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Author: Art Spiel

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Bay Ridge Through an Ecological Lens: Rita Leduc

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Leduc installing Field Mark (Narrows Botanical Garden). Photo courtesy of the artist.

Bay Ridge through an Ecological Lens is a multi-faceted public art exhibition hosted by Stand4 Gallery and presented in collaboration with ecoartspace.

This interactive, public, community arts exhibition is curated by Jennifer McGregor, featuring artists  Rebecca Allan, Aaron Asis, Chris Costan, Kate Dodd,  Peter Edlund, Kristin Reiber-Harris, Ellen Coleman-Izzo, Sergey Jivetin,  Nathan Kensinger, Rita Leduc, Christopher Lin, Nikki Lindt, E.J. McAdams/ Jimbo Blachly,  Nancy Nowacek in collaboration with Carla Kihlstedt and Carlos Alomar,  Benjamin Swett and filmmakers:  Aaron Assis, Nate Dorr, Sean Hanley, Nathan Kensinger, Nikki Lindt, Emily Packer and Lesley Steele, and Kristin Reiber-Harris

It consists of nature walks and community interventions in the gallery and various locations throughout the Bay Ridge community from April 15 through June 17, 2023. Art Spiel will feature a series of interviews related to this project throughout its duration, here with artist Rita Leduc.

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Holly Wong: Guardian of the Spirits

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Installation views, photo courtesy of Wes Magyar

Holly Wong’s solo exhibition Guardian of the Spirits at the Curfman gallery, Colorado State University at Fort Collins, combines sewn patchwork of silk, organza, other transparent materials, and drawings—to memorialize her mother whom she lost to alcoholism and domestic violence. The text for her show says that the installation is a “prayer for revolt against the limiting notions of beauty and body size.”

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The Center for Cuban Studies and Art in DUMBO Open Studios

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Courtesy of the Center for Cuban Studies / Cuban Art Space

Each spring over 100 artists and art organizations in DUMBO And Vinegar Hill open their studio doors to the public for a weekend. This year the event takes place on April 22 and 23 from 1 to 6 PM. Art Spiel created a Mixed Media Guide for this event in addition to other curated guides on the Art In Dumbo website here. In conjunction with the event Art Spiel conducted a few interviews with individual participating artists. This one is with Sandra Levinson, the executive Director of the Center for Cuban Studies / Cuban Art Space.

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Jamie Martinez in DUMBO Open Studios

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Artist Jamie Martinez at his studio with his work “Vision Mask I”.

Each spring over 100 artists and art organizations in DUMBO And Vinegar Hill open their studio doors to the public for a weekend. This year the event takes place on April 22 and 23 from 1 to 6 PM. Art Spiel created a Mixed Media Guide for this event in addition to other curated guides on the Art In Dumbo website here. In conjunction with the event Art Spiel conducted a few interviews with individual participating artists. This one is with Jamie Martinez whose multi- faceted art includes textiles, drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation.

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Liz Collins in DUMBO Open Studios

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Liz Collins in her studio. Photo by Joe Kramm.

Each spring over 100 artists and art organizations in DUMBO And Vinegar Hill open their studio doors to the public for a weekend. This year the event takes place on April 22 and 23 from 1 to 6 PM. Art Spiel created a Mixed Media Guide for this event in addition to other curated guides on the Art In Dumbo website here. In conjunction with the event Art Spiel conducted a few interviews with individual participating artists. This one is with Liz Collins whose multi- faceted art includes textiles, drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation.

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Denise Sfraga: Strange Brew at The Garage Art Center

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Denise Sfraga, installation detail

The work included in Strange Brew, Denise Sfraga’s solo show at the Garage Art Center, explores the life cycle of plants. This fascination with plants has always been at the root of the artist’s creative inspiration. Sfraga, who is based in New York City, says that working in her own garden and experiencing its constant state of flux, gives her the opportunity to witness first hand actual seed germination, leaf and flower growth, the dispersion of the next generation of seeds and the final stages of decay, “an ever evolving landscape of life forms that change color, shape and appearance daily.”

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William Norton – Styx & Stones- at The Boiler – ELM Foundation

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“Cop,CodPiece, and Tigger”, “Lurking Cop”, “Cutting the Head Off the Thug”, “in the rain i feel myself swallowed, savored, teased by your tongue”

William Norton’s large-scale paintings at The Boiler – ELM Foundation evoke imagery of oppression and protest through gestural graphic marks and bold color on recycled vinyl advertisements as canvas. “We are always being sold something in this age of hyper-ventilating propaganda. And there is just enough of the advertising image left over to titillate the viewers’ eyeballs,” Norton says.

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Finding My Folk at Old Stone House

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L to R: Ai Campbell, Carl Hazlewood, Angelica Bergamini, Damali Abrams, Carl Hazlewood, Angelica Bergamini, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow and Blanka Amezkua (center).

Finding My Folk, curated by independent curator Krista Scenna at the Old Stone House in Brooklyn, features work by seven contemporary immigrant artists whose practices embrace the folkloric in their own traditions, rituals, and customs by blending elements of their past, memories of “home,” their present, and future. The notion of Folklore underscores the show, how it is often so seamlessly embedded in daily lives that people may tend to overlook it—myths, dances, rhymes, toasts, jokes, holidays, and festivals are all essential characteristics of a community—ranging from the family unit, to a nation, to the global population. The show is on view through April 9, 2023 with a closing event on Monday, April 10th from 6:30pm – 8:00pm.

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Nancy Bowen: Sometimes a Body is Not Just a Body at WCC Art Gallery

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Nancy Bowen with “Third Eye” and “Throat” from Chakra Series, 2009, mixed media on paper, photo by Lindsay Walt

What links Nancy Bowen’s work at Westchester Community College Art Gallery—from abstract to narrative work—is the presence of the female body in some form. “I will always be compelled to create work from a feminist point of view, work that needles or asks questions, and given our current political and social climate, that seems even more necessary than ever,” Bowen says. The show runs through April 12th, 2023.

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Gabriela Vainsencher: Epic, Heroic, Ordinary at Asya Geisberg

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Gabriela Vainsencher with “Epic, Heroic, Ordinary” at Asya Geisberg gallery, March 2023

In her solo exhibition at Asya Geisberg Gallery Gabriela Vainsencher exhibits wall hanging porcelain reliefs, referencing the nuts and bolts of motherhood entangled in layers of epic mythological context—Medusa reveals a worried woman with a frying pan and a baby’s pacifier as weapons at hand. The show runs through April 8th, 2023.

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