First Friday Focus

by Lori Hill

Locks Gallery



"Scheveningen Black," (1999-2000) by Jennifer Bartlett, oil on canvas.

Jennifer Bartlett’s Scheveningen Black doesn’t play by any rules, but it has an order that can’t be denied. One of Bartlett’s newer works, its dots and loops have gone mad with color, yet it still looks like quilted fabric, with some of its boundaries adhered to, some ignored. The orbs contract and expand, advance and recede, appearing to actually move through the space with their intensity. And for all the movement, there really is no chaos. Not so with all her work. Some circles droop into ovals, elongating their flat color; some drip their outlines into each other’s interiors. Always at home with precision and space, Bartlett now frees her grids and graphs with the energy of the paint.

Reception Fri., May 4, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Through June 9. 600 Washington Square South, 215-629-1000.

Peng Gallery

Jim Brossy paints a kind of weathered Americana, yellow school buses and beach chairs painted on large canvases that often look like wood about to split with age or intention. He works with seemingly cold and unyielding materials — tar, steel, cement, mosquito netting — and somehow makes them resonate. The subject matter has something to do with it; in this show he concentrates on the kite — its form, its movement and certainly its shape. Brossy has been known to do installations, and expect one at Peng Gallery, perhaps something like a kite blowing in the wind.

Reception Fri., May 4, 6-8 p.m. Through May 31. 35 S. Third St., 215-629-5889.

Esther M. Klein Art Gallery & Sande Webster Gallery

Lee Lippman knows the way to San Pablo Etla, Mexico, pretty well, having lived there almost exclusively for the last 10 years. Once a more abstract painter, Lippman says he turned to the representational once he set foot in Mexico. Through gestural, expressive painting, he shares his firsthand experience with the small village and its mountainous landscape. He says he did not work plein-air, but had an impeccable view from his studio and a good digital camera; surely his intuitions played a role, too. How else to explain the way the heat, the altitude, the expanse of the land, all make their way into Lippman’s work with a small simple brushstroke? And there are so many paintings, it’s taking two galleries to show them.

Esther M. Klein: Reception Thu., May 3, 5-7 p.m. Through June 2. 3600 Market St. and Esther Klein’s Way, 215-387-2262. Sande Webster: Reception Fri., May 11, 6-8 p.m. Runs May 4-25. 2018 Locust St., 215-732-8850.



	Blow Wind Blow by Jim Brossy, acrylic, mosquito net, string and plastic on wood.

And Then There’s…

Continuing at Project Room is "Cathartic Disgust Gestalt," a four-person show that asks us to think about people’s utter disgust.… For the first time in five years, Bo Bartlett’s humanistic, penetrating portraits of people at work, at play and at peace are part of a gallery show in Philadelphia. The More Gallery is providing a venue for Bartlett’s work, the latest of which includes large-scale nudes and interiors from new projects "The Water Series" and "The Interior Suite." Through May 20. 1630 Walnut St., 215-735-1827…. Finally, for those who think they’ve exhausted the city’s gallery scene, here comes Ambiance, with a wild range of art and antiques — just off South Street, no less. For now, browsers can see Salvador Dali and Arthur B. Carles next to 19th-century silver and specialty fabrics, but solo shows by living artists are coming this fall. Opening night, Fri., May 4, 7 p.m. 711 E. Passyunk (Fifth and Bainbridge Sts.), 215-413-ARTS.