Brian C. O'Malley’s enigmatic In the Blink of an Eye is based on a man’s dream in which he becomes Icarus. O’Malley says the project started as a response to “a thematic dream that I believe we all have, which is the feeling of flying, levitating, or falling.” It was only later that he began to incorporate his version of the myth of Icarus. “If Icarus and his father Daedalus, were after freedom, then my character is seeking transcendence.” Inspired by a suite of mixed media drawings he was working on at the time,  O’Malley undertook the film in July, 2012. To create the animation, he uses his drawings composited in Adobe After Effects, with the addition of live-action footage. O’Malley eschews the tools of traditional animators, like storyboards and linear narration, preferring a more intuitive, hands-on approach. He says of his work: “There has been a wonderful “call and response” in my studio during this time. I have been able to weave the ideas and imagery of large-scale dra...

The exhibition, Five Positions of Present in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania features the work of VCCA Fellow Ute Gallmeister along with Linda Perthen, Susanne Rast, Holger Stark, Ruzica Zajec. (June 22- August 31) Gallmeister’s work seems to be conducting a lively dialogue between line and form. With her paintings she employs subtle colors in unusual pairings, which impart a notable visual richness that is further enhanced by the textural quality of her surfaces.  These are deceptively quiet works that carry a big payoff. In her pen and ink drawings, color is absent and line takes control of the situation with great authority. Gallmeister says, “I want to thank you at VCCA for all supports, talks, inspirations, motivations, enjoyments, experiences, adventures...! All was a part in the process of my last work.” www.utegallmeister.de      

Dawn Lundy Martin’s collaboration with architect V. Mitch McEwan and visual artist Sienna Shields House Opera\Opera House has received funding from the Graham Foundation. “Inspired by the flexibility of uses for houses in Detroit, in proximity to major cultural institutions for opera and diverse forms of performance,” House Opera\Opera House “stages an opera as a house and its dramas of occupancy and vacancy, demolition, and repurposing, as an opera. The project explores how zoning, planning, and building code changes support local cultural assets while it develop “a suite of spatial and architectural tactics to facilitate this exploration of performance, community, and form. The experimental aspects architecturally include strategies of interactivity, portability, and expanded territories of adaptive re-use.”   Martin is the author of A Gathering of Matter/A Matter of Gathering (University of Georgia Press, 2007), recipient of the Cave Canem Prize; DISCIPLINE (Nightboat B...

Karen Bell’s photographs will be the subject of a show, “Flotsam & Jetsam” at the Delaware Arts Center’s Alliance Gallery in Narrowsburg, NY, August 15 through September 6. “For several years I have been exploring natural curiosities—dead birds, feathers, insects, reeds, twisted vines, shards of ice—as discovered and photographed during my many wanderings, or gathered and brought back to my studio where they get incorporated into my life and sometimes into images,” explains Bell. Bell lives in New York City, but spends a good deal of time exploring nature both in the Upper Delaware River region and at VCCA which is nestled in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.  “Through my collections of feathers, leaves, insects, seed hulls, and other biological curiosities, I aspire to freeze the lens of time as objects reveal themselves in their (frequently) decaying splendor,” she says. “Often, these objects are suspended in water. Chance and design converge in...

Barbara Bernstein describes the process of drawing as “The connection between intimacy, trust and unlimited discovery,” where “recognition and anticipation meet.” Bernstein challenges and expands on the traditional principles of drawing: line, shape and perspective, to produce works that are wonderfully expressive and darkly amusing. In her most recent installation, "Open House,” she uses the unorthodox and unexpected material of masking tape, which she cuts and bends to produce “drawings,” transforming her studio into living space complete with kitchen, hearth and Home Sweet Home “rag” rug. In 2010, Bernstein, who has been the resident artist with her husband, David Garratt, since 2007, produced “How Does Your Garden Grow,” a drawing installation at an abandoned gas station in Lynchburg, Virginia which she covered with a lacy filigree of plants. In the process, she not only transformed a blighted building into something quite lyrical, but she also engaged the surroun...

Composer Joelle Wallach will speak about Perspectives on Personal Heroism - Beethoven Triple and Emperor Concertos   in the Helen Huntington Hull Room in Avery Fisher Hall as part of the New York Philharmonic Lectures.  The talks will precede performances of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Cello and Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor, with conductor Alan Gilbert, pianist Yefim Bronfman, violinist Glenn Dicterowand cellist Carter Brey on Tuesday, June 24 at 6:30 PM, Wednesday, June 25 at 6:30 PM, Thursday, June 26 at 6:30 PM, Friday, June 27 at 7:00 PM and Saturday, June 28, 7:00 PM.  www.joellewallach.com