May Work

Opening Reception: May 4, 2012, 4-6pm
Terri Saulin and Patricia S. Robertson
Society Hill Synagogue
418 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106

Please join Terri and Patricia for a Spring Show.
The exhibition will feature functional ceramic ware from Terri Saulin and abstract paintings from Patricia Robertson. Both artists invest great care in their small scale works, investigating new forms, colors and textures. These works are explorations in the potential of the materials and processes. The paintings and objects created are a physical library of marks and layers, documenting the evolution of past and present works and sow seeds for future explorations.

Patricia S. Robertson is a painter and printmaker. She received her MFA from Tyler School of Art. She has been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center and at Penland School of Arts & Crafts. She has traveled to Los Angeles as a visiting artist at SelfHelp Graphics. This year she was a contributing essayist for the exhibition catalog Depth of Surface: González and Gómez. She has exhibited in Silver Springs, MD; Wilmington, DE; Baltimore, MD; Kansas City, MO; Birmingham, AL. Her most recent exhibition was a solo show at Trust Gallery in Philadelphia in September 2010. As well as teaching printmaking, book arts, and drawing she is a member of the printmaking organizations Southern Graphics International and Philagrafika and is a Guide at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Terri Saulin received her MFA from the University of the Arts and her BFA from Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. She is a member and Press Coordinator of Tiger Strikes Asteroid, an artist-run and artist-curated exhibition space located at 319A North 11th Street in Philadelphia. Terri is an adjunct faculty member at Moore College of Art and Design, teaching Critical Discourse, and a variety of Ceramics and Sculpture classes in the BFA and Young Artist’s Workshop programs. She also teaches children at Society Hill Synagogue.

Anne Schaefer: What you couldn't plan for @ Tiger Strikes Asteroid

Anne Schaefer: What you couldn't plan for 
Opening Reception: Friday, May 4, 2012, 6pm - 10pm 
May 4 – May 27, 2012
 
PHILADELPHIA- Tiger Strikes Asteroid is pleased to announce the opening of its May exhibition, What you couldn't plan for, featuring works by TSA member Anne Schaefer. This will be Schaeferʼs second solo exhibition with the gallery.
 
May seems perfect timing for Anne Schaeferʼs new prints and approach to object making. The works in this exhibition are a departure from her recent installations that are rooted in years of rigorous study that employ finely tuned, precise decisions concerning color and form. The new works breath fresh air into the remnants that mark her studio process. The works are like Spring cuttings, arranged in a vase that offer the viewer a glimpse into the artistʼs atelier.
 
A visit to Schaeferʼs workspace reveals ghost like prints on walls and a collection of textured tape clusters. In her hands, by-products are transformed into delicately bundled, layered images. Pedestal-like elements grow roots and break away from rectilinear confines and flirt with more complex rhizomatic geometry. They are reminders of past works that have been grafted to each other, creating new possibilities for growth and expansion.
 
Anne Schaefer: What you couldn't plan for
May 4 – May 27, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday, May 4, 2012, 6pm - 10pm
Hours:  Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment
(484)-469-0319, tigerstrikesasteroid@gmail.com

Last Chance to see Michael Macfeat's BAR SINISTER at TSA: 4/28 & 4/29, 2-6pm

Michael Macfeat’s “Bar Sinister” at Tiger Strikes Asteroid

Published on 24 April 2012 by Chip Schwartz in Philadelphia

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Tiger Strikes Asteroid takes a foray into pastel(er) pastures this month with the show “Bar Sinister” by Michael Macfeat. This solo show, curated by Terri Saulin, is on display in the gallery through April 29.
Spaced evenly along the walls are rectangular color studies. On one wall and hanging from the ceiling are simple wooden sculptures. The first impression to strike the viewer is neatness; there are no splashes of paint or torn edges here, only right angles and a small amount of text. Everything about “Bar Sinister” screams exactness. Every pattern is idealized and every hue very intentionally selected. The most chaotic part of the show is perhaps the pattern of black dots on a pink field entitled “Sagittarius in Bullet Holes on a Pink Wall,” but even this piece seems quite deliberate.

Michael Macfeat, "The Melancholy of Dreams (Roberto Bolano)."

When Macfeat utilizes textual elements, he makes them heavy-hitters. One notably bright red-and-yellow striped study reads: “The melancholy of dreams, their absolute futility.” While the words themselves are blurred and faded into the red bars, once the meaning is sifted from the shades, it hits like a ton of bricks. This piece would be depressing if it weren’t so matter of fact. Another piece quotes Samuel Beckett as saying, “To restore silence is the role of objects.” Indeed, aside from reading the text in this show, the room is steeped in silence.

Michael Macfeat, "Un/Balance," pine, steel and cotton.

Nothing proves the silence and simplicity better than the two sculptures. Both are constructed from wood and appear drab and serene. “Scorpion” is propped against a wall, appearing like a mix between a skateboard and a paddle. From the ceiling dangles the only moving object in the room entitled “Un/Balance.” One side of the wooden beam is a slightly longer and at each end is an empty cotton rice bag. The off-centered weight helps to let this structure spin slowly, freely and most importantly silently from the middle of the ceiling.

Michael Macfeat, "Popeye in Dub."

One particularly curious and eye-straining work is “Popeye in Dub.” It is the only distinctly pop-cultural image in the room, showing the lopsided and recognizable image of Popeye the Sailor. The focal point is in the same colors as the background blues, but slightly darker, and actually focusing on the cartoon character’s face is difficult. Here the hues are what matters and the portrait of Popeye acts as more of a formal element to introduce a series of lines into the slightly pixilated background shades.
If anything, Macfeat’s design intrigues are refreshing. The room is calming, and even when the words cause distress, there is neither immediacy nor urgency. While outside content is present, color and form are the pinnacles of this show. Macfeat very much succeeds in saying more by using less.
 Tiger Strikes Asteroid is located at 319 N. 11th St., suite 2H; tigerstrikesasteroid@gmail.com.

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UArts Grads (try to) make good: create pop-up collective...

--General Call for Submissions--

Hello One and All,

CHER Collective is a curatorial effort to combat empty spaces. Uncertainty is Pop-Up Gallery’s middle name. When spaces become available we must pounce, but one never knows when the green light will beckon us onwards. So we must plan and have some non-denominational ration of faith. One way we can be ready for the artistic go ahead is to have a wide swath of artists/art work to draw from once opportunities arise. Spaces vary and not all works are suited for all venues. It’s best to have options. If you were sent this invitation it means you got art and we definitely want art.

Please let us know:

**if you wish to share with CHER
**what sort of work you wish to share
**medium, dimensions, and special care instructions
**does your piece require a power source? We need to know that!
**any other information you deem relevant.
**images are not required at this stage but they are greatly encouraged.

CHER will then keep your information/work on file. We will contact you as soon as we have need of your work. Please update your records with us as circumstances change.

Please make all responses out to CHERPOPUPS@gmail.com.

For more information, check us out at chercollective.blogspot.com

thank you

jessie clark
veronica cianfrano
& (last but never least) dave chatfield

**please feel free to forward this message to anyone you see fit**

Installing BAR SINISTER @ Tiger Strikes Asteroid with artist Michael Macfeat!

Michael Macfeat: BAR SINISTER

Curated by Terri Saulin 

April 6 – 29, 2012

Opening Reception: Friday, April 6^th, 2012, 6-10pm

Hours:  Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment

(484)-469-0319, tigerstrikesasteroid@gmail.com

319A North 11^th Street 2H, Philadelphia, PA 19107

Michael Macfeat's prints and sculptures in Bar Sinister concern themselves with the issue of color, one through artifice and the other through the natural process of patina and entropy. They bracket the temporal extremes of twenty years of Macfeat's oeuvre. An ambiguity of meaning is apparent. Neither the sculptures nor the images are obvious but often stem from his life long love affair with reading. They rely on Macfeat's history as a bibliophile, accumulating and cultivating a compendium of quotes both visual and verbal. They become color coded strategic military maps drawn from his interest in 'Pataphysics, the Situationists and Psychogeography. Once codes are cracked and coordinates deciphered, the connection modulates between the Dialectical Materialism of the Arte Povera group and an intellectual
stroll through the arcades with the flâneurs, leisurely  walking lobsters at the end of the leash. Allow yourself ample time to savor and linger over beautifully turned words and ideas.

- Curators Note
My first contact with Michael Macfeat was back in the early 1980’s. He was invited to lecture at Moore College of Art and Design by our mutual friend Bill Walton. Mike told revolutionary tales and offered proof that it was possible to buck the system and take control of the white cube. Early in his career, Mike was busy blazing trails and creating models for DIY cooperative spaces like those cozily nestled at 319 N. 11th Street. He was curating shows and procuring alternative spaces, offering sheet rocking labor to property owners in order to show his stable of friends/artists. At a show he arranged in an empty store front on South Street, he even went as far as dressing two art handlers in white lab coats to switch paintings throughout an entire opening. This delicately choreographed action made it possible to squeeze 80 pieces into a space that would only hold 20. At a leisurely pace, the two handlers were able to change every painting in the gallery, creating an entirely different exhibition every 45 minutes. This is just one example of Macfeat’s brilliant, poetic and simultaneously hilarious approach to Culture Trade.

Presenting the work of Michael Macfeat at Tiger Strikes Asteroid is an honor and a long overdue Thank you for his inspiration and friendship.

This Friday, April 6th, 2-6pm!