Phyllis Seltzer: A Feast of Americana

September 16 – November 30, 2016

Curated by Christopher L. Richards

ARTneo honors Phyllis Seltzer at our Annual Benefit this fall with a corresponding exhibition looking at her career in the arts. Best known for her heat-transfer prints, Seltzer has explored a number of printmaking techniques, including intaglio, woodcuts, screen printing, lithography, and ozalids. She has turned to architecture and design, as well as politics and technology as subject matter. An interest in the perception of spatial relationships is often a key element to her work, rooted in her background in architecture and design.

From exploring the urban landscape of Cleveland’s Flats and downtown, to vintage photographs from local historical archives, and political figures, Seltzer creatively combined established printing techniques with new technologies to create truly unique works of art. Her work speaks to a sense of nostalgia, yet continues to look forward. Throughout her career in the arts as a printmaker, Seltzer demonstrates her curiosity and love of experimentation.

Strange Melancholy: The Magic Realism of Hazel Janicki

September 16 – November 18, 2016

Curated by Lauren Hansgen, Curator/Historian, Cowan Pottery Museum

Hazel Janicki’s style can best be described as Magic Realism. Characterized by representational subject matter rendered with extreme realism and attention to detail, Magic Realism often also included elements of fantasy and the unknown, hinting at intense emotions and alternative suggestions that lie just below the surface. Magic Realism was part of the larger movement of Post-Expressionism, which turned away from the overt emotions and abstraction of Expressionism in favor of subtle detachment and ambiguity. In the United States Magic Realism stemmed from the American Scene movement, though many American Magic Realists had studied in Europe and been greatly influenced by German realism.

American Magic Realists often blended their intense realism and precision with threads of social commentary and satire as well as personal revelations. Janicki was recognized as a highly skilled draughtsman, drawing in the tradition of old masters and often using an etching tool to scratch fine, web-like lines into the surfaces of her paintings. Her subjects often depict women in static spaces that appear isolated, sometimes even partially concealed behind a curtain or veil. Recurrent themes in Janicki’s work also include Parisian street performers, the circus, ballet, and the culture of coastal New England.

 

Events

Phyllis Seltzer: A Feast of Americana: September 16 – November 30, 2016

Strange Melancholy: The Magic Realism of Hazel Janicki: September 16 – November 18, 2016

 

 

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