NEWS/PRESS

Born and educated in Thehran, Iran, Behnaz Sohrabian discovered her love of art, freedom and creative expression as a small child, developed a passion for painting and began her professional art career at the age of 10. Behnaz has earned a B.S. in Applied Chemistry, a B.A. in Painting and a Master of Arts in Art Studies. After completing her Master's Degree, she immigrated to the United States in 2010 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2017. 

"My aim is to paint simply. Apply easy brush strokes. Emphasize light and shadow and the dynamics between the subject and background."

This month JRB Art at The Elms is featuring the bronze sculptures of Paul Moore and David Phelps, both of whom currently live and work in Oklahoma. Paul's work is influenced by the history of the Great American West and his Native American Heritage. David's work is strongly tied to his memories, experiences, and feelings from having grown up on a family farm in Robert's Island, California. The following works selected by the Gallery are strong examples of each artist's skill and aesthetic.

· The word photography began being used in the 1830s.

· Nicephore Niepce invented what became the modern photographic process in 1826/27. He and Louis Daguerre worked together in person and via correspondence to improve the process. After Niepce’s death, Daguerre was able to reduce the exposure time from 8 hours to 30 minutes and the daguerreotype was born in 1837.

· From the beginning photography was compared with painting. Some even feeling it would lead to the death of painting. Later painters realized they could use photography to enhance their own practices.

The Caroline Bartlett Collection of fine jewelry includes her trademark “Toursades” which are necklaces containing multiple strands of high-quality genuine pearls and/or gemstones with gold or silver beads. Included also are long strands of pearls from which may be suspended hand-carved medallions or gemstone pendants, along with multi-strand bracelets for the wrist or ankle, earrings and rings.

Since the inception of photography in the first half of the nineteenth century there has been the perception that photographs are a faithful record of their subject matter. This idea seems to be even more deeply ceded when it is a place. When people are involved, there is an instinctive knowledge that they could be acting or “putting on a face” for the camera. Photographs have shaped our perception of the world. There are places we will know only through photographic representation. Places we will never see with our own eyes. We then rely on the photographer’s eye and their experience of the place they are documenting. The time of day a photographer shoots a specific place, the scene they choose to photograph whether the intent is to show an abstraction of a particular spot, these all factor into what the viewer sees as a specific place.

This show has been organized by New York Based Curator, Julie Maguire, Director of the Brett Weston Archives and will be on display until August 31, 2020.

Represented at international art fairs such as Art Miami’s Scope and Aqua Fairs, Art Basel, Red Dot London, and Hong Kong Contemporary, Michele Mikesell exhibits her dense, tactile paintings throughout the United States and across Europe and Asia. Using strippers, chisels, razor blades and solvents, Mikesell treats paint as color and matter, killing the idealized beauty of an expected image in order to revive it and create something arresting. Through this active participation with the surface of a painting, she generates a contradiction between worn paint and pristine image or surface. Mikesell received her MFA from the University of Oklahoma. She lives and works in South Dallas and Spain.

Please note that the gallery will be closed today, July 4th, for the holiday. We will reopen on Tuesday, July 7th. Have a fun, safe weekend!

Oklahoma City—Beginning on July 3, 2020, JRB Art at The Elms will host the show “Photography and Place:  Fragments of the World,” organized by New York Based Curator, Julie Maguire, Director of the Brett Weston Archives.  

This show will feature the work of Brett Weston, Catherine Adams, Christa Blackwood and Allen Birnbach. The exhibition will be on display at the gallery during July and August and will also be available to view online at www.jrbartgallery.com. 

While there won't be an opening on First Friday, the gallery is now open Tue-Sat from 11am-5pm and by appointment - call us at (405) 528-6336, or send us an e-mail or Facebook message.  All of our inventory can be found on our website.  We encourage you to see our wonderful July exhibitions!

The four artists included in this exhibition have all photographed places.  Some with figures, some without.  They all bring their unique perspective to their work and frame it through their eyes.  Looking at a photograph is the merging of the eyes of the viewer and the photographer as they try to cobble together fragments of the world.

Julie, I am so pleased that you agreed to curate JRB Art at The Elms' upcoming Exhibition, "Photograph and Place: Fragments of the World."

For that show you have selected the work of four different photographers: Brett Weston, Catherine Adams, Christa Blackwood and Allen Birnbach. The aesthetic of these photographers are very different and yet you have found commonalities in them, which is what a curator does. Since curating is such a specialized field, why don't you tell us a little about your career.

David Phelps is a critically acclaimed, internationally collected contemporary sculptor. Phelps creates large and small scale bronze sculpture for galleries and public art commissions. He was raised on his family’s farm in California’s central valley, received his BA from Humboldt State University in California and MFA in Sculpture from The University of Oklahoma. After a residency at the Kohler Co. Arts in Industry program, he began his current work of figurative bronzes, partially submerged in the ground plane. His works are represented in many public and private collections across the United States, as well as in Europe, Canada, Mexico, and South America. Select "Read More" below to view his works.

Vote in the Readers' Choice Awards for 2020!   Support your favorites in dozens of categories! We would love your vote for us in the Art Gallery category! All ballots must be received by Monday, June 29th!  Click Here to Vote Now!

We want to thank everyone for the outstanding response to our May and June show featuring Beth Hammack. Her exhibition will be closing on Friday, June 26th. We encourage you to call for an appointment, (405) 528-6336, to experience these wonderful works.