Carnegie Mellon University

May 4, 2022May 4, 2022, by Etty Yaniv

Natalie Westbrook: Faces at Zynka

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Natalie Westbrook’s exhibition at ZYNKA Gallery in Pittsburgh features new paintings on canvas and drawings on paper. Westbrook depicts faces as thick lines immersed in saturated hot pinks, greens or monochrome gradations—altogether fluctuating between the monstrous and the angelic, the scary and the pathetic. Sometimes they are solitary and sometimes they indicate twins or perhaps a fragmented self. In her catalogue essay on Natalie Westbrook’s work, Larissa Pham observes that Faces “come for you, leering, grinning, mouths a garish lipsticked rictus of joy, embedded flat against the canvas, their features seeming to emerge from the psychological fabric of the painting itself.”

June 21, 2020June 21, 2020, by Melissa Stern

Artists on Coping: Merritt Johnson

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

Merritt Johnson was born in West Baltimore and spent her childhood navigating between trees, tarps and concrete. She earned her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art. Her work navigates the spaces between bodies and the body politic, land and cultures by making images and objects that connect, reflect and refract vision and experience. The multiplicity of materials and processes Johnson employs embody her multiplicity, exploring layering, allegiance and agency in the face of continued threats to land, water and bodies. Johnson’s works are containers for story, feeling and thought: images of what cannot be seen, exercises for existence, and political bodies. She lives and works with her family on Tlingit land in Sitka Alaska.

April 5, 2020April 5, 2020, by Melissa Stern

Artists on Coping: Vito Desalvo

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

:untitled folder:Simple PsychoMS.jpg — Simple Pyscho- Vito Desalvo

Can we ever really know another person? I ask myself that frequently when thinking of the great Vito Desalvo. Though I have known Vito for nearly 60 years, he is still an enigma to me. A huge fan of his work, I tentatively approached Desalvo about this interview. He demanded a carton of cigarettes in return for sharing his thoughts. I then turned to his friend and colleague Stan Klein who graciously agreed to approach the inscrutable Desalvo on my behalf. The following is the result.