“Tricks, Jokes, Illusions, and Mysteries” & "An Experience for the Heart" Art Exhibits at Whitemarsh

 “Tricks, Jokes, Illusions, and Mysteries” with Peter Smyth and "An Experience for the Heart" with Kirstin Brug and Monet Le'Mon

Everything from oil painting, drawing, photography and cyanotype even assemblage will be presented.

Exhibit Dates: June 26 to Sept 5 2022

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Exhibit Room One “Tricks, Jokes, Illusions, and Mysteries” with Peter Smyth 

Exhibit Room Two "An Experience for the Heart" with Kirstin Brug and Monet Le'Mon

Peter Smyth is a painter/photographer living and working in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. Drawn by an interest in figurative painting, he received his training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. While working as a train mechanic by night, he attended classes during the day. He was awarded consecutive Erhman and half-tuition scholarships, the Bucciarelli Prize for Drawing, and Frances D. Bergman Memorial Prize among others. He is represented in the collection of the PAFA Fellowship and Delaware County Community College. Inspired by his experience on the nightshift, Peter worked for decades solely in monochrome, attempting to capture on site the train yard’s eerie disquieting mood and sense of place. His mediums include charcoal, oils, graphite, and photography. An award-winning photographer, his more recent photo images have taken a new direction: a reawakened interest both in color and abstraction. A multidisciplinary artist, in addition to his visual art, he is a self-taught singer/songwriter, a published writer, and is currently working on a collection of narrative essays on art.  I'm proposing using both color photos (which tend to be abstract) and black and white photos and charcoal drawings. I think the similarity between the B&W photos and the photo-realistic charcoal drawings would pull everything together quite well, while the lively color photos would be a beautiful and interesting juxtaposition to the monochrome pieces.

Kirstin Brug   Kirstin Brug is a multimedia artist from Allegany, NY living in the Roxborough neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA. She started making cyanotype photograms during 2020 as a way to visually map both consciousness and non-consciousness, to find a sense of tangibility amid so much digitization.  “A response call from the echoing void.” She says, “I needed to express what words and sound could not capture. How momentary everything is and how fragile. Tangible.” She missed working in the darkroom and kept thinking about this process that uses UV light to expose an image. Cyanotypes. She started by using what was around her, plants from her garden and other random objects around her house. Bits of screen, lace, mesh, crystals, feathers, mementos from loved ones that were far away all became fodder for this new obsession. She began using transparency paper to make “masks'' and her concepts gained even more depth. Before she knew it, her walls were covered in blue! “If I’m feeling stuck in any part of my life,” she writes, ”exploring this medium has been incredibly healing. Every part of this process is beautiful and nothing ever turns out exactly as I plan.That’s the best part! Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces a cyan-blue print. Engineers used the process well into the 20th century as a simple and low-cost process to produce copies of drawings, referred to as blueprints. The process uses two chemicals: ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide.[1] I mix these together and paint them onto whatever surface I’d like to work with. I typically use watercolor paper because it holds up to the processing well. Then I place objects on top of the paper to block the light. Once the mixture is exposed to UV light it changes color. When the process is rinsed off the paper the image appears, almost like being back in the darkroom, but I’m in my backyard. It’s like painting with shadows. ferric ammonium citrate + potassium ferricyanide + UV light + a little imagination  Monet Le'Mon  Monet Le’Mon, aka La Nouvelle Monet, is an artist from Wilmington, DE. Named after the Impressionist painter, Claude Monet, she was first inspired by his use of bright colors and his interpretation of nature. Growing up, she has observed the lack of positive representation in the Black community through media, literature, and the arts. By infusing nature with the Black form, she hopes to bring positive representation and foster pride, beauty, and self-love in Black culture. She specializes in oil paint but is also proficient in other traditional art media. She hopes to constantly elevate her craft and share her gift with the community around her and beyond.

RSVP  or call (215) 317 - 2412 to schedule a tour of the exhibit.