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Fall Solos opens September 11 at Arlington Arts Center featuring Baltimore artists David Page, Christian Benefiel, and Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum

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Show Dates: September 11 – November 7, 2009
Opening Reception: Friday, September 11, 6 – 9 pm

Twice a year, the AAC surveys the finest cutting-edge contemporary art from across the Mid-Atlantic region. For this year’s second installment, FALL SOLOS 2009, six artists were chosen:

South African-born, Baltimore-based artist David Page is known for producing ominous yet elegantly constructed objects made from leather, wood, and canvas. His display here will feature found objects–archaic-looking tools and medical devices–presented alongside David’s own wearable sculptures, some of which will be donned by live volunteers on the night of the opening.

Pennsylvania artist Cynthia Hron will install a long, continuous, wall mural across a corner of the AAC’s Meyer gallery. Hron’s meticulous drawings describe abstract blobs of soft, fleshy tissue covered with strange black spines. 3-D pieces describing the same lumps of bristling flesh will be featured as well.

The work of Baltimore artist Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum will occupy two galleries. Her large drawings on paper and animated videos will be featured in the Smith Corridor gallery; in the Tiffany Gallery, Sunstrum will work directly on the gallery walls, creating a story cycle rooted in migration, dislocation, and the artist’s own transnational identity.

Philadelphia artist Roxana Perez-Mendez will present a mixed media installation, featuring evocative images addressing colonialism and cultural tourism; one video for this installation shows the artist landing on and claiming a desert island; another depicts her endlessly running back and forth across an imagined border between two lands.

Downstairs in the two experimental galleries will be two sculptors: Baltimore artist Christian Benefiel and Richmond artist Jenn Figg. Benefiel will present large inflatable sewn fabric sculptures–interactive pieces that change dramatically in size over time, altering the viewer’s relationship with the space, and playing with traditional notions of monumental sculpture. Figg will offer Terra Incognita, a diorama-like installation constructed out of printed corrugated cardboard. Her pieces are flattened yet sculptural, layered and strangely hyper-real.

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