Contemporary Art and Culture
Manufacturers Village Artist Studios, located in an 1880’s historic industrial complex at 356 Glenwood Avenue in East Orange, NJ, will feature the work of over 60 different artists at its annual open studios weekend, Friday 10/15 (VIP Preview) and Saturday thru Sunday from 11-5, 10/16 and 10/17.
Continue reading “Mona Brody: MVA Open Studios”
Manufacturers Village Artist Studios, located in an 1880’s historic industrial complex at 356 Glenwood Avenue in East Orange, NJ, will feature the work of over 60 different artists at its annual open studios weekend, Friday 10/15 (VIP Preview) and Saturday thru Sunday from 11-5, 10/16 and 10/17.
Continue reading “Gail Winbury: MVA Open Studios”Jac Lahav and Kumasi Barnett in Conversation
In his first solo exhibition at 42 Social Club (Lyme CT), Kumasi Barnett explores American culture, police violence, and stereotypes through the lens of comic books. Barnett’s immaculate paintings over vintage comic book covers masterfully transform well-known superhero tropes into brutal social commentary. Kumasi Barnett and 42 Social Club founder, Jac Lahav, share their reflections on Barnet’s new work.
Continue reading “Burbville – New Works By Kumasi Barnett”One finds a simple common thread between the three exhibitions of women artists in Andrew Edlin Gallery this fall 2021: spiritual internal guidance in the artistic process. The work of German artist and known medium healer Agatha Wojciechowsky (1896-1986), curated by Aurelie Bernard Wortsman, is in Spirits Among Us at the entry and main gallery space, while the work of French artist Margot (b. 1982) is in Margot’s Cosmic Sanctuary at the back gallery. The solo presentation of American artist Karla Knight (b. 1958) was at the recent Independent Art Fair in New York City, which briefly overlapped with these two fall season starters at the gallery. Led by their individual connection to the otherworldly, the artists make work that invites viewers to ponder the source of creation and artistic agency.
Continue reading “Trusting Hands at Andrew Edlin Gallery”Previewing – with gallery founder and curator Catherine Fosnot
The Opening Fall Season at the Fosnot Art Gallery will showcase Fred Gutzeit’s body of works from 1966-2021. Although he began as a painter of found objects and landscapes, Fred Gutzeit has never been satisfied with capturing the realism we “see“ in nature. He has continually sought a realism through abstraction that would capture the hidden complexity of nature juxtaposed with a human search for structure. Musings about complexity and chaos theories, string theory, mathematics modeling, and current scientific speculation about “multiverses” are employed as he explores consciousness, interaction, identity, and searches for structure. His bold use of color and dimensionality are wonderous and aesthetically pleasing allowing us to travel into the cosmos of his world.
Continue reading “Fred Gutzeit Retrospective at Catherine Fosnot Art Gallery”In Dialogue with Jeanette Fintz
As an abstract artist, Jeanette Fintz has long been interested in the contrast of hard-edged planar geometry (circles, squares, hexagons) existing within an atmospheric field where shapes can float or hold the plane, in a space that appears expansive, transient and increasingly released from the canvas’s edge.Of her newest body of work currently on view through August 1st at Carrie Haddad Gallery in Hudson, NY, she explains “these paintings are about giving structure to something intangible, ephemeral, in-flux or conversely, revealing the dissolving of structure that has been.” The following is the artist in conversation with writer and art critic, Carter Ratcliff, to discuss her influences and process.
Continue reading “Jeanette Fintz at Carrie Haddad Gallery”
Test Kitchen, Carolyn Case’s show at Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, Virginia, consisted of 4 oil paintings on panel along with 8 pastel drawings. Hefty brush strokes fill the surface area of the oil paintings. The painterly process involves a buildup of incremental adjustments, the layers of paint applied one by one until the shapes solidify into a kaleidoscopic arrangement; one nudge and the elements will shift accordingly, morphing the image into an entirely new pattern. Each of the paintings gives the impression of a specific time of day, indicated by the character of light and color playing across the space. Monet’s Water Lilies come to mind. But in place of Monet’s serene refuge, Case’s light lingers over a sink full of dirty dishes.
Continue reading “Test Kitchen: Carolyn Case at Reynolds Gallery”In Dialogue with Lisa Pressman
The current exhibition at Susan Eley Fine Art, Hudson features Lisa Pressman’s newest encaustic paintings and works on paper. One of the primary series on view in this show is entitled Messages, a recent and ongoing series of mixed media works on various handmade papers. Pressman collects handmade paper, including Japanese Shikishi board, which is edged with gold, as well as Letraset—the rub-on letters employed by graphic designers before the computer era. Onto these unique handmade paper, she employs the press-on letters of the Letraset, as a mark-making tool to create a symbolic language—hieroglyphic and intuitive.
Continue reading “Lisa Pressman and Jim Napierala at Susan Eley Fine Art”In Dialogue with Melissa Staiger
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.
Continue reading “STREAMING at Stand 4”
Tomo Mori is a Japanese-born and New York City-based fiber artist who has been focusing on two main bodies of work: wall based collage series and sculptural
installations . In both she is working with used materials like old clothes and linens, fabrics she keeps reusing and transforming into new forms. During this 2021 Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Tomo Mori shares what brought her to art making, what role her cultural background plays in her work, and what are some of her recurrent themes and processes.