Haunting Impressions from “Life, Death, Hereafter” at Nevelson Chapel

Audra Lambert

A visceral and lingering look at death highlights the preciousness of living in ”Life, Death, Hereafter” on view through May 29th at the Nevelson Chapel (Lexington Avenue and 54th Street) in Manhattan. Curated by Jenny Mushkin Goldman, MA, the exhibition is produced in partnership with the Nevelson Legacy Council and NYC Culture Club at Saint Peter’s Church, home of Nevelson Chapel. A space for spiritual engagement and creative vision, the chapel serves as a fitting host for this illuminating exhibition engaging with loss, grief, and spirit.

Intersecting themes around environmental conservation and collective loss expand the conversation outward from a core theme of the individual’s experiences with death. Artists Chellis Baird, Nelsena Burt-Spano, Alexis Duque, S. Klitgaard, Katarra LaRae Peterson, Gracelee Lawrence, April Marten, Ariel Mitchell, Anne-Sophie H. Plume, Lina Puerta, Leonard Reibstein, Adam Umbach, and Paul Joseph Vogeler exhibit compelling artworks engaging with themes both corporeal and spiritual in nature.

Install image, ”Death, Life, Hereafter” at Nevelson Chapel curated by Jenny Mushkin Goldman

Artist S. Klitgaard’s paintings embrace bold color combinations that heighten the emotional tension present in these compositions. Psychological clues pervade the paintings, which create mysterious tableaux for the viewer to contemplate. While Ariel Mitchell’s haunting ”The Blind Search for Frog Eggs” appears abstract at first, the painting actually depicts the swirling of new life as tadpoles emerge from murky water. The careful attention here to color and composition create a dream-like world for the viewer. Works by April Marten, titled ”Death” and ”I Am” are two minimalist, mixed-media text works that communicate austerity, longing and memory. Marten’s sensitive approach to the subject matter forms a powerful elegy to memory and identity.

Leonard Reibstein’s ”Harbinger” produces a phantasmagoric vision packed with medieval elements. The dream-like vision of a levitating castle, along with the harsh color contrasts present in the composition, produce a harrowing effect for the viewer of this quixotic and ominous painting. Adam Umbach’s works combine the concept of memento mori with a Pop Art sensibility. The graphic style of Umbach’s paintings pack a punch in its pared-down visual composition style. Paul Joseph Vogeler’s ”The Violence Within” depicts stacked skulls in monotone in this charcoal on paper work. Vogeler pays careful attention to the formal qualities of these elements, with nuanced details of the crevices and surfaces of these skulls which are both evocative and chilling.

Chellis Baird’s monumental ”Anticipation” is a towering abstract painting that weaves together disparate materials, incorporating wax to create an effect that almost strikes the viewer as organic matter. Baird’s sumptuous and skillful use of material recalls both decay and new growth. Lina Puerta’s installations from her ’Botanico’ series calls to mind both the supernatural allusion of the term and the botanical gardens implied with the faux natural materials creating these aras of verdant overgrowth throughout the gallery. Puerta deftly combines a range of materials to form a hybridized, visceral installation speaking to a wide audience. Alexis Duque paints composite worlds that speak to lost civilizations the dissipating diversity of flora and fauna as a result of climate change and colonization. His intricate compositions create lush worlds that document growth over decay.

“Paradise Lost” (L) and ”The Flute Player” (R) by Alexis Duque for ”Death, Life, Hereafter”

Artist Nelsena Burt-Spano’s installation ”XO” is powerful and provocative. Violence and nurturing elements are presented in stark contrast to one another: a visual felt more keenly in the wake of continued incidents of mass gun violence in the United States. “Exodus” by Katarra LaRae Peterson is a diptych artfully portraying the immense and sublime experience undergone by Moses parting the Red Sea. This famed tale from Judeo-Christian history approximates the overwhelming experience felt by refugees escaping to a new life through hazard and hardship. Gracelee Lawrence is exhibiting a sculpture, ”You Can Only Think Clearly With Your Clothes On.” This sculpture feels both precious and tenuous, with sweeping curvature that incorporates 3-D printed abstract and representational elements. Finally, artist Anne-Sophie H. Plume’s Studies of Human Skulls depict expressionist and emotionally charged portraits of skulls, delicate and powerful continuations of memento mori traditions that recall the preciousness of life. Plume’s treatment of this topic marks a contemporary departure from this historic tradition.

Echoing artist Louise Nevelson’s observation that ”we are a mirror of our times,” curator Jenny Mushkin Goldman observes the interlocking themes and how the artwork on view reinforces the show’s premise of considering death in our contemporary moment. ”This group exhibition presents artwork portraying motifs inspired by symbolism related to the inevitability of death,” reflects Mushkin Goldman. ”Other artwork included speaks to the regeneration of life through botanical imagery and materiality evocative of verdant abundance and also brings to mind the Garden of Eden and the notion of paradise lost. Some work presented explores that which is not earthbound, furthering the idea of the continuity of life into the hereafter.”

In moments when we find ourselves dealing with collective grief and loss in society, exploring ways to view this experience artistically can offer new ways to consider the meaning our lives have and to better understand how death affects us from multiple perspectives.

“Death, Life, Hereafter” is on view through May 29th at the Nevelson Chapel. Hours to view the exhibit are Monday to Friday, 10am – 12 pm and Sunday to Tuesday, 4 – 6 pm.

Rachael Wren Gives Form to the Formless in Still It Grows at Rick Wester Fine Art

By Jeanne Brasile

At the onset of the pandemic, artist Rachael Wren spent more time than usual in nature looking at trees – noticing the subtleties of space and her relationship to it.  The constants of the square canvas and gridded plane provide a stable ground for experimentation with other variables such as mark-making, color, line and shape. While ostensibly about trees, these eleven new paintings -completed in the past two years – depict various arrangements of vertical trunks cropped at the top and stripped of branches and leaves.  Yet, the underlying gridlines, left visible amid the overlying composition, hint at something more complex.  Wren’s use of the tree and the grid provide the scaffolding around which she constructs her richly nuanced conversations about atmosphere as subject.  Wren’s paintings convey a sense of proprioception, or kinaesthesia, in wooded spaces she shares with viewers.  This is brought to bear in the gallery, along with the visitor’s relationships to the space and paintings within.  These connections are heightened by Rick Wester’s sensitive installation.    

installation view of Still it Grows at Rick Wester Fine Art

Anchoring the exhibit from opposing ends of the gallery are two 72″ square canvases, “Already There” and “Thicket.”  The large format is a breakthrough for Wren who generally paints in a 48” or 36” square.  Moving up in size enhances the experience of physically entering the fictive space of the painting while concomitantly establishing a relationship to the architecture of the gallery and the other paintings.  “Thicket” with its greenish-gray palette draws us into the receding space of a dense composition filled with hazy, foggy light from a source on the left.  The trees recede into a darker space on the right, giving viewers an opening to enter the wooded scene.  “Already There” is more open spatially with an energetic orange palette that shifts in a gradient to blue-gray moving to the top of the painting.  The brushstrokes are loose, barely held together by the freely rendered verticals of the trees. The tension is palpable, as if the trees are on the verge of dissolution, merging into the space around them. 

“Encounter” Rachael Wren, oil on linen 36″ x 36″ (2021)

Highlights of the show include “Encounter” which seems to glow from within.  The large, cantilevered brushstrokes sit atop one another like haphazardly stacked children’s blocks about to topple.  This work functions like a visual retort to “Already There”  with its loose verticals.  “Spring Rain” shows Wren’s penchant for dispersing space as well as her newly  expanded  visual vocabulary.  Introducing new shapes such as quasi-quatrefoils, overlapping horizontals and verticals, and amorphous ‘blotches,’ the composition becomes more abstract than the others.  Wren deftly uses a softly contrasting palette of green, gray and lavender to moor the looseness of her gestures and unify the work.           

The visual proximity of Wren’s paintings enables one to see the incredible array of atmospheric conditions observed and Wren’s rich lexicon that masterfully depicts the void as subject.  As one moves through Still It Grows,  fleeting moments in nature are captured for quiet contemplation; dappled sunlight through spring leaves, the enveloping mist of a humid morning, fog rolling through the forest or the dawn’s gentle side light cutting through a copse.  Wren is a master of giving form to the formless in these mindfully conceived and unhurriedly executed paintings that must be experienced in person to fully appreciate their complexity and eloquent impressions of atmospheric conditions.     

A Meditation on Vastness: “The sky is higher here” at Transmitter Gallery

by Adam Timur Aslan

“Why is it that all that blue refuses to be contained?”, asks the press release of the group exhibition, The sky is higher here. The show is curated by Leila Seyedzadeh and on display at Transmitter Gallery until March 27th. It features work by Hedwig Brouckaert, Simone Couto, Edi Dai, Saba Farhoudnia, Victoria Martinez, and Ingrid Tremblay.

installation view, The sky is higher here (L–R works by Hedwig Brouckaert “Flesh of Light (I)” (2017) Ingrid Tremblay “Looking further” (2016) and Saba Farhoudnia “Between the two sighs” (2019)

A focal point thematically of the show is the limitless depth of a sky that is too complex for full human understanding. The sky is a source of heat and light, but also darkness. It has scientific qualities that are mysterious. It is a ceiling of blue during the day and an infinite expanse of black at night. It gives allusions to heaven during the day, and the potential for granted wishes via falling stars at night. A focus on the sky is a decision to allow for vastness. To make art about the sky is to consider all these things and decide upon a subject matters that is composed of both the sublime and chaotic. 

“One of the first things that got my attention from day one was that the sky is higher here than what I felt back in Tehran. I still don’t know if there is a scientific reason behind it, or just me seeing the sky this way in North America. Later on, I visited Mexico City and Toronto, and I noticed the sky was high and vast. And when I traveled back to Tehran, I looked carefully and saw the sky was not the same, and I tried to understand why it was lower there,” details Seyedzadeh.

Seyedzadeh brings together artists at Transmitter Gallery that utilize a wide range of materials. Though the curatorial theme can be seen in all the works, the expression of that theme is wildly divergent. “Being in New York among a diverse group of artists from all around the world inspired me to listen to stories that speak about the same content, but which come from such different places – from Iran, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, and the USA. These artists share their ideas through painting, photography, textile, mixed media, and more,” reflects Seyedzadeh.

“A page from my dream book” Victoria Martinez (2022) Cotton, silk, yarn and hibiscus dye, 20 x 18″

The exhibit includes a range of topics that intersect with the theme of the vast blue sky. “Despite the insurmountable distance between the Earth and the sky and its defiance to be understood, these artists search to make it accessible and deeply familiar,” Seyedzadeh explains. “We know that only something as magnificent, shapeless, and borderless as the sky can hold the sum of all our heart’s grief and hopes without ever pouring over.”

The interweaving of seemingly opposing visual objects to create a peaceful setting is observed in the work of Ingrid Tremblay.  The fragility of the immigrant experience and “the infinite blue above our existences” is shown through the work of Simone Couto. The peace and survival bound in the blues of water and sky are explored by in the painted “Between Two Sighs” by Saba Farhoudnia, which was made shortly after losing her father. Hedwig Brouckaert’s mixed media work “Flesh of Light (I)” evokes the liminality of the sky’s dissolving horizontal borders.

While the strength of concept behind the works shine, the range of materials and quality of completed work using this material is equally compelling. Particularly noteworthy is the “A page from my dream book” (2022) (above) by Victoria Martinez which presents a variety of material, color, and shape that the work employs to create a piece that is in dialogue with natural rhythms: a woman’s body, the moon, and other natural shifts in state. Edi Dai’s sumptuous and subtle study of color in staggered layers of natural cotton in “Thoroughfare Vessel” (2022) (below) also commands the viewer’s contemplation.

“Thoroughfare Vessel” Edi Dai (2022) Handwoven canvas made of various undyed colored cotton, 14 x 12″

The sky is higher here is up until March 27th.Transmitter gallery is located at 1329 Willoughby Avenue, 2A, Brooklyn, NY 11237, with gallery hours 1-6 pm on weekends and by appointment.

Monumental: Queen Andrea in “Letters Forever” & Cern and Nola Romano’s “Urban Encounters” at AHA Fine Art

Two separate exhibitions hold court at AHA Fine Art with both Queen Andrea in Letters Forever and Cern and Nola Romano in Urban Encounters through March 13, 2022. AHA Fine Art (56 Bogart Street in Brooklyn) hosts these exhibitions, both of which span the range of physical space in a scale reminiscent of urban art found across the streets of New York City.

Install views of Letters Forever and Urban Encounters

Queen Andrea is a prolific artist whose installations feature prominently throughout the five boroughs. Queen Andrea (aka Andrea von Bujdross) was drawn to the growing field of street art in 1990s New York City in her early teens. She cut her teeth with some of the most daring street artists working in the urban area. Her intuitive grasp of a color theory, stenciling and a strongly cultivated personal aesthetic leave a strong impression on visitors to Letters Forever. A prolific fine artist, muralist and designer, visitors have plenty to digest — from her masterful use of organic line, circular and curved elements and carefully applied gradient.

Artwork, ”Flourish” by Queen Andrea on view in Letters Forever at AHA Fine Art

Works such as “Believe” (2022) and “Flourish” (2022) (above) offer positive messages that are presented in bright neon colors across sweeping backdrops. “Flourish” offers a scale in dialogue with her public murals, with cotton-candy tones spanning the canvas in gradients spanning from navy to cornflower blue to burnt sienna. The artist presents powerful meditations on transformation in these recent paintings, harnessing inspiration across multiple formats, including jewelry, sculpture and painting.

Cern, “Ocean of Devotion” oil on panel, 30 x 20” from the exhibit, Urban Encounters

Install view of works by Nola Romano, Urban Encounters

Install views of Letters Forever and Urban Encounters

Meanwhile, the opposing gallery walls feature a double exhibition of works by Cern and Nola Romano. Entitled Urban Encounters, the show presents figurative works presented in bright colors, with distinctive styles presented that are unique to each artist. As per gallerist Francesca Arcilesi, “Cern is the type of artist whose life and craft are intensely intertwined. The wall, panel or canvas act as an expression of a much deeper, layered mantra and perspective on how to go through life. His art consists of abstract, smooth, blended lines with elements of clearly defined edges and imagery.” This tension between Impressionism and Street art remains present throughout Cern’s artworks on view, creating a harmonious effect that invites the visitor to linger, discovering beautiful, illusory details in these poignant compositions.

Nola Romano’s works balance the personal and the universal, the delicate and the resilient. Her works, primarily acrylic on wood panel, present the complexity of the world: both the idealism of the world to be and the persistent reality of longing, fear and dread. Her portraits of young girls and figures with fantastical attributes create a sense a magical realism, heightened by the visual texture she creates in this painterly vignettes. These paintings communicate transience and endurance in equal measure, presenting the beauty in the world around us through the lens of fantasy.

Make sure not to miss Letters Forever and Urban Encounters in its final weekend on view at AHA Fine Art, 56 Bogart St, from 1-6 pm through March 13.

A New Romantic: Pamela Casper’s “Earthscapes” at Reeves-Reed Arboretum (Summit, NJ)

Artist Pamela Casper’s Earthscapes: Emerging to a Brighter World, on view now at Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit, NJ, honors the power that nature has to inspire, to awe, and to overwhelm. Casper is able to capture, ”a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower,” in the words of Romantic poet William Blake. In many ways Casper’s solo show, a mini-retrospective for the artist, brilliantly captures that wondrous sense of natural awe redolent of the Romantic movement, with a nuanced portrayal of natural phenomenon at turns imaginative and insightful. Casper’s works on view span mediums ranging from works on paper to mixed media and sculpture, offering visitors a varied means of engaging with the environment.

Installation view of Earthscapes: Emerging to a Brighter World, a solo show of works by Pamela Casper

Works such as ”Roots and Insects,” ”Gothic Underground,” and ”Underground Glow” allow guests to burrow down into the impression the artist has created of roots expanding deep underground. Rich jewel tones and minuscule, detailed lines trace the most powerful and life-sustaining part of a tree: its root system. Casper’s paintings evoke what they don’t show, giving the impression of destiny with lush, painterly brushstrokes hinting at the rich ecosystem lying just out of view of the human eye.

Roots and Insects (2016) Pamela Casper, watercolor on paper, 24×36”

In addition to the artist’s Tornado series (see cover photo) which brings to life the transformative power of nature and calls into question our tenuous relationship as stewards of the environment, the artist also works with reclaimed materials. ”Abandoned Nest” re-imagines barbed wire as a bird’s nest, painting a bleak future for a world in which scant natural materials are available for creatures to depend on. The sharp angles jutting across one another are juxtaposed with a bird’s feather: a reminder of what’s left for us to lose unless we begin reimagining ways to provide for a sustainable environmental future.

Abandoned Nest (2013) Pamela Casper, barbed wire and feather, 18×9”

Pamela Casper’s ”Earthscapes: Emerging to a Brighter World” is on view at the Reeves-Reed Arboretum’s Wisner House in Summit, NJ, until October 31st, 2021. Check the Arboretum’s website for hours and special events before attending: https://www.reeves-reedarboretum.org/visit/ .

“Wall Sandwich” at Amos Eno Gallery a Delectable Treat

“You cut a hole in the building and people can look inside and see the way other people really lived… it’s making space without building it.” – Gordon Matta-Clark

Industrial materials and a delightful array of dimensions provide new angles on urbanity in “Chris Esposito: Wall Sandwich,” on view now at Amos Eno Gallery at 56 Bogart St through Sunday, July 18th.

Installation image, “Chris Esposito: Wall Sandwich” at Amos Eno Gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

Esposito is a Queens-based artist. A born and bred New Yorker, the artist’s familiarity with the city permeates every aspect of the exhibition. Construction is one constant traversing the city’s streets, and familiar sights such as dangling shoes and lath wood, metal and cement confront urban residents at every twist and turn of the city’s winding streets. Eroding painted signage from days gone by are visible on the sides of buildings from overpasses and aboveground subway lines throughout the city, revealing varying degrees of erasure as they play out across the skyline. Fences separating properties across the city’s five boroughs range from elaborate, pointed arches to brushed chrome. All of these experiences and more infuse “Chris Esposito: Wall Sandwich” with a potent representation of how residents and visitors interact with spaces surrounding them in urban landscapes.

Works on view present a study in contrasts, with the artist embracing industrial materials and artistic processes in equal measure, forming a strange yet powerful combination. Works included in this exhibition, such as “Split/Connect” (below image, work on right,) incorporate oil, tar and steel rods, while artistic techniques like painting, collage and assemblage are utilized throughout. Lath wood and bricks form the structure supporting the artist’s large-scale work, “Wall Sandwich,”: the exhibit’s namesake. Notions of the simulacrum pervade the show as well, with paintings of wood boards flanking actual wood structures, such as with “…Only inches away…,” and “Exterior Clapboards: Detroit”, questioning how the structures which we perceive around us in cities can both reveal and occlude vibrant histories.

In revealing the interiors of structures and their intrinsic relationship to exterior walls, Esposito notes that he, “concentrates on the interior and exterior of the walls, the space in between, the endless layers of palimpsest both polished and tarnished. It is a study of the soul of New York City.” Repeating motifs jostle for attention with surprising elements, such as a metal tag hanging off a string from the central board of “Leftovers.” City residents and guests strolling through New York will notice hanging objects proliferate throughout the city, whether it’s a hanging pair of shoes on power lines or a misplaced mitten hanging off a wrought-iron fence on a snowy day. The city gives as it takes away: construction materials throughout the exhibition also allude to real estate development and a city in constant cycles of demolishing and creating new buildings throughout the five boroughs. Visitors can approach these themes embedded within the exhibition in view of their own relationship to these different aspects of city life, finding correlations to their own journeys across, below, and around structures in New York City.

Installation image, “Chris Esposito: Wall Sandwich” at Amos Eno Gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

The underlying landscape that supports the city’s infrastructure takes center stage in “Chris Esposito: Wall Sandwich.” Thanks to the artist’s clever compositions and keen insights, visitors are able pore over contrasting textures and surfaces presented at a range of scales and form connections between the works on view and the city’s many tangible layers of architectural histories.

The Subdued Triumph of “In Longing” at CUE Art Foundation

by Audra Lambert

Poet Rainer Maria Rilke once observed, “the purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.” The fragile yet tenacious victory of In Longing, on view now through July 14 at CUE Art Foundation, articulates the spectacular beauty of thwarted connections. Spanning new media, installation, mixed media and sculpture, works on view by artists Alison Chen, SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY, Raymond Pinto, Marie Ségolène and Xirin probe us to reconsider the ways in which we long and the means by which longing manifests. Curated by Anna Cahn, with support from CUE mentor Legacy Russell, In Longing foregrounds the need for a resolution which is implicitly suggested in the concept of “longing.”

Artists on view create intersectional dialogue around privilege, desire and visibility. As noted in Cahn’s catalog essay, “A central question of the exhibition asks: how is desire affected by the oppressive systems of patriarchy and white supremacy?” Participating artists also present performance around the theme of the exhibition. In Longing has been activated over the course of the exhibition by performances from Xirin and Sebastian Chacon and the debut of a performance film from Marie Ségolène. An upcoming performance entitled “what is left, if i am earth” by artist Raymond Pinto and collaborator Fana Fraser will take place on Wednesday, July 14 at 2 PM, followed by a closing reception with the curator the same day from 5 PM.

Installation shot of “In Longing” at the CUE Art Foundation (Photo Credit: Adam Reich)

One consistent aspect of the exhibition is a denial of the male gaze as the default position of longing. Visitors enter the space to immediately encounter Marie Ségolène’s “Rouge Gorge” video and multi-media installation. The multi-sensory elements present within Ségolène’s work centers a self-longing: a passionate wish to situate one’s own sense of longing and desire within an environment alternately fertile and hostile. Loaded with an introspective and inherently queer sense of self-realization, the artist alludes to the fact that yearnings are self-directed, and can be evoked by a range of sensations which are experienced in unique ways by different bodies. “Rouge Gorge” also references visual and audible repetition, a clever yet potent means of referencing sensual ritual and return. Reading from her poetry in a range of scenes – near water, in the midst of the forest, and other natural settings – Ségolène deftly integrates action and expression.

Installation image, “In and Out”
Alison Chen (2005-ongoing)
2 inkjet prints on paper (Photo courtesy Adam Reich)

Alison Chen and Xirin provide distinct reflections on how longing can be documented or expressed. Chen’s “In and Out” reveals the relative peaks and valleys of a committed relationship, laying bare the honest analytics of emotion and tracking how that looks in objective terms. Chen’s video, “For One Night Only,” authentically, intimately and sometimes humorously lays bare how living together with a romantic partner can manifest in small gestures and interrelated movements. In Xirin’s video, “Hope Eats the Soul,” the artist and her partner re-enact scenes from Fassbinder’s “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul” (1974) in a lofty measure of how intimacy and distance can collapse into one another. With no dialogue, and scored with atmospheric music, the camera pans alternately between the duo while longing glances connect or concentrate on the middle distance between two certain points, seeking resolution. Xirin’s work traces her “undocumented emotional realms”(1) to evince a longing to be fully seen.

Raymond Pinto’s installation “what is left, if i am earth” presents geodes – crystal aggregates that appear on the outside as spherical rocks. This deceptive appearance challenges us to consider how much of what we know is taken for granted. Pinto presents a “Black queer ecology of motion”(2): asking where, and how, restraint and impulse intersect and what the implications of these actions are. The installation seemingly vacillates between presence and absence, embedded with investigations about emotion and longing and about the space allocated for Black queer experiences. Environments and power dynamics infuse SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY’s prescient sculpture “REQUEST–>LURE–>RESPONSE–>REWARD(?) OR A COVERING FOR THE CAGE.” The artist explores a theme she calls “choreographic viewership”(3) in dialogue with BDSM desire while simultaneously questioning which bodies are included or “longed” for.

Visitors to the exhibition can view the interior of the space where Xirin, Chen, HOLLOWAY and Pinto’s works are situated from a tête-à-tête chair rounded chair able to seat two guests alongside one another, which is part of Xirin’s installation for “Hope Eats the Soul”. A letter written by the artist floats alongside one of two mixed media works Xirin presents in the space, incorporating allusions to the corporeal: scenes from the artist’s past performances are depicted in acrylic, lipstick, egg and coffee applied across canvas, accentuating the flattened presence of the artist’s two-channel video nearby. In tracing the interaction of Chen and Xirin’s video and installation work with Raymond Pinto’s “what is left, if i am earth” and HOLLOWAY’s “REQUEST–>LURE–>RESPONSE–>REWARD(?) OR A COVERING FOR THE CAGE”, a curatorial vision emerges which intertwines attraction and distance, distraction and intimacy. Binaries fold into themselves, merging instead into interrogations that push us to question how we never realized we were this close to begin with, and why it’s impossible to be closer than we even knew we were. -AL

(1) See Anna Cahn’s catalog essay, “In Longing.” (2) and (3): Ibid.

“TORQUE” at Peninsula Art Space: Painting from All Angles

On view through July 4th at Peninsula Art Space in Red Hook, Brooklyn, TORQUE brings a heightened attention to surface detail and the painterly gesture. The show’s title notes of torque that it “is the driving force for all human movement,” and paintings on view form a dialogue around how transitions and movement are expressed in painting. Works on view are by artists Craig Taylor, Georgia Elrod, Graham Durward and Allison Evans. From the painterly figurative stylings of Graham Durward to the jagged aggregations of brushstrokes by Craig Taylor, TORQUE offers a survey of painting that intimates and suggests more than it ultimately reveals.

Durward’s compositions contrast figures against seemingly idyllic backdrops, creating ambiguous figures inhabiting unsettling scenes. Off into the distance, a rising plume of smoke draws attention away from this close cadre of figures cavorting together, inserting another narrative into the scene that feels far removed from the vacation vista presented at first glance.

Installation view, “TORQUE” featuring work by Graham Durward at Peninsula Art Space

The scale of works on view also makes a strong impact, with works such as Georgia Elrod’s “Midnight Oils” overwhelming the viewer and beckoning them forward seemingly into a new dimension as they enter the space. The human figure is present throughout the exhibition, but these subjects are seemingly erased from view and/or presented in fragments. Works by Allison Evans form a cheeky commentary by filtering subversive figurative elements through the lens of historical elements such as Grecian urns, painting these in flat yet expressive brushstrokes. Craig Taylor’s works indicates his deft brushwork as a painter, allowing the surface of his paintings to seemingly expand outward through implied movement away from the picture plane.

Installation image, “TORQUE”, featuring work by Craig Taylor at Peninsula Art Space

TORQUE at Peninsula Art Space is open from 12-7 pm on Saturdays and Sundays, and is located at 352 Van Brunt Street at Sullivan Street. Check out their website for more details on their exhibits: http://www.peninsulaartspace.com/ .

Alex Guofeng Cao’s “Pixelation” Brings Fresh Visions to Fremin Gallery

Artist Alex Guofeng Cao is no stranger to pop culture: in fact, he’s examined many aspects of it down to the cellular, and celluloid, level. An avid admirer of American pop culture with a precise knowledge of photography, film and digital, Cao’s visions produce fantastically detailed hybrid portraits combining celebrity headlines and art history highlights, from the 20th century and earlier, for “Pixelation” at Fremin Gallery.

detail, “Modigliani vs.Marilyn” Alex Guofeng Cao, Pixelation
image courtesy the artist and Fremin Gallery

Artworks with titles such as “Modigliani vs. Marilyn” give some indication as to the artist’s method and artistic process. Through careful repetition of one particular image – for example, an artistic nude of Marilyn Monroe – the artist then creates a composition of another iconic image, such as a famed Modigliani painting. Fremin Gallery explains his unique vision through their show announcement. “Cao meticulously places each smaller image to form a dynamic gradient from dark to light which tricks the eye into seeing one image. This expertise in contrast is exemplified in all of his works, from striking black and white pieces to stunning explorations in high-definition color. He cleverly mirrors this visual contrast in his subject matter by subverting the main image and creating a dialogue between the macrocosm and microcosm.”

Where Cao’s work truly shines is in the detailed attention he allows not only the formal composition of the two interrelated artworks he presents, but also the conceptual license he takes in combining the imagery present in each artwork. Often commenting on social and cultural constructs, such as beauty, sports, and celebrity culture, these works serve as a provocative jumping off point for viewers to form their own connections to these themes. Paying careful attention to celebrities dominating the period of pop culture when Pop Art, with its luminaries such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, both of whom Cao reference overtly, these works give deference to a period in which American culture was beginning to make its mark on the global stage. Cao’s works offer a new perspective on what it means to not only see the potential of art to digest images, but also the potential for the world to see American culture through fresh eyes – or, perhaps, a new lens.

“A Thousand Kisses Deep, Lichtenstein vs Warhol,” Alex Guofeng Cao, Pixelation, image courtesy the artist and Fremin Gallery

On view at Fremin Gallery through April 10th, Pixelation is worth a visit as a potent reminder that there is definitely always more than meets the eye on view, particularly when viewing these extraordinary works. For more information, visit the gallery’s website: http://fremingallery.com/exhibitions/

Get It! TOGETHER. Featuring works by Marguerite Wibaux + Dhanashree Gadiyar, curated by Akeem Duncan

On view now at The Yard: Flatiron South (234 Fifth Ave) through April 17th, Akeem Duncan’s curatorial magnum opus, “TOGETHER.”, takes center stage, featuring works by Marguerite Wibaux and Dhanashree Gadiyar. The interlocking, tightly executed hybrid of pattern and hue permeate the portraits painted by Wibaux, while Gadiyar’s works on paper astound in complexity and detail. The two artists complement one another in tone, temperament and preciousness. Whether outlining the marvels of the Aurora Borealis or probing the subtle corners of a subject’s smile, these artists focus on wonder, and the connections we seek out that make life meaningful and memorable.

Curator Akeem Duncan (Editor-in-Chief, Quiet Lunch) has come into his own intimate understanding of the space which he is curating, taking time to place paintings in contrast with specific architectural details and with the viewer’s relative position to each artwork in mind. Wibaux’s paintings in particular, with their ornate fabric pattern-inspired swaths directing the viewer’s eye across the canvas, present an interesting opportunity to contrast against white walls and brick in equal measure. Visitors to the exhibition encounter these works, imbued as they are with a playful yet precise air throughout the Yard’s space.

TOGETHER. Painting by Marguerite Wibaux, on view at The Yard, Flatiron South.

Wibaux’s intimate knowledge of her subject are on display in the captivating in which she paints their emotional state, ranging from anxious to assertive, self-assured to hesitant. The artist’s loose and fluid brushstrokes approximate the subject’s current state, while fabric-inspired patterning flanking each of these portrait subjects brings an alternate reading to the composition. Combined, these two elements create a striking balance in the portrait in an effect that Wibaux notes helps…” to focus on the human figure.” “Generally speaking, my art practice aims to challenge common representations, the way we look at ourselves as a society,” remarks Wibaux. “As an artist I don’t feel I can change the world, but I can help shifting representations.  Getting your portrait painted  in art history has mostly been a symbol of power.  Through my portraits, I want to give power to our young and diverse youth, to give them a voice, to have people really SEE and LISTEN to them.”

Painting by Dhanashree Gadiyar for TOGETHER. at The Yard, Flatiron South, curated by Akeem Duncan.

Intimate framed paintings by Dhanashree Gadiyar are interspersed throughout the exhibition. Her works frequently depict figures immersed in resplendent landscapes, or brightly colored scenes also capturing bright and undulating patterns. Gadiyar readily reflects on the impact that pattern exerts on her work. “My love for patterning comes from my exposure to the folk art forms of India such as Madhubani, Gond and Patachitra,” explains Gadiyar. “I incorporate these traditional forms of mark-making as well as intuitive and automatic patterning. Also, as a trained embroidery artist, I tend to treat the paper like fabric, filling it in obsessively with my marks.” Also notable is the artist’s use of organic line, curve and color to create rounded and smooth compositions, seemingly expanding off into the distance of the picture plane.

The artist works with watercolor and acrylic on paper, as opposed to canvas, adding a precious quality: a feeling of delicacy. ” I love working on paper,” notes Gadiyar,” since it lets me let go off control and gives me the feeling of freedom.” This freedom is evident in the impression the artist’s works leave on the visitor, who feel emboldened to step into the composition and roam the surroundings themselves.

TOGETHER. Artist Dhanashree Gadiyar, painting of the Northern Lights.

TOGETHER. is on view at The Yard, Flatiron South by appointment through mid-April. Please email curator Akeem Duncan to schedule a visit: akeemkduncan@gmail.com

Installation view, TOGETHER. at the Yard, Flatiron South, curated by Akeem Duncan.