This show has received a great review from Edith Newhall in the Philadelphia Inquirer. This bit is particularly nice…

“An arrangement of Charles Kalick’s colorful abstract paintings in what is arguably the most difficult space in the gallery — the long hallway that connects the front and back exhibition spaces — looks wonderful here in isolation against a crisp white wall. The bright yellows, blues, and pinks animating Kalick’s compositions of rectangles pop out from the wall…”

Read more at Philly.com…

Charles Kalick | Cross Country | Acrylic on birch board | 12" x 12" | | 2012

Charles Kalick

Ryan Pellak | Continued Movement

Ryan Pellak

Paul Rider | Drawn to the Light 18 | Carbon inks on archival paper | 40” x 40” | 2011

Paul Rider

CHARLES KALICK, Painting
RYAN PELLAK, Installation
PAUL RIDER, Photography

June 8 – July 7, 2012
Artist Reception, June 16, 5 – 7 pm
First Friday, July 6, 6 – 8:30 pm

LGTripp Gallery is pleased to present recent works by three Philadelphia-based artists, Charles Kalick, Ryan Pellak and Paul Rider. In 2011 works by Pellak and Rider were shown in group exhibitions, RSVP and FOCUS. This is Kalickʼs first exhibition at this gallery.

In its most basic elements in the pictorial space, an artist makes decisions about the placement of shapes, line and color. With these decisions about the interplay of color and form, come choices about texture, space, and media. These three artists express their choices through photography, painting and installation.

Charles Kalickʼs paintings are geometric compositions of the artistʼs exploration into surface, texture and pattern. Pockets of color are created by various added elements, such as sticks, pebbles, clay, paper mache and sawdust that, as a result, dissect the color plane. The bright and bold colors pop off the board, while the areas of white recess into the background. The use of contrasting colors in the densely textured rectangles further exaggerate the sculptural elements of each work.

Kalick was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1972. He was granted the Lewis S. Ware Memorial and William Emlen Cresson Memorial Traveling Scholarships, and was the recipient of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship. For about 30 years his works have been exhibited in the Philadelphia and New York areas; in recent years, at the former Sande Webster Gallery in Philadelphia.

By concentrating on the border that defines a space, Ryan Pellak creates awareness to the intersection and the separation of how shapes interact within that space. 3-D wall drawings are constructed from multiple frames of colored yarn. The placement of each intersecting frame creates the illusion of overlapping shapes while bold contrasting colors assist in tracking each frame though the space. In contrast, identical companions to the 3-D wall drawings are released to sag, allowing gravity to determine the final form.

Pellak is from Souderton, PA. He earned a Certificate in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 2011, he was the recipient of the Lewis L. Ware Memorial Travel Scholarship, won The Alexander Prize – Special Notice and The Mark Cullinane Memorial Prize in Sculpture – Special Notice. An emerging young artist, he plans to pursue a MFA in the near future.

Beyond color, Paul Rider explores the interplay of light and shape in his up-close photographs of curved, torn and molded paper. In the midst of the dark shadows and jagged edges created by the folds in the paper, the ʻlightʼ areas persist and radiate off the photograph. *The Walk to Paradise Garden*, a photograph by W. Eugene Smith, is the main inspiration for this work. Impassioned by the ongoing world conflicts and tensions, Riderʼs photographs serve as a reminder that in the darkness we are drawn to the light and a beckoning future.

Rider earned a BFA in Photography at the Philadelphia College of Art in Philadelphia and a MFA in Photography at Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA. His experience as a commercial photographer spans over 20 years. He’s also held the position of Adjunct Instructor at local universities since 1996, currently teaching at the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design and Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia.