Cathedral Arts
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Journeys toward Hope

Gary Weisman / Varvàra Fern – sculptures

August 27 thru October 14, 2023

This exhibition pairs the work of an accomplished artist whose work is seen all around the world with a young sculptor who came to the United States from the other side of the world to pursue her dreams. They became teacher and student at America’s oldest museum and art school, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts here in Philadelphia. Teacher recommended student for a show at the Cathedral, and graciously agreed to share the space with his student around the evocative theme of journeys toward hope.

The booklet of the exhibition is available here.

Gary Weisman

Gary Weisman is a teacher and sculptor from maquette through over life-size figures and horses, "notable for their energetic musculature and rich, patinaed surfaces." Until recently, Weisman was sculpture faculty at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, a position he held since 1986 before joining the sculpture faculty at Lyme Academy of Fine Art, Lyme CT. 

Rare among contemporary sculptors, he performs every step of his art-making process by hand, from making the plasticine clay, figure modeling, mold making, doing lost- wax casting in his personal foundry, to patina.

By paying astute attention to negative space, he crafts sculptures whose presences extend beyond their immediate forms and lend their surroundings a multidimensional quality.​

Gary Weisman is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, most recently the 2023 Sculpture House Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Sculpture Society. Earlier honors include an ARC National Sculpture Award, a Museu Europeu d'Art Modern (MEAM) Award, the Albert Nelson Marquis Who's Who Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Pennsylvania Academy Fellowship, Nepal Residency. Weisman has exhibited in galleries and museums across the country, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, and internationally, and his works are featured in permanent collections in the United States and abroad.

Drawing inspiration from Greek forms, the romance of the Italian Renaissance, Egyptian steles, and the works of Auguste Rodin and Constantin Brancusi, Gary Weisman creates historically inspired bronze sculptures that possess a contemporary dynamism. Weisman’s primarily nude forms reflect his preoccupation with the human condition and highlight the human body’s impressive capabilities.

In this exhibition, Gary Weisman’s work includes female bronze figures from three distinct series. His “Mother” series embodies empathy for mothers who have lost children. His “Crucifixion” series was inspired by his decades-long study of Renaissance artistic renditions of this subject, but here with a female figure at the center. His “Bridge” series juxtaposes the apple, symbolic of knowledge and loss, with the feather representing many ideas, such as ascension, freedom and hope.

Weisman's art presents kindness as the bridge, a human expression with great power when those giving and receiving are open to it. His new works engage the viewer with options that represent the value of knowledge cast symbolic through the presentation of the apple. The beauty of the painterly patinas that cast symbolic light on his graceful figures evoke sentiments of enlightenment through giving and receiving. The feather has been known to represent many ideas including ascension, freedom, flight, and hope. Weisman uses the feather to represent the transition in his balancing figures. About “kindness” he says,

“I think that's what I'm trying to do with these sculptures - a sharing that finds its place in kindness...it's a shared kindness because I don't know if kindness can exist outside the realm of sharing.”

Further background about the work of Gary Weisman can be found here: https://www.stanekgallery.com/featured-artist-weisman.

In addition to the sculptures available in this exhibition, Gary Weisman’s work can be viewed in person 

at the Stanek Gallery (720 N. 5^th Street in Philadelphia) or online:

https://www.artsy.net/partner/stanek-gallery/artists/gary-weisman

Varvàra Fern

Born in 1999, Varvàra Fern grew up in Moscow, Russia and has been sculpting since her early childhood. She studied classic and figurative art at the Moscow Academic Art Institute before transferring to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), earning a BFA in Fine Arts and sculpture. She is currently in PAFA’s MFA program, and is an elected member of the National Sculpture Society. Her works have been shown at numerous galleries throughout the USA, including the National Sculpture Society, Arch Enemy Arts, and Gross McCleaf Gallery. The works in this exhibition are from her “Travel” series, about which she says:

“My work reflects my fascination with movement and my lifelong love-affair with the beauty of road landscapes. I’ve been traveling the entire world since I was thirteen. These voyages became one of the main sources of my inspiration and defined my art. This experience also convinced me that travel is a great way to shift one’s life into a different direction. A person can always find something new in a journey. Maybe even happiness. In my work I show people beginning their travel from trauma and unhappiness to finding themselves and reaching harmony.

My journeys also taught me to see the beauty in road landscapes. They come in many amazing forms: roads, trains, railways, highways, utility poles… All these things have incredibly beautiful shapes. Their form hypnotizes me every time, as if I am watching unique sculptures. My creations transform my perceptions and emotions into actual sculptures reflecting the mesmerizing shapes and the unique atmosphere I have experienced.

I’ve been sculpting with oil-based clay since my childhood, and this material is like a language that I fluently speak as it allows me to give form to my ideas. This medium is perfect to shape images and further experiment with other materials, casting my pieces in resin, plaster, and bronze.”