Seven Variations and a Conversation 
May 1-25
Gallery hours: Wed.- Sat., 12-6pm; Sun., 11am-3pm
Opening Reception: May 10, 6-9pm

Gallery B is pleased to present its May exhibition, Seven Variations and a Conversation, featuring seven artists from the Foundry Gallery: Fran Abrams, Nancy Donnelly, Naomi Taitz Duffy, Judy Gilbert Levey, Donna K. McGee, Robert Wiener and Patricia Zannie. 

All seven artists contributed to a group piece, the “Conversation,” which will be auctioned off during the exhibition. Proceeds from the auction will be donated to Edgemoor Children's Center in downtown Bethesda. 

Exhibiting Artists:

Fran Abrams is a Rockville artist who has been working in polymer clay as a fine art medium for 13 years. The colors and designs in the work come from the clay which is not painted. For this show, she takes her inspiration from nature.

Nancy Donnelly's glass sculptures make use especially of transparency and color. She says, "Part of the point of this work was figuring out how to bring more pleasure to the experience of viewers. Focusing on delight turns out to be just about as hard as any other purpose of art."

Naomi Taitz Duffy is a Washington D.C. artist. She works in oil paints, creating a mix of representational and non-figurative pieces. Her work for this show is taken from a series inspired by the form and movements of fish.

Judy Gilbert Levey is a Bethesda oil painter who paints "en plein air" in the Washington, D.C. area as well as in Maine. Her work shows the seasonal variation of vibrant fall colors, hot and lush summers, and the stark contrast of a profusion of leaves in summer and bare branches in winter.

Donna K. McGee explores texture and paint and adds layers to see how colors and shapes change each other. She continues to add layers of paint and texture, sometimes scraping it off, until it becomes a total picture. She hopes that her paintings will evoke the viewers’ own memories and visions, so that they will apply their own title and be able to say, "I've been here before." 

Robert Wiener, a native Washingtonian, owns and operates DC Art Glass, a private art glass studio in Northwest D.C.. His latest vessel series is inspired by astronomical bodies, specifically lunar phenomena. The seven variations in this exhibit strive to capture the composition, energy, and evolution of these natural, complex objects in existence for millions of years.

Patricia Zannie's abstractions from nature appear representational, but within the detail the viewer can see two-dimensional flat patterns and geometric cut shapes. She “paints” with paper, snippets of various hand-made mulberry, banana, and rice papers from the Orient, papyrus from Egypt, classic prints from Paris and London, Origami from Japan and vibrant colors and images from Haute Couture magazines. She then draws on top with ink, oil pastels and colored wax. Every outcome is a potpourri of blended objects and a complete, unique surprise.