Pittsburgh Center for the Arts
Through November 1
Various times
“And the award goes to …”
This Friday night, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts will unveil four new exhibitions, including work by the organization’s 2015 Artist of the Year and Emerging Artist of the Year during a public reception and opening celebration.
Being honored as the PCA’s 2015 Artist of the Year is multimedia artist Dennis Marsico, whose exhibition will feature 35 photographs and two video works. The PCA’s latest Emerging Artist of the Year is Seth Clark, who will exhibit approximately 30 collage-based and sculptural works.
Also opening during Friday’s festivies at the Shadyside-based Center will be The Pittsburgh Print Group show and an exhibition featuring work by Talia Greene and Myung Gyun Youof the Philadelphia Center for Visual Artists.
Don’t miss the opening reception taking place on Friday, August 21 from 5:30 – 9 p.m. at 6300 Fifth Avenue. All four exhibitions will remain on view at the PCA through November 1.
Recognizing a significant artist with a body of work that has impacted our region, the PCA’s Artist of the Year Award looks at Marsico’s 30-plus year career creating compelling photographic and multimedia work to his credit. After working as a travel photographer in the early 1990s, Marsico shifted his creative practice to the production of fine art. Via photographic sequences and video narratives, his recent multimedia investigations explore the range of physical and mental transitions that take place throughout the aging process.
In his 2015 Emerging Artist of the Year exhibition, Clark will share new collage work as well as recent explorations into sculptural form.
(View NEXTpittsburgh‘s photo feature on PCA Emerging Artist Seth Clark, and learn more about his preparations for the new exhibition opening on Friday.)
Clark’s ambitious creative process, which involves meticulously layered collages, painted textures and forms, drawings and the incorporation of found paper and various mixed media, examines what he calls “a slow history of abandonment” and documents his own observations of the region’s deteriorating yet dignified and abandoned architecture.
After growing up in Seekonk, MA, Clark earned his BFA in graphic design from the Rhode Island School of Design. His drawings and paintings have been exhibited locally and nationally at Carnegie Museum of Art and the Chautauqua Institution. Recent honors include Best in Show at the Three Rivers Arts Festival and publication in New American Paintings. A 2012 Flight School Fellow, Clark is the recipient of three Design Excellence Awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Pittsburgh.
PCA award winners—who must be artists living and working in the region—are selected by a committee comprised of past winners, curators and additional significant figures within Pittsburgh’s art community. The PCA launched its Artist of the Year Award back in 1949, while the Emerging Artist of the Year Award was established in 2001.
Also on view will be Printmaking 2015, a group show spotlighting new work by regional artists working in intaglio, photogravure, wood cut, linoleum cut relief, silkscreen, collagraph and monotype. Juried by Kim Beck, associate professor of art at CMU, the exhibit features work by Jo-Anne Bates, Christie Biber, Michelle Browne, Chris Calligan, Barbara Broff Goldman, Leslie A. Golom, John Hanna, Robert Howsare, Paula Garrick Klein, Thomas J. Norulak, Mick Opalko, Elizabeth Rose and Sharon Wilson-Wilcox.
As part of its annual exchange program with Philadelphia’s Center for Emerging Visual Artists, the PCA is also showcasing Myung Gyun You’s Time Travel, which examines identity, nationality and nature via paintings and large-scale installations, along with Talia Greene’s Precarious Balance, which combines digital imaging with collage, painting and drawing to explore relationships with the natural world.
