Coup d'Espace V- 'Influence = Convergence' works by Joan Belmar and Minna Newman Nathanson

Washington Project for the Arts presents the fifth installment of Coup d'Espace, a program that invites WPA member artists to stage their own exhibitions and programming in our Dupont Circle office space. For our November Coup, member artists Joan Belmar and Minna Newman Nathanson will use the space to mount a joint exhibition, Influence = Convergence.

“What happens when two artists – different in almost every way – share a working space?...”

When they met, Joan Belmar, a Chilean immigrant in his thirties, was painting colorful, two dimensional works incorporating linear runes and circles. Nathanson, a native Washingtonian in her seventies, produced formal statements in monochromatic bent steel and explored reflective effects with plastic and wire. After two years of sharing a studio-space, Belmar began work on a series of 3-dimensional ‘paintings’ using a minimalist palate, incorporating new materials such as mylar. Nathanson, on the other hand, began a series of wire ‘paintings’ incorporating a wider palette and animated linear elements and circles.

This exhibition demonstrates a convergence of two artists’ aesthetics as a result of their time shared in a Dupont Circle studio space for two years. The exhibition will consist of several pairings of works that, unbeknownst to the artists at the time, demonstrate their influence on each other’s practice.

Please join us for the opening of Influence = Convergence during November’s Dupont Circle First Friday Art Walk on November 6th from 6-8pm. At 7:00 the two artists will give an informal talk about the works on view and their experience sharing a working space.