Makda Kibour, a quiet gentle woman who immigrated to the United States from Ethiopia by way of Zambia, has under gone many transformations on her way to becoming an artist. After reaching Pennsylvania, she become part of a Mennonite family for five years, learning to navigate that religion’s discipline of “the simple life." This austere Bible-based faith was quite a contrast to ancient traditional rituals of the Greek Orthodox Church she grew up knowing in Ethiopia. Her artistic sensibilities responded to the expert woodworking and hand sewn quilts pieced with deep reds, blues and other dark colors that were part of the Mennonite culture.
Read moreAileen Beringer: Not Your Ordinary Snapshot
Eileen Beringer 2014
Touchstone Gallery intern, Aileen Beringer lays her life on the floor in her senior thesis at the Corcoran's 2014 NEXT Exhibit of student work. Titled "I Only Cry in the Shower," the installation is located in a darkened space about 12 feet by 12 feet on the second floor of the museum. It is constructed of broken sheets of glass, a video, written stories, and a suspended field of crystals and jewelry elements. An overhead video projects portraits of Aileen through this rain of hovering crystals onto shattered mirrors resting on the floor. The images are fleeting, changing quickly so that no coherent picture emerges either on the ceiling or the floor - just flickers of a face transformed into colored light by the prism on the floor.
Read moreShelley Lowenstein: Painter of Crowds and Spaces
Shelley at the opening of Quotidian: The Art of Interaction
As a 7-year-old living in Connecticut, Shelley Lowenstein rode the bus downtown with her best friend to explore the stores on Main Street, and to spend their allowances in Woolworth's five-and-dime. The shopping was fun but Shelley loved watching people and making up stories about them in her mind. What did they do? Where were they from? Where were they going? Around the same time, Shelley discovered movies. Once a week she settled down into the dark recesses of the local theater and escaped into other worlds which sparked her imagination even more. Ever since these youthful experiences, Shelley has been fascinated by how people are in public spaces.
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