Love & Heartbreak: new works by Katy Keefe and Samuel Payne @ The Metro Gallery

“Love & Heartbreak: new works by Katy Keefe and Samuel Payne”
January 14 through February 27 2010
Opening Reception: January 14 at 7pm
Metro Gallery

Intensely personal and layered with texture, Keefe’s paintings, drawings and photographs are inspired by the romantic, as an answer to Payne’s heart-wrenching, violent paintings and works-on-paper inspired by heartbreak and scorn. Despite the immediate contradictory nature of the two perspectives, the works are thematically united under the auspices of passion, devotion and enlightenment. Using totems and hero worship, Keefe glorifies while Payne simultaneously destroys. The dense works of the two artists are aesthetically complex compositions constructed meticulously of accumulating detail and narratives. The work is both genuinely personal and universally metaphorical. Keefe and Payne utilize their joint belief in the constant presence of separation and division to establish a dialogue regarding heaven and hell, the dichotomy of brokenness, and the question of power and rule in daily life. “Love & Heartbreak” is an exhibition of journeys, failures, enlightenment, and common experience.

Katy Keefe is a Chicago artist working in painting, drawing and installation. Her new Love series comes from recent enlightenment that begins with a singular person and extends to an entire population. Drawing on patterns of hope, growth and defeat, they address the truth self: one that can be filled with struggle while simultaneously projecting true love. Her brightly colored paintings are a kaleidoscope of plant life, earthy soils, depictions of her recent lover and natural psychedelic experiences found in the woods. These works exist to inspire, awe and transport. The Love series is a reconfigured reality lush with stimulation.

Samuel Payne is a Seattle-based artist working in painting, video, and installation. His new Heartbreak series takes the struggle of American ideals of lovesick cowboy notions and intermingles them with his own emotional turmoil. Traveling the American soil has become a vital aspect of Payne’s artistic process and manifests as a patchwork in his new work. Stacks of cowboy hats, heartbroken maidens, cacti, and narrative structures involving figures such as Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and the like are a few of his inspirations. The Heartbreak series is constructed with a particular brand of airiness and humor, owing to Paynes’ uniquely complicated style.

Love and Loss (I miss you, Hugh Grant) @ Hood College

January 8 through February 3 2010
Reception: Thursday, January 28 from 6 - 8pm

"Love and Loss (I miss you, Hugh Grant)" will focus on romantic love, the loss of love, and the trauma of and efforts to deal with such losses.

The artists include Rebecca Nagle, Hermonie Only and Kylie Lockwood, sculpture; Lissa Corona, photography; Melody Often, Steven Ketchum and Zachary Storm, drawing; Gina Denton, Sarah Matson and Emily Slaughter, soft sculpture; and Heather Boaz, multimedia.

Hood College
Hodson Gallery: Tatem Arts Center
401 Rosemont Ave
Frederick, MD 21701

Baltidelphia @ the Hexagon

January 9th to February 6th, 2010.
Opening reception: Saturday, January 9th, from 6:00 - 8:00
Closing celebration with artists from both cities present: Saturday, February 9th, from 6:00 - 9:00 pm.

My House Gallery in South Philadelphia will also host an opening reception on January 9th starting at 6 PM. Light refreshments, and as always, all ages and BYOB for 21+.

The Hexagon, in conjunction with My House Gallery (Philadelphia), presents: Baltidelphia, an experimental collaboration curated by Phuong Pham (the Hexagon) and Alex Gartelmann (My House). The Baltidelphia exhibition features 21 Baltimore artists paired with 21 Philadelphia artists who were asked to collaborate/correspond through whatever means they chose--facebook, text message, twitter, carrier pigeon, postal mail, sky-writing, etc. Rather than get lost in the flood of tweeting that flickrs to your tumbl that feeds to your blog (LOL smileyface), Baltidelphia embraces communication, distance, and geography as points of departure to create a project.

Baltidelphia will be exhibited in both Baltimore and Philadelphia, with selections of the projects being displayed in each spaces. The Hexagon will have a soft opening on Saturday, January 9th, as some participating Baltimore artists will be traveling to My House Gallery for a joint opening reception. Philadelphia artists will travel to Baltimore, Saturday, February 6th for the closing.

Participating artists (Bmore & Philly): Kathy Beachler & Martha Savery, Emily Claire Dierkes & Jim Grilli, Miguel Sabogal & Bryan Patrick Rice, Jon Bevers & Damian Weinkrantz, Kathleen Mazurek & Daniel Potterton, Sarah Magida & Kristen Neville, Mike Riley & Tim Pannell, Jared Fischer & Tyler Kline, Freda Mohr & Andrew Brehm, Heather Von Marko & Hannah Heffner, Julie Pahr & Fernando Ramos, Andrew Geddes & Daniel Petraitis, Na Kim & Mike Ryan, Jennifer Mullins & Leah Mackin, Ric Royer & Beth Heinly, Robert Brulinski & Piper Brett, Magnolia Laurie & Nike Desis, Megan Lavelle & Jen Gin, Sean Scheidt & Masha Badinter, Monique Crab & Hope Rovelto, Phuong Pham & Alex Gartelmann

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf @ the Charles Theatre

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? will be screened three times this week as the Charles' revival film.



Show Times:
Saturday, January 9 at Noon
Monday, January 11 at 7 PM
Thursday, January 14 at 9PM


1966 Mike Nichols. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis. Written by Edward Albee (play) and Ernest Lehman (screenplay). Winner of five Oscars: Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Art Direction (bw), Best Cinematography (bw), Best Costume Design (bw). 131m. bw.

"Outstanding direction by Mike Nichols in his feature debut, and four topflight performances score an artistic bullseye.

Elizabeth Taylor's...chacterization is at once sensual, spiteful, cynical, pitiable, loathsome, lustful and tender.

Richard Burton delivers a smash portrayal. He evokes sympathy during the public degradations to which his wife subjects him, and his outrage, as well as his deliberate vengeance, are totally believable.


Provoking the exercise in exorcism is the late-night visit of Dennis and Segal. Latter is the all-American boy type who, in the course of one night, is seduced by his hostess, exposed by his host, but enlightened as to more mature aspects of love and marriage. Segal is able to evoke sympathy, then hatred, then pity, in a first-rate performance.


Dennis makes an impressive screen debut as the young bride, her delivery rounded with the intended subtlety of a not-so-Dumb Dora." (Variety)

Book Discussion @ the BMA

The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the Twenty-first Century


Sun, Jan 10, 3 pm

Join a conversation about loneliness in American society with two Harvard psychiatrists and authors of The Lonely American.

Are Americans becoming lonelier? This thought-provoking question is addressed in an insightful conversation about loneliness and isolation in today's society. Harvard psychiatrists Dr. Jacqueline Olds and Dr. Richard Schwartz, authors of the evocative book The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the Twenty-First Century (featured in O, The Oprah Magazine), lead the discussion moderated by WYPR radio's Tom Hall. A book signing follows.