Brilliance in the Mundane
Brilliance in the Mundane explores the extraordinary potential hidden within the everyday. This exhibition brings together the work of Kevin Broad, Sean Irwin, Bruce Hoffman, Warren Muller, and Gerri Spilka, each artist transforming the ordinary through their unique engagement with light and color. Their art reveals how the commonplace can be elevated to reveal profound beauty and significance, through craft and pushing the limits of their mediums.
Kevin Broad captures the subtle play of light and color in nature, turning the Pennsylvania landscape into a vibrant canvas. Sean Irwin reimagines everyday materials and patterns, uncovering hidden narratives through intricate sculptures and drawings. Bruce Hoffman finds elegance in discarded objects, creating floral arrangements that celebrate beauty in decay.
Warren Muller’s light sculptures breathe new life into recycled items, imbuing them with playful energy and illumination, while Gerri Spilka’s modern quilts transform ordinary cotton into striking visual stories. Together, these artists demonstrate how brilliance can be discovered in the mundane, encouraging viewers to find inspiration and wonder in the familiar.
Featuring: Kevin Broad, Bruce Hoffman, Sean Irwin, Warren Muller, Gerri Spilka
Please contact programming@inliquid.org to schedule viewing appointments.
About The Artists:
Kevin Broad
b. Nazareth, PA
Bio:
Kevin Broad is a Philadelphia-based artist known for his masterful use of color and light across diverse mediums. His early artistic development was sparked by his small-town surroundings and a supportive teacher, which led him to pursue formal training at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Broad’s career features numerous solo and group exhibitions, with the recent highlight of "Duo Light: A Fusion of Perspectives" at Stirner Modern. Motivated by his desire to break from dogmatism and restrictive environments from his life experiences, Broad creates his own pigments and experiments with techniques such as fresco, demonstrating a profound engagement with both natural and urban landscapes. His work continues to capture the subtle and dynamic beauty of the world through a uniquely personal and expressive lens.
Kevin Broad’s work is included in the Park Towne Place Art Collection.
Statement:
“The study of nature has instilled an organic quality to my work. As an artist I am determined to capture the sensations of color and light that I see in the world around me with honesty and directness. With abstraction, I try to remove dependence on observing life. I fight repression and attempt what I have no solution for. Things I am feeling are painted using the properties of the pigment—to resonate and glow on the surface. The work becomes pure expression.”
Bruce Hoffman
b. Abington, PA
Bio:
Bruce Hoffman is an artist, curator, and the Executive Artistic Director of Gravers Lane Gallery in Philadelphia. He holds a BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Hoffman’s extensive curatorial background includes organizing notable exhibitions such as “The Faces of Politics: In/Tolerance” at the Fuller Craft Museum and curating seven consecutive International Fiber Biennials at Snyderman-Works Galleries. He has served as a juror for major events like the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Craft Show and the Studio Art Quilt Association’s exhibitions. His leadership roles include board service with the Chestnut Hill Business Association and advisory roles for the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. Hoffman's recent exhibition at the Philadelphia International Airport featured elaborate fiber art inspired by the lifecycle of cut flowers, continuing his exploration of decay and beauty. His diverse contributions highlight his significant influence and commitment to the art community.
Statement:
“The past 10 years have been life-altering for me. Ironically, the Pandemic sparked the maker in me. I had always been comfortable being alone. As a gallerist, teacher, writer, curator and lecturer, all of which I enjoy doing, I am perceived as bold and gregarious; A.K.A. a people person. The isolation from the Pandemic, the loss of my parents and parting with a family home that was the center of my world, I became acutely aware of being alone with myself. Not being lonely, being alone; being alone in my 50's. By day outgoing and a workaholic, by night I began to play with materials, objects, discarded plastic and a refound love of color and oil paints. I suffer from several physically debilitating medical concerns. Art making is therapeutic on many levels. Clearly it is about the moment, being in it, submerged, in a process, obsessed. It eases my pain, at least momentarily. My work grounds me. I rarely think of one piece at a time, rather I work on dozens of projects simultaneously.”
Sean K Irwin
b. Albion, NY
Bio:
Sean K. Irwin is a Philadelphia-based artist. He works with a variety of materials and methods with recurrent themes of alarm, emergency, new beginning and hope. He has exhibited widely throughout the Northeast. Originally from Western NY, Sean received his BA from SUNY Plattsburgh and an MFA in Sculpture from Syracuse University. He moved to Philadelphia in 2004 and is the owner/operator of Irwin Art Frames. He lives with his wife Laura Ledbetter, their daughter Evi, two cats and two fish.
Statement:
“This body of work consists of highly chromatic, mixed media sculpture, inspired by mark-making and material exploration.
My responsive and layered process begins with castings of accumulations– dryer lint or saw dust– and then builds on the serendipitous forms. From these unconventional materials, I continue to create new surfaces with graphite, glitter, and pigment, embellishing the three-dimensional forms with drawn elements. These are akin to tattoos and other surface modifications on the skin of my organic forms.
Geometric shapes are the basis of my formal explorations of texture, rhythm, and color. The matte finish of the graphite and raw materials contrasts the gleam of the painted and glittery components. Colors can build in concentric circles or recede into dark recesses - sometimes they fracture into shards of hue. These are painterly sculptures, functioning in two and three dimensions.
The inspiration for this work is based in the physical acts of making - drawing on my experience as a sculptor. They employ a variety of specialized techniques: casting, constructing, framing, drawing and gilding. They also experiment with new methods: up-cycling the detritus of my daily life including saw dust from my wood-shop, dryer lint from my home and from my friends. Collecting, gathering and reimagining these materials ground the practice in community and resourcefulness.”
Warren Muller
b. Bronx, NY
Bio:
Warren Muller is a renowned artist celebrated for his inventive light sculptures made from recycled and found objects. His work transforms everyday items—such as bottles, bike parts, hubcaps, and toy cars—into vibrant, luminous pieces that infuse spaces with joy and playfulness.
Muller’s sculptures are prominently featured in buildings, restaurants, and museums across the U.S. His notable works include the light sculpture crafted from recycled bike parts under the huppa and light fixtures embedded in mosaics throughout Isaiah Zagar’s installations at the iconic Philadelphia Magic Gardens.
For over 30 years, Muller has brought new life to discarded objects, using them to create art that illuminates and invigorates. His pieces, which range from nostalgic and playful to profound and eloquent, turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, inviting viewers to see the light within everyday things.
Warren Muller’s work is included in the Park Towne Place Art Collection.
About Muller's Work:
"“Unlike many artists' career trajectories, he left N.Y to venture and develop his talents in Philadelphia. His impact on the city’s landscape helped to subliminally lift the spirits of its citizens and subtly transform the public face of Philadelphia into a more vibrant and expressive place.
There is a sense of joy and play in his art that is infectious. It triggers a supple effect, and his fame has spread largely through word of mouth rather than the conventional media outlets.
What elevates his work from mere craftsmanship is his visionary outlook. His ability to rearrange objects and incorporate an iconography of myths, fairytales and personal idiosyncrasies. A glimpse of chaos captured and frozen for a split second.
Muller's fanciful “chandeliers” and sculptural lamps illuminate both public and private spaces using the functional need for light as an excuse to bring sculpture into a space that otherwise might not consider such a luxury.
His art is immediately accessible and irresistible. It delights the senses with whimsical imagery and conjures up the child-like spirit of wonder and awe in viewers. He uses materials more often found in trash cans and hardware stores than in artist’s supply shops.
He uses traditional artisanal techniques, and his tools are borrowed from building craft trades. It’s a workingman’s art for everyman, and a natural continuation of his generous nature and egalitarian view of the world. A free drink from the boundless fountain of art.
Only after this delicious first sip has been swallowed does this viewer begin to absorb the deeper and more subversive implications. Namely, if mundane everyday objects and rubbish can be magically transformed anywhere into “art” what does this say about those things which strictly does place a high value? And what the heck is art anyway?
One cannot simply walk away from his art without becoming intoxicated by a new and refreshing appreciation for everyday objects and their relation to the sublime.”
Credit: Deborah Scoblionkov
Gerri Spilka
b. New York, New York
Bio:
Gerri Spilka is a highly awarded contemporary artist based in Philadelphia. A lifelong urbanite, and from extended family comprised of many who worked in the textile industry, her work has been widely exhibited in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, with pieces held in collections such as the International Quilt Museum and Study Center in Lincoln, NE, the Fox School of Business at Temple University, and Jefferson University and Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. Today, alongside her studio practice, she is a passionate promoter of contemporary textile art, having played a key role in the traveling exhibits “Color Improvisations 2” and “Material Pulses: Seven Viewpoints”.
Spilka holds a BA in Psychology and Education from Carnegie Mellon University, a Master’s in Psychology from Temple University, and a Master’s in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.
Gerri Spilka’s work is included in the Park Towne Place Art Collection.
Statement:
“Considering myself an alchemist, I take ordinary pieces of cotton and transform them into larger than life shapes of glorious, luminous colors. My work fuses the seemingly disparate elements of modern figurative abstraction, gritty urban life, and decades of observing people, to re-imagine traditional quilt-making into suggested visual stories on the collective human experience.
People ask me if I consider my work paintings, why do I use the medium of quilting to express myself? I love “the hand”, or feel of fabric. Even more so, quilts are so accessible to people as they are embedded with powerful collective cultural and personal memory. Quilts have ongoing connection with the beat of our own body, comfort, and our family. We wrap it around us for protection every night when we retreat from the world to safely sleep. They are often made from clothing from the people we loved. Many were made by dear family members, and often quilted with other women in community.
So, while my abstract figurative forms and shapes are strong, bold, hard edge and modernist, the supple fabric, texture, biomorphic shapes, and suggested narrative evoke a warm, familiar and accessible modernism.”
