Artists on Coping: Dasha Bazanova

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


What To Where When, September 2019, burnt wood installation in progress,
@Gridspace gallery

Dasha Bazanova was born in Arkhangelsk, Russia right before the collapse of the Soviet Union. As a child she spent most of her time at her grandparents’ farm in a small village called Kulikovo. In 2004 she moved to Moscow where she got her Master’s Degree in 2011 at the Moscow State University of International Relations. In 2012 she moved to New York. She earned an MFA at Long Island University in 2014, and in the intervening years she has shown extensively all across the United States.Her artwork is inspired by her childhood memories and Russian folklore, but with an ironic 21st Century twist. She lives and works in Bushwick, NY. Her work is currently featured in The Making of… at Art Port Kingston, which has just reopened again for visits during weekends.

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Jeannine Bardo – Penchant for Storytelling


Detail: Lifelines, 2019, house paint, silver ink 8’7” x 12’9”. Photo courtesy of John Ros

In her drawings and installations Jeannine Bardo explores a wide array of narratives and information she encounters daily, ranging from stories in the news to patterns in nature. Jeannine Bardo describes for Art Spiel what brought her to art making, her process and projects, her role as co-director of BioBAT Art Space, as well as her role as the founder of Stand4 Gallery and Community Arts Center in Bay Ridge. Since our interview process took place a while before the on going pandemic and the current seismic events in our society, the artist was given the opportunity to share her reflections on these recent events as a prelude to discussing her work.

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Artists on Coping: Niki Lederer

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


Goldenrod, 2019, Found re-purposed plastic bottles, machine screws, hex nuts, wire, rebar armature, concrete base. Artist with sculpture currently on view at Wolfs Lane Park as part of Pelham Art Center’s Public Art Program.

Niki Lederer is a sculptor working with found materials including discarded umbrellas and post-consumer plastic. Born in London, Ontario and raised in Vancouver, she received her BFA from the University of Victoria and her MFA from Hunter College in New York City. Group exhibitions include Portal: Governors Island, 50 Years of Public Art in NYC Parks, Central Park and the Outdoor Sculpture Biennial Adelphi University, Garden City, NY. Solo exhibitions include Washington Square Windows, NYU and Preset Tense, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Niki recently collaborated with XAOC Contemporary Ballet for Norte Maar’s CounterPointe8. Currently her re-purposed plastic bottle sculpture is featured at the Pelham Art Center and Wolfs Lane Park and her discarded-umbrella based work will be included in the Wassaic Project 2020 Summer Exhibition. Niki lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

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Artists on Coping: Jaanika Peerna

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

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Jaanika Peerna at her pandemic era studio

Jaanika Peerna is an Estonian-born artist and educator living and working in New York since 1998. Her work encompasses drawing, installation, and performance, often dealing with the theme of transitions in light, air, water and other natural phenomena. For her performances she is often involves the audience in participatory reflection on the current climate meltdown. Her art practice stems from the corporeal experience of our existence and reaches towards enhanced awareness of the fragility, interconnectedness and wonder of all life. 

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Anne Peabody: Sunspike

In dialogue with Anne Peabody

A close up of a tree

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Anne Peabody, Love Letter, 2020, Antique silver leaf, gold sparkle, and japan paint on glass, 24” x 18” Photo courtesy Blake McGrew – Moremen Gallery

A few weeks before the Corona pandemic assumed an overpowering presence in our daily lives throughout the whole country, Art Spiel has scheduled an interview with Anne Peabody on her upcoming solo exhibition at Moremen Gallery in Louiseville Kentucky, where she was born and raised. In that interview the artist discussed her unique technique and the thought process behind her landscapes that are filled with a subtle spirit of longing, memory and loss. Anne Peabody’s images are fine tuned to our Zeitgeist, the ghost of our time. She will participate in the Virtual Dumbo Open Studios 2020, that was scheduled for this weekend, June 4-7 and postponed in solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives matter (TBD).

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Artists on Coping: Nancy Cohen

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

Nancy Cohen in her studio, photo courtesy of the artist

Nancy Cohen’s work examines resiliency in relation to the environment and the human body. Recent exhibitions include Force: Observations from the Interior, a solo show at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in NYC, and group exhibitions at Accola Griefen and BioBat Art Space in Brooklyn, Dorsky Gallery in Long Island City, Heller Gallery in Manhattan and The Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ. Her current work has been featured in the blogs Artists and Climate Change, Art Spiel, Less than Half and Delicious Line, in the anthology the Body in Language edited by Edwin Torres and in ArtTable’s Artist Perspective Podcast.

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Artists on Coping: Deborah Wasserman

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

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Deborah Wasserman in her studio, The Pool, CalArts 2018, photograph by Rafael Hernan

Inspired by her rich South American and Middle-Eastern background, Deborah Wasserman makes personal and visceral art stirred by Ecofeminist themes. A graduate of the California Institute of the Arts and the Whitney Independent Study Program, she has exhibited nationally and internationally, and is a grant recipient of the Experimental Television Center, Aljira Center for the Arts, the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, and is a Skowhegan fellow. She received an IAP Social Practice fellowship from NYFA in 2017, a grant from the Puffin Foundation in 2018, a grant from Citizens committee for New York in 2019, a Queens Council On The Arts New Work grant in 2020, and a Su-Casa award from the New York State Department Of Cultural Affairs every year since 2015.

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Artists on Coping: Katrina Bello

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


In the studio, with large drawing titled Terra Magnoliaceae, April 2020

Born in the Philippines, Katrina Bello is an artist who lives and works in New Jersey. Her work is devoted to drawing, and her subjects are migration, ecology and our complex relationship with the natural world. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and the Philippines, and has been awarded residencies in the United States. She recently received a studio fellowship from the Sustainable Arts Foundation though Gallery Aferro in Newark, New Jersey. Katrina is the founder of North Willow, an informal artist-run attic exhibition space in northern New Jersey.

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Artists on Coping: Melanie Vote

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


Melanie Vote, In Studio, photo credit: Jessica Glick

Though Melanie Vote has lived in NYC for over 20 years, she grew up on a functional farm in Iowa. Her work straddles these two worlds, investigating the complexities of the human-land relationship, the cyclical nature of all life, and the impossibility of permanence. In temperate months she works remotely, painting outside. She is a visual scavenger collecting passages, then returns to the studio to reconstruct layers of a place, weaving them together into open-ended narratives. Her most recent body of work, The Washhouse, Nothing Ever Happened Here, at Equity gallery is on view virtually, via Artsy.

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Artists on Coping: Jane Swavely

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping. This interview includes questions by both Art Spiel and Cultbytes as part of an Art Spiel x Cultbytes content collaboration.

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Jane Swavely. Photographed by Peter Leece. All images courtesy of the artist if not otherwise stated.

Jane Swavely is a painter based in New York City. She studied at Boston University and the School of Visual Arts and was the recipient of a Ford Foundation Fellowship. Previously represented by CDS Gallery, she is currently a member of A.I.R gallery.

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