Pop-Up Exhibition Gabe Felice & Jacob Stempky

Gabe Felice, originally from Greensburg, PA, currently lives at the Brewhouse in Pittsburgh, PA. His new work, Hands, stems from a recent fascination with the elegant, yet primal significance owned and operated by the human hand.

“Forged within our hands exists a living history of lines, scars, and textures that somewhat mirror the intriguing history revealed upon the surfaces of rusted metal and distressed wood,” he says.

Realizing this synchronicity, Felice began to seek out discarded objects and materials  – collecting forgotten wooden planks and doors, rusted utility boxes, old hinges, etc. Working with saws, files and enamel, he focused on capturing the lifetime of each object – translating its story into a new form.

Within the past eight years, he has aligned his process with the extra senses of perception and psycho-metrics. The result of these multiple experiments has evolved into an interactive – installation and performance called Psychic Drawings – which has been performed most recently at the Space Gallery in Pittsburgh.

Jacob Stempky was born and raised in Michigan and from a very early age was especially fond of drawing. He attended The University of Michigan School of Art and graduated Cum Laude with a degree in Drawing, Painting & Printmaking. Upon graduation, he moved to Chicago and started The Super Duper Art Co. in order to help market his original works. He also participated in several exhibitions, produced numerous commissions, and opened his own gallery in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago in 2003. After living in Chicago for ten years, Stempky moved to Pittsburgh in 2009 and has been honing his craft since.

Stempky loves to take photographs and draw from those or create from the moments in time that have been seared into his mind. His style has no bounds and he enjoys painting abstractly as well as realistically and is often working on both types of subjects at the same time in his studio. He is highly influenced by the work of Kandinsky, Klee and van Gogh although he is constantly trying to develop his own style.

“I will always find inspiration in this life” Stempky explains, “anyone who doesn’t, just needs to look a little closer or change their point of view. It is amazing what a little change of perspective can provide.”