Category: Exhibitions

Upcoming Exhibition: Hoots and Howls

We are thrilled to announce our next exhibition which features a handful of some of our favorite Art Star artists. The show is titled “Hoots and Howls” and each artist is including a couple original pieces that are woodland themed and explore all things related to nature. You can expect to see starry night skies, wooded hideaways, animals both real and imagined, rolling hills, forests thick with trees, and more, in a variety of styles and mediums. Escape and enjoy the magic of the woods!

Participating artists include:
Inés Chapela
Jen Corace
Faryn Davis (art titled “Northern” pictured above)
Aaron James Powers
Sarah Ryan
Julianna Swaney
Kerry & Neil Stavely
Squirrel Tacos
Whittled Inklings by Alisha Baker

September 8th through November 4th, 2018
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 8th, 6-8pm

August 14, 2018
Upcoming Exhibition: “Natural Growth” Curated by Paradigm Gallery + Studio

Hedgehog by Zoë Williams

We are thrilled to announce that we are hosting an exhibition with our friends from Paradigm Gallery + Studio. They have curated a line-up of 8 artists who will be exhibiting work that explores geodes and gemstones. The title is “Natural Growth” and will be up in our gallery space from June 23rd – August 12th. Participating artists include: Clint Tillman Reid, Zoë Williams, Paige Smith, Tyler Thrasher, Lucy Price, Kate Glasheen, Caitlin McCormack, and Seo Kim.

Please join us for an opening reception with the artists on Saturday, June 23rd, from 7-9pm. Light refreshments will be provided.

June 12, 2018
Upcoming Exhibition: “Petite Tales” by Horrible Adorables

We are thrilled to announce our 2nd solo show with the dynamic duo that is Jordan Perme & Christopher Lees of the Cleveland, Oh based company, Horrible Adorables. The exhibition, titled “Petite Tales” will feature a brand new collection of colorful felt creatures that are inspired by folklore and fairytales. Fans of the popular faux taxidermy will delight in this new breed of enchanting story tellers!

The exhibition will be up from April 14th – June 10th. There will be an opening reception with the artists on April 14th from 6-8pm. Please email us at info@artstarphilly.com if you are interested in a digital collector’s preview of the work.

March 22, 2018
Upcoming Exhibition with Ron Nicole

A Poor Girl’s Flower
February 10th – April 8th
at Art Star Gallery
Opening Reception: February 10th from 6-8pm
Email us at info@artstarphilly.com if you would like a copy
of the digital collector’s preview

Philadelphia based artist, Ron Nicole, will be exhibiting her line of plaster and cement wall art that she refers to as ‘flower fossils’. She creates intricate floral compositions by pressing flowers into clay leaving deep impressions. The flowers are then delicately removed and a plaster/cement mix is poured on top. Once the mix sets it is peeled back to reveal a fossil of the floral arrangement, much like a memory preserved in time. Typically the pieces are finished simply. The muted colors of the plaster (often tinted subtly in light grey, off-white, or black) imbue the piece with a shadow-like quality. In this latest body of work, Nicole will be experimenting with color as an expression of celebration.

In her own words: This collection is a study of flowers. Flowers mean so much to us. We give them in happiness and sadness. We offer them in celebration, to lift someone’s spirit, to wish them well, to say I’m sorry, or just because. My inspired floral fossil are more than creating something pretty. Flowers are beautiful on their own. Their preservation is my way of preserving a memory. As a child, I remember the first time I decided to pick up a pencil to see if I could draw the flower in front of me. To my surprise it was very easy for me and it turned out really well. As a 7 or 8 year old that blew my mind. Growing up in the projects within an urban environment didn’t offer many nature like adventures. Playing in a field of flowers would only happen in my day dreams. So I would draw them. Drawing flowers started me on a path that would eventually get me here. This is by far my favorite form of flower preservation. Not only do I get to stop time in it’s place, but I can captures all of it’s subtle details that I wasn’t able to convey in my drawings.

My first fossils started as a blank canvas to show my humbleness and gratitude towards nature and it’s natural beauty. This time around I decided to add color as a form of celebration. I’m so happy to be doing what I love and this type of feeling deserves the spot light. Adding color is my way of stepping out of my shell and being proud of what I do. Coloring my pieces represents my ability to not be afraid of success or happiness and the flowers are my dream coming true. This poor girl has found her flower.

About the Artist:
Ronni Nicole Robinson was born in Philadelphia in 1980. She studied graphic design at the University of Maryland and worked for a few years in corporate America before transitioning into the hospitality industry. It was while working at Morimoto in Philadelphia that she met her future husband, David. Before settling down the couple spent nearly three years doing seasonal resort work on the beaches of Martha’s Vineyard, as well as on the ski slopes of Park City, UT. Ronni currently resides in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood in center city Philadelphia with her husband and their two furry animal friends Powder and Liberty.

Learn more http://www.ronnicole.com/
Follow her on instagram for daily inspiration and beauty https://www.instagram.com/iamronnicole/

January 10, 2018
Upcoming Exhibition “A Casual Peach” art by Kimmy Scafuro

We are thrilled to announce our next exhibition, A Casual Peach, a solo exhibition by Philadelphia based artist, Kimmy Scafuro. You may all know Kimmy’s popular cat butt tote bags, pins, quirky illustrations of pop culture icons (bjork, dancing drake, robyn, beyonce, etc) and ceramic face dishes from her Kimmy Makes Things line. For her first solo exhibition at Art Star, she will be showing brand new work in a variety of mediums – ceramics, embroidery, and 2D drawing/painting.

The exhibition will run from May 27th – August 6th. An opening reception with the artist will be held on Saturday, May 27th from 5-8pm. Light refreshments provided.

Artist Statement
“As a child interested in art, I took the typical route of learning about it (drawing traditional still lives, copying paintings from the masters, etc). As I’ve gotten older, I find myself being more inspired by looser, more tongue and cheek art in the vein of David Shrigley and Jean Julien, amongst many others. It’s made me think about what it means to be aesthetically drawn to a piece and that super fun, age old question “what is art?”. If it looks like something wasn’t “hard” to create technically, does that make it any less valuable as a piece of work?

A few years ago I overheard someone at a Matisse exhibit that featured his cut outs, say with disgust: “Well, I could do THAT”. I think when I was younger I would have partially agreed but time and experience has definitely changed this and I wanted to explore that shift. As long as I can remember, I’ve always doodled in notebooks, on the back of receipts and on all possible surfaces. It’s very freeing to just simply put pen to paper and not worry about the outcome but I never considered it a finalized product. Simultaneously, I have been wanting to make more tactile objects in mediums in which I don’t have much background. For this show, I wanted to marry these two ideas of doodling with ceramics and embroidery to put the doodle into a more finished form. In doing so, the work is created simply for the sake of making objects that are fun and not over worked or over thought. At the end of the day, I like being able to create things that make me happy and that don’t feel too “precious. Also, doodling is just really, really fun.” – Kimmy Scafuro

About the Artist Kimmy Scafuro was born outside of Philadelphia in 1983. She grew up loving to draw, paint and thinking about what she was going to eat next. Her interest in art took her to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where she studied Illustration and burrito making. Upon graduation, she worked an array of jobs in NYC, from dressing windows at Barneys to designing bandanas at Ralph Lauren. After ten years, she made her way back to Philadelphia to design textiles and prints for Anthropologie at their home offices. Her thoughts are still mostly preoccupied with food and drawing and she enjoys creating art that makes her laugh. She lives with her 2 cats in South Philly and makes all her things in the studio of her home.

April 30, 2017
Announcing “Curb Appeal” a Solo Exhibition with Amy Rice

We are beyond excited to announce our 4th (!) solo exhibition with Minneapolis based mixed media artist and long time Art Star artist, Amy Rice. The show, titled “Curb Appeal”, will be up in our gallery space from March 25th through May 21st, 2017. We will be hosting a reception with the artist while she is in town on April 8th from 5-7pm. Light refreshments will be provided.

“Curb Appeal” is inspired by Rice’s recent purchase of her first home with her partner, Matt. The artist describes her new house as a “seriously distressed foreclosure”, so the term “fixer upper” would be putting it lightly. The couple quickly dove into renovations to make their new house their own. Around the same time they also purchased some rural property in what they call a “Scandanavian Pride” town where all the homes have over the top decorations like fancy gables and hand cut decorative window trims. Her latest body of work is an exploration of all that we do to make a house a home – bringing in plants and potted flowers, adding art work, building window boxes, adopting pets, and adding all our own personal flourishes to create Curb Appeal.

Amy recently wrote and illustrated a Zine titled, “How To Grow Zinnias”, which comes with two zinnia seeds in hand-painted seed packets. The book will make its debut at our reception with the artist on April 8th. Stop by to pick up a signed copy!

Amy Rice’s nostalgic, subtly street art-influenced works are deeply defined by her Midwestern roots. Growing up in a rural area, Rice found inspiration in the surrounding flora and fauna; she naturally developed an intrinsic appreciation for the simplistic yet beautiful things in life. Rice is most satisfied when a tangible or visceral connection is built between the materials used and the image rendered. Her work is deeply layered, often both literally and figuratively. Her evocative, wistful imagery is largely biographical and reflective of her pensive nature.

Using non-traditional printmaking methods such as hand-cut stencils and a Japanese toy Gocco printer as a jumping off point, Rice develops the basis for her signature, one of a kind mixed media pieces. She combines, layers and experiments with many different mediums and tools including enamels, acrylics, gouache, inks, hand-carved linoleum print blocks and a antique letterpress machine. Rice searches out unique and meaningful surfaces that can run the gamut from antique papers such as handwritten love letters, journal pages, sheet music and maps to antique fabrics including heirloom embroidery and feed sacks from her family’s dairy farm.

She has exhibited her work extensively in galleries in the US and beyond. She has received the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant as well as the Metropolitan Regional Arts Board Next Step Grant.

Rice enjoys working themes and imagery into her pieces such as bicycles, found objects, gardening, collective endeavors that challenge hierarchy, acts of compassion, downright silliness and things with wings.

February 15, 2017
Upcoming Exhibition with Julianna Swaney

Ever wonder who the talented artist behind all of our adorable Art Star Craft Bazaar Posters is? Well, it is none other than Portland based illustrator Julianna Swaney. We are so pleased to announce that we are hosting a solo exhibition with this beloved Art Star artist. This will be our first show with Julianna and we are bursting with excitement. This is an amazing opportunity to snag an original illustration! If you are interested in receiving a collector’s preview of the work, please email me at info@artstarphilly.com.

We will be hosting an opening reception on Saturday, September 17th from 5-7. Complimentary refreshments provided.

August 16, 2016
Upcoming Exhibition: Night Garden by Christine Lindstrom

Night Garden by Christine Lindstrom

May 21st – July 17th , 2016

Opening Reception: Saturday, May 21st from 6-8pm

Art Star is pleased to present a solo exhibition with Asbury Park, NJ based artist, Christine Lindstrom of Mai Autumn. The show, titled “Night Garden” will include the artist’s latest series of watercolor and acrylic paintings. The exhibition will be on view from May 21^st – July 17^th 2016. There will be an opening reception with the artist on Saturday, May 21^st from 6-8pm. The reception is free and open to the public and will include light refreshments.

Christine Lindstrom creates illustrations under the name Mai Autumn for her collection of art, stationery and surface patterns. Mainly working in watercolor and acrylic, her work takes on an ethereal quality that has been described as dreamlike. Her main inspiration stems from memories from childhood, where her afternoons were spent exploring the forest and letting her imagination form a mysterious bond with the magic of nature and the unknown. Each piece has a sense of a hidden memory that has been tucked away and not fully visible.

The artist states, “With this collection of paintings, I am attempting to capture a sense of emotions and dreams through color and form. If I could project my imagination onto a wall, I am engulfed in a summer garden at night, surrounded by the shadows of flowers, their luxurious smells, and sounds that I cannot find their origin. Each piece may either represent a dream, or the glimmers of the garden itself in the dark. Oftentimes, our minds create an interchangeable reality that is difficult to separate from the imagination. These pieces are meant to blur the lines between what is real and what is imagined.”

Christine has been painting all her life and went on to study at Savannah College of Art and Design, as well as Monmouth University, where she received her BA degree in art in 2008. Her work is sold through many national and international retailers. She previously curated the critically acclaimed handmade collective, Fey Handmade. Her illustrations have been published in the books, I Heart Stationery and The Custom Art Collection – Art for the Contemporary Home. Her curatorial and illustration work have received praise from Lucky Magazine, Real Simple, Southern Living, Dwell Magazine, and Apartment Therapy, among many other prominent publications and websites. She currently lives in Asbury Park, NJ with her beautiful one-eyed cat, Boo. This is her first solo exhibition.

May 11, 2016
Upcoming Exhibition “After The Flood” by Faryn Davis of Fernworks

CHECK OUT ALL THE WORK HERE

We are so pumped to announce our next exhibition with the incredibly talented Faryn Davis of Fernworks. We have been carrying her line of jewelry at Art Star for years now (you can see it here), but what you might not know is that Faryn also creates dreamy painted landscapes to adorn your walls! I am in complete awe of the 3 dimensional worlds that she creates with her unique technique of layering painted resin.

Her very first solo show at Art Star will features a brand new collection of resin paintings. The show is titled “After the Flood” and will be up from March 19th – May 15th. We will be hosting an opening reception on Saturday, March 19th, from 6-8pm. Come get a first look at the work and share a drink or two with us!

Faryn Davis creates mixed media paintings and a line of jewelry, under the name Fernworks, which combines hand painted scenes and found natural ephemera into layers of polished resin. Each piece is painted with toothpicks and tiny brushes, embedded in multiple layers of resin, then cut and polished into delicate, dreamlike 3-D landscapes populated by plants, birds, bears, foxes and other woodland creatures.

Growing up in Waynesville, N.C, the artist spent many afternoons gathering and collecting items on the family farm. She’d pick up and preserve bird nests, feathers, interesting clumps of dirt, moss, leaves, bones, fur, twigs, bugs, and other tiny things. Her paintings and line of jewelry reflect this lifelong passion and tradition.

Her first solo exhibition at Art Star will include a new body of resin paintings. The artist states, “These new resin paintings reflect a lifelong exploration of the natural world, the land, and how each tiny self finds its place in it all. After the Flood is an allegory of the land and its diverse beings emerging after a metaphorical flood or shift. Many of these pieces quietly reflect restoration and new beginnings; how new land rises to meet us after old things have been washed away.”

Faryn Davis studied at North Carolina School of the Arts, in France, Italy, and Nepal, and received a BFA degree in sculpture at the University of North Carolina at Asheville in 2000. You can find her work in stores and galleries throughout the US and abroad, as well as at various art and craft shows like the Art Star Craft Bazaar in Philly, The Renegade Craft Fairs in Chicago, Brooklyn, Austin, San Francisco and Los Angeles, The Urban Craft Uprising in Seattle, and many others. She now lives in Asheville, NC with her husband Eli and their 6 year old son Milo Gray after an 8 year hiatus in the Pacific Norweast. She creates art full time in a modified 8’x8’ garden hut in her backyard.

Get a sneak peek at her studio and process here
go visit her website here

February 15, 2016
Upcoming Exhibition + P.O.S.T Event!

We are excited to be participating in Philadelphia Open Studio Tours again this year! We have some fun things that we have cooked up for you on October 3rd all day at Art Star (11-7pm)

1. Opening of “Tastes Like Broken Dreams” a solo show by Brooklyn based painter, Mauro Baiocco.

Mauro’s first solo exhibition at Art Star will feature a charming array of “Naughty but Nice” animal portraits. Yeah they may look cute and innocent on the surface but these cuddly animals have issues. The show will feature an all new collection of acrylic and ink paintings of Mauro’s cynical and bitter cast of furry friends. We will be celebrating the opening all day long during shop hours. Come ready to day drink with us, as we’ll have a boozy beverage or two to offer guests! Can’t make the opening? No worries, the show will be up in our gallery space through November 22nd.

2. Trunk Show / Make + Take with Christie Sommers of West Oak Design

Art Star artist and regular blog contributor, Christie Sommers of West Oak Design will be set up with a collection of her latest designs for you to shop. She will also be providing a FREE DIY Stamp Make + Take all day long!

Guests can make a wood block stamp perfect for hand printing fabric, or creating your own stationary. Cut your desired shape out of foam sheets and mount to wood blocks. A variety of paper + stamp pads will be on hand for testing out your creation. Christie will provide instructions and everything you need to make your own one-of-a-kind stamp that you can take home for free!

No registration is required. Just come on by and get to craftin’! Did I mention boozy day drinks?

3. Pop Up Studio with illustrator, Julia Lemyre
If you have stopped by our shop on a Saturday this summer, chances are you met our employee, Julia! Well, she is not only a super awesome shop helper, she is also an incredibly talented illustrator. She will be bringing along a selection of her original works and prints for you to peruse and shop.

Like I said, all this is FREE to attend and no registration is required. Bring some friends and come hang out with us! We will be open from 11-7 and can’t wait to see you!

September 8, 2015