FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SHARON FINE GALLERY HOSTS PEACE CORPS ALUMNI ART EXHIBIT & BOOK READING

Three artists and Peace Corps alumni with ties to the Washington, D.C., area will present their work beginning at 6 p.m., Saturday, April 28^th, at the Sharon Fine Gallery in Bethesda, Maryland.

An artist in residence at Greenbelt Community Center in Maryland, Kathy Karlson is a former member of A Salon Studio in Takoma Park, Md., and her works of art are included in more than 40 private collections. Most recently, her work has been shown at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Karlson’s work draws inspiration from abstract expressionism and her upbringing near the prairie as well as her experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa. In 1998, Karlson received a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship for her fiction, which has appeared in literary journals such as Carve, Chiron Review, Madison Review, and The MacGuffin.

Belinda Blum, an up-and-coming artist from Washington, D.C., has presented her work at Art Tank in Greenwich Village, Mason Gross Galleries in New Brunswick, N.J., the Fresh Meat/Young Blood New Jersey New Masters exhibition in Long Branch, N.J. as well as in more informal settings, such as on West Broadway in New York City. An art instructor in New York City schools, she is a graduate of Rutgers University’s M.F.A. in visual arts program. She graduated from Lafayette Elementary School, Alice Deal Junior High, and Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, D.C.

D.C. native Mark Brazaitis, a novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet, will give a reading to inaugurate the exhibition. Brazaitis’ most recent work is a collection of short stories, An American Affair, which won the 2004 George Garrett Prize from Texas Review Press. He is also the author of The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala, winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award, and Steal My Heart, a novel published in 2000. A past recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship, he is an associate professor of English at West Virginia University. Like Blum, he graduated from Elementary School, Alice Deal Junior High, and Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, D.C. He served in the Peace Corps in Guatemala from 1990 to 1993 and 1995 to 1996.

The Sharon Fine Gallery opened in September 2003.  The Sharon Fine Gallery offers a wide range of works by internationally established and up-and-coming artists including: abstract, figurative, still life, landscapes, expressionist, and pop art.  The gallery is located off Bradley Boulevard between Goldsboro and Wilson Lane in Bethesda. 

For more information about the Sharon Fine Gallery, please visit http://www.sharonfinegallery.com or email sharon@sharonfinegallery.com.