‘Dreamscapes’ Exhibit Now on Display at D’Arrigo Gallery

The newest art exhibit, titled “Dreamscapes,” featuring the work of Kathy Robinson and Jenn Hallgren, is now available to see through March 24, 2023, at the D’Arrigo Family Gallery located inside the Hafter Student Community Center on Salus University’s Elkins Park, Pennsylvania campus.

Hallgren’s style is a plein air, visual interpretation of actual places, while Robinson’s seems to reach into her own psyche to pull out her subject matter.

“I chose these two artists to show together because their very different approaches to nature have in common a celebratory, playful tone and rich color palette,” said Elynne Rosenfeld, curator of the gallery.

Robinson attended Drexel University where she studied fashion and design. As an outgrowth of that, wanting to design a true original, she took a few private workshops and learned about batik fabric, then developed her own technique of “painterly silk batik.”

At the age of 50, Robinson went to Italy and took a summer painting program at the Florence Academy of Art. Upon returning to Philadelphia, she spent nine years as a continuing education student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, earning a core curriculum certificate in 2014.

Robinson now works out of her home studio in Mount Airy, Pennsylvania. She served as the head teacher at the Mount Airy Art Garage’s Community of Pride Art and Mural making class at Emlen Elementary School in the School District of Philadelphia and taught silk painting workshops most recently before the pandemic. Her work, both paintings and silks can be found at www.kathrynrobinsonart.com and on Instagram here.

Hallgren, a full-time artist, believes the significance of her work lies in the formalist aesthetics and the inherent qualities of the medium — the line, color, shape, form, structure, composition, and plasticity. Her recent body of work revolves around parks and gardens, but the object (i.e. the park or garden) is a mere starting point. It is the act of painting and the language of formalism guides Hallgren in her practice.

“I am absolutely fascinated by the opportunity to capture the complexity and chaos of the world in plastic terms,” she said.