 Today’s ArtDrop is an oil on canvas expressionist portrait of performance artist Leigh Bowery by Lucian Freud.
The painting shows the head and one shoulder of the unclothed and bald sitter in a red ochre chair. The subject’s head is resting on their left shoulder and their eyes are closed. The pose is awkward implying they are asleep. Most of the canvas is covered with expressive of skin tones.
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 Today’s ArtDrop is a contemporary aluminum sculpture, Corollaria Gyroid by Nervous System from 2023. It is installed in the concourse of the Albany International Airport.
The image is from their website here: https://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/projects/ Image shows a concourse in an airport with a round cylinder sky light. A cloud-like silver sculpture is hovers half in and half out of the light well. It is a curvy biophilic hyperbolic form with many voids that allows the light the filter through it. It feels like a sea creature moving with the current. The studio demonstrates their process in this video: https://youtu.be/DpcRvScn3lA  Today’s ArtDrop is a neoclassical oil painting ‘Allegory of Peace and War’ by Pompeo Batoni from 1776. Peace, a scantily-clad beautiful young nymph, distracts the armored Mars as he is about to charge into battle. She gazes soulfully into his eyes as she insinuates herself between his shield and sword arms. She lifts an olive branch seductively toward his lips with one hand and pushes his sword down with the other. Mars is captivated.
 Today’s ArtDrop is a Roman marble copy of a Greek bronze sculpture of Apollo called the ‘Apollo Belvedere’ from the 2nd century AD.
Image shows a white marble figurative sculpture on a square profile pedestal within an apse-like alcove. The figure is of a graceful, mostly nude, standing male youth. His weight is on his right foot and his left leg is bent with his toe just about to leave the ground in mid stride. He is wearing sandals. His arms are posed as if he has just effortlessly loosed an arrow from a bow with his left arm extended. The bow is lost. The extended arm is draped in a cape that continues around the front of his neck and down his back. There is a strap to a quiver across his chest. The sculptor includes a tree trunk to support the figure’s right leg at the base. The right hand rests on the top of the tree trunk. The eyes of the sculpture face in the direction of the implied loosed arrow. The hair on Apollo’s head is long, thick, wavy and tied up on the front of the top of his head.  Today’s ArtDrop is a contemporary stained glass immersive sculpture, ‘Super/Natural’ by Judith Schaechter. It will be on exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design starting October 4, 2025. https://sfmcd.org/exhibitions/judith-schaechter/
Description edited from SFMCD’s page on the exhibit: "The central stained glass structure, also titled Super/Natural, is her largest project to date, designed to accommodate a single viewer inside…By positioning the viewer within a three-tiered cosmos, Super/Natural invites reflection on both inner space—our neurological and psychological experience of environments—and outer space—how we extend ourselves into the world around us. Inside this secular temple, viewers encounter the “blue marble” of Earth from a more intimate perspective, suggesting that we are not merely observers of nature, but connected to it.” We all need more sensual and contemplative artwork that nurtures us, body and soul. The provided link shows Schaechter demonstrating her brilliant layered stained glass process: https://youtu.be/L3SXaFUk6qc  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Julie Mars, Artist | [email protected] | 630-862-9268 | jamfinearts.com Phil Siefritz, Cultural Services | Prairie Center for the Arts | 847-923-3609 ‘OASIS’ Art Exhibit by Julie Mars on View at the Prairie Center for the Arts in November Schaumburg, IL – The Al Larson Prairie Center for the Arts will host Oasis, a solo art exhibition by Julie Mars, from November 2–29, 2025. The exhibition features luminous stained glass and bead mosaics on convex mirrors, celebrating the dynamic beauty of our ever-changing home planet. A public artist reception will be held on Friday, November 7, 2025, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Prairie Center for the Arts, located at 201 Schaumburg Court, Schaumburg, IL 60193. For this exhibition, Mars has curated a collection of her work inspired by the natural forces that sustain life on Earth. Her mosaics, built on convex mirrors, invite viewers to experience a sense of the Overview Effect—the transformative perspective astronauts describe when seeing Earth from space. “Each piece has a unique point of view, as though you are floating above the Earth,” Mars explains. “I hope this big-picture view gives visitors and patrons an appreciation of the exquisite complexity, beauty, and fragility of our life-giving home world.” Mars’ affinity for glass lies in its rich spectrum of colors, lusters, and translucencies. Recently, she has expanded her practice into working with scrap stained glass, extending her exploration of light and form. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Mars brings decades of experience as an artist, gallerist, and museum administrator. She has also contributed to the suburban arts community as a curator and arts administrator at the Addison Center for the Arts, and as an active member of several art guilds. Sustainability is central to Mars’ work. By incorporating salvaged and repurposed materials into her mosaics, she encourages viewers to reflect on our impact on the environment while finding beauty in reuse. For more information about Julie Mars and her work, visit jamfinearts.com or email [email protected]. For details about the Prairie Center for the Arts and visitor information, visit prairiecenter.org or call 847-895-3600.  Today’s ArtDrop is ‘Magnetic Field’ a new public sculpture for Claremont McKenna College’s New Robert Day Sciences Center by Damián Ortega. The ribbon cutting for this piece is tomorrow September 26, 2025.
Description: Suspended under skylights in the atrium of a contemporary building is a 3-dimensional diagram of the magnetic field of Earth. The artist used cylindrical stainless steel rod to create a wireframe that resembles the wings of a butterfly. At the center of the converging rays and arcs is a stainless steel sphere representing the Earth. Attached to the wireframe are hundreds of colorful blown glass spheres describing curved magnetic lines that converge at the sphere. The light from the skylight illuminates the colored glass.  Today’s ArtDrop is the ceremonial Japanese Peace Bell for the United Nations cast in 1952. The metal for the bell was a collaborative undertaking by 60 nations. Each nation contributed coins that were melted down for the monument.
The image shows former UN President, Kofi Annan, ringing the Peace Bell. He holds a wood beam wrapped with a ceremonial woven red cord that is used to ring the bell on two days a year. The bell is housed within a cedar Shinto shrine that appears to be about 10 feet tall. The slightly verdigris cylindrical bell is about 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide. It is cast with Chinese relief ornamentation. The curved four-pointed roof also has a green patina. The gardens and building are in the background. The bell is rung on the first day of Spring and during the opening of the United Nations’ session each year. The bell and the ceremony surrounding it is a solemn exercise of shedding hostilities and focusing on working collaboratively for a peaceful future.  Today’s ArtDrop is a contemporary installation, ‘Birds Watching I’ by interdisciplinary artist and environmental activist, Jenny Kendler. It’s made of printed reflective film mounted on aluminum on a steel frame.
Image is from the artist’s website: jennykendler.com. It shows a levitating flock of eyes of different endangered species of birds.. Each colorful eye glows through the twilight summer landscape creating a confrontational gaze with the human viewer. Kendler's work and activism creates awareness and promotes action surrounding climate change and the negative effect it has on the Earth’s living things.  Today’s ArtDrop is a woodcut illustration, ’The Last Judgement’ by romantic artist Gustav Doré. It was commissioned for La Grande Bible de Tours, issued in 1866.
The illustration is exquisitely detailed for a woodcut. The composition features spiraling swathes of naked figures, clouds, and darkness. The bottom half of the plate features a robed figure in judgement. From below the figure’s feet a river of writhing humans are either being swooped upward or cast into an abyss at center. The damned are being corraled into hell by a sword bearing angel. Above the pit stands another prison guard angel with sword at the entrance to heaven. Above them are more angels and an abstract radiant Eminence with arcs of light on a tuft of clouds. This image was chosen in lieu of a decent artwork of the American Christian fundamentalist prophecy of the Rapture. Since the Rapture isn’t biblical canon, there weren’t any good ones available so the Last Judgement is substituted. |
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