Art Hag

Neurodiverse Artists "Show Up and Show Out" in Fisher Center Group Exhibit

"Show Up and Show Out," a group exhibition presented by AHRC NYC and the W83 Ministry Center

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.

L-R: Naomi Lawrence, Lucille Payne, Anita Payne, Jon Bunge, and Adriana Caicedo at the opening of "Show Up and Show Out" at W83 Gallery

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.

"Anita's Quilt" by Anita Payne

L-R: Lucille Payne, Anita Payne, and Yvonne Cannon

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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.

"History People" by Nichole Perez

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.”

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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.”

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L-R: Works by Timotheus Davis and Miguel Reveron

 

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L-R: Works by Jeffrey Holloway and Oswald James

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L-R: Works by Wayne Anderson and Carol Fields

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L-R: Fiber works by Guadalupe Quinto (top) and Kim Worthmann (bottom): Tahira Curtis

Show Up and Show Out
W83 Gallery, 150 West 83rd Street, NYC
Exhibition on view through January 29, 2024
More info here. 

Why Not Art? Presents Rebirth: Brooklyn

Works by Michael James Freedman and Jo-Ann Acey on view at littlefield

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.

Amateur Night by Demarcus McGaughey

Country Boy in Harlem by Dermarcus McGaughey

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.

Clockwise from top right: Swing Series - No. 7 by Jo-Ann Acey; Study of the Brass Queens, City Life - Open Streets, Jazz at Wild Birds - May Day Concert by Michael James Freedman

On left: Swing Series - No. 24, No. 23, No. 27, (top right) No. 15 by Jo-Ann Acey; Jazz at Wild Birds - Anniversary Concert by Michael James Freedman

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.

From left: Grace Freedman,  Demarcus McGaughey, Jo-Ann Acey, and Michael James Freedman at Rebirth: Brooklyn reception

Demarcus McGaughey and Jo-Ann Acey with Michael and Grace Freedman behind them

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

25th Annual Gowanus Open Studios

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.

Ti Art Studios, 183 Lorraine Street, Red Hook

Textile artist Traci Johnson outside her studio at Ti Art Studios

A recent FIT grad, textile artist Traci Johnson transformed her studio into a vivid, plushy dreamscape.

Traci Johnson in her studio.

Demarcus McGaughey (right) and friends in his studio

Recent work by Demarcus McGaughey

K Haskell's drawings and collage work document beauty within decay. The illuminated installion on their wall depicts a cancer cell.

Recent work by K Haskell

Sculptor Ward Yoshimoto creates intricate assemblages with found objects. Several of his works feature materials discovered at Dead Horse Bay.

Marlene Weisman poses with her Optimystics collages. Weisman also designed all the graphics for Gowanus Open Studios.

Natale Adgnot stands with a fascinating new installation in her studio. Check out her Chromaticism exhibit from November 2020 here.

Karen Gibbons in her studio. Read about her retrospective show, and former long-time Gowanus workspace, here. 

Feminine Rising, a recent work by Karen Gibbons.

Artwork by Ellen Chuse

Ellen Chuse at her studio in Red Hook.

540 President Street, Gowanus

Jo-ann Acey was one of several artists at 540 President whose studios flooded during Hurricane Ida. A Go Fund Me was set up to help her recoup and recover extensive losses. See my interview with Acey from November 2020 here.

Miguel Ayuso in his studio. Ayuso founded La Bodega Gallery, a popular creative/community hub in South Slope before it closed in 2020.

Midrene Lamy working on a self-portrait.

Lamy's self-portrait is a response to the COVID pandemic.

Mark the Artisan set up his art truck in the parking lot of 540 President.

Usually parked on Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg, Mark the Artisan will be in Gowanus throughout the GOS weekend. Read about his August 2021 exhibit at Established Gallery here.

Mark the Artisan at work

Alise Loebelsohn and Roxanna Velandria | Spoke the Hub

Alise Loebelsohn, Moroccan Landscape, 2021

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.

Alise Loebelsohn, Take a Knee, 2021

Alise Loebelsohn, Take a Knee (detail)

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.

Alise Loebelsohn, Olive Landscape, 2021

Alise Loebelsohn, COVID Spring, 2021

Alise Loebelsohn, From Green to Orange, 2021

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.

Spoke the Hub's new staff wall by artist Roxanna Velandria.
(L-R) Portraits of Gwen O'Connor, Martha Sea Corprew, Marcia Bricker Halperon, Dalienne Majors, Lori Jorgenensen, Spoke the Hub founder Elise Long, Cecilia Schmidt, and Ed Velandria

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.”

Portraits of Gwen O'Connor and Martha Sea Corprew by Roxanna Velandria

Fortune cookie wisdom attached to Roxanna Velandria's portrait of Elise Long

(L-R) Portraits of Marcia Bricker Halperon, Dalienne Majors, Lori Jorgenensen, and Spoke the Hub founder Elise Long, by artist Roxanna Velandria

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

Mario Joyce | Unearthing Black Joy on Governors Island

ArtCrawl Harlem Executive Director Ulysses Williams and artist Mario Joyce

ArtCrawl Harlem returns to Governors Island this summer with a second artists residency program where Michael Obele, Mario Joyce, and Melissa Sutherland Moss will take turns working from a historic house at Nolan Park. Earlier this month, I visited with the season’s second artist in residence, Mario Joyce, as he was settling into his new temporary studio space.

Joyce, who will be working on Governors Island from July 24 through September 3, is so inspired by his new surroundings that he had already created a dozen works just two weeks into his residency. “It’s been so amazing,” he says of his time on the Island. “I have water behind me and then I have a big lawn and a lot of elements that remind me of the place I grew up, but I’m in this urban space.” His recent works, filled with figures enjoying the great outdoors, radiate with vitality and confidence.

Mario Joyce's work at ArtCrawl Harlem's Governors Island residency

Painting and collage works created by Mario Joyce during ArtCrawl Harlem's Governors Island residency

Painting and collage works created by Mario Joyce during ArtCrawl Harlem's Governors Island residency

On the first day of his residency, Joyce was inspired by a Black family relaxing on the lawn in front of the ArtCrawl Harlem house. “I started sketching them and that’s how the body of work started being developed. It’s been fun to watch [my work] transition as I discover new things about the space.” For the first time, he’s introduced soft pinks into his palette. “I think as I explore Black joy, it [represents] a sweetness, an innocence, and a youth that I’m bringing to the work,” he says. “I really love pink, juicy lips—like when I was a kid eating a popsicle—that summertime youth and unadulterated joy,” he adds.

Growing Up in the Heartland 

Born in Columbus, Ohio to a young single mother Joyce moved with his mother, grandmother, and siblings to a farm in rural Ohio when he was five. “It was literally in the middle of nowhere,” he recalls. “It was really hard. We were the only Black family, and as a queer Black boy in that type of space, I was really alone. I was bullied mercilessly every single day. Art, and being in the fields and crops, became part of my escape…so I associate crops, soil, and nature to peacefulness and breaking things down, unpacking things, unpacking trauma specifically.”

Early on, Joyce’s grandmother provided him with creative outlets, coloring books, watercolors, and art supplies. “She bought me all the materials that I needed. She really fueled that,” he remembers fondly. Joyce started using art to express himself. “It became my language. It was the way I communicated, drawing and creating a narrative within,” he continues. “I would talk it out. As I was drawing the figures I was creating this dialogue between the characters. I would talk to the characters. It was like playing with dolls, but I would draw it. I’ve always kept that within my work.”

Joyce continues that inner dialogue today when he works on his lush, impassioned paintings that illustrate the Black experience. “When I am putting paint on the canvas, I’m really moving it around like a language. I’m verbalizing whatever I’m working through. I’m telling the story with the brush stroke…. I love slapping on the oil paint and dragging it through and mixing the colors on the canvas instead of on a palette. That’s how it comes across so excitable, [because] I’m actively speaking. It’s an internal dialogue that comes through my hand. I really give myself that freedom to tell the story,” he explains.

His evocative paintings are punctuated with vivid patterns and images seamlessly collaged into the scenes. Joyce incorporates “vintage collage materials specifically between 1965 and 1999” from books or old copies of Reader’s Digest and National Geographic, onto his canvases. “I do that for two reasons. I love the ink quality, it’s very matte, it’s very ‘60s,” he notes, adding that the specific timeframe references his grandfathers’ generation. “It’s kind of like when they were my age and coming of age and going through the same things.”

Works by Mario Joyce at ArtCrawl Harlem's residency program on Governors Island 

A work by Mario Joyce at ArtCrawl Harlem's residency program on Governors Island 

A work by Mario Joyce at ArtCrawl Harlem's residency program on Governors Island

Exploring His Roots

Joyce has been investigating his family tree since childhood, and genealogy plays an integral role in his artwork. “I research my family history and I have since I was ten years old. It was a part of breaking down traumatic experience, like who am I? Why do I look this way? The history of my own skin and DNA.”

As a child, his grandmother regularly brought him to the library where he would pore over the genealogical records. “I would look for the names of our family and I would interview aunts and uncles in other states,” he said. “I learned a lot before I was even 12 years old. I have all those records still.” 

Complementing the information he gathered from the library and relatives, Joyce also drew family photographs, copying pictures he borrowed from his great-grandmother. “After Alex Haley created the movie Roots, [my great-grandmother] created a little study and filled it with photos of our ancestors,” he says. “I would borrow them from her—I had to promise to give them back—and I would draw them. I would practice drawing my ancestors, the shapes of their faces and their noses. That comes into my practice today because as you can see…every Black male figure, is me. I’m the model…. I manipulate the physical characteristics to make alter egos of myself and they represent specific ancestors within my lineage.”

Placing his male ancestors into a contemporary context in his paintings, Joyce examines the parallels between their lives and his own. He tries to uncover “What has changed within my life?” and “What has changed within the Black experience in America?” The answers are often disappointing. “Sadly, I don’t know if it’s enough. I don’t think it’s that much, so it’s my mission to closely examine what being Black in America looks like today, right now, by looking in our past and in our DNA, which is not in history books. It’s all in our ancestry, in our grandparents’ heads, and it needs to be documented.”

Other themes that recur in Joyce’s work include vast, jewel-toned skies. “I love the sky because I grew up in the Midwest,” he says, where “you could see for miles…. It was all big sky. They were so beautiful and ever evolving. I can just keep going and keep painting them forever. It was freedom.”

Trees also figure prominently on his canvases “because I grew up with trees,” he explains. [They were] such a part of my background and I love them. I’m very comfortable with them, but also, it’s that rooted aspect. I always do my figures barefoot because I want them connected to the earth, like a free energy flow from the soles of their feet to the ancient soil.”

It was a poignant work by Joyce featuring a figure amid a forest of trees that first caught the eye of ArtCrawl Executive Director Ulysses Williams. Entitled Strange Fruit, the artist created the painting in response to the 2016 election. “When Trump got into office I was just so shocked,” Joyce recalls. “It shifted my work to something that was a little passive and straight into activism. I started with a very familiar image of a Black man being lynched and below him was a crowd that was joyously celebrating it at a picnic.”

After ruminating on the image, Joyce decided to change the narrative. “I eliminated the crowd. I took that… very seen image of a Black man hanging in the trees and I wanted to reclaim that. What I wanted to do with that was make it ours again and make that represent something different.”

Joyce recalled a hateful incident from childhood that helped influence this work. “I’ll never forget on a bus ride, I was very, very little and new to the space and it was such a rural school, you rode on the bus with high school kids,” he reflected. “There was a high school kid that sat in front of me. The windows were fogged up…and he drew a lynched man on the window and peered back at me and laughed. I knew right then…that was a way to intimidate us as Black kids…. So that image has always been, since I was five, it has always been ingrained in my mind as fear and ‘you’re less than,’ so I had to take that back.”

He revised Strange Fruit (above) not to show the figure as a victim but to honor him as a martyr. “I painted the same image but I had him ascending out of the trees and rising above,” Joyce notes. The painting illustrates “this is what we come from, something greater,” Joyce says of the moving work. “We are not reduced to being lynched in the woods. We’re something special.”

Putting Down Roots in NYC

Joyce made the big move to New York City with his husband eight years ago. “We just wanted to feel comfortable,” he says of their relocation. “I wanted to hold his hand in public. I wanted to kiss him in public…. Just to feel comfortable in your own skin is something that I don’t take for granted because I didn’t always have it.”

Sexuality and religion are themes Joyce also addresses in his deeply personal artwork. Growing up in rural Ohio, Joyce’s grandmother raised him as a Jehovah’s Witness. “My personality—growing up queer and Black—[the church] just didn’t really make sense for me,” he says. “It was further suppressing me…. It was just like you’re not supposed to be you, so be better and try to be someone else. I tried and I tried but it just didn’t work out.” Joyce decided to leave the church at 15. “It just wasn’t for me and I knew it. Some things just didn’t make sense…. I didn’t fit in to what they needed me to be.”

Today, Joyce is a certified genealogist through Boston University’s Genealogy Studies Program and is currently delving into his father’s lineage since his dad and mother recently “rekindled their relationship from when they were teenagers.” Joyce explains that they “never really fell out of love and finally made it work.” Older and wiser, they married three years ago, allowing Joyce to build a relationship with his father. “It just keeps evolving, the story keeps going,” he says of his family history.

Joyce’s paternal side of the family hail from the Deep South in Alabama, “what’s called the Black Belt,” according to the artist, where he says investigating his roots is challenging. “When I do genealogical research in the South, it is really hard...I don’t think they destroyed records—they just didn’t care about Black people,” he says, so record keeping was lax.

When studying his mother’s roots in North Carolina and Virginia, he discovered that some of her ancestors were slaves but “most of them were free people of color,” Joyce says. “I can only trace those roots back to 1660 because they weren’t really slaves, they were indentured servants, so they got their freedom after a lifetime of labor and then they bought land. These are things that I don’t think people know. They don’t know that there are African Americans who have been free since the 1660s,” he notes.

Each day, as Joyce travels via ferry to Governors Island, he is reminded of the country’s history of slavery. The pier in lower Manhattan where he catches the ferry “sold Black bodies” centuries ago, he adds. “And I think about the fact that I’m on a ferry with this amazing opportunity as an artist. This isn’t something that my ancestors would have been able to do. They would have been on the auction block.”

Works by Mario Joyce at ArtCrawl Harlem's residency program on Governors Island 

A detail of a work created by Mario Joyce on Governors Island 

Mario Joyce's studio space on Governors Island 

Art and Activism

Boundaries & Connections: Art and Activism is the theme of this year’s ArtCrawl Harlem residency. “I think just by being Black and alive in America is its own activism. Just mentally surviving.” Joyce says when asked how he plans to interpret the theme. “I’m exploring the soil and how deep and rich that is [as well as] the genealogy of the soil that Black Americans worked through the generations and how I grew up.”

ArtCrawl Harlem Executive Director Ulysses Williams is pleasantly surprised with the direction that the artists in residence are taking. “In my head I’m thinking they’re going to be doing stories about people in the street and things like that,” he said. “What’s so interesting is that [Joyce] along with Michael Obele [this year’s first artist in residence]—they decided to honor people with the images that they’re creating, remember people…leave a legacy along with the story. Whatever I was thinking, they totally wiped the slate and just made it so personal.”

“As our generation, we’re sick of it,” Joyce added. “We’re sick of seeing these classic images of protests…we keep seeing them and we’re not getting what we need fast enough. We’re just people. We’re just Americans. This isn’t that hard and yet it’s such a challenge.”

“But I have to smile. I have to feel joy. That is a huge part of being Black,” he continues. “I don’t sit around [with my family] and talk about how sad I am about being Black in America. We laugh. We eat. It’s very real. It’s a real existence. We’re just people like everybody else in this country, and I want to show that, but I also want you to know this is what happened…and if it makes you uncomfortable, maybe think about that.”

Hyper-realist portraitist Michael Obele preceded Joyce at ArtCrawl Harlem’s Governors Island residency this summer. Following Joyce’s residency at Nolan Park, multidisciplinary artist Melissa Sutherland Moss will work from the house September 3 through October 17. Works by all three artists will be exhibited at the house during the last two weeks of October.

Selected by a five-person jury, the three artists represent the diversity of the Black experience in America. “They all represent a certain portion of the diaspora,” Williams says, noting that Joyce hails from Ohio, Obele from Lagos, Nigeria, and Sutherland Moss has roots in Costa Rica. 

“We got along immediately,” Joyce notes of the tight-knit group. “We are all so supportive. It was like a brother- and sisterhood immediately.”

Two hyper-realist portraits by Michael Obele (left) and collages by Melissa Sutherland Moss (right)

ArtCrawl Harlem's 2021 Artists in Residence: Mario Joyce, Melissa Sutherland Moss, and Michael Obele. Photo courtesy of ArtCrawl Harlem

ArtCrawl Harlem's Executive Director Ulysses Williams and artist Mario Joyce

Be sure to visit the ArtCrawl Harlem 2021 Artist Residency house at 4B Nolan Park before Governors Island closes for the season on October 31. Learn more about ArtCrawl Harlem’s 2021 Artist Residency Program and the three artists at artcrawlharlem.org.

Read about ArtCrawl Harlem's inaugural 2020 Artist Residency at Governors Island here.

Art Over Time | Celebrating Senior Artists

Symphony of Colors by Victoria Cowles, on view at Art Over Time

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.

Moving in Waves by Susan Handwerker

Fishing For Home, Blue by Susan Handwerker

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.

Left to right: Hera, Sea Horse,  Antelope Man, Mermaid Riding a Sea Horse by Bernette Rudolph

Diana of Ephesus #1 and #2 by Bernette Rudolph

Left to right: Owl Lady, Looking At You, Wise Woman, Bunny Lady (above), Pearls Abound, Fish Face by Bernette Rudolph

Archway by Bernette Rudolph

Rolled Paper Art #2, #1, #3 by Bernette Rudolph

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.”

On Her Mind (foreground) and Double Dare (rear) by Leah Poller

Ice Writing: River I by Ellen Alt

Oil Spill by Diane Miller

A Man by Nina Hellman

Opposites Abstract by Joe Banish

Clinton Hill Red Green, 1 on 1 (above), Six Over Six (below) by Daniel McDonald

Pandemic Series #2 by Michael Padwee

Memories - Coke Case (foreground) by Renee Radenberg; Do You Want to Meet at My Place? (rear) by Elizabeth Casquiero

Andy Warhol in China by Hui Tian

Infinity (foreground) by Ray Katz; Table of Contents (top) and Freud's Sister - A Collection of Short Love Stories (bottom) by Kenneth Ricci

Left to right: Blue's Note (top) and Basta (bottom) by Steven Nedboy; Noon and Nocturne by Virginia Sharkey

BWAC received more than 100 submissions from across the country for the juried exhibit. Kotik selected the top three artists:

• Mixed media works by Victoria Cowles of Potomac, Maryland;
• A pair of intricate sculptures composed of found materials by Ronald Gonzalez of Johnson City, New York;
• Elegant paper relief collages by Judith Eloise Hooper of Brooklyn, New York.

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.

Otherwise Engaged and Then by Judith Eloise Hooper

Head #1 by Ronald Gonzalez

Head #3 by Ronald Gonzalez

Dark Tapestry by Victoria Cowles

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.

ArtPort Kingston

ArtPort Kingston, The Cornell Steamboat Building, 108 East Strand Street, Kingston, NY

On a quick visit to Kingston, New York this weekend I came upon a cultural haven overlooking Rondout Creek in the city’s historic waterfront district. ArtPort Kingston is a “destination for art experiences and unconventional interaction,” according to the website, introducing audiences to an eclectic array of contemporary art exhibitions, performances, events, and workshops.

Launched in December 2019 by independent curator/gallerist Laurie De Chiara and her husband, artist/educator, Stefan Saffer, ArtPort Kingston is located in The Cornell Steamboat Building, a massive structure built in the early 1900s to house and service tugboats that shuttled agricultural and construction cargo down the Delaware & Hudson Canal to New York City. De Chiara and Saffer are also the founders of ArtPod, a nonprofit that produces immersive group shows and educational programming.

The ground level of Art Port offers a pair of interactive works, including Sophi Kravitz’s Loquacious and Lovely (2017), two light-up rocking unicorns that visitors can hop on for a ride. The colorful creatures, symbols of “uniqueness and power,” according to the artist’s message, exude cheer and optimism, gathering negative energy into their illuminated horns as “a glowing beacon of comfort.”

Also on the ground floor is Saffer’s interactive installation ArtPark. A long red carpet—with Matisse-inspired cut-outs—leads to a series of suspended disks adorned with geometric patterns. Visitors are invited to toss ping pong balls at the disks which emit percussive tones when hit. Trying to get a consistent beat going on the mobile quickly becomes a fun and obsessive mission.

ArtPark bt Stefan Saffer

The vast, brightly-lit second floor showcased two group exhibits. Blossom Return, curated by Susan Jennings, featured nature-inspired works by eight artists. “While the world shuttered, last summer’s bloom was particularly poignant as something consistent, healthy and healing amidst so much that was not…. This summer the blossom return greets us both as it always has and also entirely anew,” the press release reads.

Blossom Return on view at ArtPort Kingston

Blossom Return on view at ArtPort Kingston

Blossom Return on view at ArtPort Kingston

The Other Side of the Rainbow, curated by De Chiara, features works that respond to the unprecedented events of this past year—illustrating how the artists experience life gradually returning to normal. “Often after a storm, comes an amazing rainbow, which can create an inspiring view,” notes the press release. Featuring neon-lit messages, ceramics, paintings, and knit art, the exhibit offers a panoply of reflections linked by a sense of hope.

Artwork by Julia Blume exhibited in The Other Side of the Rainbow

'Transit Portal' by MaryAnn Strandell features a 50-foot wall drawing and 3D lenticular artwork

Paintings by Jon Levy-Warren exhibited in The Other Side of the Rainbow

Knit Art by Jeila Gueramian exhibited in The Other Side of the Rainbow

Knit Art by Jeila Gueramian

Two works by Suzanne Wright composed with repurposed trees

Paintings by Ruth Rodriguez

Artwork by Jean Louis Frenk exhibited in The Other Side of the Rainbow

Outside, artist Maya Strauss painted a shed/mobile art studio, accompanied by the improvisations of bassist Evan Crane. Site-specific public art pieces are displayed along the waterfront as well. Both exhibitions, Blossom Return and The Other Side of the Rainbow closed on Sunday, July 25, but check out artportkingston.com for information on upcoming shows and events.

Be sure to stop by and visit this innovative creative hub if you happen to be in the Kingston/Hudson Valley area.

ArtPort Kingston, The Other Side of the Rainbow installation view

ArtPort Kingston
The Cornell Steamboat Building
108 East Strand Street
Kingston, New York

 

Simply Local – Painting Gowanus And Beyond | Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse

Gowanus Local artists Janet Pedersen, Susan Greenstein, and Ella Yang

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.

Gowanus Local (clockwise from lower left): Greenstein, Litchfield Manner; Yang, July 4th in Gowanus; Yang, Gowanus Taxis; Pedersen, Storefront, 2018; Greenstein, 11th Ave & Windsor Place; Pedersen, Ice Cream Stand

Gowanus Local (left to right): Pedersen (top), 15th St Deli; Yang, Cousin John's Bakery; Pedersen (top), Gowanus Buildings; Greenstein, 9th & 6th

Artist Ella Yang at work outside the Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse

“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 8^th 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.”

Gowanus Local (left to right): Greenstein, Old Gowanus View; Yang (top), Yellow Building in Gowanus; Pedersen (bottom), BQE; Greenstein (top), Windsor Place; Yang, Corner of John's Deli; Pedersen, Corner Laundromat

Gowanus Local (left to right): Yang, Bus Stop at Vinny's; Greenstein, View of Carroll Street Bridge; Pedersen, Twilight

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.”

Gowanus Local (left to right): Yang, Red Corner Brownstone; Pedersen, 15th St Deli 2; Greenstein, Old Gowanus View

Gowanus Local-Painting Gowanus And Beyond, on view at the Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse

Artists Janet Pedersen and Susan Greenstein paint dredging equipment in the Gowanus Canal.

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.

Meet Dodji Gbedemah: Artist & Founder of Kente Royal Gallery

Kente Royal Gallery's Dodji Gbedemah (Photo: Nathan Haselby)

Dodji Gbedemah’s father wanted his eldest son to follow in his footsteps and become an accountant. “I was born a creative but I got a business degree because of my father,” the artist said from his gallery in early December. “My father forced me to be a business person, now I’m grateful to him because I can do both.”

In 2019 Gbedemah and his wife Phyllis opened Kente Royal Gallery in Harlem, “the Black mecca of the world,” he says. Named for the vibrant royal Kente cloth, “the most recognized and celebrated African garment,” the 940-square-foot gallery occupies the street-level of 2373 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. “We opened up this gallery to give opportunity to artists of the African diaspora because they are so underrepresented,” he explained. “We are talking about Harlem, and the lack of galleries in Harlem….” Gbedemah and his wife discovered a surprising statistic when opening their art space. “Out of all the art galleries in New York City—and there’s over 1,500 of them—one percent are Black-owned,” he said. A list of Black-owned galleries in the United States compiled by Artsy.net in June includes only 19 such businesses in New York.

Originally from Togo, West Africa, the charismatic Gbedemah immigrated to the U.S. in the ‘90s. “I always imagined that there would be so many more cultural institutions, galleries, and all that,” he recalled of his initial impression of Harlem. “Today we have the Schomberg [Center for Research in Black Culture], the Apollo, The National Black Theatre, very few.” He hopes that Kente Royal Gallery will help pave the way for more Black-owned art venues in the neighborhood. “We want to be the spark for the next generation to establish spaces like this for art of underrepresented artists,” he says.

Phyllis and Dodji Gbedemah on the opening day of Fire & Soul: 100 Years of Harlem at Kente Royal Gallery (Photo: Nathan Haselby)

Gbedemah instantly fell in love with New York City when he moved here at 24. His aunt and uncle, who had been living in Virginia since the ‘60s, sponsored his visa. “When I came to New York I was like, 'I’m not leaving. I’m not going to Virginia.' So I stayed here,” he recalls. “In 1994 it was just at the heels of the crack epidemic and I remember coming and things were beginning to change,” he reflected. “Even Times Square was not like Disney Land, the way it looks now. When I got here, you couldn’t walk one block from 8th Avenue to 9th Avenue without getting hit by some kind of crime. All of that for a 24-year-old was very exciting, believe it or not. I was just like, ‘Yes! New York.’ The tall buildings, the flashing lights, it was a dream.”

When he first arrived to NYC, Gbedemah worked a variety of jobs including bike messenger, security guard, and a shirt presser for a dry cleaner. “Back then you had to press four shirts to make a dollar,” he recalls laughing.

He put himself through college driving a taxi while taking evening classes at New York University where he received a business degree. “I made my dad proud,” he said. The experience he gained driving a NYC taxi came in handy post-college. “I’ve been in transportation my entire time in corporate America,” Gbedemah noted. “I started with Zipcar after finishing school.” He joined the company when it was still “a little tiny startup with one small room as an office in Chelsea.” He worked his way up through various management positions during his twelve years at Zipcar, then moved on to Uber where he was a people manager until May when the company laid off more than 3,500 employees due to the pandemic.

Gbedemah was suddenly free to devote more time to Kente Royal Gallery. His wife Phyllis, a hair stylist, had been running the gallery on her own during the week. “She was full-time and I was coming on the weekends,” Gbedemah notes. “I’m very grateful to her.”

Though the couple resides in Queens, where Gbedemah has lived since moving to the U.S., they chose Harlem for their gallery because “This place has so much creativity, resilience, swagger...,” he says. “There’s a vibe over here that just attracts you, it reaches my soul deeply.”

Kente Royal Gallery is around the corner from where the couple worship, the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church. The gallery's inaugural exhibition in July 2019 featured a member of the church’s congregation, Harlem-based abstract artist Gabrielle Baker. “We did that intentionally because she is a Black female artist,” Gbedemah says. “We wanted to make a statement: when you think about Black art, what do you think about? How do you define Black art?”

Dodji Gbedemah, Sankofa (photo courtesy of the artist)

Dodji Gbedemah, Kaya Kaya (photo courtesy of the artist)

Dodji Gbedemah and his paintings Behind the masks (left), God supreme (right)
(Photo courtesy of the artist)

Growing up Gbedemah attended College Protestant high school, “one of the best schools in Lomé, the capital of Togo,” he recalls. “We had music classes. We had art classes. We took ceramics, macramé, painting. We did all of that on top of our required academic courses.” The school fostered his multifaceted creativity. At 16, he taught himself how to play guitar and he eventually took up bass and djembe as well. Decades later, Gbedemah still reaches for his paintbrushes whenever he can to create his bright and dynamic abstract canvases.

“I love abstract work. Everybody sees things differently in an abstract piece,” he says. “It makes me so happy when somebody looks at one of my pieces and they see something that I haven’t seen myself."

Dodji Gbedemah on the opening day of Fire & Soul: 100 Years of Harlem at Kente Royal Gallery
(Photo: Nathan Haselby)

During the lockdown this year, when Kente Royal was forced to close for four months, Gbedemah used the time to paint 40 new works. He hopes to exhibit them soon. In the coming year, he’s looking forward to showcasing work by NYC artists Daryl Daniels, Ricky Day, and Demarcus McGaughey at the gallery. “There are so many artists in the Black community but they don’t have a place to show their pieces,” Gbedemah notes. “I want this to be a community gallery to help foster all these artists in the community, not just in Harlem, but in New York City and beyond.”

Check out Fire & Soul: 100 Years of Harlem on view at Kente Royal Gallery through January 3, 2021 and see my post on the group exhibit here. 

Kente Royal Gallery 
2373 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (between W138th & W139th Streets), Harlem, New York

Art Crawl Harlem Presents Fire & Soul: 100 Years of Harlem at Kente Royal Gallery

Art Crawl Harlem Presents Fire & Soul: 100 Years of Harlem at Kente Royal Gallery

Head uptown to celebrate the centennial of the Harlem Renaissance with Fire & Soul: 100 Years of Harlem. Presented by Art Crawl Harlem at Kente Royal Gallery, this sweeping group exhibition features a vibrant array of work by 18 artists influenced by the iconic neighborhood.

The Harlem Renaissance emerged in the wake of the 1918 influenza pandemic and The Great Migration which brought an influx of Black Americans from the South in search of opportunity. “A movement translating the joy, pain, resilience, and brilliance of Black people. A rising up of sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers. A celebration of artistry, individuality, and community,” according to the Art Crawl Harlem website.

Fire & Soul commemorates this influential movement in Black history during another pandemic, celebrating the “the majesty of Black life” a century ago, today, and looking ahead to the future. The artwork showcased in the exhibit examines “the varying identities and impacts of Black people as it intersects American culture, from The Great Migration to immigration, music, sexuality and gender identity, politics, religion, public health, education, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the pursuit of freedom and everyday life.”

Fire & Soul curators Nakia Hicks, Ulysses Williams, Executive Director of Art Crawl Harlem, and Dodji Gbedemah, owner of Kente Royal Gallery, received an overwhelming response when the call for submissions launched for the exhibit early last month. “We knew it was going to be an important exhibit, but…considering COVID and everything that’s been going on this year, we didn’t know that the interest was going to be that big. We were pleasantly surprised,” Gbedemah said last week at the gallery.

“We were heartbroken that we couldn’t include everyone,” he added. “We wanted to have all of them because they were all wonderful pieces.”

Featuring painting, photography, collage, sculpture, digital art, and textile art, the exhibit features longtime Harlem stalwarts such as Thomas Heath, artist and owner of Heath Gallery, and Rudy Collins, a photographer who has documented the neighborhood for decades. “He’s a true Harlemite,” Gbedemah said of Collins. “Not only was he born here in Harlem, lived here his whole life, but he took a lot of pictures of Harlem, especially of the architecture and personalities and all kinds of people who came through here. He’s seen it all.”

WIlliam Daniels, Falcon-Warrior Totem, Butterfly Totem, Bird Totem; Dominick Williams; Mario Joyce Belyusar, Matrilineal I

Mario Joyce Belyusar, Patriarchy, Matrilineal I, Matriarch

Thomas Heath, Caravan (top), Kings Crown (below)

Taeesha M., We the People, Warrior Prose; Ricky Day, A Day and A Park, Malcolm and MIke, Baldwin and The Bishop; Rudy Collins, Harlem is Art, Ladies Day in Harlem, Happy Birthday Daddy, Black Sup-Her Hero

Guy Stanley Philoche, Aubrey W., Saba F.

Demarcus McGaughey, State of Mind, Mind of a King; Sade Boyewa El, Faces of Harlem Series

“The Harlem Renaissance [included] poets, musicians, writers, painters, and dancers,” exclaims Gbedemah. “It was an explosion of artistic expression.” Fire & Soul serves as an “ode to the Harlem Renaissance and beyond,” he continued. “Yes, the Harlem Renaissance happened a hundred years ago but what happened in the hundred years that followed? And what’s going to happen in the next hundred years?”

Khalid Sabree vividly illustrates Harlem’s musical history linking two hometown genres in Jazz Iz Hio Hop Iz Jazz while a fiery orange canvas proudly declares The New Harlem Renaissance, a nod to today’s thriving creative community showcased at this exhibit.

Harlem-based textile artist William Daniels upholds the African American tradition of quilt-making. “He is one of the few male African American quilters,” Gbedemah notes. “In the African American tradition, there’s been a lot of quilters since slavery but the majority of them have been women.” Daniels’ three black, white, and red panels perfectly combine the time-honored craft with a modern graphic aesthetic.

Anthony Boone’s monochromatic sculptural works darkly stand out in the gallery filled with brightly hued works. Black Butterfly represents “Black women and their beauty,” Gbedemah explains, while a closer look of Ma’ Dear reveals a woman feeding an infant, a haunting representation of wet nurses or “Black women feeding white babies,” he adds.

Matrilineal I, a portrait of Mario Joyce Belyusar’s mother, traces the artist’s African American lineage through her womb. Belyusar further explores his roots by incorporating vintage family photos in Patriarchy and Matriarch.

Daryl Daniels’ intimate works focus on everyday New Yorkers riding public transportation. Far From Home, her painting of a young boy curled up on a bus seat pensively staring out the window, is a touching and familiar sight. “We’ve all been there, riding with our parent and looking at the beauty of New York City,” Gbedemah says of the work. “A young person experiencing the city.”

Daryl Daniels, (clockwise from top left) Divine RIght II, Butterflies, Windows to the Soul, Far from Home; Sean Patrick Watters, Harlem Black Series: Pose, Black Sabrina, Andre J. Superstar

Mark McLeod,  What Would Jackie Do

Mark McLeod, Blue Heals All

Karim Chambers, Nina Simone and Miles Davis

Khalid Sabree (KHA-Tees), SunRa + Sun Raised, Jazz Iz Hio Hop Iz Jazz, The New Harlem Renaissance; Demarcus McGaughey, State of Mind, Mind of a King; Sade Boyewa El, Faces of Harlem Series

Art Crawl Harlem's Ulysses Williams and Kente Royal Gallery's Dodji Gbedemah

The message of the exhibition is hope, according to Gbedemah. “Maybe it’s a coincidence that we have another pandemic,” he said. “Every time society goes through such a drastic period, we come out of it with an explosion of creativity, business, and prosperity.” Fire & Soul: 100 Years of Harlem is an outstanding homage to a storied NYC neighborhood that will inspire pride and optimism. “We might be going through a tough time right now but 2021 is around the corner.” Learn more at artcrawlharlem.com.

Art Crawl Harlem Presents Fire & Soul: 100 Years of Harlem
Kente Royal Gallery, 2373 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, Harlem
Exhibition on view December 3, 2020 through January 3, 2021
Gallery Hours: Wed. – Fri. 2pm to 8pm; Sat. & Sun. 12pm to 8pm; Mon. & Tue. closed
Visitors must follow social distancing protocol. Reservations are encouraged. RSVP here.

PSWT Artists Open Studios: Redux | Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC)

Carol Adams' sculptures (front and back left); Joyce Riley's Dawson's Creek, Meet You There, We Are All One (back wall, left to right)

The second weekend of the Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios: Redux at the BWAC gallery was bustling on Saturday with art lovers of all ages. The exhibition, featuring a variety of works by Arts PSWT members, serves as an alternative to the group’s annual Open Studios event, offering more room for artists and visitors to adhere to pandemic protocols.

“With COVID we were thinking of just canceling and not doing it at all,” explained Sandra Giunta, a member of Arts PSWT who helped organize the group show. “I’m a member here at BWAC so I knew the space and…I thought that this would be a great way for us to continue our Open Studios this year, in an 8,000-square-foot gallery where we could social distance.”

She proposed the idea of hosting the exhibit at BWAC in early October. The 32 participating artists joined forces to make it a reality, exhibiting an array of  painting, prints, ceramics, collage, drawings, photography, and sculpture. Each artist is given wall space or a table to showcase a selection of their work.

Sandra Giunta stands beside a display of her Corals sculptures at BWAC

Sandra Giunta, Cause and Effect 1, Cause and Effect 2

Alise Loebelsohn, Talking to Angels, Sail and Sea (top), Dots and Stars (bottom)

Works by Dara Oshin

Works by Cynthia Ruse

Paper collage portraits by Judith Eloise Hooper

Works by Robin Roi

Whereas the open studios tend to be “a much more intimate kind of event,” Giunta is happy with the expansive exhibit because it gives the artists an opportunity to see each other’s output. “When we have Open Studios at many different places, the artists don’t get to see each other’s work, so it’s something you really miss. This is giving everybody the opportunity to see all the artists' work.”

Janie Samuels, President of Arts PSWT agrees, adding that “manning our own studios” during the usual Open Studios event prevents members from visiting their colleagues at their workspaces. “What’s fabulous about this show is that…it’s the first opportunity we’ve actually had to be able to spend as much time here as a group and talk about the work as a group,” she said.

Born in upstate New York, Samuels grew up in Manhattan and received her BA from Bennington College in Vermont and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts. A member of Arts PSWT for more than ten years, Samuels works from her home opposite Green-Wood Cemetery. Her evocative drawings and paintings address immigration issues and the refugee crisis. “I’ve always been affected by how horrific, heartless, and unnecessary so much global strife is, so I try to attack those political issues on an intimate level and bring it back to something that’s humane,” she explains. “I also deal with more intimate issues, but the paintings are all about relationships.”

Janie Samuels stands with her works (left to right) Is It Safe Yet?, Lazy Summer Days, Lean On Me, and two landscapes

Janie Samuels, (clockwise from top left) In Dialogue, Helping Hands, In Hopes of a Better Life

Jonathan Blum's (with Sean Qualls) A Magical Moment (top left); Brooklyn Rabbi Blessing Flowers (bottom left); Pope Playing Bass (center);
(with Sean Qualls) The Rehearsal (top right); Pink Llama with Blue Watermelon (bottom right)

Works by Bob Hagan

Fotini Vurgaropulou, Film Reels

Works by Bernardo Justin Campoy

Phil DeSantis (left to right) Lily Pads, Crucifiction, Nathan's, Windows Reflection

Works by Heidi Yockey

Mary Cuddihee Skrill, Blue and red building (top left); Black Lives Matter wall (bottom left);
Yellow house (center); Orange building (top right); Grey buildings (bottom right)

Watercolors by Lynn Cole

Sculptures by Steve Ettlinger

A member of Arts PSWT for five years, Giunta is a resident of Windsor Terrace and works from TI Art Studios in Red Hook. Formerly a Doctor of Education in Instructional Technology and Distance Education, Giunta is a self-taught artist working in clay sculpture. She began sculpting figurative works—detailed busts and human figures—before finding inspiration in the “wonderful coral reef” along the coast of Belize. Her playful, colorful coral sculptures on display at BWAC transport visitors momentarily to a tropical beachfront, however her works carry a more pressing message. “With global warming, the reefs are being destroyed and I just want to keep everything kind of above the surface and alert people,” she said. “We have to do something about this or we’re going to lose these incredible structures.”

With dozens of artists enthusiastically showcasing their work to the steady stream of visitors throughout the weekend, the exhibition at BWAC proved to be just as popular as the annual open studios. “I didn’t know how we would do with COVID and what kind of turn-out we’d have, but I think everybody’s anxious to get out again and do things,” Giunta noted. The Arts PSWT team may make the group show a regular event on their calendar. 

“We may try to set something up where we do this once a year and we do the Open Studios once a year,” added Samuels. “This has been a wonderful event [despite] COVID. It’s given us an opportunity to show our work and what we’ve done, and it’s also given the community an opportunity to see work in a safe place.”

Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios: Redux has been extended through next weekend, November 21 and 22. 

Like last year, OSSAM Gallery in Park Slope serves as a central hub for the event, displaying one piece by each participating artist. See my post on the OSSAM exhibit here.

PSWT Artists Open Studios: Redux
Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, 481 Van Brunt Street (ground floor), Red Hook, Brooklyn
Saturday & Sunday (Nov. 21 & 22), noon to 6pm

Gowanus Night Heron | Saturday, November 14 -- Event Canceled

UPDATE: Due to newly announced COVID restrictions limiting the size of gatherings, Gowanus Night Heron has been canceled. The team hope to hold the pop-up art event once health officials say it is safe to do so. 

For alternate plans this weekend, check out the closing reception for Natale Adgnot's Chromaticism at Established Gallery on Saturday (more here) or the Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios: Redux exhibtions (more here). 

**********

Mark your calendars! Gowanus Night Heron, a free pop-up art event, will swoop down alongside the banks of the Gowanus Canal on Saturday. The one-night-only event will feature work by 17 Brooklyn-based artists exhibited outdoors at the Rabbit Movers parking lot.

The brainchild of artist Bonnie Ralston, Gowanus Night Heron will “bring people together safely for a night of art, community, and connection,” she says. “I had passed by the Rabbit Movers lot often on my way to and from Third Avenue Clay, and was always curious about what went on there,” Ralston explains. Searching on the internet she discovered it is “this very cool moving company that supports the arts community by employing artists as movers and offering artists an affordable and unique exhibition service.” Rabbit Movers rents trucks to artists for temporary mobile exhibitions through its Art Attacks program. Ralston “fell in love with the idea...and then COVID hit.”

She finally went to visit Rabbit Movers in late September to learn more and the owners agreed to let her host her own Art Attack event right on their lot overlooking the Gowanus Canal. “The canal and its environs are a major influence on my art,” said Ralston. She often incorporates objects found on Gowanus streets into her artwork.

After securing the site, Ralston reached out to studio mate and fellow BWAC member Kasia Zurek-Doule and photographer Miska Draskoczy for help organizing the event. “I thought it was a great idea and loved the old school Gowanus DIY down-and-dirty aspect of it," Draskoczy said. “Especially in a year where we didn’t have Gowanus Open Studios and much fewer art events in the neighborhood because of COVID, it seemed like a great thing to do for the local arts community, especially being outdoors as well.”

“I love the community oriented can-do spirit of the local Gowanus arts scene,” Draskoczy continued. “Anything that gets people outside exploring funky spaces and seeing art is a great goal to me. It feels rewarding to try and help keep the offbeat spirit of arts and culture in Gowanus alive.”

While Ralston initially planned for a small event featuring six to ten artists, the response has been overwhelming, with 17 artists currently lined up. “We all just reached out to artists who we knew and thought would be comfortable with the space, the timing, and the installation,” Ralston said, noting that the site is “pretty raw.” Artwork will be displayed in wooden moving pods or trucks, she said, “the antithesis of the white cube of a traditional gallery space.”

Gowanus Night Heron will feature a selection of photography, collage, drawing, and spoken word, as well as light, video, and sound installations. Beloved Gowanus watering hole Lavender Lake will be on hand selling food and drink. “These last eight months have been hell, and having something positive to put all of that anxious energy towards has been really wonderful,” Ralston notes.

Regarding the event’s namesake, she says many Gowanus residents have never seen a night heron or even know that they exist since these native birds tend to be active at dusk. Ralston often spots black-crowned night herons fishing along the canal in the evening. “The ephemeral nature of the event aligns well with that of a heron sighting. Both are reminders that even in these uncertain times, life and art continue to flourish around us. We just need to keep our eyes and hearts open.”

Draskoczy—author of Gowanus Wild, a photo book exploring the natural side of the neighborhood—had surprisingly never seen a night heron himself until just a few weeks ago. He had just started working on the event when he had his first sighting during a movie night hosted by the Gowanus Dredgers on the canal. “Right in the middle of the climactic scene of Creature From the Black Lagoon, a beautiful night heron flew in under the screen and started yanking fish out of the canal,” he recalls. “I took it as a good omen and it doesn’t get any more Gowanus than that!”

Gowanus Night Heron
Rabbit Movers (lot), 426 President Street (at Bond), Gowanus, Brooklyn
Saturday, Nov. 14, 6pm to 9pm (rain or shine)
Masks and social-distancing are required.
Follow @gowanusnightheron for more info.

Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios: Redux | OSSAM Gallery

Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios: Redux, OSSAM Gallery

Although the annual Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios event cannot proceed as usual this year, the group has found an alternate way to showcase work by dozens of local artists while adhering to COVID-related health restrictions. Instead of attendees visiting individual artist studios, PSWT Artists Open Studios: Redux assembles more than 30 artists for a group exhibition taking place at two spacious venues where there is plenty of room to social distance while meeting the artists and checking out their work. Don't forget to wear a mask!

The collective of artists based in Park Slope and Windsor Terrace has hosted open studios annually since 2013. Spanning two weekends, Open Studios: Redux kicked off last Friday. Once again Ossam Gallery serves as a preview gallery, exhibiting one piece by each participating artist. Works on view include painting, prints, drawings, ceramics, sculpture, photography, and collage.

Over at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition's (BWAC) gallery in Red Hook, the artists showcase an array of work, each with a designated table or wall space to exhibit. The artists will be on hand over the weekend to meet and greet visitors and sell their work.

Visit ArtsPSWT.com for more info and click here to see my post covering last year's PSWT Open Studios Weekend. Below are photos taken last Sunday at OSSAM Gallery. 

PSWT Artists Open Studios: Redux
OSSAM Gallery, 300 7th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
Friday through Sunday (Nov. 13-15), noon to 6pm

Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, 481 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
Saturday & Sunday (Nov. 14-15), noon to 6pm

Dan McDonald, 6 Over 6, mixed media

L-R: Bob Hagan, Life Goes On (25a), mixed media; Mary Cuddihee Skrill, Pink Building, acrylic on canvas

Robin Roi, Elemental, mixed media, acrylic paint, collage, dressmaking paper

L-R: Stephanie Amend, Doe Deer, oil; Dara Oshin, Fecundity, archival pigment print, glass beads, metal leaf, board; Alice Garik, Nest, gelatin silver print

L-R: Cynthia Ruse, Still, oil and mixed media on wood panel; Alise Loebelsohn, From Green to Orange, oil paint on panel

L-R: Janie Samuels, Silence Speaks, pastel on paper; Lynn Goodman, Brooklyn Parrot Flight, porcelain, glazes, gold

L-R: Stacy Bergener, Behind the Veil, mixed media on canvas; Heidi Yockey, Untitled, oil on panel

L-R: Phil Desantis, Rusty Chains, photograph; Susan Greenstein, Wave Hill, watercolor

Howard Skrill, Junipero Serra Decapitate, ink, gesso, graphite, colored pencil, pastel on watercolor paper

L-R: Raya Dukhan, Ardent, mixed media on canvas; Phyllis Gaughran, Just Before Dawn, acrylic on natsume

Luis Coig, Untitled, wood shelf and tchotchkes

L-R: Justin Campoy, in collaboration with John Lennox, Fielder's Choice (First buds must like the cold), multicolored ink and letterpress with Baskerville Type on paper; 
Lynn Cole, View From Inside, watercolor, rubber stamp

Joyce Riley, Green-Wood Cemetery, Pink Paths, oil and acrylic on wood

Kathleen Jean-Jacques, Lou, mixed media

L-R: Caryn Kreitzer, The Peace March, terracotta; Karen Jarmon, Hanukkah Menorah, ceramic and brass; Paola Corso, Blue Moon Shadows, photograph

Jonathan Blum, Sheep Thinking About Aged Gouda, monoprint

Steve Ettlinger, Sleeping Shmoo, cedar with Danish oil

Fotini Vurgaropulou, Chambers, cast glass and copper

L-R: Sandra Giunta, Coral Reminder 47, clay; Carol Adams, Irini, ceramic with terra sigilatta, underglaze, washes, glaze, metal, beads

Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios Redux, OSSAM Gallery

Transparent as Glass? | An Exhibit Of Glasswork at Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition

Brian McSherry, Right of Publicity

This is your last weekend to check out Transparent as Glass?, an international juried glass exhibition on view at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC) gallery in Red Hook. The show was juried by Michael Endo, co-director of High Desert Observatory, a studio/gallery/education center in the Mojave Desert that focuses on sustainable arts. Queens-based glass artist Renée Radenberg curated the show. The exhibit showcases several remarkable and unexpected designs that magnify the transparency, luminosity, and depth intrinsic to glass. From vessels, sculptures, portraits, neons, and even a reproduction of a full-size loom, the artworks range from delicate to dense, with some surfaces resembling ice, metal, porcelain, or marble.

“This exhibition will illustrate for the public the complete range of glass-making art in the twenty-first century,” curator Radenberg said in a statement on the BWAC website. Increasing awareness of glasswork and the artists who create it is her mission, according to the artist’s website.

Transparent as Glass? features work by nearly 40 artists. See some highlights below.

Transparent as Glass? installation view, Christopher Giordano, In Bloom (front)

Renée Radenberg, Memories-Lunch Box

Caitlin Vitalo, Pillow Talk

(L-R) Jennifer Hecker, Diptych and Tiffany Hill, Corvus

Christine Barney, GWB EZ Pass 

Anna de villemejane, Le baiser 

Graham Caldwell, Untitled

(L-R) Graham Caldwell, Lacuna and Christopher Giordano, Uovo

Stephen Brucker, Social Disorder 

James Ronner, A Paperclip: An International Symbol of Solidarity also used by Macgyver

Kenny Litwack, Large Diane

Maia Stern, Loom 

Head over to Red Hook this weekend to catch this incredible collection of glass art before it closes. While you're there, check out Current(s), the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition's Fall 2020 Member Exhibition, and Black & White 2020, an exhibit that addresses race, politics, and the pandemic.

Transparent as Glass?
Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, 481 Van Brunt Street, Door #7, Red Hook
On view September 26 – October 25, Saturday & Sunday, 1pm to 6pm

440 Gallery Group Exhibition At NU Hotel

440 Gallery artists Jo-Ann Acey, Ellen Chuse, and Karen Gibbons at the group exhibition at NU Hotel

As part of the Arts Gowanus on Atlantic Ave event that opened last weekend, ten artists from 440 Gallery are exhibiting their work at NU Hotel. Painting, collage, print, and mixed media works will be on view on the ground level of the hotel, brightening up the public spaces, through December 19.

Due to the pandemic, Arts Gowanus organized a 1.5-mile socially-distanced art walk along Atlantic Avenue in place of the organization's annual open studios event. With only two weeks to coordinate the show, each of the artists from the Park Slope collective contributed three pieces, creating an eclectic yet harmonious selection of work. “At 440 we’ve noticed that we have a kind of magical synergy that if we just call for people to bring work, we find a way to hang it that they complement each other,” said Karen Gibbons, a longtime 440 Gallery member who oversaw the project.

Originally from Pennsylvania, Gibbons studied painting at Pratt. She has worked with paint and sculpture and currently creates two-dimensional mixed media collages, including her trio of Goddess works on view—Lakshmi, Care, and Blue Madonna—surreal, multilayered depictions of the Virgin Mary composed using acrylic, graphite and bits of prints and photos.

(L-R) Robin Roi, For All The Rooms I’ve Ever Loved; Richard Barnet, If This; Ellen Chuse, In The Beginning; Karen Gibbons, Lakshmi; Jo-Ann Acey, City Beat #2; Gail Flanery, New Distance; Janet Pedersen, Zoom Muse

(Clockwise from top left) Robin Roi, Niblo’s Garden; Ellen Chuse, Heavenly Bodies; Robin Roi, Double Vision

(L-R) Jo-Ann Acey, City Beat #1; Richard Barnet, Boat Angels; Karen Gibbons, Care; Richard Barnet, Ten Sculpture Sketches; Ellen Chuse, Jewell II

Joining Gibbons in welcoming visitors to the exhibit at NU Hotel on Saturday was fellow 440 member Ellen Chuse. Raised in Philadelphia, Chuse studied at the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts) and received her MFA from Queens College CUNY. Formerly a sculptor, Chuse now creates vibrant acrylic abstracts of seemingly morphing shapes, such as Heavenly Bodies, Jewel II, and In The Beginning. “I’m really interested in ambiguity of scale and I like people to bring their own frame of reference to things,” she explained. “It has a meaning for me, but I like the meaning to maybe resonate on a lot of different levels and not be too specific."

Gibbons and Chuse shared a studio space for twenty years at 280 Nevins Street in Gowanus. Gibbons had been at the loft building for 30 years. After the recent sale of the building, the two relocated to TI Art Studios in Red Hook earlier this year. The two were excited that the TI facility was added to the Gowanus Open Studios map and were looking forward to participating from their new workspaces this year. “I miss that interaction with people, but this is the next best thing and it’s also amazing to be able to make anything happen in this time of the pandemic,” said Chuse.

“I feel really lucky that we have this nice space,” Gibbons said. “Hopefully next year we’ll be back to that.” Gibbons notably has “the distinction of being one of the few people that’s been in every single one” of the 24 annual Gowanus Open Studios!

“People don’t realize that it goes back,” said Chuse, who has participated in the event since 2000 and volunteered on the organizing committee from 2001 to 2005. “When I came on there were like 35 artists,” she recalled. “It was 295 Douglass, 543 Union, 280 Nevins, and maybe a scattering of other people. It was all located in that sort of north end of Gowanus and it grew and grew and grew.” More than 400 local artists participated in last year’s Gowanus Open Studios.

“As far as the Gowanus artist community growing so much, it is a really great feeling to know there’s energy and support around and that you’re not the only one toiling away trying to make this happen,” said Gibbons. “And the fact that Johnny [Thornton] could put this together in a few weeks is really incredible. It speaks to the energy and the commitment of the artists involved.”

“It’s a hard time to feel community…. I mean online connection is online connection, but really seeing people, and that’s what I think is extraordinary,” Chuse said of this year’s socially-distanced substitute event. “To come here, it’s like I’m actually engaged in the concrete real world, and that is so important for me at the moment…. We both got [to TI Art Studios] then everything shut down. We know we’re part of a community of 120 artists, but we haven’t seen any of them, so this is an opportunity to open up and re-engage.”

(L-R) Janet Pedersen, Wind Dance; Janet Pedersen, Romeo and Juliet (two on top); Fred Bendheim, Spring; Amy Weil, Waiting For Spring; Karen Gibbons, Blue Madonna; Fred Bendheim, Space

Susan Greenstein, Mexican Garden (top); Amy Weil, Eye Candy (bottom)

Janet Pedersen, Wind Dance; Janet Pedersen, Romeo and Juliet (two on top); Fred Bendheim, Spring (bottom); Amy Weil, Waiting For Spring (right)

440 Gallery Group Exhibition is on view at NU Hotel, 85 Smith Street, Brooklyn, through December 19. Learn more about the Arts Gowanus on Atlantic Ave Art Walk at artgowanus.org.

Also, visit 440 Gallery at 440 6th Avenue in Park Slope where Gail Flanery: Harmonies is currently on view and That’s How The Light Gets In, featuring work by Susan Greenstein, Joy Makon, Caitlin Miller, and David Stock, is in the gallery’s Project Space. Visit 440gallery.com to learn more.

See my post from February on 440 Gallery's 15th Anniversary Members Show here.

Tamara Staples | New Video Portraits Explore Light And Memory

Photographer Tamara Staples debuted a new four-channel video work during the Arts Gowanus on Atlantic Ave opening over the weekend. A stack of four televisions display her intimate “moving portraits,” examining the power of lighting and questioning our sense of memory.

“Time and memory are at the heart of this work,” according to the artist. “The video captures the ever-changing content of our faces and demands the viewer to mistrust any static images ever experienced. In a sense, it proves the uncertainty of all our judgements.”

“I’ve always been fascinated by how lighting can really create a personality and change how quickly we see…or just make generalizations about [people], from making them look more feminine or more masculine, younger or older…the lighting is everything,” Staples said on Saturday.

The project—three years in the making—began with Staples designing a special crank-operated light which a friend in the film industry built for her. Staples filmed her models for about two minutes each, hand-cranking the light to make it circle around each subjects’ head. As the light revolves, it increases the brightness or casts shadows on each models’ face, seeming to instantly transform their expressions, dispositions, and features. The mesmerizing effects may make some viewers wonder at times if they are still looking at the same person! See an excerpt at the artist's website. 

“As I started to crank, it’s as if everything disappears the moment the light moves away from [a face],” Staples said. Seeing these rapid transitions led her to think about identity and “how we are often wrong when we think we can identify someone.” She began to question our ability to remember someone’s appearance based on “little snippets” or quick glimpses. Our brains are “geared to short-term thinking and we’re not really able to recognize people the way we think we are,” she argues.

Staples shot more than 20 models of diverse ages and backgrounds. She experimented with various expressions, tried adding movement, and tried shooting some in black and white. Approximately a dozen models are featured in the final work which runs on a 22-minute loop on four unsynchronized television screens.

Staples worked with an editor over the summer to cut the hours of footage, capturing the “best frames, the best lighting, or the expression for that moment.” She also manipulated the speed of the videos during the editing stage. “Some are slowed down…because some people are maybe moving a little quickly and it’s disconcerting. I wanted it all to be much slower so that you’re really getting the nooks and crannies of their faces.”

Staples studied photography at the University of Florida and lived in Chicago before moving to Brooklyn in 1999. Based in South Slope, she has participated in five Gowanus Open Studios. “I love having that stream of people…. As an artist it’s great to have that rotating crop of enthusiastic art lovers because we can talk about the work,” she said. “As an artist you kind of know what you’re doing, but you’re not quite sure, you have to talk it out.” She thinks this year’s alternate event—the socially-distanced art walk—is “brilliant,” noting “people are really coming down, they’re dying to see artwork. We’re all missing that, so I am thrilled.”

Tamara Staples' video installation on view at Out Of The Closet, 475 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Tamara Staples’ video portraits are on view at Out Of The Closet, 475 Atlantic Avenue, until November 1, 2020 as part of the Arts Gowanus on Atlantic Ave Art Walk. Learn more about the event at artsgowanus.org. Go to tamarastaplesfineartphotography.com for more about the artist.
[Note: Due to the sun, the best time to see Staples’ installation is after 4pm.]

Upcycling | A Group Exhibit that Transforms Trash into Treasure

Upcycling is on view at 357 Atlantic Avenue through November 1

As part of the massive Arts Gowanus on Atlantic Ave event that opened this past weekend, six Brooklyn-based artists are exhibiting works created with discarded materials. Upcycling, on display in the window of the bright blue vacant storefront at 357 Atlantic Avenue, wonderfully demonstrates art composed with items that otherwise would have wound up in a landfill.

“Upcycling is all about taking things that have been discarded or unwanted and transferring them or translating them into something with more purpose and more value,” explained Park Slope-based artist Tracy Penn on Saturday afternoon. Penn, who curated the Upcycling exhibit, uses discarded produce bags to create “misaligned” grid-like impressions in her textural encaustic paintings.

Unable to host its popular Open Studios event this year due to the pandemic, Arts Gowanus joined the Atlantic Avenue Business Improvement District to present a socially-distanced, self-guided art walk, exhibiting work by Brooklyn-based artists in the windows of 65 participating storefronts along 1.5 miles of Atlantic Avenue, spanning 4th Avenue to Hicks Street. When the organization announced an open call for submissions for the event, Penn quickly sent her idea of “featuring artists who work with upcycled materials.” 

“Most of my work uses upcycled material and it’s something that I’ve really embraced in terms of the idea of transformation, of taking something that’s been discarded and transforming it into something new,” Penn said. “I’ve always cared about the environment…this is environmentally friendly, but more because of the value added by using these materials and creating something more.”

Six Artists Featured in Upcycling

Along with Penn’s recent encaustic piece, Stronger By the Minute, other works showcased in Upcycling include an aggressive rooster puppet by Manju Shandler created with a cast plastic rooster head, spray foam, mesh, toothpicks, tulle, ostrich feathers, and glass beads, and Mark Anthony McLeod’s pair of dapper figures whose grinning faces are illuminated by the flashes of old-school Instamatic cameras.

Dara Oshin's Nesting, The Gatherer, and Belief, all 2018; Manju Shandler's Cock n Guf 1, 2016

Ward Yoshimoto, You Talk Out Your Ass With a Forked Tongue, 2016; Mark Anthony McLeod's LEVELS and SELF CARE IS, both 2020

Marlene Weisman, Saved Souls No. 18 Gamila Gavini, Seamstress, 2018

A trio from Dara Oshin’s Nest series combines her abstract egg images with both natural and man-made found objects including seeds, two-dollar bills, chains, and dryer lint tucked into small drawers. Four works from Marlene Weisman’s Saved Souls series juxtapose antique tintype images with ephemera and found objects such as newspaper clippings, dice, buttons, and jewelry. And three pieces commenting on the 2016 election from a series by Ward Yoshimoto feature found objects, many unearthed at Dead Horse Bay, including pig figurines, fencing material, doll heads, and trophies.

More About the Curator

A graduate of Boston University, Penn has “always circled the drain” of creativity, working in photography and interior design and toiling in marketing and advertising for years in “art related industries.” She took the leap to fully focus on her own artwork three years ago.

A regular participant of Gowanus Open Studios, Penn misses the camaraderie normally sparked by the event but found this weekend’s substitute art walk inspiring. “It’s usually a very social time for us…we see other people’s work and we have events where we get together in preparation, and I missed that, the community of other artists. We connect online but it’s not the same as being together, so it’s been so nice just being here today and people walking by and seeing old friends,” she said.

Tracy Penn at 357 Atlantic Avenue standing next to her work Stronger By the Minute, 2020

She also enjoyed watching kids “connect to” and recognize some of the materials in the artworks, like the trophies and the cameras, and talking to them about upcycling. “This mom was saying to her kid, ‘We’ve got so many old trophies lying around at home.’ The idea that you can repurpose something and create something better. We don’t always have to buy new,” Penn noted. “We can take what’s there already and create things that are beautiful, interesting, and thought provoking.”

All of the work featured in Arts Gowanus on Atlantic Ave will be on display through November 1. Stop by and support local artists and small businesses during these challenging times. Go to artsgowanus.org for a map and a list of participating artists.

With the sunny skies on Saturday afternoon casting a glare (or shadows) on the storefront windows, my photos sadly don’t do the artwork justice. Check out the Arts Gowanus page on Artsy for better images of the works.

Upcycling
357 Atlantic Avenue (between Bond & Hoyt)
On view as part of the Arts Gowanus Art Walk on Atlantic Ave through Nov, 1,2020

 

Fresh Paint | Art of Our Century

Like a breath of fresh air, the exhibition Fresh Paint showcases a vibrant array of recent work by 18 eclectic artists at the new Greenwich Village gallery Art of Our Century.

Half of the participating artists are exhibiting work that has never been shown before. "The first thing I asked the artists was, 'Do you have new work that you’d like to show?'" curator John Gagné explained last Friday, the day following the jam-packed opening reception for Fresh Paint. Along with recently completed works, the exhibit also includes pieces Gagné finds "startling, surprising, courageous, charming, and seductive."

L-R: Natasha Wright, Street Ophelia, 2019; Libby Rosa, Phony Frame, 2020 (center, top); Anna Oritiz, Flor, 2019 (center, bottom); and Justin Neely's Performing February 1, 2019 at Spectrum NYC (right, top), Performing January 5, 2019 at Spectrum NYC (right, center), Performing January 5, 2019 at Spectrum NYC (right, bottom).

The artwork presented in the group show runs the gamut from "abstraction to figuration and representation, the 18 artists in Fresh Paint have each developed their own visual vocabulary and boldly push color, shape and subject matter to new expressions," according to the press release.

Abstract works include Melissa Capasso’s intense canvases filled with vibrant colors and forms and Jeffrey Kurland’s diptych, Breaking Violet, created by pouring paint onto the canvases and covering them with a large plastic sheet which he manipulates to control the chaos of the shapes. Kurland’s work was featured in a solo show at Art of Our Century’s inaugural exhibition in January.

Left: Kylin O'Brien, Journey Into A Realistic Black Hole, 2019 (top); Robin Roi's Niblo's Garden, 2019, White Dragon, 2019 (top), and Ruby, 2019 (bottom). Center (top to bottom): Melissa Capasso's Summer Mountains, 2019 and Farewell Ceremony, 2019; Anna Ortiz, La Sequia, 2019; Cecilia Whittaker-Doe, Ordered and Divided, 2020. Right: Johnny Thornton, Shitty L'il Flower Painting (Alteration), 2019 (top); Hermann Mejia, Cabeza de Pedro, 2019 (center); Johnny Thornton, Unknown Bride, 2020 (bottom).

Left: Johnny Thornton, Shitty L'il Flower Painting (Alteration), 2019 (top); Hermann Mejia, Cabeza de Pedro, 2019 (center); Johnny Thornton, Unknown Bride, 2020 (bottom). Center: Kylin O'Brien, Shiva Lingam, Genome, 2019; Melissa Capasso's Break Dancer, 2019 and Tattoo You, 2019 (to right); Dale Williams, Osip Mandelstam (Profiles for Democracy), 2019; Right: Paul Gagner, Sir Vape-A-Lot, 2019; Johnny Thornton, Unknown Women of 1934, 2019.

Justin Neely’s three performative paintings were created while accompanying live musical acts. "You can almost hear the horns," Gagné said of the dynamic black-and-white piece, Performing January 5, 2019 at Spectrum NYC.

Kylin O’Brien’s canvases are influenced by physics. Her Journey Into a Realistic Black Hole simplifies the complex dimensions of a black hole into an "ethereal" and "poetic" piece, Gagne noted. Cecilia Whittaker-Doe’s trio of landscapes allows viewers to see the details of trees, leaves, water, and the forest simultaneously. "There’s detail and a kind of a landscape happening all at once," Gagné noted.

Libby Rosa, In The Park, 2018 (left); Cecilia Whittaker-Doe's A Brilliant Life, 2020 (center, top) and At This Season, 2019 (center, bottom); Eva Ennist's Lotus Temple #1, 2013 (right, top) and Lotus Temple #9, 2013 (right, bottom).

Greg Griffith, Buildings, Window, Plant, 2020 (left); Manju Shandler's Thoughts, 2017 (center, top), Star Gazer, 2017 (center, bottom) and Winged, 2019 (right, top); AM DeBrincat's Pixelvision, 2019 (right, center) and Storm, 2019 (right, bottom).

Andrew Smenos, Rising Tides... et cetera, et cetera, 2019 (left); Jeffrey Kurland, Breaking Violet, 2019 (right)

Originally from New Zealand, Bushwick-based artist Natasha Wright’s moody Street Ophelia features an upended female figure. The large-scale canvas is "quite raw" Gagné said, but "at the same time there’s a kind of tenderness." Hermann Mejia uses thick brush strokes to create the mesmerizing Cabeza de Perro (Dog Head), with red strikes indicating the animal’s bark. Imperceptible at first glance, "the closer you get to it, it breaks down in an interesting way and then it resolves," Gagné explained of the image.

AM DeBrincat’s mixed-media works vibrantly combine images found online with painting while Manju Shandler incorporates painting, drawing, and sewing for her intricate pieces. Toronto-based Eva Ennist employs encaustic and fiber to recreate the modern Indian house of worship, the Lotus Temple, while Robin Roi patiently allows the metal leaf on her Asian-influenced woodblocks to oxide for an intriguing patina. 

The vibrant hues of Greg Griffith’s minimal Buildings, Window, Plant practically vibrate on the canvas. "I think his use of color is fantastic," Gagné noted. Philadelphia-based artist Libby Rosa swathes her large-scale canvas in rich blues for the backdrop of her enchanting Sisters and switches to a softer, cooler shade for Waterfall Mouth.

Anna Ortiz’s "sociopsychological landscapes" feature enigmatic figures in surreal scenes executed in stunning colors. Johnny Thornton washes out colors and details by painting over the backgrounds of found images in white, ingeniously re-contextualizing the scenes and imbuing a sense of uncertainty and mystery.

Johnny Thornton, George Gave Me A Painting He Found, 2019

Paul Gagner, Home Renovations, 2019 (left); Andrew Smenos' The Rules Don't Apply, 2019 (top, left), Rising Tides... et cetera et cetera, 2019 (top, right), I Think the Neighbors Are Having A Barbecue, 2019 and The Walls Are Paper Thin, I Can Hear The Neighbors Screaming, 2019 (bottom, left), Looks Good Going Down, 2019 (bottom, center), and The Ferry Will Be Delayed, 2019 (bottom, right).

Andrew Smenos’ paintings of a melting traffic cone and sinking life jacket, "things that should help but do nothing," as Gagné describes them, bring humor to Fresh Paint, as do Paul Gagner’s self-deprecating Home Renovations and the smoke-enshrouded figure in Sir-Vape-A-Lot.

Dale Williams’ Osip Mandelstam, from his Profiles for Democracy series, pays homage to the Russian poet persecuted for his anti-Stalinist views. An online exhibit of Williams’ paintings is also currently on view at Gagné Contemporary. "They’re quite dark, but they’re like dark jewels," Gagné said of the works.

John Gagné at Art of Our Century where Fresh Paint is on view through March 22. Libby Rosa's Sisters, 2019, is on the left.

Starting next week, each artist in Fresh Paint will be featured in a brief conversation with Gagné on InstagramTV. The 18 clips will show the artists discussing her/his work as well as the work of another artist in the exhibit. Follow @gagnecontemporary to watch.

Housed in a creative building shared by an independent book publisher, a recording studio, a computer club, and 137 Artists Collective, Art of Our Century debuted in January 2020. The gallery's name is a tribute to Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century gallery on West 57th Street. Like that gallery, the Greenwich Village art space will exhibit new and emerging artists alongside more established names. Upcoming exhibits will showcase former Village Voice nightlife photographer Catherine McGann, transgender multimedia artist Uman, and hip hop photographer Ricky Powell.

Fresh Paint
Art of Our Century, 137 West 14th Street, 3rd Floor, Greenwich Village, NYC
Exhibition on view February 27 through March 22.

Demarcus McGaughey, Danie Herard, Bria Whitney | Threes Brewing, Gowanus

Enjoy great local art while you enjoy a pint at Threes Brewing! On Monday, the Gowanus watering hole hosted the opening of Arts Gowanus at Threes: Showcase featuring work by a trio of local artists: Demarcus McGaughey, Bria Whitney, and Danie Herard. 

Demarcus McGaughey, El Tiguere Con Su Trompeta 

Displayed above a booth in the back of the venue, Gowanus-based artist Demarcus McGaughey's El Tiguere Con Su Trompeta captivates passing bar patrons. The title of the arresting 30" x 40" acrylic painting translates to "The Thug with his Trumpet," McGaughey explained at the opening reception. "This piece is one of my best friends. He moved to New York from the Dominican Republic. To me the piece is about taking a risk. He moved here, he didn’t speak the language. He didn’t know the culture, didn’t have a job. All he had was his trumpet and his good looks," he added.

The mysterious figure—eyes shielded beneath his hat, biceps bulging—casually plays his trumpet before a bright white background that blends into his shirt. "I wanted to do a negative white space with his tank top," McGaughey noted. "I just wanted to showcase this man. You can’t see his face, but he’s a very handsome, macho man, and all he has is his wit, his charm, and his trumpet to thrive in NYC."

(L-R) Demarcus McGaughey, Gowanus artist Marlene Weisman, and Danie Herard pose in front of McGaughey's El Tiguere Con Su Trompeta at Threes Brewing

Originally from Dallas, Texas, McGaughey is a graduate of Prairie View A&M University where he studied advertising art. He relocated to NYC in 2006 where he worked in graphic design before taking the leap into fine art about four years ago. His early works include playful pop art pieces featuring various celebrities, including an image of Naomi Campbell on a Campbell's Soup can (an ode to Andy Warhol), and human figures topped with panda bear heads. McGaughey, who has a solo show scheduled in May at Spaceworks in Gowanus, says the portrait series he is currently working on is more narrative, focusing on the experiences of his subjects.

Bria Whitney stands beside her Untitled Diptych (Series 1) #3. She created the acrylic and resin on wood piece while she was in a residency program in Japan. Unexpected rainfall gave the artwork its unique texture. "The ability of the rain to really transcend this work makes me very happy," the artist said. 

Painter and printmaker Bria Whitney's abstract diptychs are also currently on view at Threes Brewing. The New York City native attended Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn where she began her formal training in art before earning her BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology. 

Whitney uses printmaking techniques to create mirroring effects in her paintings, "similar to the Rorschach prints," she said. "One of the fun things about my pieces is...they’re created as pairs but you can separate them or [keep] them together," she explained of her complexly layered works. "One of my favorite parts about the pieces is allowing the viewer to interpret the shapes," she added. "They don’t represent anything, but I love when a viewer can see something."

(L-R) Danie Herard's Tribal Deco 3, Bria Whitney's Untitled Diptych Series 1 (Warm Series), Bria Whitney's Untitled Diptych Series 2 (Cool Series), and Danie Herard's Tribal Deco 4

Influenced by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sol LeWitt's "use of lines and color," and Wassily Kandinsky, "especially his early theories of Point and Line to Plane," Whitney says she is also inspired by color theory and separates her series into warm and cool palettes.

Whitney completed a residency program at Spaceworks in Gowanus and another in Kaga, Japan last year. She will soon complete a six-month residency at The Carrie Able Gallery in Williamsburg where she will have a solo show in April. "For my solo show, I’m incorporating neon into the work. I’m really excited about that," she noted. Whitney is currently learning neon bending at Urban Glass. "In school I was never great at sculpture, I always fell short in that department, but with neon, because it is linear technically, it gives me that ability to have this drawing effect," she said. "I really want to become immersed in it."

(L-R) Bria Whitney's Diptych 1, Danie Herard's Tribal Deco 1 (top) and Tribal Deco 2 (bottom), Bria Whitney's Diptych 2

Gowanus-based artist Danie Herard met Whitney while both artists were in residency at Spaceworks last year. Herard invited Whitney to be part of the Arts Gowanus exhibit at Threes Brewing. "Her work is strong and she’s just really cool," Herard said of her friend. 

Herard creates mystical abstract works that explore spirituality, healing, positivity, and the universe. Her Blue Code series features the outline of a profile filled with intricate patterns representing genetic codes. "The concept is [that] we’re more than who we really are," she explained. "I feel in more of a higher consciousness, that we’re all encoded with many different talents, with so much information, and as we live our lives...[they are] pulled out of us. We have a full potential to be who we are and sometimes we don't always realize that. When we come to certain information, we develop more. We can be so much greater." She added that creating the pieces was meditative for her, allowing her to examine how she can "develop more as an artist." 

Danie Herard poses with two pieces from her Blue Code series

Interspersed with Whitney's diptychs, Herard's Tribal Deco series reflects her love of Art Deco design in elegant graphics that would be just as fitting on textiles and home designs as they are on canvas. "I’m really playing [with] how my art can also be practical and functional," she said of the pattern on Tribal Deco 1. "It will be a perfect silk scarf."

Born in Brooklyn, Herard studied lighting design at SUNY Purchase and worked in theater productions before taking an office job in health insurance. She transitioned into fine arts full time approximately five years ago. Along with creating her own metaphysical works, she teaches art and owns and operates Sensibility Designs. Herard has been at Spaceworks for approximately three years and has a solo show scheduled there in March. "It’s called In the Vortex," she said of the upcoming show. "I know it’s a little trippy. It’s about being in a particular dimension that helps you really see what’s possible—outside of negative thoughts—and that’s a great place to create from, the unknown. I’m going to take people to the vortex, my vortex."

(L-R) Demarcus McGaughey, Danie Herard, and Bria Whitney at Threes Brewing where their artwork is on view 

Arts Gowanus at Threes: Showcase
Threes Brewing, 333 Douglass Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
The three artists' work will be on view at the space for three months.

 

Death Become Her | BRIC

Death need not be final according to the group exhibition currently on view at BRIC. Employing objects commonly associated with death—a cemetery, flowers, shrouds, and memorials—the ten female-identifying artists showcased in Death Becomes Her demonstrate that the act of mourning the dearly departed can serve as a pathway to "self-discovery, inquiry, and introspection."

Death Becomes Her installation view. Mimi Bai's Conjuring a future full of pasts (2020) is in the foreground and three images from Keisha Scarville's Placelessness of Echoes (and kinship of shadows) are displayed on the left.

Catalina Ouyang, past imperfect (Lipotes vexillifer), 2019, and past imperfect (Psephurus gladius), 2019

Nona Faustine’s self-portrait series inspired by the Greek myth of Persephone was shot amongst tombs and mausoleums at Brooklyn's historic Green-Wood Cemetery. The cinematic photos feature Faustine portraying Demeter, the goddess of harvest. Dressed in black or golden cloaks, she mourns and waits for her daughter Persephone who was forced into marriage with Hades, the god of the dead and the underworld.

(L-R) Nona Faustine's Demeter in Mourning, Magic power divine beauty and grace, Isis, all 2020

Nona Faustine, Isis, 2020

Kim Brandt, Untitled (Greenwood), 2019

Projected onto a screen is footage of Kim Brandt’s Untitled (Greenwood), performed at the cemetery last summer as part of a series presented by Green-Wood in partnership with Pioneer Works. Performers interacted at the cemetery’s circular Cedar Dell in an examination of relationships among the living in a space that memorializes the dead.

Ceramic works by Heidi Lau (2019-2020)

Ceramic works by Heidi Lau (2019-2020)

Detail of Heidi Lau's ceramic works

Inspired by Taoist and folk mythology, Heidi Lau’s ceramic sculptures represent "silenced histories" or "ritual objects, funerary monuments, and fossilized creatures" that have been lost or transformed over time. Rachel Grobstein’s miniature sculptures depict actual roadside memorials, featuring tiny recreations of a ghost bike, candles, stuffed animals, and flowers left on streets and highways to commemorate lost loved ones.

Rachel Grobstein, Ghost Bike, 2019

Rachel Grobstein, Hwy. 285, 2018

Rachel Grobstein, William, Bushwick Avenue, 2018

Rachel Grobstein, Rt. 46, 2018

On select Fridays and Saturdays, Gyun Hur will be on site to perform I wouldn’t know any other way, an installation that features the artist resting in bright yellow dust she creates by shredding silk flowers into a powder that blankets the floor. The piece symbolizes "impermanence and assimilation," Hur’s family and homes, both in her native South Korea and in Atlanta, where she grew up.

Gyun Hur, I wouldn't know any other way, 2020

Gyun Hur, I wouldn't know any other way, 2020

Death Becomes Her at Gallery at BRIC House

Two artists will be featured at Green-Wood Cemetery in programs presented in conjunction with the BRIC exhibit. McKendree Key will host 5 x 10 @ The Catacombs, discussions about death and dying on Saturdays in March (14, 21, 28). Freya Powell’s immersive performance piece Only Remains Remain will honor the unidentified migrants buried in mass graves in Sacred Heart Cemetery in Texas (Saturday, April 11).

Encouraging discussion and reflection, Death Becomes Her is an enlightening meditation on death that asserts we can learn about ourselves by confronting loss.

Death Becomes Her
Gallery at BRIC House, 647 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view February 20 through April 19