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Noa Charuvi: Gal’Ed at York College Arts Gallery

Photo Story
A painting of a landscape

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Noa Charuvi, Cairn, 2023, oil on canvas, 36×72 inches

45 Jacob took a stone and erected it as a pillar. 46 He instructed his kin, “Collect some stones.” They gathered stones, formed a heap, and shared a meal beside it. 47 Laban named it Jegar Sahadutha, while Jacob named it Galeed. 48 Laban declared, “This heap stands as a witness between us today.” Hence, it became known as Galeed.

Genesis, Chapter 31, Verse 45

A Gal’Ed symbolizes a location marked by significant events—deathly moments or sacrifices. As it appears in the Old Testament, it signifies a covenant. In Hebrew, ‘Gal’ is a heap of stones, and it is the same word for ‘wave.’ ‘Ed’ means a witness. This heap of stones becomes an emblem of the pact between Jacob and his father-in-law: their agreement not to harm each other’s possessions or families. Serving as a symbol of shared promises, Jacob sanctifies it, offering to God on this stone.

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Myth Maker: Laleh Khorramian at SEPTEMBER Gallery

Installation view. Photo courtesy of Alon Koppol

Finally! What a joy to meander through a show that is not just a formulaic scaffolding rendered to execute a marketing plan rather than make art. Walking into the building that houses September Gallery’s new space in Kinderhook, NY, The first thing you see is not a wall or architectural ornamentation but a monumental scroll that immediately hints you might be here for a while. This colossal collage introduces Myth Maker, the second exhibition at September Gallery by Laleh Khorramian.

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The Art of Getting It Together

Jesse Benson, Packaging, 2003/2023. Ephemera from all projects completed in grad school, vacuum-formed plastic, plexiglass, silkscreen on board. Installation dimensions variable, individual dimensions 21 x 28.8 x 3 in. Photo by Jeff McLane. Courtesy As-Is LA.

In Organizer, Jesse Benson’s first solo gallery show since 2017, the Los Angeles artist unpacks the “dialectic of order and chaos” by introducing heterogeneity to organizing systems.

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Whisperings from the Wormhole with @talluts

A Meditation on Artists’ Residencies, a Dune Shack and the Twilight Zone

Ray Wells dune shack with well pump in the bottom left foreground, Provincetown/Truro 2016, photo courtesy of the writer

Sometimes I find myself scrolling Instagram on a dark day in February or March, just wondering what it would be like to make art in a lighthouse…or in Robert Rauschenberg’s old fishing shack…or in a Florida swamp…or in a small RV in a Utah ghost town…or on an island in Italy. Artists’ residencies are a nice thing to dream about when you feel stuck or in a rut and when life is wearing you down with mundane pressures. Sure, there are the big ones like MacDowell and Yaddo, but those are uber-competitive and hard to get into. There are so many other off-the-beaten-path secret outposts that will happily allow a creative person to try on their lifestyle for a bit. As an artist, it’s so helpful to get out of dodge now and then and hit the road for new sights and sounds.

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Here Now: Contemporary Photographers of the Hudson Valley

Phyllis Galembo  Photographer, Carnival Mexico. Fujiflex print. 30 x 30 2017.

The Kleinart James Center in Woodstock, New York, is currently presenting a very ambitious and interesting photography exhibition. Entitled Here Now: Contemporary Photographers of the Hudson Valley, the show presents 17 artists representing a portion of the many photographers working in this geography. Organized by curator Jane Hart, the show offers a wide range of aesthetic visions and techniques.

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Martha Bone and Janice Caswell: Two Solo Shows at Garrison Art Center

A painting of a snake

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Martha Bone, Mapping the Invisible #3, 2020, acrylic, aluminum enamel, charcoal, joint compound, pastel on pieced paper, 63 x 88 in., photo courtesy of the artist.

Two artists currently showing at Garrison Art Center use scale, structure, and geometry to examine and reinterpret their respective environments. Martha Bone’s large-scale paintings and assemblages express a sweeping view of the cosmos, bringing the macrocosm within our reach, while Janice Caswell’s small-scale sculptures find the infinite within the microcosm, showing us the vast potential in all forms. Both Bone and Caswell photograph their natural and man-made landscapes, later referring to these images when creating their works. And both artists construct their forms as improvisations inspired by their observations, although neither artist is interested in a literal interpretation of nature. But this is where the similarities end, their distinctive styles diverging toward an expansive contemplation of form and space and an intimate exploration of the fabricated structures that inhabit our lives.

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David Dew Bruner reinterprets still life in Equipoise at Carrie Haddad Gallery

Artist Profile
A person sitting in a chair with his legs crossed

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Portrait of the Artist in his studio, Hudson, NY. Image Credit: Matt Moment

David Dew Bruner is no more a thief than the next artist—it’s only that he is candid enough to tell us outright who he has stolen from. In “Equipoise: Stasis and The Power of Suggestion in Still Life,” a group show on view at Carrie Haddad Gallery through October 1, Bruner presents a series of drawings, each titled “Morandi Bottle.” More accurately, it is not so much Morandi’s bottles that Bruner has lifted (he’s the first to admit that the works “don’t look anything like Morandi paintings”) but rather the essence of Morandi’s mark-making. “Sometimes, I just love the way other people make marks,” Bruner enthuses. “My endeavor is [to riff off] the gesture of the form, the gesture in the detail, the quality of the line. It may be a subject matter that’s dull as dishwater to me, but the way it’s painted… I’m jealous.”

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Bay Ridge Through an Ecological Lens: Kate Dodd

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Kate Dodd installing “Bay Ridge Tree Collection”

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 AllanAaron AsisChris CostanKate Dodd,  Peter EdlundKristin Reiber-HarrisEllen Coleman-IzzoSergey Jivetin,  Nathan KensingerRita LeducChristopher LinNikki LindtE.J. McAdamsJimbo Blachly Nancy Nowacek in collaboration with Carla Kihlstedt and Carlos Alomar,  Benjamin Swett and filmmakers:  Aaron Assis, Nate DorrSean 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 features a series of interviews related to this project throughout its duration. Kate Dodd, whose library installation will be until after Labor Day, is featured here.

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Jonathan Torres: Painting Anxiety and Beauty

In Dialogue
Sube y Baja 2021 Mixed media 47” x 39.25”

Jonathan Torres is a Puerto Rican artist born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is based in Brooklyn, NY since 2010 and was recently a resident at the Sharpe Walentas Studio Program in DUMBO. In his paintings and sculptures a sense of otherworldliness and living in the diaspora recur. For over 15 years, Torres’ practice has grown from exploring different emotional and mental stages that have affected the way people interact with each other throughout various stages of life—crisis and anxiety with a bent of dark humor that have been crucial to the development of Torres’ imagery.

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