Instructor: Lado Pochkhua

Saturdays 10 am – 12 pm
(Participants can attend one or more workshops)

An introduction to drawing techniques, including charcoal, graphite,  pen and ink and collage. Participants explore the post-industrial landscape and artifacts of the Gowanus Canal. The workshops include a stroll along the Gowanus and a tour of the Hall of the Gowanus, a mini-museum of the canal at Proteus Gowanus.

Price per workshop: Parent and child: $75, Individual (child or adult) $40
Price for four sessions: Parent and child: $250, Individual child or adult: $160
Register: email hidden; JavaScript is required

Lado Pochkhua was born in Sukhumi, Georgia. An accomplished, classically trained artist, Pochkhua graduated from the Sukhumi College of Art in 1994 and the Tbilisi Academy of Art in 2001. He has exhibited internationally in Georgia, Russia, Hungary and the United States. In 2013, he had a solo exhibit at the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi, Georgia. http://ladopochkhua.tumblr.com/, www.bkbxgallery.com

Proteus Gowanus is hosting two new Zone A Workshop series taught by two experienced artists and teachers. In honor of our yearlong theme, both workshops focus on painting and drawing WATER. Read on for more information…

Workshop 1: Drawing the Gowanus
A workshop for parents and children (8 – 16 years old)
Instructor: Lado Pochkhua

Saturdays 10 am – 12 pm
Four Sessions: March 1, 8, 15, 22
(Participants can attend one or more workshops)

Price per workshop: Parent and child: $75, Individual (child or adult) $40
Price for four sessions: Parent and child: $250, Individual child or adult: $160
Register: email hidden; JavaScript is required

An introduction to drawing techniques, including charcoal, graphite,  pen and ink and collage. Participants will explore the post-industrial landscape and artifacts of the Gowanus Canal. The workshop will include a stroll along the Gowanus and a tour of the Hall of the Gowanus, a mini-museum of the canal at Proteus Gowanus.

Lado Pochkhua was born in Sukhumi, Georgia. An accomplished, classically trained artist, Pochkhua graduated from the Sukhumi College of Art in 1994 and the Tbilisi Academy of Art in 2001. He has exhibited internationally in Georgia, Russia, Hungary and the United States. In 2013, he had a solo exhibit at the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi, Georgia.  http://ladopochkhua.tumblr.com/, www.bkbxgallery.com

Workshop 2: Watercolor Techniques for Painting Water
A workshop for adults (16 years or older)
Instructor: Elizabeth O’Reilly

Sundays, 10 am – 12 pm
Four Sessions: March 2, 9, 16, 23

Price for Four Sessions: $160
Register: email hidden; JavaScript is required

Elizabeth O’Reilly will teach basic watercolor techniques with a focus on rendering the shimmering movement of water. Water as a subject lends itself beautifully to the watercolor medium, but capturing its fluidity with this medium is a challenge. This class focuses on combining wet-on-wet and dry techniques with transparent colors to convey the illusion of water. Looking at images of water created by various artists will help us to use and incorporate a variety of techniques and tools to master this subject.

Elizabeth O’Reilly received her MFA from Brooklyn College, New York, and her B.Ed from the National University of Ireland. She has participated in residencies at the Ballinglen Foundation, Ireland, the Ucross Foundation, Wyoming, the Ragdale Foundation, Illinois, and has received numerous awards, including a Pollock Krasner Foundation grant.   A documentary on her work, Ealaiontóir Thar Sáile (An Artist Abroad) was shown on network TV in Ireland. O’Reilly shows at George Billis Gallery in Chelsea, New York, and internationally. She has taught at The New School for Social Research, Pratt Institute, and Brooklyn College as well as private workshops out of her studio in Brooklyn.  Her work is included in Painted Landscapes: Contemporary Views by Lauren Della Monica.  www.elizabethoreilly.com

These programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Starting this past fall with the opening of our Migration year, Proteus Gowanus launched an onsite Artist-In-Residence program. We invited three individuals (two artists, one anthropologist) to produce work corresponding to our three Migration exhibitions. As the summary event of our yearlong Migration exploration, we invite you to join us for the opening reception of the Migration Residents Exhibition.

Lado Pochkhua opened the Migration year with a project using documentary photographs he took with an old camera and expired film he bought for pennies in a flea market in Tbilisi, Georgia. He moved to Tbilisi as a “displaced person” in 1993, escaping the civil war in his native Abkhazia. For the next ten years, he resided in a refugee settlement with other Abkhazians. “The old FED camera and film were sufficiently reliable equipment for what I wanted to do – become an observer, not just a participant, in refugee life.” Lado will exhibit the photos as a light box installation — small beacons of memory.

Our second resident was Sal Randolph, who makes art involving gift economies, social interaction and public spaces. She established the Bureau of Unknown Destinations at Proteus, inviting visitors to take home BUD packets containing instructions and a ticket to an unknown destination. The packets included a notebook to jot down thoughts and observations during their journeys. Sal will exhibit the delightful and various notebooks made by the BUD travelers.

Our final resident is anthropologist Eben Kirksey, who has hosted members of the Multispecies Salon during his stay at Proteus Gowanus while also developing the Utopia for the Golden Frog, an environment created from a discarded refrigerator for the Golden Frog, found today only is zoos. The Golden Frog’s extinction in the wild is believed to result from the widespread laboratory use of another frog, Xenopus laevia, which spread a fungus deadly to amphibians worldwide and which will be on exhibit at the gallery. Eben’s work as a biocultural anthropologist asks who benefits when species meet?

Aileen Bassis, Meredith Bergmann, The Brooklyn Museum Libraries and Archives, Lola Bunting, Marie Cieri, Viv Corringham, Dillon de Give,  Sarah Lederman, Portia Munson, Lance Rutledge, Randall Stoltzfus, Lorena Turner, and, in partnership with Reanimation Library, Ami Yamasaki.