Artist photographed with their work, Tabled Remains, 2018. Currently on view at El Museo del Barrio. Photograph by Jill Richards
Vick Quezada (they/them) is an Indigenous-Latinx artist, they queer the archaeological through hybrid forms and aesthetics. Inspired by the guiding principles of Aztec Philosophy, Quezada integrates the theory of interconnected matter and how it’s embedded in the cosmos, planet earth, ecology, and all lifeforms. These elements of matter cannot be governed by sovereign powers as they are inherently queer and infinte. Quezada activates these themes and histories through their work, and this is conveyed by way of digital photography, video, performance and sculpture.
Keisha Prioleau Martin, Head Over Handlebars, 2020, acrylic on paper, 10 x 13.5 inches, photo courtesy of the artist
In March 2020 the New York art world shut down and soon went online for exhibition opportunities. Like many artists, Mike Childs was furloughed from his job, and stayed at home, drawing as well as supporting his 6th grade son. To foster a sense of community, he reached out to fellow artist and curator Melissa Staiger to see if she was interested in combining their skills. They came up with the idea to create an online group of artists who worked on paper. The collective identity of this group was envisioned as eight individuals who reflect the creative New York community and exhibit a compulsive nature towards the making of images. Childs referred to these image makers as “producing work via a stream of consciousness in the modernist literary tradition”. In referencing this type of creative approach, Staiger immediately seized on the word to title their project Streaming, referring both to a creative thought process and the online reality of contemporary artistic existence. This led to the creation of the website https://s-t-r-e-a-m-i-n-g.com, which was the foundation for the current exhibition at Stand 4 Gallery.
The group exhibition at Stand4 Gallery, brings together work by Mike Childs, Deanna Lee,Keisha Prioleau-Martin, Rafael Melendez, Benjamin Pritchard, Sharmistha Ray, Melissa Staiger, and Julie Torres. The show runs through July 10th.
Arina Novak is holding a laptop with the main page of The Alternative States displayed on the screen. Photo courtesy: Robert Oliver
The Alternative States is a virtual exhibition at Project Gallery V on view from May 3 through June 30, 2021. Inspired by a condition of daydreaming, the show explores the alternative states of mind where one finds solace in creative freedom and ethereal fantasies.
Kathy Goodell, Mesmer Eyes, 2020, ink on synthetic paper, 120 x 300”, photo courtesy of Ferris Ramirez
Infra-Loop, Kathy’s Goodell’s survey exhibition at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz, explores the visual vocabulary that runs throughout the artist’s diverse disciplines, across geographies and time periods. Guest curator and artist Andrew Woolbright brings together more than 40 artworks including paintings, sculptures, and multimedia installations from 1994 to 2020. This is the first time Goodell’s work has been presented on a large scale. The exhibition runs through July 11th.
The mid-career survey exhibition, Sue Havens: Cull, at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art includes the Florida based artist’s paintings and ceramic work since 2016. Curator Jason Lazarus describes the recent “pandemic paintings” as “a compressor, kettle, and prism” of the artist’s work from the past twenty years. Havens outlines her goal most simply as a question: “What is it to search for form?”
The Location of Serenity (installation image, 2021). Photo: Jimi Billingsley
The inaugural group exhibition at D R O N E, a non-profit arts space in Tribeca, brings together four New York-based artists – Elsa Rensaa, Viktor Timofeev, Yasue Maetake and Eddie Natal – who explore recent memory from loss and death to spiritual regrowth. Gryphon Rue, a New York-based artist, composer, and curator, organized the exhibition and sheds some light on its premise. The show closes June 29th, or July 10th, 2021, depending on imminent leasing of the space.
Nicole Kutz in the studio, 2020, Photo courtesy of Nicole Kutz
The Nashville based artist and curator, Nicole Kutz, meditates in her paintings on life’s transience through handmade pigments and dyes. She frequently draws on the Japanese Wabi-sabi aesthetics, as well as the artforms of shibori and kintsugi, to create ethereal abstracted worlds, where you can find beauty in imperfections.
In the group exhibition Painting the Narrative at the National Arts Club in New York City the artist Dee Shapiro brings together six contemporary artists who explore content and form of narrative painting ranging from interiors to landscapes, personal to imagined, realistic to fantastic. Featured artists: Jennifer Coates, Laura Karetzky, Judith Linhares, Ernesto Renda, Kyle Staver, and George Towne. The show runs through June 28th.
Alyssa Fanning in her studio in northern NJ, 2020. Photo courtesy of Emma Fanning.
A Thousand Moons and Suns at Platform Project Space in Dumbo, Brooklyn, features Alyssa Fanning’s elaborate and richly layered graphite and colored pencil drawings on paper, focusing on the duality of strength and fragility of the natural world. The work includes drawings from two related series, created through a process of combining projection, stencil and improvisation. The pieces range in size from 2.75 by 4.75 inches to 16 by 20 inches and within these intimate boundaries, Alyssa Fanning creates intricate worlds which invite you to plunge in. The exhibition opens June 5th with an opening reception June 4th, and runs through July 3rd, 2021.
Beatrice Scaccia at the KMA, in the spot Gallery with the install of My Hope Chest. Courtesy of Ellen Rachlin. The animation was realized also thank to the Queens Arts Fund Grant.
Beatrice Scaccia’s solo show at The Katonah Museum of Art includes a stop-motion animation and site-specific wall drawings, altogether exploring the links and tensions between tradition and modernity. This body of work by the Italian born and NYC based multi-disciplinary artist has developed based on a furniture item with layered connotations – Hope chests were (and are) used by young women to collect items in anticipation of married life. The show runs through June 27, 2021
