GLENN HARREN
FINE ART
22 Church Street,
Lambertville, NJ - 215.694.9493
Gallery Hours: Sat. & Sun. 12 - 5
weekdays by appointment
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
By Victoria Donohoe
The Arts 1996
INQUIRER ART CRITIC
Widener University.
Glenn D.Harren of Holicong, exhibiting at
Widener, offers a physically fresh
reinterpretation of landscape.
These paintings have a peculiarly
instantaneous reality, demanding
attention rather than seducing
it.They are far more immediate-
seeming than his figure subjects.
These landscapes feature a band
of earth, and vast amounts of sky
in which the horizon line takes on
the resonance of a single, vibrating
cord.
The impression of distance is
helped a lot by the way Harren
renders his rural views strictly in
terms of fleet draftsmanly lines
and overall tones.
Thus he tends to create
emphatic patterns for their own
sake, relying just a little on tonal
gradations.
Harren's work is interesting as
much for what it suggests it may
offer in the future as for what it's
giving us now.This is because of
the way his other large paintings
here-people within their familiar
surroundings(best are his Bicycle
Shop and Nursery School Art
Teacher, New York City)- come
across as authentic episodes.
One hopes Harren will continue
telling these stories of American
life in city neighborhoods, as well
as producing verdant landscapes
near his Bucks County home.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Posted on Sun, Jun. 24, 2007 by Inquirer art critic Victoria Donohoe Focus
is on the figure at Wayne
The figure is a touchstone of the Wayne Art Center's 39-artist "National
Spring Open Juried Exhibit" curated by Mark Van Proyen, Art Critic and
Associate Professor of Painting and Art History at the San Francisco Art Institute.Just
now, we're beginning to see for the first time a more instinctive grasp and
knowledge of the figure in lively, broad-based shows like Wayne's annual painting/sculpture
event.Consider one of this 48-item show's pictures: Grace, a respectful, larger-than-life
pastel of a courageous Lancaster County Amish girl painted by Teresa DeSeve
of Collegeville. For DeSeve, this heroic child who protected other children
in the tragic schoolhouse shootings last year is a lens through which the world
is focused and comprehended.Several other pieces functioning similarly as a
lens are a pair of vibrant oils of children at play by Lin Xia Jiang of Buffalo,
a meditating standing figure in charcoal by Justin Nostrala of Iowa, and a
snappy and environmentally savvy clay sculpture, The Teaching Gore, by Cheryl
Harper of Paoli.Other figure works of note are by painters Eleanor Day of Philadelphia,
Ed Watson of Illinois, Glenn Harren of Holicong, Peter Smith of West Chester
and photographers Jim Stogdill of Wayne and Deborah Hamon of California.Memorable
abstractions, though few, are by painters Marc Salz of Philadelphia, Steven
Altman of Colorado, Elisa Root of Rochester, N.Y., Victoria Webb of West Chester,
Yudith Segev of California and Paul Gorka of Philadelphia.