ART

 

September 1 - October 9

Cultural Imprints

 

Project funded by the 5-County Arts Fund

 

In June 2002, MYX: Multicultural Youth eXchange, a local nonprofit that uses the arts to teach diversity, took four Philadelphia students to Iceland, one of the most geographically volatile countries in the world. While working on a weeklong art project, they discovered that the forces which shaped Iceland’s landscape over the centuries ­ including frequent volcanic eruptions and earthquakes ­ also played a major role in forging the national Icelandic character ­ namely a self-reliant people with a live-for-today mentality.

MYX set out to discover what elements in Philadelphia’s landscape, have left an indelible “imprint” on our city’s cultural identity. In 2005, MYX conducted print-based workshops with students from Philadelphia. The resulting exhibit features a 24-panel exhibit illustrating the environmental forces that have influenced Iceland and Philadelphia - two very different cultures.

September 1 - October 6

Exploring the Elements - Drawings by South African Artist Alan Bell

 

Drawing is one of the most difficult and yet satisfying skills to master. The theme of these drawings taken from nature study the shaping effects of the elements on the landscape.

 

At best these works are not a copy of nature but a response to nature and the eternal impulse of wonder. The drawings are a search into the human cosmos where the natural and the psychological fuse together in the drawing hand.

 

With the exhibition of pencil drawings is a collection of 22 pages from an illustrated book produced in the days of the Apartheid regime in South Africa. The works deal with the devastating consequences of racism on all the people - man, woman and child. Entitled Blood River – The Book of Sorrow and Redemption, it shows a series of drawings of figures exemplifying the suffering, yet, equally, the will to survive the horrors of racism and prejudice.