Falls Church Arts Gallery has a new exhibition for autumn as fifty-three artists explore the beauty and strength of diversity, with sixty-seven works on display that feature a wide range of media, including painting, photography, mixed media, textiles, origami, pastel, and bronze.
Much of the diversity in the exhibition, of course, is cultural diversity, as we see in “The Armadillo’s Song,” executed in acrylic and crayon by Christine Cardellino and “based on a folk tale from South America in which an armadillo, desperate to be able to sing, allows himself to be killed so that his body could be used to make the charango, a folk instrument from the Andes.” A man is seen playing a stringed instrument as he rests his face upon the neck of the old instrument. Though his emotions may be subdued, the painting is saturated with color. He is wearing a purple jacket mixed with orange and red colors, and the background is burgundy with yellow circular sun burst shapes. Arabic numerals, text, and designs may be seen behind and below the man, and the label text for “The Armadillo’s Song” notes: “Every artist can see in the armadillo’s self-sacrifice the passion and devotion needed to make art.”
If folk tales are the background for “The Armadillo’s Song,” ancient Persian literature informs Fariba Doroudian’s “Tahmineh & Rostam.” “This painting,” we learn, “ is based on one of the stories from The Book of Kings. Rostam, a heroic figure, loses his horse. Grieved and angry, he reaches Samangan, where he is greeted by the king, who offers him the assurance that Rakhsh was too well known for his hiding place not to be soon discovered. The King invites Rostam to stay for the night at his palace. That night, Tahmineh, the king’s daughter, comes to Rostam’s bedchambers and declares her love. Rostam accepts and asks for her hand. The King accepts this marriage. After their marriage, Rostam finds his horse.” Tahmineh with crown is seen holding a flower, the horse is seen at the side of the picture, and a romantic moon glows in a starry sky, and different parts of the narrative are on display at once in this acrylic painting which is modern while at the same time recalling the stylistics of Persian art.
A joy of this exhibition is the diversity of the understanding of the term diversity! Ready to enjoy your pumpkin latte for the fall? Prepared to admire the beautiful fall foliage in all its magnificent colors? Then you are sure to enjoy “The Diversity of Autumn” by Marie Kinnane. Her oil painting, which sports a pumpkin, statue, and a variety of autumnal colors in the background, is sure to put the viewer in the mood for the current season!
A far more personal chord is struck in Claire Lee’s “Lolita’s Shell,” painted with oil and gold leaf on canvas. A girl is seen hiding behind a snail’s shell with her knees tucked towards herself in the middle of a field of straw. The artist Lee comments that “the endless cycle of intersection, connection, and the disconnection of time. Wanting to express warmth and this sense of duration, I utilized thick layers of oil paint and accentuated with gold leaf to create Lolita’s Shell. Within a rapidly evolving world, I feel trapped behind a large wall, unable to communicate with the world. This wall is solid and creates a stubbornness of a different level. Jasmine and Lolita are the me within me, who play the role of breaking down that wall. A snail on the canvas moves very slowly, but it does move forward which may cause her to accept the changing world and move forward a step at a time. ”
In “The Inner Eye,” Kimia Foroughi presents in oil and acrylic a woman seen gazing at the viewer straight on as her head dominates the picture. The background behind her is dark blue which matches the void within her. An all-seeing eye pierces through her as an observer to the outside world. Perhaps it is her soul, or perhaps the imagination and how it reconstructs reality, if we recall the poet Wordsworth’s lines on that “inward eye/ Which is the bliss of solitude.”
Other remarkable works which caught the eye of this viewer included Hyo-Jung Jeon’s risograph “Traces of Memory” reflecting the artist’s “family’s life in the U.S. with archival photographs of Korea;” Melanie Kehoss’ “Thai Peruvian and Chinese Latin,” which celebrates in cut paper and watercolor the mélange of international cuisine found in the U.S.; and Asia Anderson’s “Peace Quilt,” inspired by African American folk quilts.
This show, with its highly diverse approach to the topic of diversity, runs through November 17. While there is no experience comparable to seeing artistic works in person, these works can be viewed online at fallschurcharts.org.
