Di[e]ce Boutique

Cynthia Protzman       Baltimore Blocks, colograph on paper, $650 ($750 framed)

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January 8^th th – Feburary 4th 2010

Opening reception: 7pm to 10pm Friday, January 8th with live performance by DJ Dyl Sauce.

Printed Surroundings is an art exhibition dedicated to local printmakers.  Many of the prints include images of Baltimore’s urban landscapes and the city’s various animal inhabitants.   Exhibiting artists include:

Matt Muirhead, Spoon Popkin, Val Lucas, Cynthia Protzman, Cris Cimatu, Katherine Fahey, Carlos Vigil, Mattye Hamilton, Sherry Jeniewicz, Julia Kostreva, Matt Fouse and Kyle Van Horn.

As residents of Baltimore we are affected every day by a checkerboard landscape of poverty and privilege, reflected through the neighborhoods we past though, visit or live in. Printed Surroundings includes imagery of neighborhoods like Hampden, Charles Village, Mt. Vernon and Pig Town.   A variety of birds swarm the walls, such as The Raven by Val Lucas and The Early Bird by Dylan Salmon.  Check out the printed Natty Boh and Utz’s potato chips printed across doormats by Spoon Popkin or the T’s by Carlos Virgil that also incorporate the infamous Boh logo.

Prints are a great type of art for people to collect.  Compared to a painting, prints are more readily available and often less expensive, because they usually come in editions, meaning there are multiple copies of the same image. Typically, prints are printed on to paper from a (wood, metal or plastic, etc.) matrix.  We want to expose a wide verity of prints being made in Baltimore.  Printed Surroundings extends beyond traditional printmaking to include images that are printed onto doormats, trashcans and fabrics.  We even include lazar jet computer prints.

In this exhibition, the act of printing stands as the art.  These are not printed versions of art, these are art as print.

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Katherine Fahey       The Morning After the Ice Factory Burned Down, screen print on paper, $80 (18′ x 18″ framed)

Val Lucas      The Raven, woodcut and letterpress, $125 ($175 framed) 15×21

Julia Kostreva     Fox in the Flower Bed, screen print on paper, $50 15 x 22

Spoon Popkin       Owl, stencel on doormat, $50

Cynthia Protzman

Cris Cimatu      Hampden, lazer jet computer print, $9.00

Spoon Popkin     Believe, Stencil on doormat, $50

Cynthia Protzman       Street Cornor, screen print, $115 ($175 framed)

Julia Kostreva     Dirty Projectors, screen print on paper, $50 ($80 framed) 15″ x 22″

Carlos Vigil       Thank You, screen print on American Apparel T shirt, $20, ($30 framed)

Spoon Popkin   Pride of Baltimore, stencil on doormat, $40

Katherine Fahey       Rose of the Winds, acrylic and screen print on paper, $60, (18″ x 18″ framed)

Val Lucas  H is for Hummingbird, handcolored woodcut and hand-set type, $100 framed, $65 unframed, 6.5′ x 9′

Sherry Janiewicz       View from Union Square, reduction linocut, edition of 10, $170 unframed, $190 framed

Val Lucas       Rowhouses, $110 framed, 4-color reduction woodcut,  $75 unframed, 11×15

Spoon Popkin       Stretching cat, stencil on doormat, $40

Cris Cimatu       Pig Town, lazor jet computer print, $9.00

Carlos Vigil       Krylon Boh, screen print on America Apparel T shirt,  $25,  ($35 framed)

I’m Irene Donnelly, the curator at Di[e]ce.

We’ve had some sales and subsequently more space on our walls this past month

SO

I’ve put some of my own work up for a bit. Check it out!

We are excited to host Rockville based artist Roya Gharavi, December 4th through January 7th.  The exhibition will be on view at our Federal Hill location.

Roya is an internationally shown artist, having exhibited her paintings in Rome, London and New York.  Her style of painting is reminiscent of Abstract Expressionism, America’s first art movement that flourished in the  1950’s.

Abstract Expressionism died with the coming of Pop Art, you say?

I’m afraid not, because it is still alive and well within Roya work.  The transient, escapist worlds of Motherwell and Pollock bleed through Roya’s canvases and onto our eyes and Psyche’s as viewers.  These paintings are a reflection of the past and yet somehow new.

Perhaps it is the approach and process by which Roya paint’s that makes her paintings so redolent of the Abstract Expressionists.  Shes notes in her artists statement that, “When I paint I just let go.  I don’t do any preliminary sketches,” she has the freedom to express and play and manipulate the paint however she feels in the moment of painting.  It is a child-like sophistication, that is satisfying to create, as well as view.

See more of Roya’s paintings: http://yolaroya.yolasite.com/

Opening reception 6pm to 9pm Friday, December 4^th.

Baltimore artist Natalie Steinbrunner will exhibit her work on the walls of The Di[e]ce Boutique in Federal Hill November 6th through December 3rd 2009.

Natalie’s striking multi-media paintings tackle the institution of contemporary womanhood, making naked ladies look chic, confident and empowered.

The Paintings are not a protest of fashion, lipstick and everything feminine. On the contrary they aims to celebrate the beauty of women and fashion with bright colors and symmetric compositions that mock shrines, and religious iconography.

Her paintings represent the inter workings of girls transforming into adulthood. The young beautiful girls Natalie paints are searching for their own personal inner strength and confidence. The girls are becoming aware of and shedding themselves of their childish vulnerability and their eagerness to please.

These paintings are about harnessing femmine sexuality and power through self-expression, whether it is through personal external style or shear inner confidence. Take advice from Natalie’s paintings: “looking good equates feeling good,” and come check out the unique items Di[e]ce has to offer and come pick out your very own confidence booster!

Find out more about Natalie and her paintings at:
www.nataliesteinebrunner.blogspot.com