Do not miss Prospect Park: An Intimate Walk, a gorgeous solo exhibition by Miguel Reyes currently on view at Established Gallery!
Do not miss Prospect Park: An Intimate Walk, a gorgeous solo exhibition by Miguel Reyes currently on view at Established Gallery!
Posted on 06/11/2024 at 11:10 AM in Brooklyn, Gallery | Permalink | Comments (0)
Fantastic Plastic! Head over to Red Hook and check out a fabulous new exhibit, Through a Plastic Lens, by Brooklyn-based artist Lenore Solmo.
Presented in three sections or "environmental moments" – "Garden," "Ocean," and "City" – the exhibit showcases incredible works made with found objects including plastic bottles/caps/lids, produce netting, and vintage beads. Solmo transforms the discarded materials into jewel-toned flowers, whimsical mushrooms, iridescent jellyfish, and an urban dreamscape.
Click to enlarge image and view slideshow.
Solmo uses heat to reshape plastic from empty beverage bottles into flower petals, foliage, coral, or spindly tentacles. She spray paints honey bears and mini liquor bottles to create bronze pendants and majestic spires. Mesh vegetable bags become spun gold and gossamer veils.
Click to enlarge image and view slideshow.
Solmo previously worked in fashion accessory design. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, she left her decades-long career for a more meaningful creative outlet pursuing art full time. A self-taught artist, she is dedicated to doing her part to reduce urban waste by repurposing objects found on the streets and transforming them into treasures. The metamorphoses of these everyday objects are remarkable!
Click to enlarge image and view slideshow.
Lenore Solmo
Through a Plastic Lens
Up-Cycled Art Made From What We Leave Behind
Compère Collective, 351 Van Brunt, Red Hook Brooklyn
On view through April 30
More Info
Posted on 04/18/2024 at 01:56 PM in Assemblage, Brooklyn, Sculpture | Permalink | Comments (0)
W83 Gallery was buzzing with excitement Friday evening where artists were eager to show off their work during the opening of Show Up and Show Out, a group exhibition featuring artwork by 17 neurodiverse artists.
Presented by AHRC New York City, the exhibit showcases paintings, drawings, and fiber art created by participants of the organization’s day services at Fisher Center in East Harlem that serves adults with intellectual disabilities.
Several of the exhibiting artists were on hand Friday evening to greet visitors and share their creations. On view is a vivid array of artwork featuring elaborate weaving, abstract patterns, vibrant flowers, lettering, portraits, cartoon characters, and more.
“This is one of our largest shows that we’ve had, with this many artists, and I feel like this wall is just a small piece of the actual work that goes on in the program. It’s really fulfilling,” Fisher Center’s Community Support Supervisor, CieraMarie Mitchell, said during an address to the crowd.
Anita Payne has been attending the Fisher Center for almost 30 years, drawing and making jewelry, according to her mother, Lucille Payne. “She can sit for hours and hours and work on her jewelry. That’s her passion. She loves color,” Lucille noted. Two years ago, Anita discovered a new passion—weaving. Anita’s Quilt is a 39” x 50” rainbow patchwork composed of colorful squares stitched together and adorned with red and blue raindrop-shaped ornaments dangling like jewels. “She just started [fiber art] and she fell in love with it,” said Lucille.
“You don’t know [an artist's potential] until you give someone the materials and you give them the space, and the patience. The patience to let people explore,” said Naomi Lawrence, an art consultant at Fisher Center who launched the weaving program during the pandemic.
L-R: "Nest #1" and "Nest #2" by Angel Oliveras
Like the birds referenced in the title of his works, Angel Oliveras searches for and collects scraps of fabric and other materials and incorporates the pieces into his Nest series of circle weavings. His dynamic and whimsical spirals of yarn are the cat's meow!
“The people we support are artists,” said Naomi, who teaches weaving to about 30 artists at Fisher Center. “I’m very lucky to work with them.”
AHRC has been providing services and support to neurodiverse New Yorkers of all ages across NYC for more than 70 years. Along with educational and employment programs, the organization offers various activities, such as art, providing creative outlets for artists with developmental disabilities.
“I’m very proud of the artists. It’s so fun to see what they create. It’s so fun to see how they grow,” said Jon Bunge, who teaches drawing and painting to more than 30 artists at Fisher Center. “It’s an exciting job. I’m very blessed to be able to work with these artists.” Jon has worked at Fisher Center for seven years and has helped curate more than a dozen past exhibits.
While some of his artists create from imagination, others prefer to use reference images, ranging from familiar masterpieces to photos of famous figures. Using colored pencils and markers, Nichole Perez draws images of pop stars as well as unmistakable depictions of Barack Obama, Albert Einstein, Michael Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln in her piece History People.
Jon’s enthusiasm and joy are apparent as he discusses the art program and the exhibit. “By making these works, the artists that we support get a real sense of meaning, of purpose, and of accomplishment,” he said. “It’s really wonderful to see that and that’s epitomized tonight when we can see their work up on the wall.”
L-R: "Pat" and "Woman with a Pink Face on a Red Background" by Devona Gamble
Devona Gamble, who creates portraits with dazzling pops of color, happily showed her artwork to visitors, proudly pointing out the flaming haired “Pat” as her personal favorite.
“It’s seeing people create. It is seeing the self-esteem people get from it,” Jon continued. “They feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment. And seeing [their work] in a public space, they’re proud, their families are proud…. I hope visitors [to the exhibit] take away the fact that everyone has the potential to create something.”
Naomi recalled a fiber artist’s reaction to seeing her work displayed for the first time at a previous exhibit. “She did a double-take and she stepped away and said, ‘I need a moment.’ She was so overwhelmed with emotion and pride. I want all the artists to feel that tonight.”
It isn’t just the final work and the exhibitions that make the Fisher Center’s art program so meaningful. It’s also the community and connections the artists find in working together. “That is the family that is Fisher Center,” Naomi noted. “We go through highs and lows and losses, and we all rally together.”
Anita’s mom, Lucille, agreed. “It’s bringing them together. It’s amazing,” she said. Anita’s artwork is “an expression of her,” she continued. “She’s bringing it out and she’s putting it in weaving, she’s putting it on paper. She’s expressing her love and you can feel it, and that makes me so happy.”
L-R: Works by Jeffrey Holloway and Oswald James
L-R: Works by Wayne Anderson and Carol Fields
L-R: Fiber works by Guadalupe Quinto (top) and Kim Worthmann (bottom): Tahira Curtis
Posted on 12/03/2023 at 03:00 PM in Drawing, Group Exhibition, Knit art, Special Exhibitions, Textiles | Permalink | Comments (0)
Meditative and atmospheric, Seeking the Sacred, a solo exhibit by Brooklyn artist Jon Bunge, will change the way you look at the humble twig.
On view at Established Gallery, Bunge’s show features nearly 30 intricate sculptures composed of sticks and branches the artist sourced from the streets, friends’ gardens, or the internet. Hanging on the gallery’s walls or suspended from the ceiling, the works are dramatically lit to cast ethereal shadows.
“To me the shadows are a phenomenon of light, an immaterial thing. There’s no substance here. If we turn the light off, it is gone,” Bunge explained over the weekend. "It’s just so otherworldly and that’s the feeling I’m going for with my work, something that takes you out of the realm of the ordinary and into a realm beyond everyday experience.”
Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Bunge grew up surrounded by trees. His mother and grandparents, avid gardeners, instilled in him a love for flowers, plants, and nature.
“I don’t see many artists working with branches,” Bunge says of his favored material. “And I just love working with nature. There’s an endless variety of branches...and they all have different [traits].” The works in the exhibit are composed of hydrangea, forsythia, curly willow, and pine branches. Bunge collected the pine pieces from discarded Christmas trees left on curbs after the holidays.
“To me, these branches are sacred,” he continued. “This is like creation right here...and where do we all go if we want to relax? We get out of the city or we go to the park. There’s scientific research that says when people go to the park, their heartbeats slow down, they start to decompress. It’s nature doing its magic on us. This is all sacred territory. Trees are sacred to me.”
Though he loved art in high school, Bunge studied English in college. He worked as a social worker before returning to school to receive his Masters in Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. “I wanted to be a pastoral psychotherapist, a psychotherapist who approaches things from a spiritual angle,” he says. “Then I wanted to help low-income people.”
Bunge then worked for more than 13 years at a non-profit that assists the formerly incarcerated and people battling addiction in finding work. “It was a great job but then I fell back in love with art,” he recalls. “I was in a store one day and I saw these kids' paints on the shelf. Before I even thought I about it, I just picked them up. I got home and [the artwork and emotions] just came out in a flood. I had so many feelings from that job—so many people going through such trauma—I needed an outlet. Art is such a tremendously healing pursuit.” Today, Bunge works for an organization teaching adults with development disabilities how to paint. “I’m helping people to really activate that creative side of themselves and it’s just so fun.”
Bunge was a two-dimensional artist, working in painting and collage, when he decided to take his practice to the next level. In 2013 he enrolled in the MFA program at City College of New York. “I had to take a sculpture class,” he recalls. “I had some trepidation and then I did it...and fell in love with sculpture."
“I first used cardboard, because I was comfortable with paper, and then plexiglass because I liked the light effect, but that’s so plasticky and human-made.” In the school’s wood shop Bunge discovered leftover wood scraps and he started working with these. “Then I was walking down the street one day in my neighborhood and I saw a branch that was down after a storm and I was like, ‘Wait a minute. That’s wood, just like what I’m working with, but that’s more beautiful than the wood scraps,’ so that got me started with the branches.”
Bunge typically starts by filing a groove into a branch and attaches another branch to it, making a connection that the artist then responds to. “Sometimes I have a general concept but sometimes, kind of like a jazz musician, I’ll do one thing and react to it, and I keep reacting. It’s fun that way because I don’t quite know where it’s going.” Bunge compares his method to birds building a nest and displays photos of birds and their habitats on his studio door. “I feel akin to birds building something with sticks and with natural elements,” he says. “Their [nests] are beautiful and architectural, and they’re not using glue. I’m using glue to help me. They’re just assembling this thing and it’s really quite miraculous.”
Along with shadows and nature, Bunge also incorporates movement into his artwork. “Motion to me is at the center of the universe,” he notes. “Right now, our planet is spinning. Our planet is also rotating around the sun. Right now, our hearts are beating. We’re breathing…growing. It’s constant. So the motion [in my art] captures that feeling that the universe is in constant motion.” The gentle rotation of his suspended works is mesmerizing. “I’m looking for the meditative, quiet,” Bunge says. “Hopefully it calms you and reminds you that we can have quiet in our lives.”
Bunge hopes visitors to “Seeking the Sacred” will learn not to take trees for granted. “They’re saving our planet right now. They’re taking in carbon and they’re putting out oxygen for us.” he explains. “I’m so upset about climate change. If my work can bring people’s attention back to nature, its beauty, its sacredness, maybe it will help people realize that we have to take better care of the planet. We have to make changes…. I want to put nature at the forefront.”
“I am trying to elevate these branches to a position of beauty and reverence,” he continues. “I’m looking for that feeling of reaching for beyond, seeking the sacred.”
Learn more about the arrist at jonbunge.com.
Seeking the Sacred by Jon Bunge
Established Gallery, 75B 6th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215
On view through December 4, 2022
Posted on 11/20/2022 at 11:33 PM in Brooklyn, Sculpture | Permalink | Comments (0)
Green-Wood Cemetery’s current artist-in-residence, Rowan Renee, hosted an open studio this weekend at the cemetery's Fort Hamilton Gatehouse, offering visitors a preview of their site-specific installation which will be exhibited in Green-Wood’s Historic Chapel in May 2023.
The Brooklyn-based artist started their residency at Green-Wood in February 2022. Rowan finds the cemetery’s history and landscape inspiring. “I’ve been going on a lot of long walks and visually taking in the landscape,” they said. Combing through Green-Wood’s extensive archives, Rowan has been able to “gain understanding on what I’m seeing, or maybe interpreting on my own.”
Rowan is currently “focusing on the public lots at Green-Wood,” explaining, “there’s [nearly] 600,000 people buried here and a third of them are in the public lots.” Typically located around the perimeter of Green-Wood, these lots are the “historically affordable sections” of the 478-acre cemetery, according to green-wood.com.
“Sometimes the memorials [in the public lots], because they’re built without foundations, can fall over or sink in the earth, so there may be a memorial there that is actually hidden from view,” Rowan explained. “I’m really interested in the unmarked graves in the public lots. I’ve been going into the archives and finding out who’s there and I’m working with the idea of how to memorialize individuals here who don’t have a visible memorial in the landscape.”
Rowan’s upcoming installation will include sculpture composed in marble, glass, metal, and stone as well as textile work. Some of the materials they are using were sourced from Green-Wood. The exhibit will address class disparities in the cemetery—“Pushing against the narrative of Green-Wood as a space primarily for the wealthy, since there are so many people buried here who aren’t wealthy,” Rowan explained. “Bringing attention to ordinary people whose memories are not as visible in the landscape.” Rowan also hopes to illustrate the beauty and serenity of these spaces that tend not to get as much foot traffic as the paths that house elaborate mausoleums and memorials. “They’re not on the most picturesque paths through the cemetery, but they are still beautiful.”
Originally from Florida, Rowan received their BFA from Parsons the New School for Design and their MFA in Studio Art from the University of Michigan. Rowan’s past work is deeply personal, addressing “intergenerational trauma, gender-based violence and the impact of the criminal legal system through image, text and installation,” according to the artist’s website. For their project at Green-Wood, Rowan is “interested in looking outward and telling bigger stories that are more community driven” they said. “I have mined my own personal stories for quite some time, but I feel I’m at a moment where I want to shift away from that a little.”
For their upcoming exhibit, Rowan will share just a few stories of the cemetery’s “permanent residents,” as Green-Wood calls them. “This is a story about other people who are like my neighbors and who played a pivotal role in this city that I live in and love.”
Be sure to check back at green-wood.com in the spring for info on what will surely be an insightful and fascinating installation. For more information on the artist, visit rowanrenee.com.
Posted on 11/07/2022 at 12:14 PM in Brooklyn, Glass, Installation, Sculpture, Special Exhibitions, Textiles | Permalink | Comments (0)
During a recent trip to the Hudson Valley, I visited Opus 40 in Saugerties, New York. The sprawling 55-acre outdoor space is a marvel of paths, walls, ramps, stairs, and pedestals created using ancient Mayan stone building techniques.
The former bluestone quarry was purchased in 1938 by sculptor Harvey Fite (1903-1976) who, for nearly four decades, worked tirelessly to transform it into a sculpture park to display his artwork and serve as a theater space.
Fite was born on December 25, 1903 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father, Floy Ruffner Fite, a carpenter, moved the family to Texas when Harvey was six. Though he enjoyed watching his father build cabinets and craft violins, the younger Fite really loved to dance and decided to pursue acting while studying at St. Stephen’s College in Annandale-on-Hudson (now Bard). He joined an arts colony in Woodstock and spent a few years touring with a theater group.
Fite's passion shifted to sculpture when he was 30. In 1933, Fite returned to Bard to teach both drama and sculpture. He was a member of the faculty for 36 years (retiring in 1969) and helped establish the school’s Fine Arts Department.
In 1938 Fite purchased the “Benny Myers’” quarry for $376.25. He built a house on the land teeming with wood and stone that he could use in his artwork. That same year, Fite was invited to join a team from the Carnegie Institute to help restore the ancient Mayan ruins in Copan, Honduras. It was there that Fite became fascinated with Mayan art, architecture and the dry keystone masonry method—stacking stones and fitting them together—that they used in building. When he returned home in 1939, he began clearing the rubble and brush on his land to make way for a structure that “utilizes the properties of the stone, follows the contours of the quarry, echoes the structure of its mountain backdrop, and works toward the realization of his plan for a large outdoor sculpture gallery.”
In 1964, Fite christened the site Opus 40. “Opus” is a nod to classical music and the work's "almost musical rhythms and composition" and “40” references the number of years he estimated it would take him to complete the epic project.
Sadly, Fite did not live to fully complete his masterpiece. He died in 1976, at the age of 72, after falling 12 feet into the quarry while using a tractor mower to cut the grass. His wife Barbara established Opus 40, Incorporated as a non-profit in 1978 and formed a board and membership group to support the outdoor space. She also opened Opus 40 to the public and in the 80s, the site began hosting concerts and events. In 2001, Opus 40 was included in the National Register of Historic Places.
Learn more about Opus 40 at opus40.org.
Opus 40 Sculpture Park & Museum
356 George Sickle Road
Saugerties, New York, 12477
Open Thursday – Monday, 10:30am to 5pm (through Labor Day)
Weekends (weather permitting) until the Winter Solstice
Tickets: $11
Posted on 09/27/2022 at 05:43 PM in Sculpture | Permalink | Comments (0)
Last week we took a trip to the Hudson Valley and visited Art Omi, a lush and peacefully pastoral 120-acre sculpture park in Ghent, New York.
Art Omi was founded in 1992 when Francis Greenberger, a real estate investor, literary agent, and arts supporter invited 21 artists from 11 countries to a month-long residency program on a former dairy farm.
Thirty years later, Art Omi has hosted more than 2,000 artists from more than 100 countries. Today, the non-profit showcases 60-plus large-scale works by contemporary artists and architects and offers five residency programs for artists, architects, writers, musicians, and dancers. The 1,500-square-foot Benenson Center & Newmark Gallery also features indoor exhibits (currently Portia Munson: Flood), performances, readings, and educational programming.
“By forming community with creative expression as its common denominator, Art Omi creates a sanctuary for the artistic community and the public to affirm the transformative quality of art,” the park's website states. Approximately a two-and-a-half hour drive from NYC, Art Omi is a must-see if you are in or around Columbia County. Don’t miss this bucolic gem! Learn more at artomi.org.
Art Omi
1405 County Route 22, Ghent, New York
Suggested donation: $10
Posted on 08/21/2022 at 06:10 PM in Installation, Sculpture, Travel | Permalink | Comments (0)
The Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse has been transformed into an underwater dreamscape with Benthic, Brooklyn-based artist Bonnie Ralston’s site-specific installation featuring suspended biomorphic paper sculptures, suggesting organisms found in the lower depths of the Gowanus Canal.
"Benthic is inspired by the canal and its resiliency,” said Ralston. “In spite of everything we've done to it over the past 200-plus years—including physical disfiguration, neglect, and outright abuse—it continues to support life and community.”
Composed of discarded packing material, stone sludge, rusted metal, and salt, Ralston’s 140 meticulously crafted sculptures vary in size, shape, shade, articulation, and appendage. The extraordinary menagerie spins and sways in the air, animating each creature, giving them a sense of realness and character. “The suspended paper forms are inspired by the variety of aquatic organisms I've encountered under the lens,” noted Ralston, a microscopy enthusiast.
Benthic is accompanied by a video projection of microscopic organisms found in the Gowanus Canal. Ralston recently recorded the mesmerizing microscopic inhabitants of water samples collected from the notoriously polluted waterbody.
On Saturday, August 20 (2pm to 4pm), Ralston will be joined at the Boathouse by Jay Holmes, President of the New York Microscopial Society and Senior Coordinator for the American Museum of Natural History, for “Microscopy and Art!” Attendees will have the opportunity to explore water samples from the canal using scopes and magnifiers and then create a field guide of the Gowanus creatures they view.
“For me, close and focused observation—through a microscope, a loupe, or a pair of binoculars—is an invitation to get lost and revel in the beauty, mystery, and infinite complexity of living systems,” Ralston said. “With the shift in scale comes an opportunity to see (and reconsider) the everyday with new eyes.”
Ralston received her BFA from Hartford Art School and finds inspiration in the natural sciences. Her sculptures and works on paper are composed of repurposed materials she finds on the streets of Brooklyn. “The intrinsic limitations of my chosen media—street refuse, clay, oxides, salt, and water—challenge me to engage fully with what is in front of me,” according to her artist’s statement. “Not unlike a scientist seeking ultimate truths, the promise of discovery (about materials, process, and self) drives my practice.”
Ralston's installation combines and connects her interests in art, science, microscopy, ecology and sustainability. The artist hopes viewers will "come away with an increased curiosity about and respect for the places and spaces we take for granted.” Learn more about Bonnie Ralston at www.bonnieralston.com.
Benthic by Bonnie Ralston
Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse, 165 2nd Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231
August 6 – August 27, 2022 | Saturdays (1pm – 5pm)
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 6, 6pm to 8pm.
Posted on 08/05/2022 at 08:02 PM in Brooklyn, Installation, Sculpture | Permalink | Comments (0)
Sunday, July 10, was the last day to catch Heidi Lau’s Gardens as Cosmic Terrains at Green-Wood Cemetery’s catacombs. In 2021, Lau was selected out of 964 submissions to be Green-Wood’s first ever artist-in-residence in the cemetery’s 184 year history. She created her site-specific ceramic works at the cemetery’s beautiful, landmarked Fort Hamilton Gatehouse and was granted access to the cemetery’s grounds and archives.
Gardens as Cosmic Terrains was inspired by Lau's long walks through Green-Wood’s 478-acres and a Taoist concept of "the convergence of wandering, play, and introspection, which together invite a reawakening of self-knowledge,” she said in a press release for the exhibit. The artist also found inspiration in the “cosmological settings of traditional Chinese gardens, where the arrangement of plantings, pathways, and vistas act as a metaphor for time, space, and our place in the cosmos.”
Her striking ceramic sculptures populate the cavernous catacombs – which are typically closed to the public. Many dangle on disproportionate chains from the circular skylights like mystical spelunkers dropping down from the heavens. Rich in texture and details, some pieces resemble urns and “ritualistic funerary objects” while others feature body parts, faces, hands, and vertebrae.
Lau’s fantastical installation is right at home in Green-Wood’s catacombs, inspiring contemplation on mortality/immortality, spirituality, and universality. Green-Wood Cemetery is a peaceful space for reflection that inspires many visitors. Hopefully Green-Wood will continue its residency program and invite more artists to find inspiration.
Heidi Lau is originally from Macau, China and currently lives and works in New York City. She received her BFA from New York University in 2008, where she focused on printmaking and drawing. She is a self-taught ceramist. See more of her work on Instagram @heidiwtlau and visit green-wood.com to learn more.
Posted on 07/10/2022 at 08:46 PM in Brooklyn, Ceramics, Sculpture, Special Exhibitions | Permalink | Comments (0)
The Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse has another great solo exhibition lined up this month! On Saturday, June 4, painter Dennis Masback unveils 18 evocative acrylic paintings that perfectly illustrate the "fetid backwater" that is the Gowanus Canal, as he describes it.
Masback's paintings feature many familiar scenes in Gowanus—barges and tugboats adrift on the waterway, dredging equipment, the industrial architecture found along the canal and the bridges that traverse it—sights which inspired the artist to examine the canal's history and efforts to preserve it.
"The pantings that I have produced depict the canal as tidal waterway flowing in and out which is very much a part of a network of other transportation conduits," according to Masback's artist statement. "Like the tide, the Gowanus transportation system of roads, tracks and canal, carries goods, people and waste in and out of the borough," he adds, noting the significant role the canal has served in Brooklyn over centuries, from creek to shipping and manufacturing hub to toxic Superfund site currently undergoing a federal cleanup.
"Dredging is underway to remove toxins resting in the bed of the canal as its neighborhood watches and contemplates life within and around it," according to Masback. Whatever the future may look like for Gowanus and its infamous canal, Masback has beautifully captured its essence today and what makes this polluted waterbody special to locals and worthy of conserving and immortalizing in art.
Dennis Masback received both his BFA and MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. In 2018, he retired from Pratt Institute, where he had taught painting and drawing since 1993. He currently lives in Connecticut. See more of his artwork at dennismasback.com.
Masback will be present at the Boathouse on Saturdays from 1pm to 5pm throughout the month of June. An opening reception, with music by Dust Devil Heart, is scheduled for Saturday, June 4, from 3pm to 5pm.
Gowanus Paintings by Dennis Masback
Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse, 165 2nd Street, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view June 4 - June 25
Posted on 06/03/2022 at 05:28 PM in Brooklyn | Permalink | Comments (0)