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)
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)
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)
Late last year the New York City Council passed the contentious Gowanus rezoning which will upzone 82 blocks of the historically industrial Brooklyn neighborhood and add approximately 8,500 new apartments. Developers got to work immediately after the plan passed, demolishing several old buildings that formerly added to the neighborhood’s charm in order to make way for new residential units.
With his ongoing photography project Gowanus Landmarks, Brooklyn-based artist Miska Draskoczy hopes to document the glory of these storied sites. Started in 2019, Gowanus Landmarks features beautifully haunting images of industrial buildings in various states of neglect and disrepair. Some of the buildings Draskoczy photographed, like the dilapidated S.W. Bowne Grain Storehouse at 595-711 Smith Street, are already gone, while others await the wrecking ball.
The buildings featured in the series represent twenty-nine sites that the Gowanus Landmarks Coalition deemed historically, architecturally, and culturally significant. The local advocacy group, in an effort to preserve the neighborhood’s history and “authentic sense of place,” campaigned for the buildings to be granted landmark designation.
“I think it's important to document these sites because as we've already seen, some of them will not be around much longer, in which case images of them will be some of our only remaining records,” the artist says. “While the city is always changing, the past invariably influences the future and I believe it's important to capture the neighborhood in this state of transition so that people can appreciate its history. Gowanus is one of the oldest industrial areas of the country whose industries have shaped the city for almost two centuries. That industry has now wound down greatly and may eventually fade out altogether.”
Draskoczy photographed the buildings as they would have been captured when they were originally built between the 1880s and 1930s—on large format 5” x 7” dry plate glass negatives. This complex and lengthy process produces vividly detailed images of the buildings in all their fragile splendor, imparting a wistful, vintage feel.
“I love browsing through the many great image archives that are held by New York City institutions and have always been struck by the quality of scans from old glass plate negatives,” he says. “They capture a rich tonality, incredible detail, and the emulsion used in the process only responds to certain wavelengths of light, giving them an unusual palette.... I love how they are often written on by the photographer, have peeling or cracked emulsion and of course glass is an inherently fragile medium. These delicate and organic qualities seem fitting for capturing structures that are similarly aged and worn.”
While the neighborhood is home to many intriguing structures, when pressed Draskoczy admits that the Carroll Street Bridge is a personal favorite. Spanning the notoriously polluted Gowanus Canal, the bridge was built in 1889 and is the oldest of only four remaining retractable bridges in the country. It was designated a NYC Landmark in 1987, “a model for what is possible with preservation efforts,” Draskoczy notes, adding, “it is a relief to know that it will not be destroyed.”
“Although it is closed at the moment due to the ongoing dredging (part of the EPA’s current cleanup of the canal), I have walked, biked, and paddled under it countless times and it has wonderful views from its vantage points,” he muses. “It is a unique structure, being one of the few remaining and operable retractable drawbridges in the country. I am fascinated that something mechanical built in the 19th century can still serve a useful purpose today. Respect to great engineering!”
Originally from Pennsylvania, Draskoczy received his BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Draskoczy has been documenting Gowanus since relocating to Brooklyn in 2008. In 2016 he published Gowanus Wild, a photo book exploring the area’s nature and urban wilderness.
Draskoczy’s goal with Gowanus Landmarks is to increase awareness of these buildings and help preserve the buildings that can be saved. “I hope that highlighting these buildings and structures can bring awareness to the efforts to preserve and landmark them, a process which requires active community involvement,” the artist says. For the buildings that cannot be saved, Draskoczy hopes to document them in a way that honors their rich history and conveys their current state of vulnerability.
For the future of his beloved Gowanus, Draskoczy hopes “that it can continue its long tradition of being a neighborhood for builders, makers and creators, whether through things like light industry or artist studios and spaces,” he says. “I believe these are critical components of cities and with the trend of pushing these spaces increasingly farther away from city centers in favor of luxury residential housing, something important is lost in that process.”
Draskoczy will be on hand at the exhibit on weekends throughout May. He will have examples of the glass plate negatives and the camera equipment he used for this series. Learn more about the artist at https://www.miskadraskoczy.com.
Gowanus Landmarks by Miska Draskoczy
Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse, 165 2nd Street, Brooklyn
May 7 – May 29, 2022 | Saturdays & Sundays (1pm – 5pm)
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 7, 6pm to 8pm
Posted on 05/07/2022 at 04:30 PM in Architecture, Brooklyn, Photography | Permalink | Comments (0)
Gowanus artist Steve Pauley’s work is rock solid! Pauley previously worked 11 years in the funerary arts as a tombstone engraver, creating more than 6,000 tombstones in West Virginia, Baltimore, and Brooklyn—including memorials at Greenwood Cemetery.
Today, Pauley creates magnificent sculptural works using sandblasting, engraving, or a hammer and chisel to carve intricate patterns and textures onto imposing slabs of stone. He traces graffiti—usually layer upon layer of multiple tags and spray painted graphics—that he finds around his neighborhood and sandblasts his tracings onto stone. He then uses the carved stone as a plate to create even more pieces. Using the textures he’s engraved onto a rock’s surface, he creates handmade paper, rubbings and prints. A selection of his multi-layered works including stone carvings, sculpture, and paper will be on view in Pulp and Pebble, a solo exhibit at the Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse.
"I’ve always been fascinated with stone," Pauley recalls. "When I was a kid, my parents bought me a rock tumbler that would polish the stones I collected from creek beds and fields. I used to look for colorful pebbles, fossils and arrowheads in the farms around my home. There is something magical about them to me. They can’t be carbon dated, so there is no way to know how old they are. You could be holding something millions of years old in your hands."
Born in North Carolina, Pauley's family moved to West Virginia when he was 12. Known for his artistic abilities in school, he was recruited after graduation by the monument shop near his home to make tombstones. "I worked my way through college making stones for the people in my community including the VFW, police and firefighters' memorials," he says. Pauley studied painting at WV State College and Marshall University before earning his MFA in mixed media sculpture from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore.
Accessing the tools needed to sandblast his formidable stone works is not easy, so Pauley has to devise ingenious alternatives to create his art. He uses his carved stone pieces for "stone reflection photography," a photographic process that uses the reflective qualities and textures of engraved stone as negatives to produce black and white photograms. Pauley has built a camera obscura in his studio to process images from reflections cast from his embellished stone pieces. The homemade device can produce prints as large as 42 x 70 inches!
Whatever medium Pauley chooses, his artwork is a study in contradictions—delicate and hard, light and dark, ephemeral and enduring—that examines the fleeting nature of life and what we leave behind. "This body of work is like a snapshot of my neighborhood," Pauley says. "I make stones that are about life and living in a city full of energy. When people see my art, I want them to feel that same energy and know that the marks they make mean something to others." See more of Pauley's work at stevepauleystudio.com.
Pulp and Pebble
Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse
165 2nd Street, Brooklyn, NY
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 2, 6pm-8pm
On view Saturdays & Sundays in April, 1pm-5pm
Posted on 03/31/2022 at 11:25 PM in Brooklyn, Sculpture | Permalink | Comments (0)
Last Sunday the recently launched art gallery and performance space, Why Not Art?, held a reception for its inaugural exhibit, Rebirth: Brooklyn at littlefield in Gowanus. Joining the three featured artists – Jo-Ann Acey, Demarcus McGaughey, and Michael James Freedman – was trumpeter Wayne Tucker, who wowed attendees with his funky electric jazz quartet.
Rebirth addresses the city’s gradual return to normalcy following the pandemic. “There’s change in the air,” according to Why Not Art? “Jazz is flowing through the streets of Brooklyn, creativity is flourishing, social awareness is rising and people are emerging after months of uncertainty, tragedy, and protest.”
The works by the three artists represent diverse styles – abstract, representational, expressionist – but collectively “burst with life, reflecting our exhilarating re-entry into vibrant city life.” The lyrical works encompass musical New York narratives, from Acey’s exuberant dancing shapes, Freedman’s pulsating musicians, and McGaughey’s majestic portraits of performers.
Why Not Art? was launched by Freedman and his wife, Grace. The couple plan to organize more exhibits showcasing both work by visual artists and performances by local musicians. Learn more at whynotart.com.
See my November 2020 interview with Jo-Ann Acey here and my October 2020 interview with Demarcus McGaughey here.
Rebirth: Brooklyn
On view through December 3
Littlefield Gallery, 635 Sackett Street, Gowanus
Posted on 11/11/2021 at 03:24 PM in Brooklyn, Gallery, Group Exhibition | Permalink | Comments (0)
Saturday kicked off the 25th annual Gowanus Open Studios (GOS). Organized by Arts Gowanus, the event features more than 400 artists opening the doors of their workspaces to visitors throughout the weekend. According to artist Ellen Chuse, a participant for 21 years, GOS began in the late '90s with only a handful of artists from three buildings on the northern end of the Gowanus Canal – 295 Douglass Street, 280 Nevins Street, and 543 Union Street. The event has grown exponentially over the years with more than 100 participating venues – including shops, bars, cafes, and galleries.
With only one free day to explore the massive event, I decided to visit large, centralized clusters of artist studios at Ti Art Studios at 183 Lorraine Street in Red Hook and 540 President Street (home to the Arts Gowanus office & Brooklyn Art Cluster Studios) in Gowanus. My socialbility still not fully recovered following the pandemic isolation, I gravitated to familiar faces but did get to chat with a few artists I'd not met before. Due to COVID, Arts Gowanus had to reinvent Open Studios last year, and hundreds of artworks were displayed in storefronts along a stretch of Atlantic Avenue. Click here, here, here, and here to see my coverage on last year's event.
See my photos from Saturday below then get yourself to Gowanus today to meet some talented local artists. More info and map at artgowanus.org.
Posted on 10/17/2021 at 01:06 PM in Brooklyn, Collage, Drawing, Group Exhibition, Installation, Prints, Sculpture, Special Exhibitions, Studio Visit, Textiles | Permalink | Comments (0)
Before the pandemic, Spoke the Hub’s Park Slope dance studio buzzed with creative activity, welcoming dance students and summer campers, hosting performances, and exhibiting work by local artists. All this came to a halt in March 2020 with the COVID lockdown. After 18 months of silence, Spoke the Hub reopened this past weekend with Salon 2021, featuring dance, comedy, and film on Saturday evening (with limited, distanced seating) and an opening on Sunday featuring new artwork by Alise Loebelsohn and Roxanna Velandria.
Loebelsohn was thrilled for the opportunity to show her recent work. “I’ve been working really hard. I was very busy, busy,” she said at the opening reception. Seven of Loebelsohn’s abstract paintings line a wall of the airy dance studio.
Her mixed media oil paintings feature layer upon layer of textures and patterns. “The work is very dense,” she notes. “There’s a lot of detail.” Forms resembling starbursts, micro-organisms, and flowers populate her kaleidoscopic paintings.
One painting, Take a Knee, made in response to last year’s Black Lives Matter and racial justice protests, includes recognizable human figures interspersed among a cacophony of shapes and colors. “It was the first piece where I actually put figures in,” Loebelsohn explained. “It just kind of emerged on its own. People seem to identify with the idea of a figure. But the challenge was to… try to make the figure be part of the pattern.” Various human forms surface from Loebelsohn’s abstract sea of patterns—some appear prominently and others “somewhat amorphous so that they’re not so identified”—showing up like apparitions.
Based in South Slope, Loebelsohn studied painting at Pratt Institute, The Arts Students League, and studied abroad in France. She made a living as a commercial artist—painting murals and billboards—for 30 years and started focusing on her own art 11 years ago. “I am throwing my weight behind my work because it’s now or never. I’m not getting any younger,” she mused.
Along with the current exhibit at Spoke the Hub, there are several upcoming opportunities to check out Loebelsohn’s work and to meet the artist. Loebelsohn will be showing at ShapeShifter Lab during the 2021 Arts Gowanus Open Studios in October, at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC) Gallery as part of the Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists fall exhibition in November, and at The Other Art Fair, also in November.
Also showing at Spoke the Hub is Brooklyn-based realist painter Roxanna Velandria. A series of manila envelopes dangle from a wall by the studio’s entrance, each embellished with a pastel portrait featuring a warm and welcoming face. A former neighbor of the studio’s, Velandria offered Spoke the Hub’s founder, Elise Long, a “version of the staff wall.” The vivid portraits feature members of Spoke the Hub’s dance and administrative teams. “I said past staff, present staff, future staff…whoever you consider has been keeping you going,” Velandria recalled of their conversation about the “tribute to the people who have kept [the studio] going” over the years. Spoke the Hub has been a community institution in Park Slope and Gowanus since launching more than 40 years ago.
Originally from Dallas, Texas, Velandria studied design communication at Texas Tech University. She moved to New York City in 1989 where she worked as a graphic designer for several years then as a Parent Coordinator for the Department of Education. During this time, she took figure drawing classes with Simon Dinnerstein and taught herself how to paint, inspired by nature and urban landscapes. “I really learned to paint by painting,” she said.
Velandria currently works with pre-schoolers, using recycled and repurposed materials for art projects. “I was kind of using that as my prompt so [the portrait wall] wouldn’t be too precious. People can touch it,” she explained. Along with the manila envelopes, Velandria incorporated baking twine, cardboard gift boxes, hang tags, and fortune cookie messages into the work. The portrait wall is also mobile and expandable, so portraits of new staff members can easily be added as they join the team.
Three oil paintings depicting Spoke the Hub dancers performing are displayed above the portraits. “They were performances from the past year, from the spring…from the pandemic because they’re outside,” she explained of the dynamic works. “I wanted it to look like their energy and the energy of their performance was going into the ether.” The paintings perfectly capture the vigorous movements of the dancers as they perform in lush surroundings or against an industrial backdrop.
“This is like my GED of getting my art out there because I’ve just always done it but have never really shown it,” Velandria said. “I’m good at sitting in the background doing it. I’ve never really put stuff out there but…if I can do it during a pandemic, I can do it any time.”
Spoke the Hub is open most afternoons, but if you’d like to see the exhibits, call beforehand to confirm. Alise Loebelsohn’s paintings will be on view through mid-October.
Alise Loebelsohn and Roxanna Velandria
Spoke the Hub
748 Union Street
Park Slope, Brooklyn
718.408.3234
Posted on 09/16/2021 at 03:41 PM in Brooklyn, Group Exhibition | Permalink | Comments (0)
"Love yourself" is the message of Dear Self, artist Mark Anthony McLeod’s solo exhibition currently on view at Established Gallery. The exhilarating show features interactive mixed-media works emblazoned with uplifting messages and affirmations.
“I feel like self-love is missing in the world,” McLeod said at the exhibit’s opening on Friday. “I know myself—always in a hustle, always in this bustle in life—and [I] never stop to smell the flowers… never stop to say ‘Hey, I appreciate myself,’ or ‘I need this’ or ‘I don’t need that.’ We’re always saying ‘yes’ to things we don’t need to say yes to. We’re constantly on the go and we’re not stopping to think, ‘What do I need?’”
Charismatic figures populate McLeod’s contemplative and buoyant artwork. Visitors are encouraged to use buttons and knobs to activate the works, switching on lightbulbs or Bluetooth speakers. Five doors—"portals into a different version of yourself,” according to the press release—serve as backdrops to life-size characters. Strewn with playful drawings of crowns, dogs, hearts, and flowers alongside motivational text, such as “evolve,” “dream,” “love,” and “think,” the works invite visitors to write and clip on their own inspiring words.
As a Black man in America, a husband, and a father of three, McLeod feels “pressures from everywhere” in his daily life. The strain of “always [being] on the go” can lead to exhaustion and depression, he notes. McLeod uses his art to deal with the stress. It struck him one day in the studio that he was sending messages to himself through his work. “I started noticing the repeating images and repeating quotes,” he recalls. “And then I noticed…I’m letting myself know, ‘This is what you need to be your best self.’”
Along with directives like ‘focus’ and ‘self love,’ McLeod sometimes includes “obstacles” or disparaging terms on his canvases including ‘fear,’ ‘mistakes,’ and ‘doubt,’ but he cancels out these negative words with bold slashes. “I find myself stopping short a lot, not going through the finish line, worried about what’s on the other side,” he said. “You’ll see a lot of time I’ll put ‘doubt,’ or ‘sky’s the limit’ and I’ll add a question mark because there is no limit. [I’m] motivating myself to keep going. Self-doubt kills. It kills dreams, it kills brain cells, it kills hope. It’s a daily battle to fight that.”
Born and raised in Brooklyn, McLeod was a creative child. “I was lost in my imagination,” he recalls. “I would always take things off the street and try to do something to it, paint it, reuse it in the house,” he said. “I literally had a park bench in my room. I just love seeing things repurposed. I hate seeing things go to waste.” For Dear Self, McLeod fused mirrors, fabric remnants, clothes pins, and a trumpet into his vivid works.
While studying photography at FIT, McLeod began merging his love of photography, crafting, and painting. When a stall became available at the school’s weekly flea market, he started making functional items to sell using empty liquor bottles he collected from a bartending job. “There are some beautiful liquor bottles. I hated throwing them away…. One day I started making different things, lamps, fishbowls, all sorts of different things.” Though he received some help from an electrician friend, McLeod is primarily self-taught, adding playful electronic components to his artwork, including light-up eyes or speakers that play “Whatever you want… whatever music helps you to heal.”
McLeod wants audiences to interact with his functional artwork. “I want people to be part of it,” he insists. If viewers interact and engage with the work “it gives you that reminder about these affirmations that I put into the pieces,” he adds. “We all need those affirmations. We all need that meditation. We need these constant reminders that it’s okay not to be okay.”
Along with his current exhibit at Established, McLeod can be found every other weekend in Williamsburg selling his work from his mobile art truck. He launched the pop-up art shop about two years ago, after his mentor, artist Andrew Cotton, gave him the vehicle he previously used himself as a mobile art gallery.
Visit Mark Anthony McLeod’s website marktheartison.com to see more of his work and check him out on Instagram to see when he’ll be out next with his art truck.
Mark Anthony McLeod | Dear Self
Established Gallery, 75B 6th Avenue, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view Saturdays, 2pm to 6pm (or by appointment), August 6 through August 29
Posted on 08/09/2021 at 06:30 PM in Assemblage, Brooklyn, Craft | Permalink | Comments (0)
A new exhibition in Red Hook is shifting the spotlight from au courant young artists onto their more mature peers. The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition [BWAC] presents Art Over Time, a monumental showcase of works created by 70 artists over the age of 65.
“As I’ve aged it’s become abundantly clear that the art world tends to focus on the young, the new, the innovative,” said artist Susan Handwerker who co-curated the exhibit with fellow BWAC member Sandra Forrest. “Whatever you haven’t seen before, that’s what’s going to be the next big thing. And that’s great because we need newness and we need innovation, but then there are the rest of us who bring depth and experience and perspective to forms and techniques that we’ve been practicing for a very long time, and we tend to get overlooked.”
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Handwerker attended art school in Toronto and Vancouver and remained in Canada after graduating. After marrying and starting a family, she returned to NYC in the mid-80s and taught art in public high schools until her retirement in 2012.
Handwerker creates painted clay sculptures from her studio in Gowanus. “I’ve almost always made figurative work in clay with a fairly feminist approach content-wise,” she explained. In the early 80s, while doing research for a solo show centered on death and transformation, Handwerker found several images of boats “referencing the way different cultures deal with death.” She began sculpting a series of boats. “That was the original impetus,” she recalled. “Then just before COVID I started to make boats again,” she added, but now her works focus on climate change and migration. One of her three works included in the exhibit, Fish For Home, Blue, was influenced by Southeast Asian fishing boats and addresses the Rohingya refugee crisis in Myanmar.
A member of BWAC since the 90s, Handwerker currently serves as co-president for the non-profit organization. Art Over Time celebrates “the work of older artists and recognizes the people who have these extended careers,” she notes. “What I should have titled this show was ‘The Triumph of Art Over Time’ because that’s really my intention. That’s really what I want people to take away, that there is important contemporary vibrant work being done by people into their senior years and [they should] not to be overlooked.”
A perfect example of a lifelong artist whose extensive oeuvre demands attention is 93-year-old Bernette Rudolph of Park Slope, Brooklyn. “I have been wanting to feature and honor some of our much older [BWAC] members,” Handwerker said of the mini-retrospective. “People love her work and it’s time she was recognized.” A rear corner of the BWAC exhibition space is dedicated to Rudolph's work over the decades.
While she works primarily with wood, both fine wood and found pieces, Rudolph masterfully transforms various materials— paper, varnish, beads, shells, animal figurines—into delightful treasures. Unwilling to sit idly during a hospital stay last year, Rudolph rolled, folded, and transformed pieces of paper into enchanting sculptures. “She’s my hero,” Handwerker says.
Charlotta Kotik—a former curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum—served as the juror for Art Over Time. Along with the age requirement, the criteria for submissions included a narrative explaining how each artist arrived at this stage of their career. “We wanted to know how did [they] get here from there, from wherever [they] started, whether it was in youth or...a second career,” Handwerker explained. “The work itself is wonderful…and having the backstory is so enriching.”
BWAC received more than 100 submissions from across the country for the juried exhibit. Kotik selected the top three artists:
Cowles’ winning work embodies the exhibit’s theme, according to Handwerker. “Tory Cowles…does exemplify how innovative people are. If you’re an artist you’re an artist no matter what, no matter how old you are.” Learn more about Art Over Time at bwac.org.
Art Over Time
Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC)
481 Van Brunt Street, Door #7, Red Hook, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view July 10 through August 15, Saturdays & Sundays from 1pm – 6pm
Closing party on August 15 will include a joint celebration with the concurrent Coney Island exhibit (on second floor) and feature magic shows and performances.
Posted on 08/03/2021 at 05:00 PM in Brooklyn, Ceramics, Collage, Gallery, Group Exhibition, Photography, Sculpture, Textiles | Permalink | Comments (0)
You may need to do a little dance when looking at Marlene Weisman’s Super Deep 3D Lenticular Collages, shifting your stance to examine the many layers that appear to waver and transform right before your eyes.
“It’s John Waters meets Robert Rauschenberg with a little Cy Twombly thrown in there,” Weisman said of her mind-blowing collages, currently on view in her exhibit Life in 3D at Blue Table Post. Composed with kitschy lenticular images (prints that appear to move when viewed from various angles), her Super Deep 3D series blends Waters’ camp aesthetics, Rauschenberg’s use of found objects, and Twombly’s signature scribbles.
Weisman recalled finding a trove of tacky lenticular images at a 99-cent store about three years ago. “I was mesmerized and I said, ‘how can I use these?’” After experimenting with the hypnotic images, layering pieces onto existing traditional collage works, she discovered that some of the lenticular prints were slightly transparent. “You can see type through the images.” She then began scratching windows onto the prints, removing portions of the images to reveal text and images underneath that she either creates or clips out of books, magazines, atlases, and advertisements.
“It all starts as kitsch images—puppies, landscapes, all kinds of camp images—which I take out of context and then work through destructive practices,” she explained. “Some of them look like something you’d see in nature and some of them are pure abstraction, fantasy, or science fiction.”
Weisman titled the series Super Deep because “it brings you ‘super deep’ into the work” to discover the dreamlike figures, objects, and settings inhabiting the depths of her collages. The works give a “nod to the history of kinetic art,” according to the artist, since they create the illusion of movement and encourage viewers to move around and engage with the pieces.
Born in Brooklyn, Weisman grew up in Queens before her family relocated to Long Island in her teens. She studied graphic design at SUNY College at Buffalo, where she happily discovered a “great music scene” and started a fanzine with a friend. “I listen to a lot of glam rock when I work,” she says. “I love the energy—Bowie, T. Rex, Roxy Music…”
The music-lover moved straight to New York City after graduation and fulfilled her dream of working in the music industry, creating graphics for Stiff America Records and venues including Area, Danceteria, and Peppermint Lounge. Weisman’s work was also featured in two exhibits curated by Keith Haring that showcased Xerox Transfer Art.
“I was lucky enough to be part of the whole early ‘80s scene in New York,” she says. “I got to have the ultimate New York creative experience. I don’t think people today have had that. We would live on nothing. It was unbelievable.”
Weisman landed a plum position from 1988 to 1995 on the in-house design team for Saturday Night Live, creating on-air graphics and skit props for seven seasons. Demanding work schedules kept her from her art practice for several years until she signed up for a collage workshop in 2013. “When I was trained as a graphic designer it was a very hands-on craft and there was a lot of cutting and pasting,” she notes on the correlation between her design and visual art practices. “That whole cut-and-paste sensibility is really ingrained in me. I love it,” she continued. “The cut and paste, composition, and design, I really think it’s all one thing. I think that it’s just how you see the world.”
Weisman moved to Brooklyn about 15 years ago and currently works from Ti Art Studios in Red Hook. “What I love is this art community in Brooklyn,” she said. “I love knowing the other artists. I love sharing the work. I love the feedback. I love going to other people’s shows. It’s so important.”
Weisman planned on debuting her Super Deep 3D Collages at The Other Art Fair in April 2020, but the pandemic shuttered the event, forcing it to take place digitally. The dimensionality of Weisman’s works are better viewed in person and do not translate well online, so she was thrilled when Blue Table Post’s founder, Oliver Lief, reached out to her. “These pieces are very hard to show online so I was so happy to have an opportunity to show them at Blue Table Post.” The post-production studio in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn regularly exhibits work by local artists. Weisman's Life in 3D opened in June.
Blue Table serves as “a place where the artist community and different filmmaking communities can meet and get to know each other,” Lief said. Though he typically attends the annual Arts Gowanus Open Studio events—as well as last year’s Atlantic Avenue Art Walk—to find artists to exhibit, Lief discovered Weisman online. “I was looking for someone…just digging on the internet and was just struck by the first images I saw [of her work],” he said. “The layering, colors…some of the themes in her work are really fun.”
Influenced by Surrealism, Dadaism, Pop Art, Strategic Vandalism, psychedelic art, and more, Weisman’s vibrant, playful works are packed with artifice in myriad layers of hallucinogenic, otherworldly scenes. “It never ceases to surprise me to see the interaction between the layers,” the artist says. “I’m attempting to redefine collage for the 21st century.”
See more of Marlene Weisman's work at the artist's website and on Instagram @marleneweisman.
Marlene Weisman | Life in 3D
Blue Table Post, 67 Dean Street (between Smith & Boerum Pl), Boerum Hill, BK
To schedule a viewing of the exhibit, email [email protected].
Exhibit on view through mid-August.
Posted on 07/19/2021 at 02:32 PM in Assemblage, Brooklyn, Collage, Design | Permalink | Comments (0)
This weekend Artichoke Dance Company will premiere Just Gowanus, a walking tour detailing the area’s past, present, and future, interspersed with dance performances inspired by the unique Brooklyn neighborhood.
The two-hour tour will highlight several noteworthy spots in Gowanus—the 4th Street Turning Basin, bioswales, recycling facilities, plant nurseries—making stops at significant sites including the Salt Lot, the Whole Foods promenade, and Sponge Park to discuss the impending rezoning of the neighborhood, the EPA’s cleanup of the Superfund-designated Gowanus Canal, and other environmental concerns in the community such as flooding, brownfields, the urban heat island effect, and combined sewer overflow (CSOs).
At each stop, four Artichoke dancers will perform short works and lead interactive experiences that illustrate the “geography’s significance” and encourage audiences to “reflect on the place and future.”
The tour kicks off at the Salt Lot, home of a DSNY salt shed, Big Reuse’s NYC Compost Project, and Gowanus Canal Conservancy’s (GCC) education and stewardship programs. Just past the towering mountain of salt used on icy roads during snowstorms (and from which the dancers make a dramatic entrance), visitors will find an oasis overlooking the canal—GCC’s verdant garden and nursery.
“This site is going to go away for a while,” Lynn Neuman, Director of Artichoke Dance, noted during a preview of the tour. As part of the Gowanus Canal cleanup, two CSO tanks will be built to hold excess rainwater during heavy storms to prevent overflow into the canal. One eight-million-gallon tank will be constructed at the northern end of the canal and one four-million-gallon tank will be built at the Salt Lot. GCC will need to find a temporary home for its outdoor facilities until the tank is completed in 2028 and the Conservancy can move back.
Across the canal from the Salt Lot is Public Place. If the city approves the Gowanus Neighborhood Rezoning, which is currently in the public review phase, a divisive development, Gowanus Green, is planned for the city-owned Public Place site, Neuman explained. If given the okay, a school, a public park, and six affordable housing towers rising as high as 28 stories will be developed. For decades, Public Place was home to the Citizens Works Manufactured Gas Plant, making it “one of the most toxic sites along the canal,” Neuman said. Though the coal tar contaminating the site is currently being remediated by National Grid, and developers vow to clean it up further, many in the community argue that it will never be safe to live above and that it is unjust to house low-income families on the land.
These are just some of the concerns that will be raised during the Just Gowanus tour. “There’s so much going on and so much controversy around Gowanus right now that getting the information out, I think, is really important,” Neuman said. “And trying to present it in a way that isn’t leading in one way or the other, but just gives the information, so that people can make informed decisions.” She added that while listening to public testimony during the community board hearing for the rezoning she heard “a lot of speculation about what’s actually going on.... I’m hoping to disseminate some facts.” Neuman would like audiences to learn more about important issues in the neighborhood and obtain “some sense of how they can get active…to know that activism is not scary. It’s very doable,” she insists.
Neuman is a member of 350Brooklyn, a group that addresses the climate crisis, and the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice (GNCJ) which fights to advance racial, economic and environmental justice in Gowanus. The dancer and choreographer first became involved in environmental activism about ten years ago. “It started with plastic pollution for me,” she recalls. “I adopted an older Labrador when I moved to Brooklyn, and I didn’t know this about Labs, but they try to eat everything. I was constantly pulling stuff out of her mouth and one day I realized it’s all plastic. [All the litter] on the street was plastic.” Neuman reached out to the Earth Institute at Columbia University and connected with Ph.D. students researching plastic pollution. With their help she organized a bus tour that took groups to see various trash and recycling facilities across the city.
A decade later, she’s organized another tour focused on Gowanus—seamlessly integrating performance, education, and activism. Originally planned to be staged last summer, the production had to wait a year due to the pandemic. “It’s been in my head for a really long time, and now we finally get to do it,” Neuman said. She spent a lot of time at the sites highlighted on the tour and worked with her dancers to “devise different improvisational approaches that illustrate what I see as happening there.” Bold gestural movements of limbs as well as powerful leaps and bounds beautifully evoke the natural surroundings. One dance portrays the “progression of the history of the canal from a salt marsh to industrialization,” Neuman explained, while another reflects cycles, those found in nature or the cyclic phases of city development processes. Some of the music composed to accompany the dances incorporates sound samples recorded around Gowanus, including birdsong and mechanical rhythms.
Artichoke dancers are known to perform in billowing skirts composed entirely of single-use plastic bags. “[The dancers] have been dancing in plastic bags—which are really hot, by the way—for about five years, until we passed the plastic bag ban legislation in New York State,” Neuman noted. “Now there’s a nation-wide comprehensive plastic bill that would eliminate single-use plastic bags and other single-use plastics that are not recyclable.” During the tour audiences will be given tips on how to get involved in the community and beyond, such as pushing NYS representatives to support the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2021.
Even if you closely follow what’s going on in Gowanus, you are likely to learn something new during this enlightening and entertaining event. This innovative mix of dance, information, and advocacy showcases what makes the neighborhood special while highlighting the potential changes that might rob Gowanus of its charms.
Founded in 1995, Artichoke Dance merges dance, environmental activism, and civic engagement. Just Gowanus is the company’s third production that focuses on the Gowanus neighborhood and collaborates with residents and local organizations. In 2017 Artichoke produced Global Water Dances on the Gowanus Canal and in 2019 they presented the Gowanus Visions Festival of Art and Action.
Gowanus Canal Conservancy, the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club, and the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice (GNCJ), partnered with Artichoke Dance Company for the Just Gowanus Tour.
Just Gowanus: An Interactive Performance Tour
Saturdays & Sundays |July 10 & 11; July 17 & 18 at 2pm
Tour begins at the Salt Lot, 2 Second Avenue, Gowanus
Tickets $30
Posted on 07/06/2021 at 03:26 PM in Brooklyn, Performance | Permalink | Comments (0)
This weekend is your last chance to see Fred Bendheim’s Making Space, a series of seven curvilinear shaped paintings bursting with radiant circles and exuberant spirals.
The works in Making Space were created in the last 15 months, in the midst of the lockdown, when Bendheim was able to work freely at his Sunset Park studio with few distractions. The artist’s process begins with visceral drawings. “A lot of it is free association, just drawing what appeals to me, different shapes, and I make compositions from those,” he explained at 440 Gallery where the exhibit is on view. “The last 15, 20 years I’ve been doing this sort of experiment, just painting what looks good to me, keeping it at that level. That cuts out a lot of the intellectual stuff, which I think gets in the way often, and then one thing leads to another.” Based on his drawings, Bendheim will then work on watercolor studies which eventually lead to his final acrylic paintings.
“I like the freedom of it. I can do any shape I want, and it just allows me a certain freedom,” he said of his preference for a sculptural foundation versus a more traditional canvas. “These don’t have corners. Four corners can really influence your composition.”
Bendheim began creating his intricate shaped paintings 15 years ago. “Originally, I did them on wood and…sometimes they would warp,” he explained. “A few of the pieces I wanted the grain, but [overall] I wanted [the paint] flat.” About seven years ago, Bendheim switched to PVC board, a material used by sign makers.
For his current series, Bendheim focused on circular shapes. “I love seeing spiral shapes,” he said. “I love the energy of them, how they go inward and outward at the same time. How they’re still but they move. These sorts of dichotomies fascinate me.” Spiral patterns common in Native American art may have influenced Bendheim’s paintings, the artist said. Originally from Arizona, he grew up seeing a lot of Native American art and finding petroglyphs, elaborately carved rocks, in the desert.
“And the spiral relates to the cosmos,” he said of another influence. The shapes and swirls in Making Space suggest an otherworldliness—planets, galaxies, and star formations. “I like stuff like this where the spirals go off kilter and some interesting things happen,” he said of the cloud-shaped Sunset. “These spirals on top of these radiating concentric circles…that kind of happened by accident.”
In the ellipse-shaped Influence, a viewer might perceive a sun and moon in the various color shifts that transition from dark to light. This piece was the last created in the series and features a much softer, more serene palette than the other vividly hued works.
The element of transparency, where overlapping colors meet and interplay, adds to the celestial quality of Bendheim’s paintings. “It looks like you can see through everything,” Bendheim said, but instead of using a glaze to achieve this effect, he separately mixed the colors where they intersect before meticulously layering the paint for a translucent appearance.
“I like the look of the transparency,” Bendheim said, adding that it alludes to “the Buddhist idea that matter is not real. There is no ultimate reality. Matter is transparent. Things that we take for reality are part of a larger reality...the unsubstantial [nature] of things.”
Bendheim hopes his paintings will make viewers “feel connected to the universe,” he said, or “make mental and spiritual space for humanity,” according to the show’s press release. “People say they’re very optimistic,” the artist noted of his spellbinding works. “I’m not an optimistic person but I guess deep down there’s something there.”
Bendheim received a degree in Studio Art from Pomona College in Claremont, California. Following school, he moved to San Francisco where he met his wife. The couple moved to Brooklyn in 1984. Bendheim has been a member of 440 Gallery for eight years. Making Space is his fifth solo exhibit at the gallery.
Meet Bendheim at 440 Gallery on Sunday, June 27, during the closing reception for the show from 5pm to 7pm. Bendheim’s work will also be included in a group exhibition at Gallery MC in Manhattan next month. See more of Fred Bendheim's work at the artist's website.
Fred Bendheim | Making Space
440 Gallery, 440 6th Avenue, Park Slope
May 26 through June 27, 2021
Closing reception: Sunday, June 27, 5pm to 7pm
Posted on 06/25/2021 at 03:40 PM in Brooklyn, Gallery | Permalink | Comments (0)
Featuring work by three local artists—Ella Yang, Janet Pedersen, and Susan Greenstein—Simply Local showcases plein air paintings depicting vibrant scenes plucked straight from diverse and quirky Gowanus and surrounding areas. The exhibit pays tribute to the industrial Brooklyn neighborhood known for its low-rise architecture, historic bridges, bars and breweries, and toxic Superfund-designated canal.
“Gowanus has a lot of sky and space,” Ella Yang said Saturday at the Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse where the exhibit is on view through the end of June. “Gowanus still feels like old, real New York, not developed and gentrified.”
A Manhattan native, Yang worked a corporate job for 12 years before switching to a more creative profession, running a pottery studio in Connecticut. After five years, she decided to shutter the studio in 2001 and pursue her longtime dream of studying art in Italy. She found a three-week course in the idyllic Umbria region where she painted her very first plein air piece. “We did figure drawing every morning and then in the afternoon a different teacher took us all to paint outside…. I was just smitten,” she recalled of her introduction to painting outdoors.
“It was a real challenge coming back from Italy to Brooklyn, I was like, ‘where do I paint?’” She initially tried finding “pretty views” similar to those she painted in Italy. “I was like, ‘okay, that’s not going to happen here.’ I started walking around and then there was the Gowanus Canal.” Yang was drawn to the neighborhood’s notoriously polluted body of water, the views of the sky, the “weird architecture,” and the array of discarded objects dotting the shoreline.
Yang immediately found a creative community in Gowanus, joining in the Arts Gowanus Open Studios during its early years. “There were maybe 15 to 20 artists doing it,” she recalled. “It was great. I had so much fun that I volunteered right away to be on the steering committee.” The supportive community and positive feedback she received when showing her work encouraged her to continue painting. The self-taught artist who has worked in Gowanus for 20 years recently moved to a new studio at 543 Union Street.
She never has to travel far for inspiration, often finding subjects in Gowanus or neighboring Park Slope. “I don’t want to go that far because there is always something nearby,” Yang insists. “If you look at my paintings, I don’t paint anything modern or glassy or steel. I’m really attracted to old material that’s not overly designed.”
“I think about light and shadow, in the way it creates shapes and forms,” she continued. In 8th Street she captures the radiant golden hour at a local vacant lot. “It’s one of those places where if you’re there at the right moment, it just lights up and it was—I would say—gorgeous, but maybe a lot of people wouldn’t.”
Artist Janet Pedersen also loves “chasing the light,” according to her website. “This is what I’m always searching for, the light in my work,” she explained. “It’s not like I need amazing architecture or anything. I truly work from looking at angles of light and making a connection that way with my setting. I could be painting anything as boring as…the BQE,” she said, referring to her painting of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. “It had a really nice 'corner light.' I’m looking for corners a lot.” Pedersen’s work often features street corners housing bodegas, laundromats, and other storefronts.
The shorter architecture in Pedersen’s South Slope neighborhood, as well as in Red Hook, often provides ideal lighting for her work. In Gowanus she is fascinated by the canal that divides the neighborhood, as well as the dredging that is currently happening to remove the “black mayo” from the bottom of the waterway. “There’s the colorful elements of these boats that are just waiting to be painted,” she mused. “I respond a lot to color and light.”
She described a northward-facing scene on the canal that she was eager to paint. “The backdrop of downtown, with the boats and the water and a great skyline in the back…. It’s going to be gone soon,” she said, noting the impending Gowanus rezoning. “A lot of things that I’m drawn to are things that are old and probably not going to be around for too much longer, so capturing that on a canvas makes it all the more precious…. This will all change. It will be built up and there goes the light.”
Pedersen hopes visitors to the exhibit will walk away with a sense of hometown pride. “I want people to feel like their neighborhoods were loved a little bit and displayed in an important way because Brooklyn is changing so much, but there’s also a lot that people are trying to preserve too,” noting community organizations such as the Gowanus Dredgers, Arts Gowanus, and the Gowanus Canal Conservancy. “I just hope that people feel good about their neighborhood.”
Susan Greenstein concurs with Pedersen and hopes that visitors to the exhibit will be “excited about this area and have the same excitement for the stories that we all are telling.”
The Windsor Terrace-based artist studied painting and drawing at Pratt and earned her master’s in art education from Queens College. Greenstein has been teaching art at Brooklyn Friends School for 15 years. She has been painting en plein air for more than 30 years. She loves chatting with passersby and curious spectators. “It’s nice to kind of demystify what it is I do and have people ask questions, especially kids. They are so excited about it.”
Greenstein also enjoys the unpredictable nature of her practice. “I love the fact that every single time that I paint all the conditions are different,” she said. “Sometimes it’s super windy, sometimes it’s colder than I would like, or really hot…but I feel like that weaves its way into the work. Even the sounds that I hear, or the way the wind is blowing…I think that’s what’s exciting about the experience. It gets folded into the work.”
When searching for sites to paint, Greenstein seeks out stories that she can visually recreate. “Maybe it’s the way two buildings look next to each other or just how the sky is relating to architecture,” she explained. Along with looking for perfect lighting, Greenstein also searches for patterns. “I’m always very interested in pattern,” she said. “That’s something that always finds its way into my work. It might not be obvious pattern, but there’s something that’s repeating itself in the work.”
In Gowanus Greenstein finds inspiration in the “layers of time that you see all around you,” the combination of older and newer buildings, and industrial structures alongside nature. “Most of the time I love working with plant life and architecture and how they relate to each other,” she said. “And the bridges, I’ve never seen bridges like these, and to see each of them so close to each other, I find that very exciting.”
While Gowanus has its share of notable landmarked buildings, such as the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Central Powerhouse (or the Batcave), the Gowanus Flushing Tunnel Pump House, and the ASPCA Building, none are featured in any of the works displayed in Simply Local. “[The paintings show] simpler structures and there’s a real beauty in that as well,” Greenstein explained. “Things that if you weren’t really looking you might not notice, but they have their own stories.”
From Yang’s precise compositions, Pedersen’s bold color choices, and Greenstein’s pattern-filled vistas, Simply Local masterfully captures the character and brilliance of Gowanus. “That’s the essence of the exhibit,” noted Yang. “We’re not choosing iconic buildings. We’re not choosing something that’s important architecturally…. If you stop and look, there’s beauty everywhere.”
Meet the three artists on Saturday, June 26 (2pm-5pm) at the Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse where they will be on hand for plein air painting demonstrations.
Janet Pedersen and Susan Greenstein also have still life work currently on display at Sweetwaters Café at 55 5th Avenue in Park Slope.
Check out my November 2020 interview with Pedersen where she discussed Step By Step, her 440 Gallery exhibition of dance-inspired paintings.
Simply Local – Painting Gowanus And Beyond
June 1 through 30, 2021
Gowanus Dredger’s Boathouse, 2nd Street (between Bond Street & Gowanus Canal)
Open Saturdays, 1pm to 5pm, or by appointment.
Posted on 06/22/2021 at 05:41 PM in Brooklyn, Group Exhibition | Permalink | Comments (1)
After nearly 30 years, Karen Gibbons is saying farewell to her Gowanus studio with an exhibition and courtyard party this weekend. Showcasing work created in the 1980s and 1990s, Gowanus Retrospective includes drawings, paintings, sculptures, photographs, and collage works inspired by the rapidly changing Brooklyn neighborhood.
“All of these things were done when I was new to this space,” Gibbons said on Wednesday during a preview of her show. Gowanus inspired Gibbons “with lots of interesting wires, antennas, and shapes that you don’t see in other places.” The neighborhood also provided her with an endless supply of materials she’d find on the streets and incorporate into her artwork, such as springs, a plastic floor mat, construction materials, “detritus of life in Gowanus,” according to the artist.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Gibbons moved to NYC where she studied at Pratt and earned her MFA in painting from Hunter College. While a student at Hunter, Gibbons and her husband spotted an advertisement for a four-story industrial building at 280 Nevins Street that housed a stuffed animal factory on the first floor and studio spaces on the upper levels. “It said ‘air-conditioned building near BAM,’” she recalled. “We drove by and said ‘this is not near BAM and that building is not air-conditioned.” The couple eventually went back to check out the building and were “blown away with the amount of space.” In 1984 they moved in, sharing studio space until a dance studio on the second floor became available in the early ‘90s. Gibbons took over the lease for the vast studio and has worked there until this year.
The new space allowed Gibbons to create large-scale sculptures and a series of paintings inspired by the Gowanus landscape. “What interests me is the sky and the buildings,” Gibbons said. “The neighborhood is unusual in that there’s so much sky.” Created in the ‘80s, the paintings illustrate the interactions between the buildings and the sky. They do not represent any specific local landmarks. “They’re more like creatures created from the inspiration of the buildings,” she said of the works. A series of black-and-white photographs also captures glimpses of architectural details around Gowanus—rooftops, smokestacks, and cornices—all seen under those expansive skies.
Looking out of her studio windows inspired Gibbons to create a series of charming paintings featuring pigeons, bestowing grace upon these typically humble creatures. Embodying two of her passions, nature and urban life, the birds share similarities to humans, the artist insists. “We’re like pigeons in a way that we travel in groups and are sort of oblivious to our surroundings. They’re very city creatures.”
In 2019, after years of changing hands, 280 Nevins Street was sold to a developer who plans to convert the building into luxury condos—another sign of gentrification in an area facing the threat of a massive rezoning. “The neighborhood was really kind of dead,” Gibbons recalled of her early years in Gowanus when drugs and prostitution were the area’s main trades. “A lot of the industries were not here.”
“It was just quiet,” Gibbons said of the now bustling neighborhood. “Before, on weekends, nobody walked on Union Street. I would tell people, ‘We’re right by the Union Street Bridge,’ and they would say, ‘Where is that?’ Now I say, ‘We’re near Ample Hills.’” Gibbons began noticing changes in the area about ten years ago, when the Green Building first started hosting weddings and events. “We started seeing people in wedding gowns taking pictures on the bridge…. We were like, ‘this is the end.’”
To prepare for the impending closure of her Nevins Street workspace, Gibbons moved to Red Hook’s TI Art Studios in December 2019. At 350 square feet, her new studio is significantly smaller than her longtime Gowanus space, so the artist needs to pare down. Anyone who purchases a ticket to Gowanus Retrospective will take home a piece of Gibbons’ artwork! What’s more, a majority of the proceeds from ticket sales will go to Arts Gowanus, the non-profit organization that hosts the much-loved Gowanus Open Studios every year.
“I realized that part of what made this studio so vital was having an open studio every year that I could count on,” Gibbons said of the organization. “Also with all the changes in Gowanus and Arts Gowanus’ working to make sure the artists still have a place here, I felt like it was a great match.” Though she might have missed the very first Gowanus Open Studios event, Gibbons believes she “might have participated in every single one.”
While her new studio may be much smaller, it has not slowed Gibbons’ productivity. She had a solo show at 440 Gallery and was part of a group show with the gallery in late 2020. Earlier this year she had a solo show at Sweet Lorraine Gallery. “Now with a different studio and different perspective with the neighborhood changing, my work is changing too,” Gibbons said. “We’ll see where it goes.” When asked whether Red Hook inspires her in the same way Gowanus does, she replied. “Somewhat. It’s quirky and there’s still sky.”
Learn more about Karen Gibbons at karengibbonsart.com.
Karen Gibbons | Gowanus Retrospective
Saturday, June 12, 4pm-8pm (Rain date: June 19)
280 Nevins Street, Gowanus
Ticket prices: $25, $40, $60, $100, $300
See some of the artwork available at each price point at artsgowanus.org.
Purchase tickets here.
Posted on 06/10/2021 at 06:46 PM in Brooklyn, Collage, Drawing, Photography, Sculpture | Permalink | Comments (0)
Along with creating her own spirited abstract paintings, artist and curator Yvena Despagne showcases work by emerging and mid-career artists from Haiti and Brooklyn as co-founder of Arts x Ayiti and the recently appointed curator-in-residence of Arts Gowanus.
“As an artist you never do not have anything to do,” Despagne said at her Gowanus studio this week. “Even if I’m on one project, I can’t sit still. I’m on this one project but I’m planning five more.”
The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Despagne was born and raised in Harlem, moving to Brooklyn in her teens and graduating from New Utrecht High School in Bensonhurst. She studied psychology at Brooklyn College before taking a position as a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home to see if the medical field was a good fit for her. It wasn’t.
“I started catching myself hiding in empty rooms on my lunch break or whenever I had a moment, and researching art stuff,” she recalled. “I would study people’s artwork, read about becoming an artist or about artists’ stories. The more I was doing that, the less I wanted to be at the nursing home.”
“Going back [to college] was a challenge for me because at that point I didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself,” Despagne added. “I was tired of taking classes and being unsure of my direction. That happened in the course of being married too.” At 25 Despagne married a Jehovah’s Witness whose religious beliefs she says “restricted me as an individual and didn’t allow me the opportunity to get to really know myself or even discover the fact that I liked art as much as I did.”
The couple separated in 2015 after five years. “Then the divorce happened and I started to get depressed,” she said, noting that she’d struggled with depression when she was younger. Searching for a distraction, Despagne found an instructional painting video on You Tube. “That was the first time that I stopped thinking about everything and was just focused on what [the artist] was doing,” she recalled. Inspired, she went out and bought art supplies and recreated what she saw in the tutorial. “I felt so good painting,” she said. “My issues were not an issue and I was able to block everything else out and think about myself…. Art in that sense, when you have that solitude, forces you to think about life, think about everything, or maybe not think about anything at all. Just focus on what you’re doing.”
She discovered her creative calling, and with the support of her new husband, Richard Rameau, decided to leave her position at the nursing home. “I left a good-paying job to barely making ends meet, but pursuing the art,” she said.
Rameau convinced Despagne to start an Instagram page in 2016 to share her artwork online. Within the first year of devoting herself full-time to her art, Despagne’s Instagram page caught the attention of Shirley Dorsainvil, the founder of Haitians Who Blog. She invited Despagne to exhibit and discuss her work at an event in Florida.
Another boost of confidence happened in 2019 when her painting Belle Machan’n was one of 11 works selected by the Flatbush Avenue BID for a street banner art campaign. The winning works were printed on to banners and prominently displayed along Flatbush Avenue between Cortelyou Road and Parkside Avenue in Brooklyn. “That was a big accomplishment for me because I almost didn’t enter,” Despagne noted with a laugh. The ethereal scene, featuring a “beautiful market lady” dressed in white and carrying a basket on her head, appeared to Despagne in a dream. “I woke up and was like I have to paint this now,” she remembers. “When I painted it, I was thinking about all the moms—about my mom and grandmother, my aunt, and all the woman that work hard to feed and provide for their families in hopes that they’ll have better opportunities or a better future than they did.”
Her 2018 series, Little Wonder, features an enchanting menagerie of tiny creatures including a bumble bee, butterfly, and hummingbird. A friend inspired the initial piece, Ladybug. “One ladybug had me thinking about all the other little creatures that we don’t really think about until we see them…. Regardless of how small we are, we still all have a reason and a purpose for being on earth,” she explained.
Anger was the impetus behind Despagne’s Monsters series. The project started with two works on paper in 2019. “I was so upset about so many things. It was a point in my life where I felt like I was facing a wall and didn’t know where else to go,” she said. “I just started drawing these random shapes and…suddenly they looked like parts of a body to me. I wrote the words ‘tongue,’ ‘teeth,’ and ‘eyes’ on them.” She set these two drawings aside for a few months until the pandemic hit and she felt compelled to revisit them and make more. “I just couldn’t stop creating these monsters. I was thinking of politics, the government. It’s just annoying how people feel a sense of having control over other people’s lives and just like that [snaps fingers] you can destroy it or take everything away,” she said.
Always Looking for Trouble features searching eyes “constantly looking for the next thing to gossip about” and an elongated pink tongue. “The tongue is so long because gossipers just have so much to say all the time,” she explains.
Four lashing tongues, four sets of teeth, and a single pair of eyes intermingle on a deep blue backdrop in Gang. “Usually in a gang, whether it’s a government, a school setting, or an actual gang in the streets, there’s always one leader of the pack. That’s why there is only one set of eyes,” Despagne notes. “It only takes that one person to see or say something to make everybody else follow.”
Despagne landed her first arts-related job in 2018 at sk.ArtSpace in East New York. After submitting her artwork and speaking with the venue owners, they recognized her drive and took her on as a gallery assistant. After three months, they gave her the opportunity to curate an exhibit on her own. The theme of Despagne’s inaugural curatorial project I Was Created to Create acknowledged “all artists who, although they do other things in their lives, can’t deny at the end of the day that they are an artist first,” she said. Featuring painting, photography, sculpture, and film, the exhibit went over so well that she was asked to curate two more group shows at the space in 2019.
Despagne soon found another position assisting Aaron Simms, the owner of Brooklyn Arts Fellowship (BAF) gallery in Greenwood Heights. She curated the exhibit currently on view at the gallery, Esansyèl [Essential], featuring paintings by Haitian-American artist Phaidra Sterlin.
Concurrent with her positions at galleries, Despagne branched out by curating artwork for local cafés, starting with Lakou Café in Crown Heights where she presented work by new artists every month. Her work at Lakou opened the door to curating gigs at several other cafés and caught the eye of the Ghost Gallery owner who enlisted her to curate three shows at his Brooklyn gallery. Despagne was even in talks to curate a show for Ghost Gallery’s LA location, but those plans had to be put on hold. “The pandemic hit and everything shut down,” she said. “Socializing is out of the picture. What am I supposed to do as an artist and as a curator? How does this work now?” she questioned.
An upcoming trip to Haiti also had to be canceled due to the pandemic. The producers of Ayiti: The Awakening recruited Despagne to organize screenings of their documentary in Haiti. “[The film] talks about how corrupted everything was after the [2010] earthquake and how the funds that were supposed to go to the Haitian people in the country to help restore it—never got there,” she explains of the film. Not easily discouraged, Despagne will host a screening of Ayiti: The Awakening in Brooklyn at BAF gallery on December 17.
While in-person events may pose problems amid the pandemic, Despagne’s online project, Art x Ayiti, continues to flourish. The platform highlights and promotes contemporary visual artists of Haitian descent. Since taking over the project from co-founder Samantha Nader, Despagne has been focused on enhancing the user experience by hosting artist talks and offering art business tips. “I feel like it’s serving its purpose, inspiring and motivating people and showing that as an artist you can make it, you just have to figure out what you’re doing.”
The ever-busy Despagne joined Arts Gowanus in September as a curator-in-residence. She’s already helped the group organize its annual fundraiser in September and collaborated on the successful Atlantic Avenue Art Walk in October. The walk featured artwork by dozens of Brooklyn artists displayed in 65 storefronts along 1.5-miles for a socially-distanced alternative to a yearly open studios event. Despagne is currently working on putting together a virtual show for the organization. “The Arts Gowanus community is very open and welcoming,” Despagne says of her new role. “I’m really excited about what else we’ll be able to work on together.”
A tenacious ambition and work ethic drive Despagne toward her creative goals. “I’m happy that I push myself. Fear comes hand in hand with this career and I’ve been told countless times if you’re not uncomfortable then you’re not really doing much. I’ve constantly been pushing myself to maintain in every uncomfortable situation because I know once I get through that, it’s prepares me for whatever else is out there for me,” she said. “I’m always striving for the next big thing.”
Visit yvenadespagneart.com to learn more about the artist and message her on Instagram if you’d like to schedule a studio visit.
Check out her programming at BAF Gallery—Phaidra Sterlin: Esansyèl [Essential] on view through December 20 and a screening of Ayiti: The Awakening on December 17 at 6pm.