As a self-taught artist, I have exhibited and sold paintings since the mid 1960's. I am currently affiliated with the Studio Gallery in Washington DC and with the Adah Rose Gallery in Kensington, MD.
In June of 2000 I retired early from an academic career at the University of Maryland Baltimore in order to devote full time to my art work. At UMB I taught community organization and related material (Trouble-making 1 and 2) for 27 years at the Graduate School of Social Work. I am now Professor Emeritus.
Educationally, I have an AB from Harvard Un., an MSSA from Case Western Reserve Un., and a Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley.
As a painter I am interested in exploring the use of fabrics and other materials with differing textures and light reflecting qualities to capture the sensuality of the human body and the natural environment. While I am especially drawn to fabrics like satin which reflect light and velvet which absorbs it, their interaction with traditional art mediums such oil paint and oil pastels as well as the new polymer mediums and industrial products such as cement and sandpaper offer a rich field for investigation.
For the last five years I have been creating mixed media pieces that aim to evoke images of landscape or water. Sometimes these images are more fragmentary, such as light shining on water; sometimes they feel like an actual landscape even though no such place exists. For several years, I executed these pieces primarily on wood. The multi-layering process begins with a covering of polymer medium, followed by a textured layer of cement, which is then partially or wholly covered with fabric, usually satin. The painting surface is then worked with paint- acrylic and/or oil – as well as oil pastel, charcoal, prismacolor, graphite, and/or ink. Although the work is abstract, the layers of different materials under the painted surface help to generate depth and light - light that changes depending on the position of the viewer. The texture and/or reflective aspect of a given piece in turn help to evoke a sense of landscape or water in the mind of the viewer.
More recently I have taken up the challenge of blending photographic realism with abstraction in the same piece, still using mixed media and focusing on nature. These pieces begin with detailed charcoal drawings. The drawings are printed digitally on paper or canvas, and then worked over with acrylic media of various kinds and paint, charcoal, and colored pencil. The basic charcoal drawings for these pieces have been landscapes. The completed “overwork”, now mixed media pieces, are still landscapes, but the abstraction has added color, texture, and some mystery to what the viewer is seeing.
At the same time, I have also continued working abstractly using fabric and other materials on canvas or wood.
RESUME
Stanley Wenocur
Studio: 11217 Green Dragon Ct., Columbia, MD 21044, 410/730-9019
Represented by:
STUDIO GALLERY, 2108 R Street, NW, Wash. DC, 20008, 202/232-8734
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS:
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, CO
Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, GA
Delaware Museum of Art, Wilmington, DE
Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA
University of New Hampshire Museum
of Art, Durham, NH
SELECTED (recent) EXHIBITIONS AND COMPETITIONS
2010 Art on Paper 2010: national competition,
MD Federation of Art, March 19 – April 19, 2010
Juror: Joann Moser, Senior Curator of Graphic Arts,
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
2009 Solo Exhibit, Studio Gallery, Wash, DC, Feb. 4- 28
2008 Art MD 2008
Oct, 31 – Dec. 12, Howard County Center for the Arts
Juror: Dr. Leslie King-Hammond, Graduate Dean Emeritus
Maryland Institute College of Art
2008 A Collecting Affair: Four Artists, July 11 – Aug. 16
Horowitz Center for the Visual and Performing Arts
Howard Community College, Columbia, MD
2007 Two Person Exhibit: New Work: Color and Texture
Stan Wenocur/Winnie Coggins, August
MD Federation of Art, Circle Gallery, Annapolis, MD
2007 Art on Paper 2007: national competition
MD Federation of Art, March 9 – April 15
Juror: Helen Frederick, Exec. Artistic Dir. Pyramid Atlantic, Assoc. Prof. of Art, George Mason Un.
2007 Invitational Group Exhibit: The Landscape
Montpelier Arts Center, Laurel, MD, Jan. 6 -25
2006 Solo Exhibit, Studio Gallery, Wash. DC, May 24-June 18
2006 Place and Time: Three Artists, Apr. 23 – May 20
Metropolitan Ctr for the Visual Arts, Gaithersburg, MD
2003 Critics’ Pick Exhibition, Mar. 25- Apr. 19
17th Annual Critics’ Residency Program
MD Art Place, Baltimore, MD
Critics: Carter Ratcliff, and Eugene B. Redmond
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland, Baltimore
Ph.D. University of California- Berkeley (social welfare)
MSSA Case Western Reserve University
AB Harvard University
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