Contemporary Art and Culture
In Dialogue with Jennifer Macdonald
Jennifer Macdonald’s solo inaugural exhibition at Sala Projects features a group of unique cast bronze sculptures, made by using prototypes that are built from textured wax and wax-coated materials such as card stock, pasta, balsa wood.
Continue reading “Jennifer Macdonald: We Met in Kaarthijenkia at Sala Projects”
In the several years preceding the pandemic, Jen Dwyer completed her MFA in Ceramics at the University of Notre Dame, exhibited at Miami Context in 2019 as well as in back-to-back iterations of Spring/Break, and saw her work profiled by Forbes and Architectural Digest. Then, when the rapidly increasing toll of the coronavirus caused the collective art world to press pause on what promised to be yet another whirlwind year, she took the slower pace of life as an opportunity to embrace deeper introspection in her studio practice. This newfound creative intuition wove its way into the production of her most recent collection of sculptures and paintings, which the artist recently debuted at Wassaic Project in New York.
Continue reading “Rituals & Reflections with Ceramic Artist and Painter Jen Dwyer”In Dialogue with Liz Garvey on her Programming
Liz Garvey says that one of her favorite aspects of the Garvey/Simon Select program is seeing how artists reinvigorate traditional media with innovative techniques. Established in 2010, Garvey/Simon is both a private dealer and art advisory service co-founded by advisor/dealer/curator Elizabeth K. Garvey and contemporary collector, Catherine G. Simon. In this interview Liz Garvey sheds some light on her gallery model and her upcoming programs.
Continue reading “Elizabeth Garvey – on Garvey/Simon”
An Interview with Katya Grokhovsky, Founding Director of The Immigrant Artist Biennial By Anna Mikaela Ekstrand
Launching across New York City in March 2020, The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB): HERE, TOGETHER! will present multi-disciplinary exhibitions, panel discussions, and events highlighting the multiplicities of immigrant experiences and providing a platform for U.S.-based immigrant artists from around the world, across race and social class, to showcase their work.
Continue reading “Supporting Immigrant Artists”
Juan Puntes, who founded WhiteBox as the original Chelsea non-profit alternative art space in 1998, built a highly reputable venue known for its thought-provoking exhibition with cutting edge contemporary artists vis-à-vis little known avant-garde historical influential producers. While focusing on site-specific work, performance, and video projects, WhiteBox is also offering a wide array of programming including readings, lectures, and panel discussions. Juan Puntes is sharing with Art Spiel some of WhiteBox’s history, his vision, and his upcoming programs.
Continue reading “Juan Puntes – on WhiteBox Harlem”AS: What can you tell me about your painting process?
Anne Sherwood Pundyk: To begin, I am alone in my studio out in the country. I clear away the past. I am free. I don’t need to do anything. I have no expectations based on prior work. I wait. An urge eventually calls me toward my materials. My materials are humble drop cloth canvas and house paint. They will be transformed and elevated. I want to make something new. It will affirm a hopeful light. It will hold a dark truth. It will be more than the sum of its parts. It will take whatever size and shape it needs to take. I am there to shepherd its creation. I start by mixing a color that matches my mood. I pour a large quantity of paint onto canvas on the floor of my studio or outside on the lawn. I watch the movement and density of the paint. I pour more paint or water to compose in response to what I see. I work with large heavy pieces of canvas sometimes soaking wet with paint and water, bending, rolling, and pulling. I learn as I go. I extend my body to my materials. The canvas becomes my skin and the paint is a bodily life fluid. Action becomes image.
Continue reading “Anne Sherwood Pundyk With Art Spiel – Part 3”Melissa Stern‘s artworks depict abstracted narratives with complex emotional layers, projecting altogether an urgent psychological presence. The figures in her drawings and sculptures inhabit an absurd universe which is darkly funny in a deeply felt way. Her imagery is precise, poetic, and overall underscores a close affinity with language – bringing to mind an artist who is both an acute observer and a witty commentator. That said, it is Stern’s sensibility of raw and expressive forms that makes her not only an observant narrator but also an empathetic participant in her own human comedy. The artist shares with Art Spiel her modes of thinking, process of making, and some plans, including her solo show opening on Oct 11 at Garvey Simon Gallery.
Get Loose, the three person show Curated by Tracy McKenna at Rick Wester Fine Art, features work by Cat Balco, Ben Godward, and Jason Rohlf, who all show a knack for unexpected twists of material resulting in exuberant abstracted forms and unorthodox color across the board. The abstract paintings and sculptures in the show prompt loose interpretations of Geometric Abstraction, where the hand is rigorously present. Continue reading “Get Loose at Rick Wester Fine Art”
“OnEdge” at The Painting Center features ten contemporary painters who interpret the notion of ‘edge’ in their abstract paintings, conversing with mid-20th century abstraction sensibilities like Op Art and Washington Color, or early Mondrian. Patrick Burns, Anthony Falcetta, Astrid Fitzgerald, Lori Glavin, Celia Johnson, Julie Karabenick, Richard Keen, Scot Sinclair, Audrey Stone, and Jennifer Woolcock-Schwartz explore the tension between separation and union with color and line. In her curatorial note, Susan Post says that the shift between separation and union triggers the sensation of being ‘on edge’ – a prevalent state of mind at the moment. Continue reading “OnEdge at The Painting Center”
The exhibition “Cultivate Your Own Garden” curated by Patricia Spergel and Shazzi Thomas at the Painting Center features artworks by twelve contemporary artists whose work references garden and landscape in diverse sensibilities – traditional observational painting, narrative paintings with subtle political commentary, and paintings that lean more towards abstraction. Cecile Chong, Elisabeth Condon, Daniel Dallmann, Carlo D’Anselmi, Lois Dodd, Ashley Garrett, Xico Greenwald, Eric Holzman, Wolf Kahn, Judith Linhares, Carol March and Ruth Miller all share in their work a love for nature, paint, and rigor in transmitting that passion. Continue reading “Cultivate Your Own Garden at the Painting Center”