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 Above: Summit, 2007, Watercolor, Collage 22 X 30 in. Below: Impending Fall, 2007, Watercolor, Collage 11 X 15 in. |
Terry Godbey's poems have appeared in Poet Lore, CALYX, Rattle, Pearl, The CafÈ Review, Potomac Review and Dogwood. Her chapbook Behind Every Door won Slipstream's 19th Annual Poetry Chapbook Contest in 2006. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and has received honors from the Rita Dove, Passager, Mount Dora and Night Blooms Postcards contests. She works as a copy editor at the Orlando Sentinel. Gallery Hours: by appointment |
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Claudia Scalise Elsa Valbuena and Gaudere Danza Gallery Hours: by appointment
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 Steve McClure, Rec Tent, 2007, ink on paper, 28x37 in. |
Bleu Acier is proud to present an exhibition of new paintings by New York based artist Steve McCLURE. BLEU ACIER INC. is an active fine art print publisher, print atelier, gallery and live-in loft that functions at the intersection of private and public space where art and the city keep company. Bleu Acier exhibits works in all disciplines by emerging, mid-career and established artists from the U.S. and Europe. Gallery Hours: Saturdays 12 to 5 PM and by appointment |
 Dominique Labauvie, Le Mangeur de Nuages, 2007, woodcut and monotype on Kitikata, 23.5 x 31.5 in. |
NEW EDITIONS The painters Neil Bender, Elisabeth Condon, Kim Curtis, Pierre Mabille, Steve McClure, and Judith Sturm each worked on their first series of monotypes. Monotype, which signifies a unique work (not an edition or a multiple) is a combination of painting or drawing and printing. The artist works directly on the surface with printing inks. When the image is built to desired effect, it is run through the press as either a single pass, or a series of "built" layers or multiple passes. Printmaking allows a quality of layers, surfaces and color combinations not found in painting. |
 Robyn Voshardt/Sven Humphrey, When I Look Up, I Fall Down, 2007 pair of 3-color woodcuts on Gampi, 15 x 24 in. each |
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 Elisabeth Condon, Landscape 1, 2007, monotype on white Goyu, 18 x 29 in. |
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 Marie Yoho Dorsey, Stardust 2, 2007, Direct gravure, embroidery, drawing on Gampi, 15 x 34 in., each piece is unique |
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| June 8-9 | San Servolo, Venice, Italy Bleu Acier is pleased to present new video work by Robyn Voshardt and Sven Humphrey at the V|07 Venice Video Fair. This invitational fair, curated by Raffaele Gavarro, is Italy's only fair dedicated to video art. The fair opens concurrent with the preview of the 52nd Venice Biennale. |
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Dominique Labauvie The human figure has entered his new work as a medium for change and development, as well as in reaction to the broader socio-political world climate. The human body is an essential element of his reasoning of space. Though present as an abstract, conceptual and formal element within the past two decades of Labauvie's work, representational forms of the human figure take a more powerful position in the continuum of his oeuvre. New drawings make direct visual connections to the tension and energy in his metal sculptures. Labauvie employs pastels in the subtlest gradations of white to create non-static dimensional spaces on paper and on steel. His sculpture extends these lines into the third dimension, causing the viewer's eye to move around the image as if he/she were watching the artist draw in space. In 1998 he realized “Over the Cities” a public sculpture commissioned by the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority for The Vandenberg Airport in Tampa. The artist will be present for the opening reception. |
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click here for info on Bleu Acier at Bridge |
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Bleu Acier is proud to open the winter season with CONTROLLED BURN, a solo exhibition of drawings and video by collaborative artists Robyn Voshardt / Sven Humphrey, formerly of Florida and now based in New York. In late 2005, the artists were awarded a Caldera Artist Residency in Oregon, where they made many of the works on view. Controlled Burn refers to the forestry practice of eliminating undergrowth and invasive species, with the goal of mitigating disastrous fires in the future. The artists used this idea as a point of departure, inspired by a two week stay in a mountainside area decimated by a burn gone way out of control. The resulting large drawings use the the most basic materials derived from trees – paper and carbon-based ink – and the artists' own breath instead of a brush to apply it.
Voshardt/Humphrey have been included in numerous museum exhibitions on the west coast of Florida and the Boston area. Their work is in the permanent collections of the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Tampa Museum of Art, Gulf Coast Museum of Art, and Pinellas County Arts Council. Concurrent with this exhibition, they have another new video in Solos II at Selby Gallery, Ringling School of Art & Design in Sarasota – a 20th anniversary group exhibition featuring artists who have appeared in solo shows at the gallery. In 2006 they were also awarded a Florida Individual Artist Grant and participated in the Bridge and Pool Art Fairs in Miami, as well as Perpetual Art Machine at CinemaScope New York and Miami. The artists will be present for the opening reception.
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December
7-10 Catalina Hotel & Beach Club |
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ENTRE
CHIEN ET LOUP OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2006, 6-10PM OCTOBER 7 - DECEMBER 2, 2006 The artists participating in the show are: Joseph Arnegger Neil Bender (top left) Megan Bisbee-Durlam David Brody Omar Chacon Chalet Vicky Colombet Elisabeth Condon (bottom left) Kim Curtis Herve DiRosa Frederique Lucien Pierre Mabille Francois Martin Steve McClure Max Neumann Jovi Schnell Joani Spadaro Judith Sturm Keer Tanchak Robyn Voshardt / Sven Humphrey (middle left) Stephen Westfall Jeff Whipple Theo Wujcik |
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| Bleu
Acier is proud to open this season with ENTRE CHIEN ET LOUP, a group exhibition
which brings together established, mid-career and emerging artists from
Europe and the United States to explore different processes and propositions
within contemporary painting. Entre Chien et Loup is a French idiom - which in the literal sense means the difference between the dog and the wolf - and figuratively illustrates the precise moment of the day we call twilight when the sun has just set and the light is non-definitive. Forms, colors and shapes all melt together and the horizon presents new spatial perceptions. The emotional and intellectual limits between the familiar and the unknown are re-defined and the spectator’s visual intelligence is brought to another level. Entre Chien et Loup investigates contemporary artistic thinking and language through the act of painting. |
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METAL |
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NOIRES
– NOIRS |
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"Si j'avais a refaire ma vie, je ne ferai que du noir et blanc." "If I could relive my life I would only work in black and white," Edgar Degas mused to his contemporary Georges Villa in 1906. Degas was an extraordinary colorist who worked in paint, pastel and monotype, so his comment ignites our curiosity. What exactly did he mean? In Noires-Noirs emerging and internationally acclaimed artists from Europe and the United States investigate Degas' implications in works that use black as a point of reference and departure. Materially, black absorbs color but is paradoxically considered void – the representation of non-color and non-space – but Black could be considered the most versatile color. Noires-Noirs explores its depths, hues and values, measuring up the differences between gouache, oil, charcoal, photographs, prints and moving images. Extending black beyond physical presence into metaphorical territory, Noires-Noirs examines Black as substance, structure, color and concept. 
L to R: works on paper by Hervé Di Rosa, Neil Bender and Steve McClure  Works on paper by Ricky Otto  Works on paper by Robyn Voshardt/Sven Humphrey |
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ART
DE VIVRE: FRANCE An evening salon in the series Chance Sightings: Art by Accident May 20, 2005 |
L'Art de Vivre will be devoted to the creation of an exquisite cultural environment. Three professionals of the Tampa Bay Area, Chef Gui, Anthony Silvestri and Erika Schneider propose an evening of special foods, wines, music and art to celebrate the Art de Vivre of France. Chef Gui will prepare specialties all evening, AnSil has created a special musical environment including tracks by Serge Gainsbourg, Jean Louis Aubert, Michel Jonas. Bleu Acier will present a group show of European and American artists with Pierre Mabille, Dominique Labauvie, Pierre Alechinsky, Neil Bender and others. Wines will be served which will compliment the menu and the ambience. In the outdoor sculpture garden there will be a space set up to play "Petanque" – the French game of "Boules" one of the most cherished social sports of French Culture. http://www.chefgui.com http://www.thedriftlounge.com l'Art de Vivre MENU Selection of cocktail hors d'oeuvres Steak Tartare Steak tartare is a classic bistro item. Originally made with horse meat (not tonight, though!), it is served diced finely with shallot, Dijon mustard, herbs and spices. To give it a more contemporary feel, I am serving tonight's tartar in edible cones, mimicking my youth's ice cream cones. Vichyssoise Vichyssoise is a cold leek and potato soup. Served cold for the first time at the beginning of the century at New York's Ritz Carlton, its roots are in classic French cuisine. My mother would make the "warm" version of Vichyssoise from scratch at least twice a week during the winter. This is her recipe. Frites in french newspaper cornet Ah, the importance of "pommes frites!" Potato is the only vegetable I know that transforms into so many varieties. Frites is kid food. It's fun and convenient. Served tonight in cones made out of French newspaper. Daube Provencale, served in silver spoons Sometimes called the mother of all stews, daube is a classic French dish of slowly braised beef, red wine, vegetables, and seasonings. Traditionally, daube was cooked in a daubière, a heavy casserole or pot with a concave lid. Cooking daube is a matter of days. My daube tonight has marinated 12 hours, cooked very slowly for 6 hours. I started it on Monday; finished it on Tuesday night, let flavors infused for 3 days, reheated it slowly in order to serve it tonight. Artisan cheese board Artisan describes a cheese made with respect for tradition, environment, and taste. Made by farms or small factories, each cheese served tonight has its own character. A label will describe basic information tied to each cheese. This is a large board of stinky cheese! For cheese lovers and adventurous minds only. Boursin conceptual tasting This conceptual tasting of the well-known Boursin cheese is enhanced by a video featuring a TV commercial. In the heart of the 80's, Boursin developed a smart marketing campaign, which emphasized the French culture gastronomic trilogy: bread, wine and cheese. Boursin's tag line was: Le pain, le vin, le boursin (bread, wine and boursin cheese). This slogan caught on so widely that it quickly became an integrant part of the popular lingo. Note that the video projected tonight shows a later commercial featuring a newer, modified slogan, especially adapted to the infamous "Loi Evin," a law forbidding alcoholic references on French TV. The original, 80s slogan became le pain, le boursin, c'est sans fin (Bread, Boursin Cheese, it's endless). Petits Farcis de Provence Zucchini, potatoes, red peppers, sometimes eggplant and onions are stuffed with different meats, spices and herbs, and baked in the oven. Look for these bite sized, colorful items. A Provence tradition. Tartine a la Sardine The word tartine literally means a slice of bread, typically a baguette, and butter, but its meaning has broadened to indicate an open faced sandwich. My grandmother used to make this quick, delicious tartine when I was very young. Thus, tartine a la sardine is probably one of my first gastronomic experiences. Salad de Lentilles Made with lentils from Le Puy, France. This is a popular salad in France. I am serving it this evening in Duralex glasses. Typical of rustic French bars and cafes, drinking red wine out of those is a grass root experience in itself. But these ubiquitous glasses are multi purpose, and using them, as salad bowls is only natural. Assorted Desserts A few elegant surprises there. - Chef Gui Alinat |
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ART
PLASTIQUE March 18 - April 24, 2005 Works by: Neil Bender Pierre Mabille (at left) Ulf Rungenhagen Steve McClure |
ART PLASTIQUE, which translates as the plastic arts or the visual arts, is a group show exploring the concepts of narrative and surface. The plasticity of the surface in painting and drawing as well as the concept of narrative have been important issues in the thinking of modern and contemporary image-makers. This exhibition explores the manner in which these artists define the narrative through the plastic qualities of their work, allowing the image-making process to create a new and personal space. Two American and two European artists, these image-makers tell stories through the interactions of drawing, painting, and surface. The techniques explored; oil, acrylic, watercolor, pastel, pencil, charcoal, and collage, construct the narrative through the plasticity of the surface. These four artists explore the acts of painting and drawing in very different manners with different outcomes for the viewer. Neil Bender's images thrive on fantasy and sexuality. The use of graphic imagery, color and a thorough knowledge of the history of painting allow him to construct the foundation of his images. The layers of images brought to the surface come into superposition and create a rich, sensuous, and baroque surface and narrative about painting and contemporary existence. Neil is new painting faculty at the University of South Florida. Pierre Mabille painted lyrical landscapes dense with color. He desired to rethink his space and began reducing the images to the use of signs and symbols. Mabille's next move was to "simplify and purify" his image-making process. One sign became the visual symbol for him to continue telling stories with color, surface and line. Mabille teaches painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Nantes, France. Ulf Rungenhagen is a master of collage. Found images are the way with which he starts his sentences, completes his paragraphs and writes his stories. The ground is often treated by hand as if he were adding personal commentaries to a journal. His main works are 3D installations designed for specific spaces. These paper works compliment the installations. Ulf is the Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf, Germany. Steve McClure an emerging painter who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, and graduated from USF in 1996. McClure defines narrative in terms of landscape. His use of watercolor in the translation of the landscape allows him to interpret and transform the space into a series of phrases, which constitute partial narratives to be brought together by the perception of the viewer. McClure uses the notion of landscape as the fusion of time and history, which at the horizon turns toward the future. |
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ARENA
An evening salon in the series Chance Sightings: Art by Accident April 1, 2005 Photo: Bjorn Andren |
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This series intends to provide a meeting ground for different perspectives within the arts, an encounter for new propositions, and an intentional forum in which to consider the intersection of artistic thought throughout the different media and processes considered as art. This salon entitled ARENA will be devoted to the idea of music and dance as systems for marking space - the parallels and divergences between music, dance and visual art. Dee Moses, principal double bass of the Florida Orchestra and Elsa Valbuena, Contemporary Choreographer and Dancer have been working together for several years creating original pieces focusing on movement and transformation using sound as an important component of the work. The piece they will perform for the salon was created for the particular space of Bleu Acier. The salon will feature a discussion with the artists after their performance. The accompanying exhibition, ART PLASTIQUE, which opened on March 18th, will serve as an exciting backdrop to the live performance. Dee Moses has been the principal Double bass of the Florida Orchestra since 1975. In addition to symphony and opera his career encompasses solo playing, chamber music performance, composition and teaching. He presently serves as adjunct instructor of the Double bass at U.S.F., maintains a private studio and teaches master classes. His recent summer affiliations include coaching and performing in the FloriMezzo chamber music festival and serving as Principal Bass of the Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra's inaugural festival. Recently his personal research has brought him back to contemporary composition and performance in collaboration with his wife, the modern choreographer and dancer, Elsa Valbuena. Elsa Valbuena founded Gaudere Danza in 1982 in her native Cali, Columbia. Since her arrival ten years ago to the Tampa Bay area she has continued to establish her career as a dancer, choreographer and teacher. In 1997 she co-founded and co-directed for five seasons Moving Current, a choreographer's collective. With Gaudere Danza, Elsa's work has been presented in numerous international and national venues and festivals. The continued collaboration with artists in other mediums is essential to her work. She most recently received an Individual Artist Grant from the Hillsborough County Arts Council and a Fellowship grant from the State of Florida. |
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NEW
EDITIONS with guest publisher Derriere l'Etoile Studios, NYC Dec 11, 2004 - Feb 13, 2005 Works by: Paula Scher Jovi Schnell April Gornik Max Neumann Sylvie Eyberg (at left) Elizabeth Peyton William Mackendree Elizabeth Murray Edgar Sanchez Cumbas Elsa Valbuena Claudia Ryan Ricky Otto |
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Paula Scher is a principal of Pentagram Design, New York. She walks that fine line between graphic and fine art. Scher uses word as image. We have been working together on the Headline Series – A series of 8 hand painted gravures. "I have long noticed that the news has a specific incessant rhythm and hum, regardless of content. The news always fills whatever space there is to fill; only the decibel level goes up and down. New stories crowd out old stories and no story is ever resolved. After September 11th, the news headlines switched from sex to terror, without missing a beat. This diary and calendar demonstrates the texture of the news." (PS) Sylvie Eyberg represented Belgium at the 2003 Venice Biennale. She works from found images, which she photographs, crops and mounts with phrases inspired from the image. Her images capture the second between two gestures leaving the viewer's desire to decide the fate of the encounter. Working with Bleu Acier is her first collaborative print experience. I have been making prints with Max Neumann for over 20 years between Europe and the US. He is one of Germany's important contemporary painters. Neumann's work is not drawn from the narrative and he works in the delicate arena between figuration and abstraction. The story happens between the forms and their relationship to one another on the surface of the image and the atmosphere that this relationship engenders. Jovi Schnell is a painter who lives between NY and San Francisco. I met Jovi when we were both Visiting Professors at USF. I learned that she painted enormous murals for museum shows and asked her what was left after the show when the mural was painted over? I proposed that we start a series of prints inspired by these wall works. The prints re-invent on a different scale her mechanical and organic environments that are "pop-inspired and psychedelic in spirit." (JS) Dominique Labauvie, a French sculptor who has recently installed a 50 foot long cast iron public sculpture "Horizons Suspendus" in the Parc of the Vilette, Quai de Seine, Paris, works by suspending lines in space. Often called an artist who draws with fire referring to his working forged steel, he uses linear elements to underscore elements of the environment he wishes for us to see. Labauvie's prints create a two dimensional reality of their own. This is the first time Edgar Sanchez Cumbas has ventured into a print atelier. Having long admired his drawings I was excited to be able to work with him. His images originate from the psychological aspects of the human condition. Sanchez Cumbas' prints are composed of layered narratives that evoke the shifting perspective found in early Chinese landscape painting. His sensitive linear drawing in contrast to his dark robed figures set up a fable which engages the viewer to invent the continuing narrative. Elsa Valbuena, a choreographer who has a long history within contemporary dance has also been involved with photography as a means to portray an image of motion and transformation. Arena is a series of prints using sand as the metaphor for movement. Claudia Ryan is a painter and printmaker in her last year of the M.F.A. Program at USF. Her linear universe is very powerful and suggestive of a voyage through the history of the world. Ryan's space is other and the other, the viewer, is enticed to come in and voyage with her. Ricky Otto is a senior B.F.A. painter at USF. His work starts with figurative elements, which set up a narrative and allow him to use color, symbol and line to bring the story to abstraction. Otto has started to use the printmaking media as a complement and companion to his painting. FROM DERRIERE L'ETOILE STUDIOS: William Mackendree is an American artist who has spent the last 20 years in Europe. I collaborated on his first prints in Paris in 1986. This new series of prints made in New York, was inspired by this displacement. He wanted "to channel some quality of the old-world expressionist point of view and use it to meditate my new confrontation with this new situation of working in New York." His images isolate and transform everyday sightings into strong symbolic images. One of the stars of the new figurative painters working in New York, Elizabeth Peyton paints portraits of people in her environment and whom she admires. Her images "cut through popular culture to deliver a shared common experience." (Cheryl Kaplan, db-art.info) April Gornik is a landscape painter. She paints, draws and makes prints of uninhabited landscapes that are bathed in a poetic environment. In her artist statement she writes, "I am an artist that values above all, the ability of art to move me emotionally and psychically. I make art that makes me question, that derives its power from being vulnerable to interpretation, that is intuitive, that is beautiful." (aprilgornik.com) Elizabeth Murray is valued as one of the most important contemporary abstract painters. Her images are emotional responses to her environment. She states in an interview with Greg Masters "I always feel like the best paintings, the longer they are, the more tortuous they are, the better they are." (artchive.com) |
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ARS
SONOROS: THE COLOR OF MUSIC An evening salon in the series Chance Sightings: Art by Accident February 19, 2004 |
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series intends to provide a meeting ground for different perspectives
within the arts, an encounter for new propositions, and an intentional
forum in which to consider the intersection of artistic thought throughout
the different media and processes considered as art. This first salon ARS SONOROS: THE COLOR OF MUSIC will be devoted to the idea of music as a system of marking space, the parallels and divergences between music and visual art, and will feature a discussion with guest artist Dee Moses, Principal Double Bass of the Florida Orchestra. Dee will play selections from both classical orchestrations, and his own compositions, while discussing music's role in the artistic arena. The accompanying exhibition of International artists has been selected to support this investigation of music and sound, their way of marking space and to the discovery of artistic transformations, which is the theme of this series. Included in this exhibition are: Dominique Labauvie, Pierre Mabille, Pierre Alechinsky, Jose Maria Sicilia, Matta, Michel Haas, Francois Fiedler, and Max Neumann. The program: Tristan Klage (14th century) From Mittekatteriche Spielmannsmusik Marin Marais (1656-1728) La Provencale Domenico Dragonetti (1763-1846) Waltz in C major Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1899) Etude in E minor Paul Chihara (1938- ) Logs (1970) Dee Moses Marbelized Memories para solo (2003) Dee Moses Marbelized Memories para duo (2003) Dee Moses has been the principal Double bass of the Florida Orchestra since 1975. In addition to symphony and opera his career encompasses solo playing, chamber music performance, composition and teaching. He presently serves as adjunct instructor of the Double bass at U.S.F., maintains a private studio and teaches master classes. His recent summer affiliations include coaching and performing in the FloriMezzo chamber music festival and serving as Principal Bass of the Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra's inaugural festival. Recently his personal research has brought him back to contemporary composition and performance in collaboration with his wife, the modern choreographer and dancer, Elsa Valbuena. |
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