Taking a Line for a Walk
May - October 2023
Rotational Exhibits
Park Towne Place Museum District Residences is uniquely situated on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway among the city of Philadelphia’s most cherished art and cultural institutions. The vision for the community is to fully integrate Park Towne Place into the fabric of the Parkway – providing a unique art experience for residents and visitors alike.
In addition to the permanent art collection on display, rotational exhibits like Taking A Line For A Walk showcase both established and up-and-coming artists. Each exhibit includes companion educational and social opportunities to visit with artists who host talks and provide insights on their original works.
The award-winning art program at Park Towne Place is presented by AIR Communities, one of the largest owners of apartment homes in Philadelphia. For more information about Aimco, please visit our website at www.aircommunities.com.
All rotational artworks are available for purchase. Inquiries for purchases can be directed to Clare Finin at clare@inliquid.org
Cover: Twine, Caroline Lathan-Stiefel
Taking a Line for a Walk
@ The South, North, and West
Tower Galleries at Park Towne Place
Museum District Residences
May - October, 2023
Curated by:
Curated by Mat Tomezsko for InLiquid
Featuring:
Nanci Hersh
Sharon Bloomfield Hicks
Taesook Jung
Caroline Lathan-Stiefel
Kate Stewart
Samara Weaver
“A drawing is simply a line going for a walk”
Paul Klee
Taking a Line for a Walk is an exhibition of artwork united by line as a formal and conceptual element. Spanning a diverse array of media, rich with associative qualities, the artwork consists of sculpture, assemblage, painting, and ceramics. However, each artwork can also be seen as drawing in space. Beginning with a chosen material, be it pipe cleaner, clay, plastic, or acrylic, each artist allows for the form and meaning to meander and fuse, becoming something spectacular and unique, always with an eye to the linear quality of the composition.
The materials are allowed to speak. In the hands of Hersh, Lathan-Stiefel, found items such as netting, discarded plastic bottles, and onions are converted into objects of investigation and beauty, alluding to themes of environmental impact and sustainability.
Some artists play off the associations intrinsic to a medium, subverting expectations and turning them on their head. Weaver paints watercolor paper by the yard, then folds it into densely coiled sculptures. Bloomfield Hicks mixes her media to create paintings that could be tapestries and tapestries that could be paintings. Stewart’s brushy and illusionistic paintings are disrupted by crisp lines and hard edges. This playfulness pushes the artwork over the line so it exists in more than one world simultaneously.
Technique, too, becomes an integral part of the meaning of the artwork. Jung meticulously builds a composition one mark at a time to create artworks that writhe and vibrate with life created by hand. Many of the artists in the show work with fiber, which speaks to craft traditions that are not typically associated with art. However, applying these techniques questions biases and preconceived notions, and considers new ways of making and seeing art.
Taking A Line For A Walk
Featuring: Nanci Hersh
Sharon Bloomfield Hicks
Taesook Jung
Caroline Lathan-Stiefel
Kate Stewart
Samara Weaver
Detail of Klänge, Caroline Lathan-Stiefel
Pictured:
One, 2016
Acrylic, charcoal, spray paint, and pastel on Tyvek Viviana
56 x 65.25”
$3,250
Nanci Hersh
Nanci Hersh
Drawing threads from daily life, Nanci Hersh is a deeprooted chronicler of the significant and the mundane, marking time, and holding space to allow for reflection, authentic and sometimes difficult conversations. Hersh creates dynamic mixed media drawings, paintings, and three-dimensional objects as time capsules to celebrate our fragile and beautiful existence. Expressive and entangled lines, colors, and cascading textures are interwoven as seemingly unrelated elements come together as an intimate journal to find our interconnectedness.
Goddess of a Stolen Moment, 2016
Netting, rope, wire, yarn, and resin
84 x 18 x 18”
$2,500
Nanci Hersh
Hanging by a Thread, 2023
Abaca, wire, nylon, encaustic, and ephemera
42 x 16 x 13”
$1,500
Nanci Hersh
Nanci Hersh
Hersh is an artist, illustrator, educator, arts advocate, and administrator as Executive Director of the Delaware Institute for the Arts in Education. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States including at the Museum of Encaustic Art in Santa Fe, NM, Seraphin Gallery in Philadelphia, PA, the Delaware Contemporary, the Trenton City Museum, and Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, NYC, along with solo exhibitions in PA, NJ, DE, and HI. Nanci has received numerous honors including three purchase awards from the State Foundation of Culture and the Arts, Hawai’i, and three Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grants. Her work is included in the Public Collections of Museum of Encaustic Art, Johnson & Johnson, Leland Portland Cement, and OSI Pharmaceuticals to name a few.
Also On Display
Fissure, 2019, Ink, acrylic, collage on synthetic non-woven paper, 93 x 18”, $2,650
Drama Queen, 2019, acrylic, ink, and graphite on synthetic nonwoven paper, 94.5 x 16”, $2,500
Offering, 2023, vegetable papyrus from onions, wire, steel, beads, 96 x 30 x 30”, $1,800
Yin and Yang S1, 2022
Acrylic on mounted shaped canvas
25.75 x 26.75”
$1,800
Yin and Yang S5, 2022
Acrylic paint and wool tufting on mounted shaped canvas
23 x 27”
$2,400
Sharon Bloomfield Hicks
Sharon Bloomfield Hicks
Sharon Bloomfield Hicks
Sharon Bloomfield Hicks is a Philadelphia based artist, aesthetically influenced by her Jamaican heritage. Her paintings and tapestries are distinguished by bold color combinations, large shapes and active figure-ground relationships. Synthesizing craft materials with painterly intentions she creates fresh, uplifting work which reflects the harmony and well-being she desires to see in the world. Adhering to a belief in the connection between art and healing, her work centers around finding the balance within disparate elements such as material, texture, line, shape, color, and even gravity.
Hicks holds a BFA in painting from Tyler School of Art and an MS in occupational therapy from Philadelphia University. A member at Da Vinci Art Alliance in Philadelphia, she recently exhibited her work in a solo show Concepts & Compositions: Exploring the Yin and Yang in Art, Health and Life. Works by Hicks have been included in shows at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, State Museum of Pennsylvania, Museum of the Hudson Highlands, Galleries at Moore College of Art and Design, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and Nexus Foundation among other locations.
Also On Display
Yin and Yang S6, 2022, Acrylic on mounted shaped canvas, 24.5 x 26.25”, $1,800
Yin and Yang T11, 2022, Wool tapestry, 34 x 22”, $2,400
Taesook Jung
Taesook Jung is interested in the harmony between humans and nature. After receiving an MFA in oriental painting from Hong-Ik University, Seoul, South Korea, she expresses the “flow” that penetrates the vitality of humans and nature through the use of free and lively calligraphy strokes and traditional coloring.
Jung has been active as an artist, educator, curator, and art appraiser in South Korea and the United States, intermittently instructing courses on Asian art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Seoul, South Korea; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; and Cherry Hill; NJ. Her paintings are on public display in the collections of Temple University and Park Towne Place in Philadelphia. Taesook lives with her family and dog Ollie in Cherry Hill, NJ, looking for little gratification.
Also On Display
Vigorous Life (Grouping), 2022-2023, Watercolor and ink on paper, 4 x 6”, $300 (each)
Vigorous Life (Installation), 2022-2023, Watercolor and ink on paper, 4 x 6”, $300 (each)
Opposite: Taesook Jung
Detail of Vigorous Life 22-110, 2022
Ink on paper
4 x 6”
$300
Detail of Pteris, 2023
Fabric, plastic, pipe cleaners, thread, wire and string on steel hanger
120 x 41 x 12”
$5,000
Caroline Lathan-Stiefel
Caroline Lathan-Stiefel
Caroline Lathan-Stiefel makes large-scale sculptural installations consisting of fabric, pipe cleaners, wire, string, plastic, thread and fishing weights. The installations are drawings-in-space that cover, divide, encircle, and fill the spaces in which they are situated. The work involves both the slow, plodding movement of patching and sewing pieces of cloth and plastic to linear structures made of pipe cleaners, as well as quicker, more gestural actions that connect all of the parts into systems, making large suspended sculptures. Over the years, they have taken various forms: parasitic-like growths that cover interior architectural elements and outdoors structures; hanging tent forms that immerse the viewer; suspended walls that curve and divide spaces; excessive, organic masses that transform rooms into caves. The artwork can be seen as being in flux and replicating various states of proliferating growth.
Often the installations resemble rhizomatic structures, marine and plant biology, as well as architectural and urban models. While the forms that make up the artwork suggest systems or structures, they are also meant to somehow reflect time and the artist’s own hand in the work.
Caroline Lathan-Stiefel
Skein, 2017
Fabric, plastic, pipe cleaners, thread, wire, and welded steel
41 x 41 x 15”
$4,000
Caroline Lathan-Stiefel
Twine, 2022
Fabric, wire, thread on stretched linen/fabric
15 x 14”
$900
Caroline Lathan-Stiefel
Caroline Lathan-Stiefel received a BA from Brown University and an MFA from Maine College of Art. Her artwork has been exhibited widely including at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, FL; the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA; the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI; the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, GA; Galleri Urbane, Dallas, TX; Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts, Miami, FL; Galerie Articule, Montreal, CA; Suyama Space, Seattle, WA; and more. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including a Fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant, and more. Her work is included in numerous collections including the West Collection, the Hunterdon Museum, the Jersey City Museum, New Jersey State Museum, and more.
Also On Display
Chime, 2021, Fabirc, wire, thread, 38 x 51.75” $4,000
Klänge, 2023, Fabric, pipe cleaners, wire, thread, plastic from shopping bags, juice/milk containers, bottle caps from US and beaches of Indonesia, shells, and string on steel hanger, 34 x 44 x 5”, $6,000
Stewart Evening Apparition, 2019
30
$3,000
Kate
Acrylic on canvas
x 24”
Kate Stewart
Kate Stewart received an MFA from The University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Dickinson College. She lives in Pennsylvania where she is Professor of Art at West Chester University.
Kate’s work has been included in group exhibitions at TATE Modern in London, Plug Projects in Kansas City, Arlington Arts Center in Virginia, Towson University Center for the Arts Gallery, Pageant Soloveev Gallery, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Her solo shows include P.S. 122, Vox Populi Gallery, Seraphin Gallery, Moore College of Art, West Chester University, Drexel University, Gettysburg College and Ejecta Projects.
Kate Stewart
Cubist Daydream, 2019
Acrylic on canvas
18” diameter
$2,000
Kate Stewart
Kate Stewart has created public murals in collaboration with Sprocket Mural Works in Harrisburg, PA, with Arlington Cultural Affairs in Arlington, VA and with Dickinson College’s Goodyear Gallery and Organic Farm. She was selected for the annual Fleisher Wind Challenge Exhibition Series in 2005, was a Finalist for the PEW Artist Fellowship in 2008 and she received the Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art in 2015. Stewart has attended creative residencies at Vermont Studio Center, the 40th Street A.I.R. in Philadelphia, and was an Artist in Residence at the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation Exploratory Residency in 2019.
Kate is also an avid gardener and has been instrumental in bringing a pigment garden to West Chester University, where she teaches.
Also On Display
Christina’s World I, 2020, Acrylic on panel, 20 x 24”, $1,500
Twilight Veils, 2019, Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 20”, $1,250
Opposite: Kate Stewart
Detail of Space is the Place, 2019
Acrylic on canvas
30 x 40”
$3,250
Watercolor, trace paper, wood frame
17 x 20 x 5”
$2,500
Samara Weaver
I’m Fine, 2022
Samara Weaver
Samara Weaver is fascinated with materiality, resulting in artistic exploration of various materials and using them to explore texture, color, and perspective. Weaver combines large numbers of smaller, often simple elements into multi-faceted compositions, gaining complexity and space from their combination.
Weaver is a graduate of Tyler School of Art and Architecture. Her work has been exhibited at the James May Gallery, the Charlie Cummings Gallery, The Delaware Art Museum, and The Delaware Contemporary. She is based in Wilmington, DE.
Also On Display
Growth, 2023, Stoneware, trace paper, watercolor, wood, 18 x 16 x 15”, $2,800
Petrification, 2023, Stoneware, trace paper, watercolor, wood, 20 x 23 x 3”, $2,800
Pictured: Detail of Javan Pond Heron, 2020, Watercolor, trace paper, wood frame, mdf, 36 x 72”, $16,000
InLiquid
InLiquid is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to creating opportunities and exposure for visual artists and works with more than 280 artists and designers. It serves as a free, online public hub for arts information in the Philadelphia area. Find out more at www.inliquid.org.
All rotational artworks are available for purchase. Inquiries for purchases can be directed to Clare Finin at clare@inliquid.org.
