Yellow Barn Instructors' Work on Display at Popcorn Gallery

The Popcorn Gallery at Glen Echo Park is hosting a show of the work of 18 Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery instructors, including Gallery Director Walt Bartman, Gallery Manager Jordan Bruns, Walt Bartman III, Rachel B. Collins, Eric Garner, Gavin Glakas, Susan Herron, Jackie Jouvenal, Natasha Karpinskaia, Glen Kessler, Linda Kozak, Christine Lashley, Bonny Lundy, Tom Semmes, Martha Spak, Lida Stifel, Ann Wallace and Daniel Wise.

The Yellow Barn Instructors' Exhibition is on view from now until March 27 and features watercolor and oil paintings, monotype prints, graphite drawings, pastels and mixed media pieces.

Megan Peritore, Popcorn Gallery Assistant and Gallery Coordinator at The Margaret W. and Joseph L. Fisher Art Gallery in Alexandria, commented on the show:

"Rachel Collins is very methodical and does luminous paintings. Other artists work more gesturally."

The show encompasses a wide range of media and techniques.

Glakas paints photorealistic figures and cityscapes, demonstrating drawing mastery and a finely tuned grasp on using reflected light to create 3-dimensional form. He often situates his figures in uncanny settings. 

Kessler, who is adept at photorealistic pet portraits, shows a more impressionistic side of his work in this exhibit with a copy of Monet's "Argenteuil." His Chardin's "Still Life with Game" recalls Dutch and Flemish nature morte paintings.

Karpinskaia's monotypes "Connecticut Highway Series I and II" meander through a field of yellow abstraction.

"Color is essential, I want the color to overwhelm, line is very important, I want it to be fragile and delicate and almost surreal," she writes in her artist's statement.

Lashley's watercolors, "On the Trail" and "Ocean Patterns" capture a fleeting moment and setting in bold yet cohesive brushstrokes. She uses a wet-on-wet painting technique, which marries realism with atmosphere in her landscapes, portraits and floral motifs.

Bruns works in multiple media, often finishing his pieces with enamel. His work evokes cartography and ruins in bright colors seeping into muted tones. His large-scale graphite drawings render a world of fantastic twisting and turning, precariously balanced solids, anchored to reality through the inclusion of an architectural column or the ghost impression of the ruins of antiquity in the dramatic composition.

Garner's sculptural acrylic on wood assemblages "It's a Board Game" and "Vertical Form #4" protrude from the gallery walls like abstract mazes. His work is informed by Russian Constructivist art, Islamic patterns and the vocabulary of abstraction and surface.

Walt Bartman's now infamous painting, "Lobster Obituaries," embodies his passion for the color red.

"Symbolically a cooked lobster is quite red and red is the color of passion, blood, red meat, and rubies. The number three was intentional. Three lobsters have a religious meaning of the trinity. It is a very felt number, like the color red. These things always enter into me making an image....always. I used this painting as my image for my last show. It made it into all the papers. People came to especially see the lobsters - owners of restaurants came as well. Since I painted it other artists I know were inspired to paint lobsters. That is the way it works."

The Popcorn Gallery is managed by the Glen Echo Park Parternship for Arts and Culture, which also operates the historic Dentzel carousel and organizes exhibitions, festivals, children's theater, music performances, nature programs, and art and dance classes

"People visit the gallery and ask me about taking classes at the Yellow Barn," added Peritore. "The facility allows us to showcase the talent that the Parternship fosters."

The show at The Popcorn Gallery is open to the public Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00 to 6:00 pm until March 27, 2011.

To learn more about The Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery's instructors and classes, click here.

To learn more about The Glen Echo Park Parternship for Arts and Culture, click here.