Artful Weekend April 23-24 – The Art League

Welcome to Artful Weekend, our guide to fun and interesting ways to enjoy art in person or virtually.

This weekend: Screen Dream and Life is Fragile: Handle With Care at the League; Canvas Meets Curve at The Athenaeum; Tikkun Olam—Repair the World at IA&A at Hillyer; and The Power of the Flower at Yellow Barn Gallery.

Screen Dream

Lights! Camera! Action! Screen Dream, our April themed exhibit, takes its cue from the big and small screen. Member artists created works—drawings, paintings, glass, mixed media, sculpture, and photography–—inspired by the stories, images, writers, actors, directors, and musical scores from popular movies and television.

In the spirit of the exhibit’s theme, film and television actor Xander Berkeley served as juror. He is known for roles in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Air Force One movies, and more recently primetime series The Mentalist and 24. Along with those credentials, Berkeley is also an accomplished painter and sculptor.

Screen Dream is on view through May 1.

Life is Fragile: Handle With Care by Amy Browning-Dill

In this exhibit, mixed media artist Amy Browning-Dill seeks to explore the ways in which human beings are connected to ecology: how we pollute the earth, destroy it, and how this destruction ultimately affects us. As she considers humans to be part of this natural world, she aims to not only show how we are wrecking havoc on non-sentient life, but to explore how humanity itself suffers from our wantonness. Life is Fragile: Handle With Care is on view through May 1.

Canvas Meets Curve Paul Cunningham and Sabiha Iqbal

Sabiha Iqbal and Paul Cunningham have been painting, critiquing, and exhibiting with a group of local artists since they met at the Corcoran School of Art and Design seven years ago.  The Athenaeum show is the first joint exhibition for the two artists.  While the formal aspects of their work appear very different, they have always been struck by the ways in which their bodies of work echo each other.  At times their color palettes converge serendipitously, while the abstract figurations in Sabiha’s canvases play off the bends and curves of Paul’s three-dimensional pieces.  Both artists endeavor to create a sense of movement and rhythm in their work. Canvas Meets Curve is on view through May 29. There will be an opening reception this Sunday, April 24, from 4 – 6 p.m.; 201 Prince Street, Alexandria, VA.

​Hillary L. Steel: Tikkun Olam—Repair the World

“Craft is universal and speaks all languages,” says fiber artists and teacher Hillary L. Steel, who specializes in weaving and resist dyeing. “Handmade objects quietly speak volumes about one’s culture and identity, aesthetics, and purpose.”  Tikkun Olam—Repair the World, Steel’s exhibit at IA&A at Hillyer, features  hand-woven wall pieces in which she incorporates ikat and shibori (in Spanish, jaspe and amarras). Steel will conduct a demo and artist talk at the gallery this Saturday, April 23, from 1 – 2 p.m. Her show is on view through May 1; 9 Hillyer Court, NW.

The Power of the Flower: Portraits of Buds and Blooms

The Power of the Flower: Portraits of Buds and Blooms at Yellow Barn Gallery in Glen Echo Park, features 70 works by local painters with the theme of flowers—joyful reminders to treasure the natural world in celebration of Earth Day weekend. With depictions of flowers’ majestic forms and colors, as well as their fragile yet resilient and playful character, the paintings are an elixir of happiness at this challenging time. It opens tomorrow, with a reception from 5 – 8 p.m., and will be on view through Sunday, April 24; 7300 MacArthur Boulevard, Glen Echo, MD.

Enjoy the weekend!