Wave Hill* is a twenty eight acre public garden and cultural center overlooking the spectacular Hudson River and Palisades. Wave Hill aims to celebrate the artistry and legacy of its gardens, to preserve its magnificent views, and to explore human connections to the natural world through programs in horticulture, education and the arts. For the ninth consecutive year, Wave Hill opens Glyndor Gallery as workspace for selected New York-area artists, giving them the unique opportunity to explore the winter landscape and develop innovative work based on direct observation from nature.
During the second session open studios on Saturday, March 24, Noon‒3:30PM, visitors can see the variety of work completed throughout the second session of the residency and engage with the artists, who will all be present to discuss their work.
Artist Michele Brody , who lives and works in the Bronx, creates handmade paper works that explore what it means to establish roots within a community. Her paper coalesce embedded hydroponically sprouted seeds, handwritten messages by community members, and water marks of potential shrunken shorelines, like the Palisades across the Hudson River, which may be caused by the effects of Climate Change as mapped out by scientific predictions.
During the Winter Workspace Brody continues with her body of work titled Drawing Roots, as well as a new series titled Papers of Place. Both explore what it means to establish roots within a community while utilizing sustainable modes of production through the process of recycling paper into living drawings that incorporate history, horticulture and nutrition. In Drawing Roots Brody uses actual seeds that germinate within the paper to create imagery with the sprouts and roots, while Papers of Place are made from actual plants gathered from the detritus of the garden in the form of regenerated pulp and collage.
Tamara Kostianovsky, who was born in Israel and raised in Argentina, makes fabric sculptures and installations which reference torn bodies. Made of discarded clothing, her sculptures depict naturalistic animal parts – altogether resonating a mix of beauty, violence, and physicality of the body. Kostianovsky draws upon still life imagery of butchered meat throughout art history – reflecting on systems of consumption that dominate the production of goods in the Developed World. She proposes a type of beauty that integrates our corporeal realities into the contemporary systems of industrialization that devour them.
During the Winter Workspace Kostianovsky departs from the visceral imagery of the torn body and starts developing a new body of sculptural work in which she uses fabric to conjure severed tree stumps, creating an indoor dystopic forest made of rich textures and colors.
Inspired by Earthworks artists of the 1960s and 1970s as well as her own extensive explorations of national sites, Athena LaTocha contemplates the natural environment at Wave Hill to further consolidate her ideas about working with landscape. In her large-scale immersive Sumi Ink paintings, LaTocha incorporates reclaimed and found organic materials, combining painting, sculpture and land art.
Maika‘i Tubbs is interested in how nature is adapting to man-made waste problems and looking at ways to combine organic and artificial matter harmoniously.
At Wave Hill Tubbs creates sculptural forms using natural materials found at the residency premises and an invited substance he calls microbial leather. He uses this material to cast river rocks found at the Wave Hill site while laminating microplastic between the layers. Altogether his process results in rock forms made of this bacteria-microplastic hybrid.
Ashton Agbomenou, the 2018 New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellow draws upon sources like graffiti, early 20th century artists like Henry Ossawa Turner and John Singer Sargent, science fiction and anime, aiming to chronicle and strengthen relationships in African communities all around the world.
At Wave Hill Agbomenou creates a series of portraits and landscapes that depict the histories of people in his native Harlem, the Bronx and Upper Manhattan as a conservation effort to preserve the cultural environments of these communities, while utilizing Wave Hill’s natural shapes and colors to build a catalog of photographs for his layered painting and collage process.
Dominican-American Artist Yelaine Rodriguez , the second 2018 New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellow, explores in her work women’s roles in historical contexts, particularly the shared experiences of women of color. Her work is largely informed by being raised in two worlds – the South Bronx and the Dominican Republic.
At Wave Hill Rodriguez works with hand weaving on a loom to create through the use of colors and shapes textiles inspired by patterns founds in nature – overall reflecting on the notion of nature implemented in wearable art.
Artists participating in the first session were: Tomie Arai, Camille Hoffman, Pedro Ramirez, Jessica Rohrer, Jean Shin, Austin Thomas
Artists participating in the second session are: Michele Brody, Tamara Kostianovsky, Athena LaTocha, , Maika‘i Tubbs, and the two Van Lier Visual Artist Fellows: Ashton Agbomenou and Yelaine Rodriguez
Second Session Open Studios: Saturday, March 24, Noon‒3:30PM
Open year-round, Tuesday–Sunday and many major holidays.
9AM–4:30PM, Nov 1–Mar 14; 9AM–5:30PM, Mar 15–Oct 31.
ADMISSION TO $8 adults, $4 students and senior 65+, $2 children 6–18.
The grounds are Free Tuesdays and Saturdays until noon.
Free to members, children under 6.
*Art Spiel used text from Wave Hill’s website regarding the Winter Workspace program and artists. For full information press here
For a complete list of events and workshop press here