The Wind Challenge Exhibition Series
Established in 1978, the Wind Challenge Exhibition Series is an annual juried competition that is committed to enriching and expanding people's lives through art. Three Wind Challenge Exhibitions are held from September through May, featuring the work of exceptional artists living in the Philadelphia region. Over three hundred entries are juried each year resulting in the selection of nine winning artists.
Challenge 2
DECEMBER 9, 2011 THROUGH FEBRUARY 5, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday, December 9, 6:00-8:00 PM
The 34th season of the Fleisher Wind Challenge Exhibition Series, The Delaware Valley's premiere juried exhibition program continues with Wind Challenge 2, featuring new work by Anita Allyn, Laura Ledbetter and Erin M. Riley. A public reception and conversation with the artists on December 9 from 6:00pm to 8:00 pm opens the exhibit and is the first in an expanded series of free public programming.
This year's nine Wind Challenge Artists were chosen from a field of 177 applicants to exhibit their work in one of three three-artist exhibitions. Wind Challenge 2 will feature new and recent work by video and installation artist Anita Allyn, sculptor and works on paper artist Laura Ledbetter, and fiber artist Erin M. Riley. The Wind Challenge 2 exhibition pairs three artists that explore the effects of cultural imagery on our personal lives, while also examining the division between our public and private lives.
About the Artists
Anita Allyn | Laura Ledbetter | Erin M. Riley
Anita Allyn
As an interdisciplinary artist working across photography, video, animation and print, Anita Allyn is compelled by media culture and its numerous manipulations. Taking a cut and paste approach to public images, Allyn actively investigates the space where mediated images become personal.
Right: Anita Allyn
Laura LedbetterLaura Ledbetter’s careful constructions of drawing and cut paper expose a world in delicate balance. Her intimate environments explore man’s culture, class, and the vulnerability of the people that attempt to maintain that facade.
Right: Laura Ledbetter
Erin M. RileyErin M. Riley utilizes Google Image Search and Facebook to find imagery that is common to the internet, and weaves them into tapestries. The newfound physicality of these images forces us to explore the changing lives of young adults, and ask what the long term effects of these documents are.
Right: Erin M. Riley
In conjunction with the Wind Challenge 2 Exhibition, Fleisher will present a new series of free artist-led public programs:
- Thursday, December 15, 6:00 to 7:00pm, artist, Erin M. Riley will present a lecture that contextualizes and tracks the progression of her current body of work.
- Wednesday, January 25, 7:00 to 8:00pm, artist Anita Allyn invites guest lecturer David Suisman, Associate Professor at the University of Delaware, and visitors to have an open discussion about the installation.
- Saturday, January 28, 1:30pm -2:30pm, Wind Challenge 2 artists Anita Allyn, Laura Ledbetter and Erin M. Riley will discuss their work in the second in the series of The Wind Challenge Family TalkAbout, an open dialogue with students from Fleisher’s Saturday Children & Youth Program as well as their parents and the general public.
In addition to these public events, Laura Ledbetter will lead a storytelling workshop for 3rd grade students from George Washington Elementary. Date to be announced.
Challenge 1
SEPTEMBER 16 THROUGH OCTOBER 30, 2011
About the Artists
Alana Bograd | Sarah Steinwachs | Jennie Thwing
Alana Bograd
Alana Bograd dismembers and dismantles the forms of landscape, architecture, figure
and myth, in her process of painting. Her sometimes psychedelic world strife with mutating
landscapes and intestinal spaces tempts the viewer to trace the evolving facades, layers
and impulsive mark-making left behind by the disobedient child in her.
Right: Alana Bograd, Rational Charioteers, Oil on Canvas,
Sarah Steinwachs
With the knife as her mark-making device, Sarah Steinwachs creates tableaus that are as
intricate as they are delicate from layers of cut paper. Borne out of an impulse to cut
out the spaces of graph paper, the artist embraces the perfection of the grid system, and
the flaws inherent in the hand. Her most recent work, which will be shown in this
exhibition, meanders away from the grid to explore organic forms as the inspiration for her
cut-paper patterns.
Right: Sarah Steinwachs, Ohm, cut paper and acrylic,
Jennie Thwing
Through a unique blend of performance, video, installation and stop-motion animation, the
work of Jennie Thwing explores the hidden narratives and histories that lie just under
the surface of our surroundings. With visual effects that the artist describes as
swarming earth and breathing meat, the videos hint at the spirits inherent in
nature and refuse, and its inherent vulnerability.
Right: Jennie Thwing, "Plastic Landscape" exhibition still from video
installation,