"Emergence," a solo exhibition by Trudy Kraft K'76, will open at the Gross McCleaf Art Gallery in Philadelphia on March 4, 5-7 p.m. Kraft uses a combination of watercolor, sumi ink, gouache, and frisket for her paintings and says she views her work as a "physical expression of the underlying interconnectedness of all things." She has found inspiration in artwork from Japan, Africa, Thailand, and India and also Aboriginal dream paintings, which "demonstrate the abiding significance of content even in decorative abstraction." Her work has been described as "in some sense eclectic in that it is of the present, contemporary moment while the work clearly points to an aesthetic construction of the past, thus implying a modality of timelessness."
Kraft has won awards from the Kyoto City Museum and the Main Line Art Center in Haverford, PA, and she was a finalist for the Pew Fellowships in the Arts Disciplinary. In addition to two previous shows at the Gross McCleaf Art Gallery, Kraft's work has been featured at the Waco Art Center, the Kemp Center for the Arts, the Cosmopolitan Club, the Amarillo Museum of Art, and the Oni Gallery in Japan. Kraft earned her teaching certification at Moore College of Art and Design in 1996.
The Gross McCleaf Art Gallery, located at 127 South 16th Street, features contemporary realist paintings and organic abstract art. "Emergence" will be featured in the front gallery March 3-26.
