PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Pentimenti Gallery presents Summer Currents, a group exhibition featuring works by a selection of artists represented by the gallery. The works share an affinity for acute draftsmanship in a wide range of materials (graphite, acrylic, oil, gouache, chromogenic print, Fuji crystal archive print, marine vinyl). In some, a sense of realism, or depictions of nature in an urban setting; while others, focus on simplicity of forms or intricate visual structures and patterns.

STEVEN BARIS
Steven Baris is interested in spaces that are designed to be placeless —-spaces that are created to be passed trough as quickly and efficiently as possible, airports, expressways and lobbies; most recently massive, horizontal structures variously called distribution centers or logistics centers. Through his focus on space, Baris makes sense of his own biography—he grew up on American Indian territories and later moved to the most built-up area in the continent.

Steven Baris received his MFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. He studied at the Evergreen State College in Olympia and at Instituto Allende, San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. Baris past exhibitions are: the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE; the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA; the Abington Art Center, Abington, PA; Butters Gallery, Portland, OR; Stonepress Gallery, Seattle, WA; Brickhouse Art Gallery, Sacramento, CA; Carnegie Mellon University Art Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA and The Drawing Center, New York, NY. His artwork was reviewed in Art in America; Philadelphia Inquirer; ICON; Weekly Press and more.

CECILIA BIAGINI
Cecilia Biagini paints to open up spaces and build paths that cross dimensions until new perspectives emerge. Conjuring the ludic with pure geometry in space, Biagini's work at times refers and alludes to musical and rhythmic waves, pseudo-scientific models/diagrams and is always anchored in the purity of the medium itself. It manifests and metamorphoses a randomly controlled color synthesis that vividly harmonizes rhythm. The base curiosity remains inside an abstract model where an intuitive poetic field seeks a path of engagement and purely visual ideas can converge, convey and be defined through internalized individual truths that acknowledge the uniqueness of experience and singular consciousness.

Cecilia Biagini was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She studied painting with Guillermo Kuitca in Buenos Aires and attended the University for sociology. Her artwork has been exhibited internationally: The Hunterdon Museum of Art in New Jersey; Contemporary Art Museum in Baltimore, MD; Rupert Ravens Contemporary in Newark; Istituto Cervantes in Rome; C. C. Recoleta in Buenos Aires; Fundacion Proa in Buenos Aires; The MACBA in Buenos Aires; among others. Biagini's works are in the permanent collections of Buenos Aires Museum of Contemporary Art, Buenos Aires, Argentina; The University of Texas, San Antonio, TX; The New York Public Library, New York, NY; The Department of Homeland Security in Washington D.C.; in private and corporate collections.

MATTHEW COX
Redefining materials motivates Matthew Cox to create embroidered x-rays. He joins the cold, blue, medically technical plastic of the x-ray with the colorful, decorative and tactile embroidery thread. Creating a new entity by binding the x-rays with the embroidery, the original intention is removed. Handling this media gives Cox an opportunity to comment on the ever-increasing presence of photography in contemporary art- by introducing labor over the quick, slickness of film.

Matthew Cox was educated at Parsons School of Design in New York and Los Angeles. He exhibited nationally in Chicago, New York, Miami, California, Tennessee and New Orleans. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum Biedermann, Donaueschingen, Germany; New Orleans Museum of Art; the Georgetown College Art Gallery, Progressive Insurance, and more. He was awarded a Louisiana Division of the Arts Fellowship in 2003 and the prestigious Pew Charitable Trusts Fellowship in the Arts (painting) in 2008.

ANTHONY DEMELAS
Anthony DeMelas’s work is about the process of exploring overlooked glimpses of visual reflections that coexist all around us. His conceptual process and inspiration are always in flux. Through his works, DeMelas reanimates fragments of his life. A look at his painting is like a tour through a fast-moving story.

Anthony DeMelas graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia. He is a recipient of several awards and honors two of which are The Lewis S. Ware Memorial Travel Scholarship Award and The Pennsylvania Governor's Award. He has also exhibited extensively throughout the United States. His work has been purchased for multiple public collections including Time Warner, New York, NY; Thomas Properties Group Inc., Philadelphia, PA; Deloitte Inc., Philadelphia, PA; Fork Restaurant, Philadelphia, PA; Blank & Rome, New York, NY as well as numerous private collections. His commissions include James Ingram, Grammy Award-winning American singer, Los Angeles, CA.

TIM EADS
Eads’ states, “Our capacity and desire to experience wonder is usually buried by daily life. I want to create opportunities to reconnect with that sense of wonder, of surprise. I use intricate designs, unusual sounds and wacky construction to encourage moments of beauty or meaning inside a funhouse of playful creativity.”

Tim Eads has exhibited across the United States with notable shows at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art; Museum of New Art in Detroit; and Sam Houston State University in Texas. Eads is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the Weston A. Price Foundation Grant; Recycled Artist-in-Residency (RAIR) in Philadelphia and the Please Touch Museum Residency, also in Philadelphia. He is a visiting lecturer at Moore College of Art and Design and his work is found in several public collections: the West Collection, Oaks, PA; Kirkland Museum of Decorative Arts, Denver, CO and the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, PA. Eads’ received his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2009, and is BFA from Texas Tech University in 2000.

SIMEEN FARHAT
With words borrowed from English poetry, expressing logic and philosophy, Farhat’s sculptures are a unique mixture of visual art and literature. Each piece is constructed with urethane cast-resin and intertwined into forms with undeniable rhythmic and directional force. Their bright colors, drawn from the iris of human eye and intricate shapes swirl and weave into one another, while the meaning of individual letters and words deepen the visually explosive sculptures with literary and cultural significance.

Simeen Farhat is currently exhibition at the Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy. She exhibited nationally and internationally, including recent shows in the National Art Gallery, Islamabad, Pakistan; Sharjah Museum of Modern Art, UAE; Watermill Center, Hamptons, USA; American Center, New Delhi, India; VOLTA NY, New York, USA; La Fontaine Contemporary Art Center, Bahrain; Contemporary Istanbul, Turkey; and more. Farhat is also the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the Oryx Foundation Artists in Residence, Switzerland; the Xerxes Artist Residency, Hampshire, UK; Prix Arte / Slick, Paris, France and the Clay Fellowship Residency, Rosendale, NY.

KEVIN FINKLEA
Kevin Finklea’s wooden works are created with the purpose of persevering the fleeting human impulse and convictions and ignoring all sense of memory and time. By using excess materials from previous works, Finklea makes things that are verifiable and tactile, ignoring narratives and part histories in the present, and creating pieces with a fresh directness.

Kevin Finklea graduated at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia (BA). His past exhibitions are: Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA; 37PK Platform for the Arts, Haarlem, Holland; 2nd Biennial of Non-Objective Art, Pont de Claix, France; Paris Concret, Paris, France; Emma Hill Fine Art, the Eagle Gallery, London, England; Zeitgeist Gallery, Nashville, TN; Reuten Galerie, Amsterdam, Holland. His works are found in private and in selected public collections: museum of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Bridgepoint Capital Limited, London, England; Wilmington Trust Fund, New York.

KIKI GAFFNEY
Kiki Gaffney is drawn to patterns associated with delicacy and beauty taken from objects and ornaments. These images are ingrained in our lives to the point to be unnoticeable. In some respects, Gaffney compares sequences and patterns to sense of stability that we all may look for in our lives.

Kiki Gaffney graduated at Loyola College, Baltimore, (BA) and at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, (MFA). Gaffney exhibited at: the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE; Chriutys Art Center, Sag Harbor, NY; Globe dye Works, Philadelphia, PA; Immaculata University, Immaculata, PA and more. In 2014, 2012 and 2010, a residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA. Her works are in various public and private collections.

JUDY GELLES
Judy Gelles will present ” Voices from Our Past“, comprised of wall mounted, laser cut acrylic texts, phrases that were expressed to her during her childhood by her mother. Upon reading the texts, you may find yourself thinking to your own childhood experiences and saying “i’ve heard that before”. Acting almost as triggers for the sound-bytes of your parents passing down life lessons and other pieces of adult knowledge. Gelles’ pieces also make us aware of the times in which we live and have lived. Some texts playing with a sense of serious humor in their content.

Judy Gelles has received her MFA in Photography from Rhode Island School of Design. Gelles has exhibited her work at the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; Photo Center NW, Seattle, WA; Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA. She has been rewarded by the William Penn Foundation Grant, Philadelphia, PA (2010); the Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA (2011) and the Fleisher Challenge Artist (2007). Her most recent sponsorship comes from the Lomax Family Foundation Grant (2012). Judy Gelles is also in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA; Harvard University Fine Arts Library, Cambridge, MA; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; among many others.

MARK KHAISMAN
My works are pictorial illusions formed by light and shadow. Tape allows for images that communicate what I’m interested to do in a very direct way. I render images by layering strips of translucent packing tape and applying them to backlit acrylic sheets. Unforgiving transparency together with default setting of width and color augments the seductive banality of my material of choice. Ten years ago I started experimenting with it, melting my experience in architecture together with the stained glass practice, an architect in me busy constructing and calculating while a stained glass artist fusing with light. My image building demands managing the scale, figuring out ratios, counting layers while controlling intensity of light. “Wide brush” of tape contributes to recognizable resemblance using light and dark tones while leaving out detail. I try to keep everything under control but lose awareness in the process so by the time the piece is finished I don’t exactly know how it has happened.

Born in Kiev, Khaisman studied Art and Architecture at the Moscow Architectural Institute, Moscow, Russia. His recent exhibitions are: Wallingford Art Center; Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA; Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany; BYU Museum of Art, Proto, UT; and more. He has been the recipient of many awards and works are found in the collections of: Brandywine Trust Collection, Philadelphia; British Airline Collection, London; Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington; NBC Collection, New York; Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany; West Collection, Philadelphia, and more.

DONALD MARTINY
Martiny is interested in allowing gesture to escape from the traditional rectangular support and realize its potential in relation to architectural space. His painting encourages a dialogue between the viewer, the work, and the space both are contained within. Martiny’s paintings are created using polymer and dispersed pigment on aluminum and often require the use of a very, very big brush.

Donald Martiny has exhibited throughout the United States and internationally, including shows at Fort Wayne Museum of Art, IN, the Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, NC, and The Courtauld Institute of Art, London. His work can be found in private collections in Amsterdam, London, Paris, Philadelphia, Washington DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Martiny has studied at the School of Visual Arts, NY, The Art Students League of New York, New York University, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, PA.

OSVALDO ROMBERG
Osvaldo Romberg’s work challenges and subverts abstraction into new cultural and personal frameworks. Romberg subtly hints to high modernist masters such as Mondrian and Malevich, utilizing their language of the grid, primary colors, and a structuralist approach. But, Romberg eventually allows gesture and excess to take over each piece. In the end, Modernist purity is contaminated, dirtied, in Romberg’s quest to: “break from all theoretical frameworks and thus invent a geometry that would be free from theory.”

Osvaldo Romberg is an Argentine artist, curator, and professor who lives and works in Philadelphia and Tel Aviv. He has been active in the Israeli and international art field for many years and his work has been featured in numerous institutions such as the Haifa Museum of Art and The Israel Museum in Jerusalem. In 2013 he received the prize for a Senior Visual Artists from the Israeli Ministry of Culture. He is also a professor at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, where he a founded a center for experimental cinema, video and media art.

JACKIE TILESTON
Jackie Tileston’s works float upon a base of Western traditions along with Taoist landscapes, floating worlds, the colors of India and tantric raptures. The swishing of celestial forms that intersect with the thick chunks of paint create a mystical and intriguing world. The works become interlingual, translating from one level of experience to another.

Jackie Tileston received her BFA from Yale University, New Haven,CT and her MFA in painting from Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. Tileston has had exhibitions at River Campus Art Gallery, Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, MO; Metropolitan Capital Bank, Chicago, IL; Discovery Museum, Bridgeport, CT; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, TX; Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, Auburn, NY, Rockland Center for the Arts, West Nyack, NY, and more. Her work is in collections including: JP Morgan Chase; Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; Dallas Museum of Art and West Virginia University Art Museum. She has been awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation 2011 Painters and Sculptors Grant.

DERRICK VELASQUEZ
Derrick Velasquez investigates tension and gravity. His works challenge materials and it’s form. He attempts to “construct a language of structure that questions our physical and psychological interactions with industrially manufactured materials that exits in the spaces we inhabit”.

Derrick Velasquez received his BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara and his MFA from the Ohio State University. Velasquez has exhibited his works at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO; Drexel University, Pearlstein Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; VOLTA NY 2013; Center for Visual Art, Denver, CO; VAC University of Colorado, Boulder, CO; RedLine, Denver, CO, FOCA Biennial, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM and Arvada Center for the Arts, Arvada, CO. He has been awarded by: Vertigo Art Space Artist Residency and RedLine Artist Residency in Denver, CO; Fergus Family Material Award, The Ohio State University. Derrick Velasquez is in the public collections of Wellington Management Company LLC, Metropolitan State University of Denver and in numerous private collections.