Philadelphia, PA — Join The Galleries at Moore for the opening reception to celebrate Emerging Philadelphia on Friday, January 24, 2020, 5:30–8 pm. The exhibition will be on view during regular gallery hours January 25 – March 14, 2020. In addition, The Galleries will host a walk-and-talk event with the exhibiting artists on Wednesday, February 26 at 6 pm. Both events are FREE to the public and are wheelchair accessible.
Emerging Philadelphia brings together three solo shows by emerging Philadelphia artists Shona McAndrew, Matt A. Osborn and Stacey Lee Webber, and represents a glimpse of the range of materials, experiences and backgrounds embodied by our city’s community of creative thinkers. The artists create individual gallery experiences that speak to their respective artistic inquiries. By presenting the artists’ works in the same space, the exhibition invites viewers to consider the range of techniques through which contemporary works are realized. Visitors can immerse themselves in Moore’s interconnected public galleries while exploring themes of identity, process and imagination.
“The Galleries position Moore as one of the best art and design colleges in the country,” said Cecelia Fitzgibbon, president of Moore College of Art & Design. “Through exhibitions like Emerging Philadelphia, we serve our surrounding cultural community, and we also serve our students with the opportunity to take part in a high-level examination of contemporary art.”
“This show honors Moore’s commitment to providing an accessible platform for emerging artists and designers to showcase their work in a museum setting,” said Gabrielle Lavin Suzenski, Rochelle F. Levy Director, The Galleries at Moore. “Philadelphia’s cultural sector is thriving and our goal is to engage emerging talent through gallery programming that highlights the young network of professionals who are working to keep the visual arts flourishing in our region.”
Shona McAndrew’s sculptures and paintings challenge the historically rigid social expectations of the female form and present visually accurate representations of women who are secure with their shapes, sizes and surroundings. Considering her personal experiences as a plus-size woman, McAndrew’s works portray characters who are caught performing everyday tasks—women appear frozen in their intimate, most private moments with no concern for the viewers’ perceptions, opinions or expectations. McAndrew received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BA in Psychology and Fine Arts from Brandeis University.
Matt A. Osborn’s paintings and drawings combine real and imagined representations of characters exploring interactions of the id, ego and superego while maintaining a humorous approach to processing serious subject matter. His use of colorful hybrid human-animal-monster imagery is often juxtaposed with a word or words expressing sentimental thoughts that create a fantastical dream world—one that is palpably rooted in the hard truths of reality. Osborn received an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and a BFA from Ohio State University.
Stacey Lee Webber presents new and recent works that are made out of manipulated U.S. paper money and coins. This is Webber’s first major solo exhibition in Philadelphia and the selected works demonstrate her process of intentionally and laboriously destroying, cutting and stitching pennies and one-dollar bills to elevate their otherwise miniscule value. The finished artworks question the significance of hand labor involved in their creation rather than taking their material worth at face value. Webber received an MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a BFA from Ball State University.
