May’s Art Exhibit “Explorations”, brought to you by Swarthmore Friends of the Arts, presents art by The Mixed Media Studio, a group of area artists who have come together weekly for the past 8 or nine years to explore a variety of media together, and to be inspired by each other’s work and spirit of adventure.
An exhibition of original mixed media artwork by Molly Wing Berman, Georgianna Grentzenberg, Gail Herring, and Michele Southworth will be on display from May 3rd through May 30th at Swarthmore Borough Hall, 121 Park Avenue. The public is invited to the artist’s opening reception on Friday, May 12th, from 6-8pm. Both the exhibit and the reception are free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
Molly Wing Berman studied printmaking and painting in art school, and spent many years as an art and preschool teacher. For the last 10 years she has worked primarily in pastels. She says “The spirit of play and experimentation are central to my art practice. I am interested in movement and color and the feeling I have when I see an animal in nature. I blend abstract art and realism. All of the pieces in the show are a combination of oil paint and pastel on paper.”
Georgianna Grentzenberg also studied printmaking and painting in art school, before embarking on a 20-year career working in various professional capacities at a number of Philadelphia art and archaeological museums. In her own artwork, she has developed a whimsical artistic style of detailed, fluid and fantastical imagery, using ink and colored pencils.She uses this style in creating decorative ceramic tiles and vessels that echo her drawings. Most recently she has returned to an earlier interest in exploring mixed media, using found objects and creating more abstract works.
Gail Herring has had a wide ranging career as an artist working in various media, and with experiences from teaching art, to graphic design, and numerous collaborations in community-based art projects. She retired from full-time teaching when she moved to Media, and now teaches a variety of classes for children, teens and adults at the Community Arts Center in Wallingford. She says that “Nature has always been the focus in my artwork. Experimenting with mixed media has inspired me to think about color and texture in new ways, different from my traditional detailed botanical illustration techniques.”
Michele Southworth has had day jobs as a lawyer, divorce mediator, family therapist and training program director, with various artistic interests woven throughout. For 20 years she pursued a passionate interest in ceramic work, and in 2011 turned to mixed media painting. She says “In my work as a psychotherapist and as an artist, I frequently find myself exploring the beauty that we can find in the fragments and broken pieces that are a part of us all, as well as those fragments and broken things that we find along our way. Working now in mixed media painting and printmaking, I start by putting down color, creating texture, and then layering on lines, more color, more texture, more lines and forms, using all of the scraps and broken things, to discover what emerges.”
The exhibit is sponsored by Swarthmore Friends of the Arts. For information about Swarthmore Friends of the Arts or to submit a request for your own show, visit www.swarthmorearts.org or contact Martha Perkins, martha.perkins@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for exhibition schedules and images of inspiring artwork by our local artists.
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