Delaware. An art teacher and college professor for over twenty-five years, Manteau has taught at the University of Delaware, Tyler School of Art, and is currently building the Art Department at Penn State Brandywine. His works have been exhibited nationally and are in collections throughout the United States and Canada.

More about this exhibition…

Charles Kalick | Rear Blue Window |Acrylic and wood on birch panel |13" x 12" | 2014

Charles Kalick

Paintings and Constructions

Nazanin Moghbeli | M | Ink on paper | 24" x 36" | 2014

Nazanin Moghbeli

Works on paper

LGTripp Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition of recent works by Philadelphia-based artists Charles Kalick and Nazanin Moghbeli. This is Kalick’s second show with the gallery and Mogbeli’s first.

In his aptly named Paintings and Constructions series, Charles Kalick juxtaposes textures, depths, and colors to create dynamic spatial relationships. Architecture, industry, movement and color relationships are consistent themes in this series. Although two-dimensional, his large acrylic paintings utilize variations in pattern and hue to create the impression of looking down on a topographic grid. Sharply edged fields of flat, brightly saturated colors leap off or recede into the surface by force of their sheer vibrancy. Textured neutrals add visual complexity. In his constructions Kalick uses wood not merely as a surface but as a building material. While color and textural variations still create the illusion of depth, angled planes and stacked wood blocks form shadowed recesses and airy openings—each construction a monument ripe for exploration.

Born in Philadelphia, Kalick pursued a degree from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and graduated in 1972. He was awarded both the Lewis S. Ware and the William Emlen Cresson Memorial Traveling Scholarships. Kalick was also the recipient of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship. His works have been included in exhibitions throughout Pennsylvania and New York.

In the drawings that comprise her Works on Paper series, Nazanin Moghbeli uses Iranian calligraphic materials to create lyrically rich line drawings. Her practice moves from discipline to freedom. As a mode of sketching, Moghbeli meticulously masters the form of individual Farsi characters, until the characters themselves become figurative. In her drawings, studied muscle memory allows for gloriously expressive line work. Lines range from the mesmerizingly delicate and fading to bold confident swaths. No longer purely descriptive, her marks seem imbued with their own life. They mingle and dance on the surface creating rhythms and tempos. Moghbeli’s process is also informed by traditional Iranian music, drawing while listening to music. She subscribes to an ancient metaphor that “calligraphy is music for the eyes.” If calligraphy is music, her drawings are daring solo improvisations.

Nazanin Moghbeli grew up in Iran and spent her early years studying traditional Iranian art forms, such as calligraphy, painting, and illumination. In 1996 she earned a degree in painting from Swarthmore College. Her works have been included in exhibitions locally and are in collections throughout the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

Artist’s Choice
Presenting Works by Gallery Artists

December 5, 2014 – January 31, 2015
Artist Reception, Saturday, December 13, 5 – 7 pm
First Fridays, December 5 and January 2, 6 – 8:30 pm

LGTripp Gallery is pleased to present Artist’s Choice, a group exhibition once again uniting artists represented by the gallery. In March 2012, eleven artists participated in the “Works on Paper” show. With the addition of several more outstanding artists to the gallery roster, works by seventeen artists will be on display. This is their first collective exhibition.

The role of the curator involves a creative process that is both challenging and exciting. Theme and concept is usually at the discretion of the gallery director or curator, casting vision and direction for a show. For this exhibition, the gallerist relinquishes influence by inviting artists to select, from their own artwork, pieces they wish to exhibit. The choice is theirs, an opportunity given whereby they may select art that has personal significance. Artist’s Choice includes paintings, works on paper and sculpture.

Gallery Assistant Anna Taylor is the facilitator for the exhibition.

ANTHONY VEGA
#aTourist

LGTripp Gallery is pleased to present #aTourist, a solo exhibition of recent works by gallery artist Anthony Vega. He is from Philadelphia and this is his second solo exhibition with the gallery.

Anthony Vega’s latest body of work critically explores the concepts of tourism and place, while offering an unabashed homage to the joy of travel. Asking what it means to fully experience place, Vega intermixes the caught immediacy of his own travel snapshots with cacophonous overlays of familiar symbols that evoke the virtual ideals of the named locations. Inhabiting the role of tourist, Vega strives to reconcile the actual with the preconceived. This confrontation is the “simultaneous experience of panic and excitement in the unknown.” Vega’s concept is furthered through a series of collaborative works in which paintings of familiar tourist tropes are themselves photographed while traveling. Their presence points to the fact that the very ideas of travel and tourism are always situated within the actuality of a particular place. Indeed, Vega invites visitors to participate with his explorations of travel by themselves becoming tourists in the gallery. Not just a title, #aTourist is the digital forum for viewers to document and post their own snapshots, discoveries, and interactions with the exhibit online. A souvenir shop is included for the visitor’s shopping pleasure.

Using the panorama as their stricture, Vega’s sweeping, layered paintings pulse with energy and color. Blending media, he intermixes acrylic paints with stretched and cut pieces of fabrics. Bold flowers and stripes evoke both the known comfort of home and the expectancy of a suitcase packed with vibrant clothing. Swaths of brushwork—sparser than in his earlier work, but no less electric in hue— hint at and describe the particulars of place. Seemingly patchwork fragments suddenly reveal a structure or a word—figures that once discovered can no longer go unseen. The effect is both foreign and familiar. When confronted with Vega’s paintings, the viewer has expectations of place brought forth, dislocated, and reassembled.

Anthony Vega grew up in rural New Jersey. He studied philosophy and fine art at Saint Joseph’s University and earned an MFA from the University of Delaware. From there he went on to direct the UD@Crane, the University of Delaware’s Philadelphia gallery located at the Crane Arts building, and gain experience as a curator. His artistic practice is complemented by his work as an educator. He currently teaches studio, digital media, contemporary art theory, and media studies courses at the University of Delaware and Penn State Brandywine. Anthony Vega’s work is in private collections around the country. He exhibits his work regionally and nationally in galleries and museums.

Donna Usher | Hear the Joy, Contemplation 5 | Acrylic on panel | 58" x 44" | 2014

Donna Usher

Contemplation

Miriam Singer | Yesterdays' Scraps | Pencil, ink, marker, intaglio, acrylic collage adhered to panel | 18” x 12” | 2014

Miriam Singer

Endless Day

DONNA USHER — Contemplation
MIRIAM SINGER — Endless Day

LGTripp Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition of recent works by Donna Usher and Miriam Singer, each in their second solo shows with the gallery and third with the gallerist.

Complex expressions require basic vocabularies. Composers need libraries of notation to craft symphonies; artists need foundational visual vocabularies to create insight. Usher and Singer both use abstraction as a means of communication and exploration, but they choose different foundational marks. Usher uses the circle and spiral to delve into the connections of the natural world, while Singer uses the square as her basic measurement for the built environment. Hanging in proximity, Usher’s paintings and Singer’s drawings provide a dynamic and balanced perspective on the natural and constructed environments.

The large acrylic panels that make up Donna Usher’s Contemplation series beckon the viewer to be still and immersed in fluid washes of brilliant colors and swirling clouds of orbs. Inspired by the fundamental shapes that order the universe, connecting it across levels of scale, Usher utilizes spirals that evoke both nebulae and nautili, circles that elicit atoms or planetary bodies, and luscious amorphous color fields that recall both water and sky. Usher’s use of nontraditional tools, such as palms, arm swipes, sponges, metal stylists, alcohol, and other substances, to apply the paint builds a texturally rich surface. Layered and overlapped, the forms create paintings which stretch deep into a space simultaneously macro and micro.

Donna Usher received her BFA in painting and a BS in art education from Moore College of Art and Design and an MFA with honors from the University of Delaware. An associate professor at West Chester University, Usher has exhibited her work throughout the United States, including at the Philadelphia International Airport, as well as in Italy, Egypt, Mexico, Croatia, and China. In addition to receiving numerous exhibition awards, her work is in the permanent collections of The Museum of Cozumel in Cozumel, Mexico, The National Centre of Fine Arts in Cairo, Egypt, The Reading Art Museum in Reading, PA. and a number of corporations and universities.

In the drawings that comprise her Endless Day series, Miriam Singer uses dense stacks of shape, color and pattern to construct highly playful, cacophonous depictions of a city that is both familiar and imaginary. Her process is intrinsically linked to her own explorations of Philadelphia. A walk through the city becomes itself a sketching exercise—her sensory observations of the environment are mentally filed and then reinterpreted and translated on paper later. Drawings she creates on site, sometimes over multiple days in multiple locations, become the collaged base which can either be added to or erased. Says Singer, “I think about a finished and unfinished moment in time together on the same field…The city metaphorically building and disappearing at once, as a metaphor to time changing and being in flux.”

Miriam Singer earned a BA from Brandeis University and an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. She has participated in juried and invitational group exhibitions in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and has had solo exhibitions at the Philadelphia International Airport, the Painted Bride Art Center, LGTripp Gallery, and Gallery Siano. The lead artist on two projects for the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, her large mosaic collaboration with artist Emilie Ledieu, “Under the Clothespin”, can be found in the underground entrance to the Centre Square building; her mural, “Take Me to the River,” in Fishtown.

Each summer LGTripp gallery is pleased to mount its summer invitational, RSVP. The selected artists share technical maturity and a commitment to abstraction. Working in diverse media with individualized processes and styles, and coming from different levels of exhibition experience, art education and artistic career, their pursuits take many forms. Their works hang throughout the gallery in a focused but lively conversation.

Upon first stepping into the gallery, you will notice Raphael Fenton-Spaid’s explosive and mesmerizing wall installation, which extends into space like the pages of a giant pop-up book. Nearby, Laura Sallade’s sheets of cut mylar drape over a glass table surface inspiring quieter reflections on presence and absence. The organic screen of the mylar draws your eye to Lori Evensen’s cellular masking tape sculpture and photos. A sense of vibration focuses your attention on William DiBello’s large acrylic grids, which pulsate and flicker like electronic screens. Karen Freedman’s kaleidoscopic encaustics, which also deal with repetition and illusion, are simultaneously freewheeling and ordered. Lynn Denton and William Phelps Montgomery share a fascination with mark and color. Her paintings are more gestural than his digital prints but both produce works whose parts continually coalesce and dissolve. Their ebb and flow contrast sharply with John Singletary’s iconic, rune-like photographs, which entice you with their boldness and rich textures. Two more photographers, Andrew Tomasulo and Stuart Lehrman, alert you to the often overlooked intricacies of ordinary objects. Under Tomasulo’s careful eye, cracked glass creates soaring, organic compositions. Lehrman’s pavement has more gravitas, but no less movement. Two painters and a printmaker complete the group. Albert Fung’s oil paintings crackle with texture while Tim Ruffin’s are quieter and more fluid with piercing spots of light, both employing deep color palettes to create moody works. Ken Schiano’s densely built up layers of lines are no less moody, both frantic and deep—he’s the introverted philosopher hiding in the corner you wish you’d discovered earlier.

RSVP 2014 showcases thirteen artists from Philadelphia and the surrounding regions. Twelve are exhibiting at LGTripp for the first time. On exhibit are paintings by Lynn Denton, William DiBello, Karen Freedman, Albert Fung, and Tim Ruffin; installations by Raphael Fenton-Spaid (solo 2011) and Laura Sallade; sculpture by Lori Evensen; prints by William Phelps Montgomery and Kenneth Schiano; photographs by Lori Evensen, Stuart Lehrman, John Singletary, and Andrew Tomasulo.

Jon Manteau | Philadelphia Historical Artifacts | William Penn, 2014 | House paint on inkjet print | 6.5" x 5.5"

Jon Manteau

Philadelphia Historical Artifacts

LGTripp Gallery is pleased to present Philadelphia Historical Artifacts, a solo exhibition of recent work by Philadelphia-based artist, Jon Manteau. Represented by the gallery, this is his fourth solo exhibition.

An early history tagging the streets of Philadelphia launched Jon Manteau into a lifelong fascination with mark making both in his artistic process and conceptualization. “Why do we find it necessary to mark time, an event, a place or our presence?” he asks. His newest body of work both lovingly and passionately wrestles with that question in an elaborate showing at LGTripp gallery that blurs the lines between painting, sculpture, and installation. With overt allusions to, and in some cases appropriations of, Philadelphia’s history as “the birthplace of a nation” and its conventional culture, Manteau questions to what extent do they exert a tyranny over the exploration of progressive ideas and to what extent does living in such a symbolically rich milieu foster creativity?

Although trained as a painter, in his newest work sculpture and painting cannot be disentangled. Large carpets extend off the walls and form waves on the gallery floor. Nearby African sculptures stand at ceremonial attention, while across the room, Barnes-like installations alter the physical space of the gallery. However, throughout is Manteau’s characteristic approach to mark making. Whether on two or three-dimensional surfaces, his marks are lush and lively gestural explorations of color and space. As a high school graffiti artist, Manteau repeatedly sought to leave his mark on the existing architectural forms of Philadelphia. As a mature artist, that sensibility remains while his canvas has expanded. In this exhibition, he re-appropriates not only spaces but also objects, symbols and iconic Philadelphia images, presenting his own works as their worthy equals. Manteau stakes an ownership claim to Philadelphia itself. He states, “Nearly anything that I process as a native son has the “potential” to be a “Philadelphia Historical Artifact”. He asserts himself as a bona fide Philadelphia artist, at once bound by and transcending the cultural structures of the locale.

A native son of Philadelphia, Jon Manteau graduated from Central High School. He studied at Parsons under Sean Scully and went on to receive a certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he was awarded the William Emlen Cresson Memorial Traveling Scholarship. He later earned an MFA from the University of Delaware. An art teacher for over twenty years, Manteau has taught at the University of Delaware, Tyler School of Art, and is currently building the art department at Penn State Brandywine. His works have been exhibited nationally and are in collections throughout the United States and Canada.

Stephen Blackburn | Hobson, 2012 | Stainless steel, mild steel, found objects | 5' x 15"

Stephen Blackburn

Recent Work

J. Gordon | Thought & Memory, 2013 | Mixed media on shaped panel | 24" x 48"

J. Gordon

Recent Work

STEPHEN BLACKBURN
J. GORDON

March 21 – April 26, 2014
Artist Reception, March 22, 5 – 7 pm
First Friday, April 4, 6 – 8:30

LGTripp Gallery is pleased to present recent works by Stephen Blackburn and J. Gordon. The exhibit juxtaposes the sculptures of Stephen Blackburn with the paintings of J. Gordon. The works of both artists employ richly textured surfaces, found objects, and intricate geometries. For Gordon, texture and geometry are used to destabilize the very act of viewing, demonstrating the endless possibilities present within a single subject. Blackburn’s work moves from the opposite direction, each sculpture giving unified form to the visceral, ever-shifting interior of the sculptor’s mind. Blackburn has been represented by the gallerist since 2005. This is Blackburn’s third solo exhibition and Gordon’s first with LGTG.

Stephen Blackburn’s knowledge and experience of working with metal is the result of a career in the industrial mechanical field. A synoptic grasp of the medium imbues confidence and freedom to his sculptures. “Many of my sculptures are created and built in my mind, often without ever putting pen to paper.” Densely layered pieces of steel and unexpected found objects merge into imposing structures that are simultaneously creaturely and celestial. Blackburn’s characteristic interest in form is evident, but his current series displays an increasing attention to texture, lending his work a deep sense of enigma and wonder.

A native of the Philadelphia suburbs, Stephen Blackburn attended The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, graduating from the certificate program in 2001 with a major in sculpture. He was awarded the Fellowship Trust Prize, becoming the first recipient of the Women’s Board Prize at PAFA. Blackburn’s work is in private collections. His sculptures have been exhibited at LGTripp Gallery, Chester County Art Association, Penn State Great Valley, Immaculata University, and Gallery Siano.

J. Gordon’s paintings seek to capture the experience of mulitstable phenomena, exploring the line between dimension and disintegration. Out of a muted color palette, structures cohere and collapse in a dreamlike aura of believability. Strongly influenced by landscapes and quantum mechanics, his texturally mesmerizing paintings invite the viewer into a world of shifting forms, which rhythmically sway from imposing to implausible. Gordon invites the viewer to consider the limits of perception. “Matter, as we understand it on a quantum level, resembles the structures we dream of. Not so much a solid form as a smear of possibilities whose sum contain the idea of the subject in all its possible states.”

Gordon holds an MFA in painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 2011, and a BFA from the University of Kansas, 2003. He is a recent recipient of an Emerging Artist Fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts and has exhibited his work across the country in Philadelphia, Wilmington, Seattle, Dallas, and Lawrence, KS and internationally in the UK. Gordon is currently based in Wilmington.

Juri Kim | Symphony in Red 2013 | Acrylic on canvas | 76" x 102"

Juri Kim

The Harmony of Chaos

Spencer and Imler 2013 | Assembled painting on paper | 23" x 23"

Spencer & Imler

Assembled Painting on Paper

JURI KIM – The Harmony of Chaos
SPENCER and IMLER – Assembled Painting on Paper

January 24 – March 1, 2014
Artists Reception, Saturday, January 25, 5 – 7 pm
First Friday, February 7, 6 – 8:30 pm

LGTripp Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition of recent works by Juri Kim and collaborative artists Spencer and Imler, in their first solo shows at the gallery. Kim was included in the summer invitational RSVP I in 2010. This is Allen Spencer and Deborah Imler’s first exhibition at LGTG.

In this globalized world, artists draw inspirations from a variety of resources. There is a strong diversity of thought and technique that exist in contemporary art. However, although there are fresh expressions and ideas, many artists like Kim, Spencer and Imler infuse this newness with the richness of history, adding their distinct voice to those of the past while maintaining their presence in the now.

Juri Kim’s The Harmony of Chaos reflects the artist’s interest in the visual world, particularly the night sky. In her words, “I realize that there is a correlation of forces, attraction or repulsion: every star, every planet is in its place, because it could not be otherwise. When I come to this realization, I cannot but admire, in that fixed order, a superior harmony.” Driven by the need to evoke this harmony, Kim creates beautiful compositions of color. Although Georges Seurat’s Pointillism is an evident inspiration, Kim treats her vibrant dots of paint as unique entities. Her marks flow organically and intuitively in a meditative process that the artist likens to a Zen exercise.

Originally from Seoul, Korea, Juri Kim received her BFA and MFA from Ewha Women’s University of Seoul. She later went on to receive a MA and Advanced Professional Study at New York University. Kim has exhibited her work across the United States and Korea as well as internationally. She completed the Artist in Marketplace Program at the Bronx Museum of Arts. In addition, she has participated in a number of residencies including the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Henry Street Settlement Artists-in-Residence Work-Space Program, the Edward F. Albee Foundation, the A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship and the Millay Colony for the Arts among others. In 2003 Kim was reviewed in “Art in America,” and her work is included in the Henry Buhl Collection.

The pieces included in Assembled Painting on Paper draw from Spencer and Imler’s palette of inspiration, which ranges from age-old woodworking traditions to the architectural details of the city of Philadelphia. The dexter side is an abstracted nod to the medieval custom of heraldry as well as inlayed wood veneered marquetry. Strong lines and blocks of chroma dominate the picture plane. Methodically assembled painted paper alludes to architectural drawings of construction projects in the site plan series. Geometric assemblages, in both series, point to something beyond mere appreciation for craft; they are a lexicon of color capturing a rich dialogue between shades and hues of color.

Artists Allen Spencer and Deborah Imler have collaborated since 2005. They have exhibited locally in the Greater Philadelphia Area at such galleries as Bridgette Mayer Gallery and James Oliver Gallery. Spencer and Imler have also been included in group shows in Harrisburg, New Jersey and California. The duo are recipients of the Adam Spandorfer Memorial Award, Albert Schultz Memorial Award, Purchase Award from the Jersey City Museum and the Yvonne M. Kelly Memorial Prize for Mixed Media at the Woodmere Museum’s 65th Public Library Juried Exhibition. Their artwork has been collected by the Newark and the Jersey City Museum as well as by a number of private and corporate collections.