Falls Church Arts is currently presenting an exhibition of “Women Artists of the DMV.” Other than this overriding theme, the show contains a wide variety of works in different media, in different styles, and of different subjects.
We begin our look at the exhibition with Laura Drain’s eye-catching acrylic portrait of Frida Khala, the famous Mexican painter many see as an icon for women in the arts. A rite of passage for many girls is approached in a unique way as artist Pamela Huffman shows us a photo of herself as a child in a white communion dress in the mixed media “Saint Pammy.”
We move on to local color paintings such as Xianling Liu’s sweeping acrylic “Great Falls,” Marietjie Chamerlain’s placid oil panel “Shallow Shores” of the Potomac River, and Renée Nicole Ruggle’s atmospheric “Moon River” photograph at Fairfax County’s Ellanor C. Lawrence Park. We find ourselves now in the depths of winter, but other seasons are preferred in the exhibition, as in Kristin Thomas’ acrylic “Cherry Blossoms in DC,” with the U.S. Capitol Building prominently displayed not only with cherry blossoms but the flowers of spring.
Childhood summer is captured in the wonderful oil “Celebration Glow,” as fireworks erupt ahead of two children far in the distance. We do not see the children’s faces, but we can determine their expressions must be of awe due to their attentiveness as the night sky and fireworks are reflected dramatically on the water of a lake. Leading lines draw the viewer’s eye to the fireworks in the middle of the oil painting instantly. We imagine Deborah Conn’s wonderful “A Change in the Weather” (watercolor and gouache) takes place in spring, for here a man in casual spring wear, as if going for a walk, must change his mind as he sees in disappointment raindrops on a windowpane. He gazes far off into the distance. The realism of the watercolor piece is done impressively as the artist captures a very human moment.
A “fluid art approach” (thus the description of the painter) is captured in Yelena Skripchenko’s acrylic canvas “Mountain View” espied in a flight over mountains in Indonesia. This painting introduces us to a travel theme we also meet in Merete Evans’ watercolor as she steps “Into the Light” of “the narrow walkways in Venice.” We then visit Provence in Cheryl Bearss’ oil “The Bridge,” introducing us to a 400-year old bridge she pained during her June travels.
We end our whirlwind tour of “Women Artists of the DMV” with two paintings which arrest the audience’s attention due to challenging stylistics which succeed admirably. Sharapat Kessler’s paper collage work depicts a Salvador Dali-like image of a woman seated before a table of colorful billiard balls. Her expression in this Surrealist-inspired work is hidden, as her face is covered by 16th notes, 8th notes, and implied music lines. Although the woman is depicted in black-and-white, her inner world with a symphony of notes is in color as she—to use an analogy from the game of pool—”racks up” her thoughts. Also notable for style: Kathleen Zeifang’s “Stained Glass” in oil uses geomet ric shapes in a work reminiscent of Cubism to represent the mark of the “Fibonacci sequence” upon the world. In this instance, in the words of the painter, she lays out “a dynamic pattern where colors and shapes dance with each other.”
This fascinating exhibition representing the diversity of styles and subjects by women artists of the DMV runs through February 22. For further information, please visit: fallschurcharts.org
