DIALOGUES OF PLACE: Taking Place, On Place, Engaging Place

DIALOGUES OF PLACE:
Taking Place, On Place, Engaging Place

Thea Abu El-Haj, Nancy Agati, Tom Csaszar,
Mikel Elam, Michael Kowbuz, Ying Li,
Kate McCammon, Lisa Volta & Mark Willie

Tom Csaszar, Guest Curator

September 4 - 29, 2024
Dialogues of Place Virtual Tour & Talk

Place in its diverse meanings engages a profound sense of our experience. It encompasses dynamic and visceral responses to the world and people around us. Our communities are places, our intimacies are places, our governing bodies are places, our public discussions fail if they don’t define places. And works of visual art are themselves places. The works in this exhibit are responses to place, but are also themselves locations and places.

Each work of art is a site that discloses how the world is for us in our bodies: our delights and fragility. This sense of intelligence and place is not accessible by ideas that are worldless and placeless. A shared human sense of place and emotion is deeper than an artificial intelligence of generated chains of conclusions.

As Thea Abu El-Haj states, “our memories are also places—embodied connections to space and place.” Ying Li adds that rhythm and improvisation reveal a connection to place, through our active on-going dialogue with how a subject sees place. Each work here provides such a dialogue.

Half Life in Exile, oil on board painting by artist Thea Abul El-Haj
Abu El-Haj, Half-Life in Exile, oil on board, 24" x 24"

Last Night, oil on board painting by artist Thea Abul El-Haj
Abu El-Haj, Last Night, oil on board, 24" x 24"

Abu El-Haj, Spring After All, oil on board, 24" x 24"

Abu El-Haj, What is Left Behind, oil on board, 24" x 24"

Agati, Redline - Critical Trends, mixed media on board, 44" x 30"

Csaszar, Forge with Broken Column After Tiepelo, oil on linen, 18" x 22"

Csaszar, Diners and Delivery, oil on linen, 27" x 15"

Csaszar, Returning Later to Where We Met, oil on linen, 22" x 24"  Available

Elam, The Illusionist Always Knows, mixed media on board, 20" x 20"

Nubian Ceremonial Vibrations, mixed media on wood panel painting by Philadelphia artist Mikel Elam
Elam, Nubain Ceremonial Vibrations, mixed media on wood, 30" x 30"

Kowbuz, Summer Sunrise Window, ink, watercolor & gouache, 7" x 5"  Available

Reflections of Things to Come, ink, watercolor & gouache painting by Philadelphia artist Michael Kowbuz
Kowbuz, Reflection of Things to Come, ink, watercolor & gouache, 5.5" x 6.5"  Available

Kowbuz, Sunglass Pair, ink, watercolor & gouache, 6.5" x 10.5"  Available

Jim, ink, charcoal on paper drawing by artist Ying Li
Li, Jim, charcoal on paper, 30" x 23"

Li, South Towards Wyoming Street, oil on linen, 36" x 48"

McCammon, Journal Portrait (Washed Away), photo collage, 6" x 4"

McCammon, Journal Portrait (Wedding Date), photo collage, 6" x 4"

McCammon, Journal Portrait (Sand), photo collage, 6" x 4"

McCammon, Journal Portrait (Parts Work), photo collage, 6" x 4"

McCammon, Journal Portrait (Spruce Street), photo collage, 6" x 4"

McCammon, Journal Portrait (Grandfather and Granddaughter), photo collage, 6" x 4"

McCammon, Journal Portrait (Alone), photo collage, 6" x 4"

McCammon, Journal Portrait (Fence), photo collage, 6" x 4"

McCammon, Journal Portrait (Orange Mood), photo collage, 6" x 4"

Al Jisr, oil and graphite painting on paper by Philadelphia artist Lisa Volta
Volta, Al Jisr, oil & graphite on paper, 36" x 21"

Volta, The Power and Helplessness of Crossing Borders on Screens, oil, graphite & lacquer on paper, 36" x 21"

Wille, Untitled 5, stone lithograph on paper, 12" x 16"  Available

Willie, Landscape 3, stone lithograph & acrylic on paper, 16" x 12"  Available