gentrification – Art Spiel

August 14, 2023August 7, 2023, by Art Spiel

Jonathan Torres: Painting Anxiety and Beauty

In Dialogue

Sube y Baja 2021 Mixed media 47” x 39.25”

Jonathan Torres is a Puerto Rican artist born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is based in Brooklyn, NY since 2010 and was recently a resident at the Sharpe Walentas Studio Program in DUMBO. In his paintings and sculptures a sense of otherworldliness and living in the diaspora recur. For over 15 years, Torres’ practice has grown from exploring different emotional and mental stages that have affected the way people interact with each other throughout various stages of life—crisis and anxiety with a bent of dark humor that have been crucial to the development of Torres’ imagery.

November 23, 2020November 23, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Michele Brody – Embodying Daily Flux

*Michele Brody, working in home studio in The Bronx on handmade paper body sculpture for Annual Earth Celebrations Eco Pageant, paper made from recycled linen table cloths and caning, 2020.*
*Photo by Olivier Marcaud*

A fourth generation NY builder, artist Michele Brody loves working with materials. She recalls how her father groomed her early on to become an architect so that she could continue the family tradition of builders and land developers. Although she excelled in the study of Architecture, she was not attracted to pursue it as career. ” I prefer building with my own hands,” she says. So in 1994, instead of getting a degree in Architecture, she graduated with an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from the Fiber and Material Studies Department.

June 8, 2020July 10, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

David Rios Ferreira – Catalytic Lines

(detail) *Don’t you see I got everythin’ you need*, 2019. Photo: Jason Wyche

David Rios Ferreira‘s energetic drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations flirt with cacophony yet manage to stay on the verge, creating an idiosyncratic sense of order out of chaotic turmoils. Through turbulent lines and vibrant colors, his imagery projects a rigorous visual universe where Geo-political and mythical narratives fuse organically. David Rios Ferreira shares with Art Spiel the main ideas behind his work, elaborates on some specific projects, and sheds some light on his prolific curatorial practice. Although our interview process started a few months before the Corona pandemic and the recent global protests related to the Black Lives Matter movement, David Rios Ferreira added his response to the current events, implemented at the beginning of this interview.

February 17, 2020November 15, 2020, by Markella K

Michael Alan is New York’s Past, Present and Future

Michael Alan In conversation with Markella K

(*The American Legend*, Image courtesy of Michael Alan)

It’s time to question the nature of a city when everything you loved or heard about it has changed so much. NYC now has changed into a huge playground with high end food prices, fancy cell phones and luxury condos. I came here full of dreams just like everyone else, hoping to fit in and to see what Warhol left behind.

September 4, 2018May 30, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Alienation and Elation at Art During the Occupation

FIRST LOOK at Sharilyn Neidhardt’s solo exhibition

Opening later this week

Sharilyn Neidhardt , If I Can’t Find You There, I Don’t Care, 2017
oil on unframed canvas, approx 54 x 70 in, photo courtesy of the artist

Sharilyn Neidhardt’s vivid paintings in SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE, at Art During the Occupation Gallery resonate with the zeitgeist of late-stage capitalism, when human connections are strained by a barrage of information and convenience. The fractured urban landscapes she portrays bring to mind reflective surfaces and fragmentation, altogether projecting a simultaneous sense of alienation and elation that are associated with any big city life. Continue reading “Alienation and Elation at Art During the Occupation”