September 21 - October 19, 2002

Taking Form

TAKING FORM – IN THE VAULT AT GALLERY JOE

Philadelphia, PA- Gallery Joe continues to offer drawings this fall with a small show of three artists in the Vault Gallery. Taking Form, drawings by Katy Fischer, Renato and Susan Tiger, opens on Saturday afternoon, September 21. The show will run through October 19, 2002.

All three artists are new to the gallery. All make careful choices about what they commit to paper. In each case the strength of the work lies both in the concept and the sensitivity of the line rather than in the particular rendering of the object.

Katy Fischer finds her material in the no-man’s land of highway median strips and derelict buildings and humbly depicts this architecture with tireless fidelity. Renato’s subjects present themselves to him in the course of everyday life: a tangerine, a glove, a paper bag. Once he has identified an object he wishes to draw he begins an intensive investigation. He describes this process of drawing as a meditation, “touching the object with my eyes”. Susan Tiger’s drawings are like an abbreviated language of signs: a bed, a bookcase, a chest of drawers, each sensitively placed on the page and barely transcending the one-dimensional realm.

Susan Tiger was born and raised in Philadelphia. She attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Temple University. She has exhibited her drawings at The Drawing Center and the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in New York, Galerie Paul Andriesee, in Amsterdam and The Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin. In Philadelphia, she has shown at Paul Cava Gallery, Locks Gallery, and Beaver College Art Gallery. Tiger is presently completing a book for The Coombe Women’s Hospital in Dublin, Ireland. The book is jointly funded by a Project Grant from the Dublin Arts Council and The Coombe Women’s Hospital. She currently lives and works in Ireland with her husband and young daughter. Tiger will show six pencil and paint drawings completed over the past two years.

Renato was born and raised in the Philippines and is a graduate of the University of the Philippines in Diliman. He currently lives and works in New York. Renato’s drawings were seen most recently last year at The Drawing Center in New York in the exhibition, Realistic Means. He has shown at Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco, and the Palto Alto Cultural Center in CA. In 1998 he was a recipient of a Pollack-Krasner Foundation Fellowship Grant. Renato will show five ball point pen drawings from his series of drawings, “Ten Thousand Things that Breathe.”

Katy Fischer lives and works in Chicago. She received her BA from the Rhode Island School of Design and her MA from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. She is represented in Chicago by the Bodybuilder and Sportsman Gallery. Other venues in Chicago include The Chicago Cultural Center and The Butcher Shop. Fischer also works in ballpoint pen and will show four recent drawings in Taking Form.

There will be a reception for the artists on Saturday afternoon, September 21, 2002 from 3 – 5:30 p.m. Taking Form runs from September 21 – October 19, 2002. Regular gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday 12 – 5:30, other days by appointment. For additional information contact Becky Kerlin, 215.592.7752, FAX 215.238.6923 or www.galleryjoe.com