In conversation with Hannah Barrett and Saul Chernick
Saul Chrnick and Hannah Barrett in front of the gallery
The Grotto: Shrine group exhibition at Soloway Gallery, curated by Hannah Barrett and Saul Chernick, featuring works by Orli Swergold, Laurel Sparks, Ben Pederson, and Saul Chernick, merges the physical with the mystical. It showcases sculptures and installations that draw on the use of scale and a diverse range of materials—obsolete electronics, dried grains, paper pulp, and glitter. These elements serve to connect viewers to celestial, underworld, ritualistic, and imaginative realms, referencing the reflective and immersive qualities of shrines and grottos.
‘Desire Lines’ by Stefania Urist. Image by Alexa Hoyer. Courtesy of Socrates Sculpture Park.
Founded in 1986 by artists, activists, and community members, Socrates Sculpture Park transformed an abandoned landfill into a cultural cornerstone in Queens, New York. This dual-purpose venue serves both as a public park and an exhibition space for contemporary art, targeting early- and mid-career artists. Occupying five waterfront acres, Socrates provides a unique platform for artistic expression and public engagement, offering free access to a civic space amidst the urban environment.
Installation view of Katie Hubbell’s, Slow Down Soft Body, Stay with Me, and, Subsuming Solids, photo courtesy of Flaneurshan Studio
In the heart of Sunset Park, within the historic Brooklyn Army Terminal, BioBAT Art Space stands as a pioneering gallery that blurs the lines between art and science. The current exhibition, Embodied Futures & the Ecology of Care, Curated by Elena Soterakis & Eve Barro, showcases eleven artists whose work merges research methods and materials from scientific practices such as genetics, mycology, microscopy, and bacterial cultivation with artistic creation. By using living yeast as their palette and mushrooms as their sculpting medium, these artists challenge conventional artistic norms.
Laura Williams home studio 2023 by Rebekha Robinson
New Zealand-based painter Laura Williams began her artistic journey twelve years ago in her late 40s, following significant personal upheaval and loss. Turning to art as a means of coping, she replaced alcohol consumption with creativity, using her work to express and manage her anxiety and depression. Diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger’s, Williams found clarity in her penchant for patterns and symbols, which she employs as a unique language in her paintings. Her work, extensively exhibited across New Zealand and Sydney, Australia, is marked by its distinct yet universally resonant themes. The figures in her art, often women alongside men, clothed or unclothed, convey a sense of isolation despite their physical proximity. The dense and intricate patterns combined with vivid colors create an intensely claustrophobic space vibrating with charged psychological tensions.
Valérie Hallier working on the series Déflorée History in her studio during a residency with ESKFF at Mana Contemporary, NJ., 2023
Flower petals gradually became a significant element in Valérie Hallier’s artwork. Fascinated by the profound symbolism of flowers, Hallier initially struggled to incorporate them effectively into her artistic practice. Her initial approach involved photographing flowers in unique ways and settings. She also experimented with their dried components, adhering them to various surfaces. Eventually, she began to focus on pressing individual petals. Hallier discovered that working with petals was ideal for conveying complex themes such as femininity, resilience, sexuality, vibrancy, and decay. Born in Paris, France, and raised in Normandy, Hallier had a shy nature as a child. She was consumed with the ambition to draw everything in existence, a desire for comprehensiveness that continues to influence her work. Art, for her, has always been an essential means of engaging with both her internal and external worlds. Reflecting on her early art education, Hallier fondly remembers her excitement upon meeting others who shared her artistic ‘language.’
Susan Hoffman Fishman (l) and Leslie Sobel @ Five Points Center for the Arts Artist Residency, June 2022
Susan Hoffman Fishman and Leslie Sobel met in 2019 at a virtual “mixer” sponsored by SciArt Initiative for artists and scientists who either were already working together or who wanted to work together collaboratively. Hoffman and Sobel quickly determined that their mutual interests in water and the climate crisis overlapped. Looking for ways to collaborate, they applied for and were awarded a joint residency in 2021 during the height of the COVID pandemic at Planet Labs, a global satellite imaging company based in San Francisco. Planet had created its residency program to see what happened when artists were given access to their scientists and satellite resources. Because of COVID, the three-month residency ended up being entirely virtual.
Swoon, Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea, photo courtesy of Tod Seelie
Brooklyn-based artist Caledonia Curry, known as Swoon, is celebrated internationally as one of the first female street artists in a male-dominated field. For over two decades, Swoon has explored human experiences through public art, museum exhibitions, and film. Her latest projects look at the ties between trauma and addiction, inspired by her own life in a family affected by opioid addiction. She works closely with communities, using art to show empathy and help people heal. Over the last ten years, Swoon has led important projects in places like Braddock and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, New Orleans in Louisiana, Venice, and Komye in Haiti, tackling everything from natural disasters to the opioid crisis.
Grace Mitchell-Eternal Return IV, Oil on panel, 30”x30”, 2022
The deep, rich colors and textures of Grace Mitchell’s oil paintings will draw you in, but it’s often the title that sets you thinking. Interweaving layers of color glow through the marsh grasses in her newest series, Watershed Assessment. You could get lost in the sheer beauty of these paintings with their glints of tidal water and shadowy mountains looming in the distance, all saturated with a moist, misty atmosphere that seems to glow with fecundity. But the title gives pause. These lush, luminous landscapes are meant to be “assessed,” and careful observation finds them full of scars and flaws.
Rewilding Franconia Sculpture Park,Participatory Performance as part of 4Ground: Midwest Land Art Biennial, Franconia Sculpture Park, 2022. Photographer: Rachel Frank
Rachel Frank is a Brooklyn-based artist whose practice includes sculpture, video, and performance. Her art explores our shifting perspectives towards natural history, climate change, and relationships with non-human species. She grew up near Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, the birthplace of American paleontology, where large mammoth and other megafauna fossils were found, altering Western views on extinction and evolution. She works as a staff wildlife care manager at The Wild Bird Fund, a wildlife rehabilitation center in Manhattan.
Inside Out Oculus, 2022, acrylic on mylar, 36×45.5 in.
In her Interiors painting series, American Iranian-born painter Zahra Nazari draws on prominent features in classical Persian and Islamic architecture—decorative botanical motifs, arch, and particularly, iwan, the large, vaulted hall semi-enclosed and usually walled on three sides, with one end entirely open. Many scholars believe its origin can be traced back to the Parthian era. While looking at Nazari’s luminous surfaces, it may be interesting to keep in mind the dual role of the Persian arch—it serves both decorative and functional purposes—this richly decorated key aesthetic element in Persian architecture functions not only as an ornament but also as a structural support that provides stability. It is also designed to moderate the amount of sunlight that enters space, especially in iwans or other open spaces. Nazari’s frequent use of Mylar as a surface stirs a play on the notion of external and internal light, and simultaneously, her saturated color palette invokes a hot and arid climate with bright, sunlit days and crisp nights. Repetitive and rhythmical, these motifs coalesce into energetic, translucent, and luminous surfaces, evoking an interior space in flux. Zahra Nazari elaborates on her ideas and process in this interview with Art Spiel.
