Interviews – Page 16

March 4, 2024March 4, 2024, by MICHELE JASLOW

Jody Wood Is Taking Care

Social Pharmacy (Installation View), Skövde Art Museum, Sweden

Jody Wood uses mediums of social practice, video, photography, and performance in her art practice. On a brisk January afternoon in Brooklyn, we discussed the joys of transformation and the metrics to determine success and trauma in healing. Wood’s recent work re-imagines routines in poverty support agencies, aiming to sculpt power dynamics and relationship networks and resist stigmas surrounding poverty. Her solo show Collecting Health at Open Source Gallery features Social Pharmacy (2021-ongoing), a project that redefines public health as a collaborative performance and asks what healing rituals can be found in simple acts of generosity between members of society and by utilizing the natural world around us. Collecting Health at Open Source Gallery runs from February 10 to March 22, 2024.

February 26, 2024February 14, 2024, by Etty Yaniv

Peter Gynd: 10989 Dunlop Road

In Dialogue

Peter Gynd, *Figures which do not behave within the structure of a Story*, 2023, oil on linen, 48 x 36 inches

10989 Dunlop Road features Peter Gynd’s recent oil paintings, inspired by the tranquil garden of his mother’s home in kwekwenis (Lang Bay), British Columbia. This series captures the shifting essence of cedar and fir trees that stand at the garden’s entrance, embodying themes of rebirth and spiritual renewal. Each painting serves as a reflection of Gynd’s connection to this place of refuge during a pivotal time.

February 19, 2024February 19, 2024, by Art Spiel

Grotto: Shrine @ Soloway

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.

February 16, 2024February 13, 2024, by Art Spiel

Embodied Futures and the Ecology of Care at BioBAT Art Space

HOT AIR

A room with a large wall with a painting on it

Description automatically generated with medium confidence — 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.

February 16, 2024February 16, 2024, by Etty Yaniv

Transformation at Socrates Sculpture Park

In Dialogue

*‘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.

February 12, 2024January 21, 2024, by Etty Yaniv

Laura Williams: A proponent of mixed messages

In Dialogue

A person sitting in a chair

Description automatically generated — 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.

February 9, 2024January 28, 2024, by Etty Yaniv

Valérie Hallier – Doodling with Petals

In Dialogue

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.’

February 8, 2024February 8, 2024, by Art Spiel

In the End, a Devastating Beauty at Stand4 Gallery

Hot Air

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.

January 22, 2024December 6, 2024, by Etty Yaniv

Swoon – Hushed and Big Voices

In Dialogue

All images courtesy of Tod Seelie. — 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.

January 15, 2024January 15, 2024, by Mary McCoy

Watershed—Grace Mitchell in conversation with Mary McCoy

HOT AIR

A landscape with a river and a blue sky

Description automatically generated

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.