Virtual Student Show

Acrylic Painting Online Class

Summer 2023

Instructor: Jean Kondo Weigl
Students: Leslie Bowen, Dedham, MA | Deborah Campana, Amherst, OH | Carrie Schwimmer, Oberlin, OH

Cornelia Maude Spelman, Evanston, IL | Jennifer Spencer, North Vancouver, BC

About the Class:

From March 2020 to July 2021, FAVA closed its doors due to the covid pandemic and began mounting exhibitions and offering classes and activities that could be accessed remotely. One of the online classes that FAVA offered, Jean Weigl’s Color Theory and Design, focused on the properties of color and the exploration of color relationships and interactions through executing a series of non-representational/abstract paintings in acrylic paint. The Online Acrylic Painting Class was introduced when a number of participants in the Color Theory and Design class expressed an interest in taking a painting class wherein they could incorporate representational subjects and expand their technical skills in drawing and painting in general.  When the shutdown ended, the Acrylic Painting class continued to be offered as an online class, with as few as four and as many as seven participants, yet with a steady core of participants who continue to grow individually as artists and as a group of committed, supportive peers.

The small acrylic paintings that are presented in this virtual exhibition were completed in the summer of 2023 by the members of FAVA’s Online Acrylic Painting Class: Leslie Bowen (Dedham, MA), Deborah Campana (Amherst, OH), Carrie Schwimmer (Oberlin, OH), Cornelia Maude Spelman (Evanston, IL) and Jennifer Spencer (North Vancouver, B.C.).   Based on photographs taken by the artists, the paintings were executed in response to “assignments” which focused on various subjects and aspects of form, technique and composition. The paintings were not intended to be copies, but rather records of the artists’ perception and creative interpretation, of the photographs.  This virtual student show presents a range of individual approaches and results that include images that are bold, energetic, spontaneous, whimsical, tender, delicate, detailed, contemplative and nostalgic.  It is a pleasure to share the expressions and achievements of this fine class with the rest of the FAVA community.

IMG_8229+%282%29.jpg

Instructor Biography: Jean Kondo Weigl

Jean Kondo Weigl is a third-generation Japanese American artist who works in painting and drawing. She was born in Berkeley, California, a few years after her parents’ release from one of ten internment camps for persons of Japanese descent that were mandated by the US government during World War II. Weigl attended public schools in Berkeley and Oakland and obtained a BA from Scripps College, Claremont, CA; an MA from Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, and an MFA from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City.  Weigl’s work has been widely exhibited at regional and national venues such as the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Arkansas Arts Center, the AIR Gallery, NYC, and Gallery K, Washington, DC.  Her one person shows include those at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Visual and Performing Arts Complex, Columbus, OH; the Richard D. Baron Gallery, Oberlin College, and the Beverley Street Studio School Gallery, Staunton Virginia. An Archived Artist in the Artists Archive of the Western Reserve, Cleveland, Weigl has received grants from the Yaddo Foundation, the Ohio Arts Council and the Zygote Gallery and Press, and her experience includes teaching positions at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA; Oberlin College and Lorain County Community College, Elyria, OH.  The artist has a son and daughter and three grandchildren and lives with her husband, poet Bruce Weigl, in Oberlin where she teaches classes for adults at the Firelands Association for the Visual Arts.

 

Website: jeankondoweigl.com