This month Artists’ House offers a group of small exhibits with something for every taste.

Group Show. Though May 27, 2012 at Artists’ House Gallery, 57 N. Second St. (215) 923-8440 or www.artistshouse.com.

A little this, a little that

This month Artists’ House offers a group of small exhibits with something for every taste.

Holding court in the “A” gallery (facing Second Street) are paintings by Adam Vinson and Ted Walsh, artists with two very different visions. Walsh works with a somber palette and does barren-looking landscapes. The larger ones contain figures, whereas the smaller pieces are almost like a real estate broker’s snapshots of “For Sale” properties.

Vinson seems to like collages and the way memories— fond and perhaps not-so-fond— keep the past alive. One knock-out portrait and a study for it is nearly as effective: Dolled Up, a full-figure portrait of a young girl that was chosen as the “signature art” for this show, is a simple concept, but it’s well chosen to demonstrate Vinson’s skills with a brush.

Flying horses

The “B” gallery offers bronzes by Julia Levitina, several of which managed to infiltrate the front gallery as well. Levitina’s work for this show consists of animal studies— you know, flying horses, the usual thing— and figure studies.

Her Heraclitus is a beautiful piece of work— monumental without being monumentally sized— and, truthfully, I don’t think it would have shamed Rodin himself.

Moody landscapes

Sharing the “B” space with Levitina is Patrick Crofton, a painter of splendidly moody landscapes and seascapes. His Sunset, Achill Island and Last Light, Achill are unapologetically Romantic in tone.

As a counterweight, Robert Sampson rounds out the “B” gallery crew with a group of nine urban scenes, mostly studies of faceless crowds in motion.

What I call the “long” gallery contains the work of two artists. The etchings of Thelma Grobes seem to predominate— pleasant pieces that reminded me of magazine illustrations from the last century. But unlike Vinson, Grobes doesn’t play the Nostalgia card; that’s just the way her etchings are.

Noah Buchanan’s oil paintings are sort of metaphysical still lifes. The juxtaposition of Buchanan and Grobes sets off all sorts of interesting musings about the 28 Flavors of Art.

The small rear gallery space at Artists’ House is arrived at only after you’ve already seen a great deal of other art, but it always offers potential surprises to tired eyes. Sometimes multiple artists share its walls. This time it has been given over wholly to Christina Weaver, whose oil paintings and drawings celebrate marriage and all things bridal-gown related. Those white gowns and accoutrements make for a very “cool” looking finale to the May group exhibition.♦


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