Kristine Repcsik

I had the opportunity to experience the production of STOMP at the Merrian Theater in Philadelphia, Pa. on opening night, February 15, 2011.  The lights dimmed, and it all began with one man holding one broom....

STOMP is a unique combination of percussion, movement and visual comedy.  The show was created in Brighton, U.K. in the summer of 1991.  It was a result of a 10 year collaboration between creators, Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas.  The show previewed at London's Bloomsbury Theatre. 

The cast of STOMP use very unconventional "instruments" such as brooms, lids, poles, sand, matches and lighters.  One of the most intriguing sequences in the performance was with Zippo lighters.  The cast stood in a line across the stage and started flicking the lighters on and off.  Never would I have thought that such an act could create such a visually stimulating spectacle of subtle beautiful noises.  They seamlessly created different tones and notes such simplistic motions. 

What drives STOMP is its complexity, merging rhythms and building one on top of the other in waves of tension and release.  It creates a kind of mesmerizing,  hypnotic effect on the audience.  The excitement is the collaboration of simplistic everyday objects to create chaotic harmony.  

Emma Malikowski

Belle Hollon’s collection of work in the Serpentine Gallery in West Chester is captivating and loud. Upon entering the gallery shared by various other artists, her compositions are arranged first both to your right and left. Her acrylic and oil landscapes are composed on paper with slight paper surface still strategically revealed. Unpainted surface, within “La Canada de Abiquiu” for example, can be distracting if there is too much, however Belle’s way of utilizing this style is fitting and successful. Shadow and light are portrayed with thick, simple, yet appropriate strokes of paint. A closer view reveals a variety of saturated hues arranged in a gestural fashion, creating movement and depth. “View from the Studio” uses exaggerated perspective in a diagonal layout with cool blues and purples suggesting a later evening shadow on the grasslike foreground. 

Although painterly and embellished, each piece conveys a sense of season and time of day. Belle’s application of loud colors, especially in “Red Rock Study: Sierra Negra” is impractical but delightful. A yellow sky allows for a sense of warmth in a contrasting, cool mountainous setting. In relation, “Studio View” depicts tall palm like trees with blue and black strokes before a vibrant orangey red sky. Belle’s use of simple forms still maintain meaning in a stimulating and energetic fashion. While all her paintings are enjoying to view, her larger compositions compliment her bold and unconfined style. Belle Hollon’s collection in the Serpentine Gallery most definitely impacts everyone of all ages. Her works sit behind the counter, allowing for a last glance by viewers exiting the gallery. In all, Belle’s intriguing and untraditional style stands out amongst other landscape paintings, allowing for a long-lasting imprint in the minds of her fortunate viewers.

Matt Nino

            The opening night for the show “Our Influences” at Serpentine Gallery was pretty exquisite. There were a lot of captivating paintings, drawings, jewelry, and hand built ceramics works.  Belle Hollon’s work struck me as very playful and very loose. I really like the fact that she used strong red grounds to paint over because it helped break apart the usual white of the canvas that shows through on a lot of pieces. Her subject focused mainly on depicting scenes from nature and small rural areas of New Mexico. She had a lot of strong greens and blues amongst many other colors that all worked together very nicely.

The work of John Baker is something that I had never really seen before. He approached things with a ceramic mindset, but instead of using clay or wax he used hand made paper – it reminded me of an advanced style of paper mache. They had really interesting texture and the paper was handled in a very clean and professional way that I would have never thought of.

Gus Sermas’s work specifically caught my eye because in his drawing classes he always emphasized the use of geometric shapes when approaching the composition of the human figure. His use of color in his paintings was also phenomenal, which makes perfect sense because he really knew theory when he taught us color and design. He approached the figure in a very unusual way that not many people understand fully and I thought that was very unique. They were very geometric and fractured figures that were put into environments where the surrounding objects were handled in the same way; which is a great compositional choice because it brings the pieces together not in a singular sense but as a set. The size of his paintings and drawings also worked really well with his compositions.