Artists on Coping: Alexandra (Alexi) Rutsch Brock

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

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Photo credit – Patricia Fabricant

Alexandra Rutsch Brock has exhibited in solo and group shows most recently at The Keck School at USC, CA, The Painting Center, NY, Village West Gallery, NJ and Misericordia University, PA. Her work has been featured in Studio Visit Magazine SV Vol44. Her recent co-curations include “HyperAccumulators” with Elizabeth Saperstein at Pelham Art Center, NY and “Among Friends” project with artists Patricia Fabricant and Beth Dary at the Clemente Center, NYC. She has been teaching art at New Rochelle High School since 1991, where she started the Visiting Artists Program with Scott Seaboldt, most recently hosting Susan Luss.

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Artists on Coping: JoAnne McFarland

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

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Selfie With Swiss Chard, 2020

JoAnne McFarland is an artist, poet, curator, and independent publisher. She is the Artistic Director of Artpoetica Project Space in Gowanus that exhibits work exploring the intersection of visual art and literature. She is the former Exhibitions Director of A.I.R. Gallery in DUMBO. She has exhibited her artwork nationally and internationally for over 30 years, and is the author of ten poetry books, chapbooks, and libretti. Her most recent curatorial project, co-curated with Sasha Chavchavadze, is SALLY, a multi-venue, muti-year exhibition that showcases lost histories of women artists and philosophers, and contemporary artists whose work exemplifies passionate inquiry.

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Artists on Coping: William Norton

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


William Norton in his studio. Photograph by Rafael Fuchs

William Norton’s medium of choice is a mixture of drawing and carving, using a dremel and a router to carve lines by hand into large plexiglass sheets, letting light be what illuminates the artwork through casting shadows and reflections. Working from charcoal drawings and photographs all the work is autobiographical in nature, mostly an attempt to understand what it means to be a man, an issue that’s plagued him for decades stemming from the moment his 4 year old son was kidnapped and disappeared.

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Artists on Coping: Jada Fabrizio

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

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“All things big and small”

As a Multimedia Artist, Jada Fabrizio’s practice incorporates aspects of various disciplines, taking the form of set building, sculpture, photography and, when available, installation. Jada is interested making images and that communicate complex feelings and psychological dilemmas. The use of sculptural creatures makes difficult ideas somewhat friendlier or more approachable. She endows the animal-based figures with personalities or traits that could be considered more “human” Because the stories she is telling all have something to do with humanity and the connections we all share.

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Artists on Coping: Kay Sirikul Pattachote

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


Kay Sirikul Pattachote in her studio. Photograph by Pratya Junkong

Kay Sirikul Pattachote‘s paintings utilize the abstracted forms of flowering plants as a vessel for channeling her daily meditations. These plant forms provide parameters for her interpretive brushwork and within them she is able to record her experienced energies and emotions. Ritualistic actions, such as sewing and repetition, further her meditative practice and deepen her ability to record the ephemeral on her surfaces.

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Artists On Coping: Katelyn Alain

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

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Abyss, 2020, in Alain’s studio

In her work, Katelyn Alain searches for new myths and archetypes that reflect the way we live now. She has been in solo and group shows throughout the United States, including Arcilesi Homberg Fine Art in New York, the Curtis Gallery in New Canaan, CT, the Skotia Gallery in Santa Fe, Thinkspace in Los Angeles, and the Dedee Shattuck Gallery in Westport, MA. Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, American Art Collector Magazine, Studio Visit Magazine, and Juxtapoz. She was recently a guest lecturer/visiting artist at Brooklyn College and is represented by Marloe Gallery in Brooklyn.

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Paul Mok – The Study of Mundane

Paul Mok in dialogue with Art Spiel on his show at GAIA in Dumbo


Paul Mok – The Study of Mundane – 2020 – image courtesy of the artist

Designer, architect, and visual artist Paul Mok shares with Art Spiel the origin, idea and process behind his installation based solo exhibition at GAIA in Dumbo.
Due to the Corona-virus, the gallery hours will very likely vary. For updates reach out to (917) 704-9600. 

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Denise Sfraga: Constructing and Disclosing

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(left) Malignant 40” x 32” flashe, pastel on paper 2019, (middle) Gone (series of 9) 8” x 6” each colored pencil on paper 2018, (right) New Mourn 40” x 32” flashe, pastel on paper 2018

The NYC based artist Denise Sfraga intersects in her work photography, drawing, and painting. The evolving processes, history, and aesthetics of photography altogether inform Denise Sfraga‘s thought process and practice. This results in an abstracted biomorphic imagery resonating with botany and other organic life forms. At first glance her well defined colorful shapes appear as beautiful abstractions but as you spend more time with them, you may realize that their beauty is a camouflage for darker, mysterious and disorienting undercurrents. Denise Sfraga first elaborates for Art Spiel how her way of thinking came about and then takes us through different series of work to reflect on her process in depth.

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A Romantic Comedy hosted by Wallplay

Steven Pestana in dialogue with Art Spiel

Installation View, A Romantic Comedy. L to R: Kevin Frances, Andrew Allison, Amanda Thackray

A Romantic Comedy, co-curated by Steven Pestana and Sophia Sobers , is a large-scale installation-based group exhibition which explores the mystery and ambiguity of romance in the 2020s through the actions and objects of everyday life. The opening takes place during Armory Weekend and the show runs throughout the end of March. Steven Pestana describes for Art Spiel the curators’ background, elaborates on the genesis of the show, then gives some background on its host, Wallplay, and its venue at 25 Kent street in Williamsburg.

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Museum as Muse at the Flatiron Project Space

Museum as Muse, Installation, Image courtesy of Leigh Behnke

A favorite experience of mine is to visit the Metropolitan Museum without a show or work of art in mind to see. I enjoy wondering the galleries until I come across something I had not noticed before and then spend the time looking and analyzing the work. This experience is likened to one I have recently had at “Museum as Muse”, a show curated by Leigh Behnke, consisting of works by the artist herself, Joe Fig and Peter Hristoff. The show is not at a sprawling Chelsea gallery or at a small, but relevant Lower East Side venue. It is tucked away within the confines of an academic institution, School of Visual Art, located on 21st Street in the SVA Flatiron Gallery Project Space. As the title suggests, all three artists have used the museum in some capacity as a starting point for their work.

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