First Friday

CAP – 3/5/2010- 6pm -9pm
First Friday in Wilmington

On Friday March 5, 2010 I attended First Friday in Wilmington and visited the DCCA, the NWAA exhibition, and the Shipley Studios. The DCCA had four new exhibitions up. One of which entitled Wasteland included a variety of new paintings by Andrew Wapinski. These were mainly abstracted color field paintings of predominantly a gold hue covered with a thick top layer of resin. This created a very reflective and glass like surface on the paintings. Another exhibition of the work by artist Hong-Wen Lin, called Journey Through Time, consisted of sculptural objects made of different industrial type materials and metals. In one exhibition space, there was an audiovisual installation consisting of four projections, one on each wall. The projections varied from abstractions of colors to a window pain with melting ice to a continuously panning shot of the sky and the final was of still images of nature. The installation was entitled Time-Image, and created by the artist Lee Arnold. My favorite of all the pieces at the DCCA was the audio installation, Terrain, by artist Julianne Swartz. This piece consisted of over 40 different speakers, which were suspended from the ceiling via a web of multicolored wires. As you traverse through the space you can hear the different sounds emitting from the speakers. These included, breathing, humming, and whispered messages of love in English, Spanish, Korean, Hebrew, Polish, Croatian, Japanese, Greek, French, and Chinese which melded together to generate sounds like blowing wind, rushing water or rustling leaves.
The NWAA exhibition on West 5th street consisted of two rooms with various types of works from members of the organization. These ranged from 2-diminsional works, to interactive sculptures, and even some video projections. Students, alumni, and even faculty from the University of Delaware contributed work to the exhibition. Though the exhibition was not organized around one theme, it was still an interesting show. The works created their own dialogue between one another.
Shipley Studios just opened up a couple blocks away from The NWAA space. It contains studio apartments for artists to rent out as well as a basement and ground floor exhibition space. While at the Studios, a group of gallery goers were lead on a guided tour throughout the space. The space will be completed and start exhibiting work by the end of April.