Laura Karetzky, Embedded Brexit, 2019, oil on wood, 14” x 11”, photo: James Wade
Selfies in domestic interiors, mobile phones, and computer screens are ubiquitous throughout Laura Karetzky‘s paintings. Her fragmented figures inhabit familiar interior spaces such as a bedroom or a work space, resonating altogether the uncanny in our daily experiences in this digital age, where the boundaries between space, time, self and other become increasingly blurred and at times even disorienting. In this interview with Art Spiel Laura Karetzky reflects on her figurative painting roots, her process, and her upcoming projects.
Zahra Nazari, Tatlin’s Tower, 2018, acrylic on canvas, 68×56 inches, photo courtesy of the artist
In her lush paintings and complex installations Zahra Nazari draws largely on architecture and her Iranian roots both in terms of cultural heritage and personal experience as an immigrant, while utilizing gestural forms invoking early 20th modernists like Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in Munich, or mid century Abstract Expressionists in NYC. This fertile amalgam of cultural cues makes her work current and thought provoking. Zahra Nazari shares with Art Spiel her experience as an artist, her approach to art making and some of her projects.
Patricia Spergel, Sita Ram, 2018, oil on canvas, 18” x 24”, photo courtesy of Tim Grajek
Patricia Spergel‘s vibrant oil paintings interrelate gesture, color, and form, to create imaginative spaces that are on the verge of being recognized – both playful and incisive, lightweight and massive. Patricia Spergel shares with Art Spiel her approach to color, how printmaking informs her painting, and her painting process.
Mary Tooley Parker, Back Room, 2019, textile, 48×33 inches, photo by the artist
Mary Tooley Parker ‘s fiber artworks pay a warm homage to folk art – throughout her recurrent themes and elaborate process. Her fascination with all things fiber – weaving, knitting, quilting, rug hooking – started from an early age and she has continued honing her skills and color sensibility ever since. The artist shares with Art Spiel what draws her to fiber art, her process, and the ideas behind her work.
It is often the case that the immediate juxtaposition of aesthetically kindred galleries TSA and Transmitter allows, maybe accidentally encourages visitors to make observations about concurrent exhibitions with relation to one another. I’m not sure the curators at the respective spaces are always keen on hearing such thoughts – especially from me, since over the years they’ve likely tired of knowing that I’ll always be looking for something – but there are times when the formal or conceptual fluidities or contrasts between shows are so striking that commentary of the sort proves simply irresistible. Continue reading “Nota Bene with @postuccio [ix]”
Seren Morey, Stranger Thing, 2017, Ultralight, dispersions, pumice, and glitter on panel15x10x4 in, photo courtesy of the artist
Seren Morey is a maximalist . Her lush mixed media painting- reliefs resemble mutated life forms in the process of proliferation – organic and artificial, funny and freakish, decorative and disorienting. Seren Morey shares with Art Spiel experiences that brought her to art, including some particularly fascinating encounters; in-depth know-how paint-making and painting processes; and reflections on her development as an artist.
“Scrapbook Performances” is an admirably extensive, broadly politically engaged series of evenings of performance art programmed by Microscope Gallery in relation to their current group show of video art, “Scrapbook (or, Why Can’t We Live Together).” Performances have been scheduled for basically every Monday and Friday for several weeks already, and there are still several more weeks of gatherings to come.
Brian Wood, Plank, 2017, Graphite on paper, 11 x 14 in., photo courtesy of the artist
Brian Wood’s drawings are literally visionary. They derive from what the artist describes as a “trance-like” state, where the ego is consumed by the image, as the inner mind and hand become vital conduits for arising images. This inner process results in drawings that invoke nuanced mental states, fragmented memories, and perhaps most important, a glimpse at the unknown. Holland Cotter wrote in his NY Times review of Brian Wood’s 2014 solo show Enceinte that the artist creates “a kind of Symbolist world in which emerging into life and being devoured by it are part of the same inexorable process.” In a cynical age with ubiquitously ironic art, this unabashed approach to the spiritual elements in the process of art making is quite refreshing.
Kate Teale, Going Dark 15x12x8” paintings, on graphite wall drawing
120″ x 164″, Grand Rapids MI, 2018, photo courtesy David Henderson
No matter what subject matter Kate Teale’s drawings, installations and photographs depict – a house, a sleeping couple, bed sheets, a Tsunami – her images always lead us into an urgent psychological landscape, prompting us to pause and reflect on what we are looking at. Precise like poems and complex like dreams, her subtle and highly focused artworks take diverse forms ranging from works on paper to tromp l’oeil murals. Kate Teale shares with Art Spiel some concepts behind her work, process, and thoughts about her evolution as an artist.
Installation view of the East room: (right) david Goodman, (mid) Will Crowin, (left) Heidi Lau, photo credit Tommy Mintz
The grouping of mostly floor-bound sculptures in “Ground Histories”, the current group show curated by Will Corwin at PS122 Gallery, not only pulls our attention to the ground, but also makes us aware of what is underneath its surface – archaeological artifacts, graves, excavated memories. In the east room a triangular layout consisting of Will Corwin’s altar-like sculpture, Heidi Lau’s arched-shape ceramic sculpture sprawling, and David Goodman’s forte-like structure, create a sense of both tension and connectivity. Made of plaster and sand, painted with terra cotta and white tempera hues, and tied with rough ropes, Corwin’s “Jaw” is a rectangular free-standing sculpture that draws literally upon teeth and invokes the idea of the archaic – an architectural ruin from an unidentified culture, or an archaeological artifact with an enigmatic ritual significance. The tooth, a pivotal element in both forensics and bioarcheology, can be read in Corwin’s sculptures as a loaded metaphor for what it means to be human.
