art therapy – Art Spiel

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November 7, 2023November 6, 2023, by Etty Yaniv

Reef Avni – This Was My Home

Photo Story

For 18-year-old photographer Reef Avni, photography became a way to speak at 14 when words were hard to find, a tool against his social anxiety. His father, Hagi, was not only a strong supporter but also a frequent face in his photos, becoming an integral part of the narrative Reef was creating with his camera. The other constant in Avni’s work is documenting daily life in his Kibbutz. As a fourth-generation member of Kibbutz Be’eri, his roots were as embedded in the kibbutz as the farmlands and community his great-grandfather founded in the arid Negev in the south of Israel on the night of October 6, 1946. His grandfather was among its first newborns.

October 25, 2023October 26, 2023, by Anat Or Magal

The Kite Runner from Kfar Aza

מצילומי הלילה של אביב קוץ — Night Photographs, Aviv Kutz

This article was initially published in Portfolio Magazine in Hebrew on October 17^th, 2023. It was translated into English by Sharon Yam Sananes and Ariane Goldberg Davidson and edited by Art Spiel. This publication in Art Spiel is in collaboration with Portfolio Magazine.

The Kutz family had always found hope and solidarity in their ability to create. It was their way of managing and flourishing as a family and as individuals. Aviv, Livnat, Rotem, Yonatan, and Iftach Kutz were murdered in their home. Aviv’s sister, Talya Kutz Shamir—artist and art therapist—talks about the family on her Instagram account, using their art as a jumping-off point for conversation.

May 17, 2023May 17, 2023, by Art Spiel

Frances Smokowski: Biomorphic Abstraction

Featured Artist

Welcoming Good Fortune 2012 graphite 24.8 x 28.6 x 0.8 in. Antique frame hand finished by artist

Frances Smokowski’s intricate drawings are currently receiving their NY debut at Cavin-Morris Gallery. EDGEWALKERS: Sacred and Profane presents a dynamic array of contemporary works. Randall Morris and Shari Cavin have gathered a diverse, international group of artists for this rather groundbreaking exhibition. Randall notes the select do not respond in any intentional way to mainstream movements or trends but for sidestepping, ignoring or living in honest unawareness of them. “These artists are not Outsiders,” he explains. “They are vitally connected to this world, whether spiritually, socially, or politically. We look for the place where labels become irrelevant and the work remains urgent, immediate and singular.”

March 12, 2023March 13, 2023, by Melissa Stern

Non-Profits Shine at The Outsider Art Fair

Creative Growth guy.jpg — From Creative Growth, Oakland, CA.

This past weekend marked the 30^th anniversary of the Outsider Art Fair, which debuted in NYC in 1993 at The Puck Building. Now housed at The Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea, it has come roaring back after a few quiet pandemic years.

Out of the sixty-four galleries exhibiting thirteen were representing non-profit organizations that work with developmentally challenged populations. For me these were the most exciting booths at the fair. The non-profits bring work that is consistently fresh and exciting. This year’s fair included organizations from Germany, Portland Oregon and Chicago that I had not seen in previous years. Several showed work among the most surprising and compelling at the Fair.

June 6, 2022December 30, 2022, by Art Spiel

ELM Foundation: Art and Healing

In conversation with founder Melinda Riddle McCoy

A person sitting in a chair

Description automatically generated — Melinda Riddle McCoy, inside Tomas Vu’s spherochromatic dome. Photo by Nathan West @nathanwestphoto

The mission of ELM Foundation is to promote the healing power of the arts. Our methods include advocating the benefits of arts therapy, providing multidisciplinary arts education, and building sustaining mentorships—all working together to cultivate a lifelong love of self-expression and awareness through a creative process. ELM Foundation was launched on February 20^th, 2019 in honor of Emma Lauren McCoy whose intense childhood experience inspired the creation of this nonprofit organization which offers children who have experienced parental loss or family structure adjustments, paths for healing through art and art therapy. In addition to its multidisciplinary art education and therapy, ELM hosts at the adjacent boiler space exhibitions, currently featuring Tomas Vu’s solo project, The Man Who Fell to Earth 76/22. Melinda McCoy, the founder of ELM sheds some light on the foundation and how art plays a pivotal role in it.

May 28, 2020November 2, 2022, by Catherine Kirkpatrick

Artists on Coping: Cibele Vieira

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

Cibele Vieira is a Brazilian-born artist whose work has been exhibited at Petzel Gallery, Gallery Geranmayeh, Valentine, Front Room Gallery, Christopher Henry Gallery, and Soho Photo in NYC; Ateliê 397 Gallery, the Bienal de Fotografia de São Paulo, and Casa de Cultura Mário Quintana, in Brazil. Her work is in the collections of the Ado Malagoli Museum and Rio Grande do Sul Contemporary Art Museum in Brazil, and the Kiyosato Museum in Japan, and has been published in The Village Voice, Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, Visura Magazine, L Magazine, Culture Front, Washington City Paper, O Globo, Correio Braziliense, Zero Hora and Private Magazine. She was awarded First Place, Vision Awards 2000, by the Santa Fe Center for Visual Arts, and is currently an artist in residence at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

May 19, 2020April 16, 2020, by Melissa Stern

Artists on Coping: ShinYeon Moon

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

Macintosh HD:Users:ShinYeon:Desktop:ShinYeon Moon - If I were a house - 110dpi.jpg — “If I were a House…” 8.5 x 11 inches. Digital. 2020

ShinYeon Moon (Shin) is a freelance illustrator based in New York. Moon received her B.F.A. in Fine Arts at the New York University and holds an M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts in Illustration as Visual Essay. She has been in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, Austria, and Japan. She taught Design Foundations at Queens College and has received accolades from different illustration publications including 3×3 Magazine, Creative Quarterly, and Latin American Illustration.