Tag: philadelphia

Solo Series Spring 2026

Untitled (Om in Yoga 2), 2023 | Guizi Gao | Oil on linen | $3,000

On View April 24 – June 1, 2026

Opening Reception | Friday, April 24 | 6:00p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Artist Talk | Stephanie Manzi, Guizi Gao, & Ben Pranger | Wednesday, April 29 | 6:00 p.m. – 8:00p.m.

ARTISTS

Guizi Gao – Realm of Chaos

Guizi Gao is a figurative expressionist oil painter whose work explores the human body as a mutable vessel shaped by social, biological, and psychological forces. Working in large-scale oil painting, she fuses Renaissance and Baroque compositional structure with gestural distortion and layered, tactile surfaces. Influenced by the London School, particularly Francis Bacon and Jenny Saville, Gao treats paint as corporeal matter, building and erasing flesh-like forms. Her signature headless or obscured figures are stripped of fixed identity, transforming from portraiture into archetypal presences that carry social, emotional, and existential resonance.

Gao’s series Realm of Chaos – Amazing Grace are inspired by Daoist cosmology, tracing cycles of vital spirit descending into the body, awakening, self-tempering, and spiritual renewal. Figures dissolve into organic geometry, translucency, and childlike symbolic forms, reflecting the flow of qi气, resilience, and the natural ascent of the heart-mind. The works engage themes of womanhood, pregnancy, breastfeeding, loss, and rebirth, presenting the body as both intimate and universal while highlighting the delicate balance between vulnerability and strength.

Gao holds an MFA in Oil Painting from the China Academy of Art and completed graduate study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Her work has been exhibited internationally in the United States, China, France, the U.K., Japan, and Norway, earning Merit Prizes from the Salmagundi Club International Figurative Art Competition.

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Stephanie Manzi – Net Change

“My work is rooted within ecology and presents itself as abstract spaces of color, layered marks, soft patterns, and material depth. I am often searching for way to show life at the infinity level, with images that can read as micro or cellular points of view as well as macro perspectives of mapped out land or road systems. I like the tangle- it toys with grief inside the confusion of history and relationship to nature, as well as the celebration of material and color that paint has to offer.”

–Stephanie Manzi

Stephanie Manzi is a painter and educator from Upstate, NY, based in Philadelphia, PA. Her work studies ecology through color, pattern and material. She received her MFA at Tyler School of Art in 2022 and her BFA from SUNY Purchase in 2014. Her work has been shown on both coasts, including Big Ramp Gallery, Ice Box Projects and Pilot Projects in Philadelphia, PA, as well as Las Laguna Gallery, Covet Gallery, and Shoebox Projects in Southern California. Manzi received the Award of Excellence at Conception Arts NYC, Faculty Committee Life Grant from PCA&D and had work featured in Tinge Magazine and Friend of the Artist. She was a resident at Grand Marais Art Colony, Mount Gretna School of Art and ChaNorth Artist Residency and is an upcoming resident at DaVinci Art Alliance for 2025. Manzi most recently had work on display at Valdosta State University, a solo show at The Southern Vermont Art

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Ben Pranger – Recursive Terrain

“My wall-based constructions slowly grow into emergent forms. Small pieces of wood are stacked and glued, drifting off course to traverse the space in front of the wall. The work follows simple rules that unfold organically to create entangled, rhizomatic structures. Many of the constructions suggest futuristic cities rising out of the rubble of their own destruction. Fragments from previous work coalesce into stairways, passages, apertures, enclosures and pyramids, leading the viewer through labyrinthine architectures. These indwellings map a recursive mental space that morphs into evolving worlds.”

– Ben Pranger

Ben Pranger has shown his work throughout the U.S., including recent group shows at Gallery Petite (NY), Curious Matter (NJ), Art House Gallery (NJ), Drawing Rooms (NJ), Artist-Run/ Satellite Show (Miami), Trestle Gallery (NY) and Grizzly Grizzly (PA). He has participated in artist residencies at Kohler Art/Industry, Fine Arts Work Center of Provincetown, the Marie Walsh Sharpe Studio Program, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and has received sculpture grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the New Jersey Council for Art.

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For inquiries about work in our exhibitions, please contact our Gallery Manager at acook@abingtonartcenter.org.

Artist Talk | Michelle Marcuse

Bridge Under a Fairytale, 2024, string, acrylic paint, cardboard, $9,000.

Artist Talk | Michelle Marcuse

Wednesday, February 4 2026 | 6:00p.m. – 8:00p.m.

FREE | In-Person Event

Our Artist Talk are sponsored in part by the Jenkintown Lyceum.

DONATE

Abington Art Center is proud to host this artist talk, featuring one of our 2026 Winter Solo Series artists, Michelle Marcuse.

Our artist talks are a casual conversation with the artists featured in our exhibition programming and our community. Learn more about the exhibiting artists’ process and technique through a talk and a Q&A. 

Michelle Marcuse

“Emerging from the slopes of Table Mountain in Cape Town, where apartheid’s shadow cut through my childhood innocence, I learned early that beauty and brokenness are not opposing forces, but interconnected narratives that I can reimagine. Alongside my brother, we constructed elaborate tales of make-believe worlds from the overgrown African outdoors. This became my first topography of repair as we collectively pieced together our imaginary environments, unconsciously practicing rebuilding a fractured world. My childhood seemed idyllic, but the ever-present specter of South Africa’s politics loomed in the background. Since then, I have continued to wrestle with the potential for harmony and discord to co-exist simultaneously.

My practice has become an extension of these early impulses: to create environments, transform brokenness and reimagine possibility. Characterized by fragmented compositions, my work is defined by the presence of my hands as both a destructive and constructive force. Working in abstraction, I blend real perspective with areas of flat pattern, forming hybrid, textured landscapes. Creating form is like solving a puzzle; each piece evolves through experimentation and discovery. Process is central to my practice, and I prefer to innovate over technical proficiency. Guided by a deliberate yet restless inquiry, I explore the tension between rhythmic delineation and negative space. Materials — wire, raffia, string, and found cardboard— are chosen for structural malleability. These everyday items reflect the contradictions feeding my work, oscillating between states of value and insignificance. Moving from earth to factory, they become commercial waste that I translate into abstract form. Whether large and free-standing or small and wall-mounted, the act of constructing material leaves behind messy remnants—visible layers of texture that keep my work in flux. In a world increasingly drawn to perfection, these are important to me as I seek evidence of human touch and its inherent vulnerability.

Through aleatory connections and pattern recognition, I trace the hidden architectures of chaos, making visible the intricate markings that connect and transform—leaning into complexity, and holding its contradictions alongside its aspirations, reassembling both materials and hope itself.”

— Michelle Marcuse


Michelle Marcuse is a South African-American artist whose work explores the contradictions that shape our perception of reality, often influenced by the lens of cultural heritage. Born in 1957 in South Africa, she immigrated to the United States in 1984, establishing herself in Philadelphia where she maintains an active studio in Fishtown. Marcuse holds a Bachelor of Design from The Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Israel and a BFA in painting from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia.
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows at prestigious venues including the Corcoran School, BLAM Projects, Taller Boricua, Little Haitian Cultural Center, Art Life Foundation, and Restart Museum in China. In 2024, Marcuse became a resident artist at the Brandywine Print Workshop, where she collaborated with Master printmaker Alexis Nutini. That same year, she participated in (re)FOCUS/2024, a significant citywide exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of Philadelphia Focuses on Women in the Visual Arts. Marcuse is also a 2025 recipient of an Anonymous Was A Woman award—an unrestricted grant awarded annually to 15 woman-identifying artists over 40 at a critical junction in their career.

Notable earlier exhibitions include Cultivated Spaces at Rowan University (2022), which examined socio-economic, cultural, and environmental concerns in creative practices; Arte y el Amor at Taller Boricua, NYC (2016), where she exhibited alongside her partner in a show exploring how relationships sustain artistic practices; and Borderless Caribbean at the Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance in Miami (2015), which investigated the fluidity of thoughts, materiality, and cultural exchange.
A CFEVA Fellow alumni and Joan Mitchell Foundation shortlist honoree, Marcuse’s work resides in several collections, including The Philadelphia Art Museum. Her commitment to fostering an artistic community extends beyond her studio practice—she previously served as co-director of HouseGallery, a community-based art space in her residence in Fishtown. Marcuse is also a 2025 recipient of an Anonymous Was A Woman award—an unrestricted grant awarded annually to 15 woman-identifying artists over 40 at a critical junction in their career.

For more information on a particular artist or piece please call 215.887.4882

This event is produced as part of our 2026 Winter Solo Series, on view from January 16 – February 23, 2026.

Our artist talks are sponsored in part by the Jenkintown Lyceum.

DONATE

Artist Talk | Stephanie Manzi, Guizi Gao, and Ben Pranger

Cloud Frame, 2023, paint on assembled wood $2,400.

Artist Talk | Stephanie Manzi, Guizi Gao, and Ben Pranger

Wednesday, April 29 2026 | 6:00p.m. – 8:00p.m.

FREE | In-Person Event

Our Artist Talk are sponsored in part by the Jenkintown Lyceum.

DONATE

Abington Art Center is proud to host this artist talk, featuring all of our 2026 Spring Solo Series artists.

Our artist talks are a casual conversation with the artists featured in our exhibition programming and our community. Learn more about the exhibiting artists’ process and technique through a talk and a Q&A. 

Stephanie Manzi

Stephanie Manzi is a painter and educator from Upstate, NY, based in Philadelphia, PA. Her work is rooted within ecology and presents itself as abstract spaces of color, layered marks, soft patterns, and material depth. She often searches for ways to show life at the infinity level, with images that can read as micro or cellular points of view as well as macro perspectives of mapped out land or road systems. She notes, “I like the tangle- it toys with grief inside the confusion of history and relationship to nature, as well as the celebration of material and color that paint has to offer.”

Guizi Gao

Guizi Gao is a figurative expressionist oil painter whose work explores the human body as a mutable vessel shaped by social, biological, and psychological forces. Working in large-scale oil painting, she fuses Renaissance and Baroque compositional structure with gestural distortion and layered, tactile surfaces. Her current series, Realm of Chaos – Amazing Grace, are inspired by Daoist cosmology, tracing cycles of vital spirit descending into the body, awakening, self-tempering, and spiritual renewal. Figures dissolve into organic geometry, translucency, and childlike symbolic forms, reflecting the flow of qi气, resilience, and the natural ascent of the heart-mind. The works engage themes of womanhood, pregnancy, breastfeeding, loss, and rebirth, presenting the body as both intimate and universal while highlighting the delicate balance between vulnerability and strength.

Ben Pranger

Ben Pranger’s wall-based constructions slowly grow into emergent forms. Small pieces of wood are stacked and glued, drifting off course to traverse the space in front of the wall. The work follows simple rules that unfold organically to create entangled, rhizomatic structures. Many of the constructions suggest futuristic cities rising out of the rubble of their own destruction. Fragments from previous work coalesce into stairways, passages, apertures, enclosures and pyramids, leading the viewer through labyrinthine architectures. These indwellings map a recursive mental space that morphs into evolving worlds.

For more information on a particular artist or piece please call 215.887.4882

This event is produced as part of our 2026 Spring Solo Series, on view from April 24 – June 1, 2026.

Our artist talks are sponsored in part by the Jenkintown Lyceum.

DONATE

Artist Talk | Teresa Shields & Lisa Kelley

Iris #1, Teresa Shields, French knots and stitches on canvas, $3,000.

Wednesday, October 15 2025 | 6:00p.m. – 8:00p.m.

FREE | In-Person Event

Abington Art Center is proud to host an artist talk, featuring Fall Solo Series artists Teresa Shields and Lisa Kelley.

Please join both artists for an evening of fruitful discussion, as they dive deep into their artistic practices and bodies of work. Our talk will be held in our Kellner gallery. Tea, hot cider, and light fare will be provided.

Teresa Shields

Teresa Shields weaves her fascination with fabric, thread, and wool fiber into a unique and colorful artistic journey. Her work invites viewers into the intricate world of embroidery and wet-felting, where she skillfully interprets abstract shapes and unravels new dimensions in materiality. Drawing inspiration from nature’s intricate designs–plant forms, human eyes, and cell structure–and the female gaze, Shields’s exhibition presents her unique perspective on women’s experience. Her sculptural eyeballs follow and see the audience in a way that allows them to be observed while actively returning attention. The sculptural necklaces connect her process to the earliest adornment of human bodies and the manner in which women use external objects of beauty to create meaning. 

Teresa Shields is an artist based in Jenkintown, PA. She earned her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and her MFA from Mass College of Art. Known for her idiosyncratic work that beckons tactile engagement, Shields has exhibited across the country, accumulating over 20 awards and collections by eight institutions.

Lisa Kelley

Lisa Kelley is a trauma-certified artist and advocate who is committed to building community through art-making. Inspired by the urban landscape she grew up in, as well as the fields and forests she takes respite in, Kelley sees the beauty “in decay, in rusted steel, in golden fields, in wings in flight, in the squeal of sirens, the rumble of the el, the rustle of the trees, the song of the birds.” Her artwork serves as a call to action, helping bring awareness to those struggling with addiction and giving them a voice through collaborative artwork. 

Lisa Kelley earned her BFA from Moore College of Art and Design and is a teaching artist at Prevention Point and Philly Home, organizations that serve people with substance use disorder and homelessness in the Kensington and Fairmount neighborhoods of Philadelphia. 

Kelley recently completed her 2 year artist residency at Abington Art Center’s Little Meetinghouse. Throughout her residency, she not only hosted free, monthly community art-making events, but also created a new body of work informed by the connections she has made as an artist in residence and continued connections with those in Kensington.

For more information on a particular artist or piece please call 215.887.4882 or contact acook@abingtonartcenter.org.

This event is produced as part of our 2025 Fall Solo Series, on view from September 12 – October 20, 2025. Learn more about this exhibition here!

Free exhibition programming is made possible through your generous donations. Please consider making a donation to Abington Art Center today. Thank you for supporting the arts!

DONATE

Solo Series Fall 2025

Nothing is as it was, 2025 | Barbara Brady | Oil on canvas

On View Sept. 12 – Oct. 20, 2025

Opening Reception | Friday, Sept. 12 | 6:00p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Artist Talk | Wednesday, Oct. 15 | 6:00 p.m. – 8:00p.m.

ARTISTS

Barbara Brady – Marking Time

Barbara Brady creates expressionist paintings, drawing inspiration from her environment, world events, and personal experiences. Through expressive brushwork and bold color, Brady not only creates little worlds within larger spaces, but also captures glimpses of inexplicable moments within her work. Her paintings act as a visceral response to life and the world.

Brady lives and works on the coast of Maine. She received her BFA from Rosemont College and completed her post-graduate study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, PA. After a 30 year career working as an art director and graphic designer for publishing and healthcare organizations on both coasts, it wasn’t until moving to coastal Maine in 2001 that painting became her passion. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions within galleries, museums and cultural centers, and her work is held in corporate and private collections internationally.

Barbara Brady’s Marking Time is on view in our Tile Gallery.

Mike John Murray – Happily Imperfect Together

Interdisciplinary artist, Mike John Murray, crafts objects that are intricate, unusual, yet whimsical. This is evident in how he plays with materiality and form, combining rough and smooth textures, stark colors, and recognizable and unrecognizable motifs. Murray’s work feels unreal and almost dream-like in how they are structured, leaving the viewer yearning for context. He acknowledges this ambiguity, noting “[my work] lingers at the edge of a more primal experience, quietly resisting the impulse to explain themselves.”

Mike John Murray was born in Vermont, and exposed to the Hudson River School of painters early in his youth, sparking interest in art. Murray received his formal arts education at a small university in rural Pennsylvania, and spent his time post-school traveling and learning from artists and craftspeople from across the Americas and Europe, influencing his studio work.

Mike John Murray’s Happily Imperfect Together is on display in our Book Room Gallery.

Teresa Shields, I Feel Seen

Teresa Shields weaves her fascination with fabric, thread, and wool fiber into a unique and colorful artistic journey. Her work invites viewers into the intricate world of embroidery and wet-felting, where she skillfully interprets abstract shapes and unravels new dimensions in materiality. Drawing inspiration from nature’s intricate designs–plant forms, human eyes, and cell structure–and the female gaze, Shields’s exhibition presents her unique perspective on women’s experience. Her sculptural eyeballs follow and see the audience in a way that allows them to be observed while actively returning attention. The sculptural necklaces connect her process to the earliest adornment of human bodies and the manner in which women use external objects of beauty to create meaning. 

Teresa Shields is an artist based in Jenkintown, PA. She earned her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and her MFA from Mass College of Art. Known for her idiosyncratic work that beckons tactile engagement, Shields has exhibited across the country, accumulating over 20 awards and collections by eight institutions. 

Teresa Shields’s I Feel Seen is being exhibited in our Kellner Gallery.

Lisa Kelley, Respite

Lisa Kelley is a trauma-certified artist and advocate who is committed to building community through art-making. Inspired by the urban landscape she grew up in, as well as the fields and forests she takes respite in, Kelley sees the beauty “in decay, in rusted steel, in golden fields, in wings in flight, in the squeal of sirens, the rumble of the el, the rustle of the trees, the song of the birds.” Her artwork serves as a call to action, helping bring awareness to those struggling with addiction and giving them a voice through collaborative artwork. 

Lisa Kelley earned her BFA from Moore College of Art and Design and is a teaching artist at Prevention Point and Philly Home, organizations that serve people with substance use disorder and homelessness in the Kensington and Fairmount neighborhoods of Philadelphia. 

Kelley recently completed her 2 year artist residency at Abington Art Center’s Little Meetinghouse. Throughout her residency, she not only hosted free, monthly community art-making events, but also created a new body of work informed by the connections she has made as an artist in residence and continued connections with those in Kensington.

Lisa Kelley’s Respite is on view in our Community Arts Gallery.

For inquiries about work in our exhibition, please contact our Gallery Manager at acook@abingtonartcenter.org.

Artist Talk | Cecelia Grant

The One We Live In, 2023, Acrylic on mylar, $1,500.

Wednesday, May 28 2025 | 6:00p.m. – 8:00p.m.

FREE | In-Person Event

Abington Art Center is proud to host an artist talk, featuring 2025 Spring Solo Series artist Cecelia Grant.

Please join our artist for an evening of fruitful discussion, as she dives deep into her exhibition Leveled Ground, Unleveled Ground, on view in our Tile gallery. Our talk will be held in our Kellner gallery. Tea and light fare will be provided.

Cecelia Grant

Cecelia Grant is an interdisciplinary artist working in printmaking, sculpture, and painting. Her work is self-referential, utilizing instances and subjects from previous paintings that then become molded in ceramic and used as objects in her still life sets. The result of which is a group of automorphic works not siloed in ideas of still life, architecture, nor nature.

Grant creates her paintings on atypical surfaces, typically cardboard or translucent polyester film, also known as mylar. She developed a unique method of installing her translucent mylar paintings with air between the mylar surface and the wall, allowing for light to project from the wall through the translucent surface and giving the work the illusion of floating. When using cardboard as a surface, she labels the media in detail, allowing audiences to create associations between consumption of food and art materials, and creation.
Cecelia Grant’s work has been included in the nationally juried exhibition Crosscurrents at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’ Annenberg Gallery in 2019. She has also shown work in both juried and group shows in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Italy, and solo shows in Kutztown and Ambler, PA. Grant was awarded the Board of Governor’s Scholarship to study painting at Kutztown University and earned her BFA in May of 2020. In her time as a student, she trained for a semester in Rome at Tyler School of Art. She currently serves as a faculty member at Gwynedd Mercy Academy High School and upholds her studio practice through visits to galleries and museums.

For more information on a particular artist or piece please call 215.887.4882 or contact acook@abingtonartcenter.org.

This event is produced as part of our 2025 Spring Solo Series, on view from May 2 – June 9, 2025.

Free exhibition programming is made possible through your generous donations. Please consider making a donation to Abington Art Center today. Thank you for supporting the arts!

DONATE

Artist Talk | Kristen Letts Kovak

Primordial Soup, 2022, Oil and acrylic on wood panels, $6,000.

The following video features one of our 2025 Spring Solo Series artists, Kristen Letts Kovak.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-hVzDeKVMU

Kristen Letts Kovak

Kristen Letts Kovak is an artist, professor, and curator based in Pittsburgh, PA. She resists clarity within her work, shifting images into states of disarrangement that explore the uncertainties of living with chronic illness. Her drawings and paintings are evident of this; they balance opposing forces to arrive at harmonious states of disequilibrium. 

Out of Order, on view in our Kellner gallery, is a visual reflection on living with chronic illness and disability, where even the present is wrapped in uncertainty. Each painting, like each day, begins as an unsettled conjecture. While largely abstract, Kovak’s artworks begin with a threadbare link to representation in both form and technique. She then deliberately resists clarity and shifts the images into states of disarrangement and imbalance. The finished pieces are records of her visceral decisions and the accumulation of renegotiated visual pathways. She invites the viewer to join her on unexpected detours, “where a wrong turn can be embraced, rather than avoided.” 

Kristen Letts Kovak earned her BFA from Mercyhurst University and her MFA from MICA. Since 2012, Kovak has taught drawing, painting, perception, and applied aesthetics at Carnegie Mellon University, where she also serves as Senior Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts.

Her works have been exhibited widely with solo exhibitions at colleges and universities, and her paintings and drawings have been featured in more than fifty group exhibitions, including the Center for Contemporary Art, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, SPACE gallery, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Wildling Art Museum, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, IUPUI, Muskegon Museum of Art, Erie Art Museum, Museum of the Red River, Woodson Art Museum, and the State Museum of Pennsylvania

For more information on a particular artist or piece please call 215.887.4882 or contact acook@abingtonartcenter.org.

This video was produced as part of our 2025 Spring Solo Series, on view from May 2 – June 9, 2025.

Free exhibition programming is made possible through your generous donations. Please consider making a donation to Abington Art Center today. Thank you for supporting the arts!

DONATE