The Flomenhaft Gallery is proud to return to a favorite theme of ours, Women Only in which we display exceptional works by female artists – those returning to our gallery and others who are wonderful new finds. Represented in this exhibition are artists Marcia Annenberg, Joan Barber, Suzanne La Fleur, Carolyn Mazloomi, and Linda Stein.

Marcia Annenberg is a political artist, addressing key issues through her incisive eye. In No News Is Good News she calls attention to the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act which gave the military authority to arrest persons suspected of terrorism and to hold them indefinitely without trial. She asks “How did we let Amendments 5 and 6 of the Bill of Rights slip away?” In Check, Checkmate she points to the release of the summary report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Written by hundreds of scientists from 70 countries, the report settles the debate on global warming and greenhouse gases. It stated, with 95% certainty, that warming of the atmosphere and oceans is due to human activity from burning of fossil fuels. This report never made front page news in most newspapers.

Joan Barber’s oil paintings depict figurative characters taken from an imagined memory and thus leave everything to invention. She paints quickly, keeping the brush moving over everything in order to sustain access to these inner worlds. She wants to prevent subconscious motives from escaping, either by dilution or premature reflection. Facial language is as important to Barber as she captures tension, bliss, confusion, sexual plots, plans, disorders, sorrow, whispers, naked resilience, passion, impudence and the restlessness that smolders beneath us all. Her art suggests our impatience for ecstasy. She says, "I take it all as mine because it is no different than my own.”

Suzanne LaFleur grew up in Southampton, New York. Its natural environment had a profound effect on her and helped to shape the way she perceives the world. She meditates on the senses felt in the presence of a particular scenic view and paints impressions from nature. Memories of what were tangible – light reflecting on water, horizon dividing a grassy knoll and blue sky – give way to viscerally abstract expressions of color, form, texture, and composition. She explores how perceptions of the world are collected and internalized. La Fleur believes this fundamental process of human development has been disrupted by contemporary society’s obsession with consuming information immediately and in large quantity. She wants to make self-discovery possible once again. The abstract character of her paintings rejects any sense of place and time and allows viewers to make connections through their own experiences and memories.

The spiritual and physical warmth of quilts has always excited Carolyn Mazloomi, seeing them as “metaphors for love and family, for covering and protecting, for warmth and security.” She writes, “The visual and metaphorical links between textiles and human beings are fertile ground for narrative quilts as statement, and I see myself as a storyteller. Images in my work are not planned but evolve extemporaneously. My quilts are visual stories which deal with subject matter that touch my spirit. The works are usually derived from my passionate interest in the status of women, social and political events, or jazz and blues music that's always been a part of my life. Quilts influenced by women’s status are layered with historical, political and social conditions which call attention to the circumstances of women around the globe.”

Linda Stein says, “It will take my entire life studying the Holocaust to understand how human beings allowed this to happen. My goal is to use my art to transform social consciousness, promoting activism against all forms of bigotry.” The works in this exhibition include tapestries of women who represent different aspects of bravery during that time. Anne Frank was born in Germany, but during the Holocaust she lived in Amsterdam. As a diarist and writer, she was one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust, exemplifying the loss and legacy of 1.5 million Jewish children murdered during the Shoah. Yukiko Sugihara, born in Japan and lived in Lithuania during the Holocaust, was the wife of Chiune Sugihara, Japan’s consul in Kovno, Lithuania, in 1940. She encouraged and supported her husband’s rescue of 6,000 Jews by issuing visas despite his government’s objections. Another work is based on the life of Hannah Senesh, born in Hungary. During the Holocaust she was one of 37 Jews from Mandatory Palestine who parachuted with the British Army into Yugoslavia, assisting in the rescue of Hungarian Jews about to be deported to the German death camp at Auschwitz. She was later apprehended and killed by the Nazis.