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Artists on Coping: Rodney Dickson

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

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Born in 1956 in Northern Ireland, Rodney Dickson grew up during the troubled years of civil disorder that engulfed that country. Having drawn and painted since childhood, he reacted to his early experience by considering the futility and hypocrisy of war through art. As time went by, he developed an interest in Vietnam and Cambodia where he researched and completed a number of art projects since 1992. There he witnessed the aftermath of conflict in its indiscriminately brutal form and it is from that point that his work proceeds.

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Nota Bene with @postuccio [vi]

M. David & Co. ,Cosmic Veggies, El Sótano, C&M Creative

M. David & Co.

So certainly sonorous that it’s surely a song is the duet of solo shows by Len Bellinger and Denise Sfraga that didn’t just open, but robustly, vividly, gregariously and, in part, also florally burst into being at M. David & Co. a couple of weeks ago. The energy and dynamism of the works in both exhibits is readily infectious, such that the reception itself assumed the same airs. That might’ve even been what catalyzed some of the springtime climes we’ve felt of late. And if so, great. Let’s see more, please.

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Re-Orientation at La Esquina Gallery

Carrying Herself as a Corpse (red), Samira Abbassy (2014) (oil on gesso panel), dyptych #2, image courtesy of the artist

The group show “Re-Orientations” at La Esquina in NYC features Samira Abbassy, Camille Eskell, Dhanashree Gdiyar, and Sheida Soleimani, 4 US based female artists who bring through figurative representation feminist perspectives rooted in the Near East and South Asia. The co-curators Natasha Stefanovic and Audra Lambert present these distinct feminist voices in context of “Orientalism,” the 1978 seminal and polemic book by renowned scholar Edward W. Said, a must read in Post-Colonial Culture Studies. Ranging formally from painting to embroidery, and thematically from identity to immigration, the images overall depict tragic and at times nostalgic moments rooted in the artists’ cultural background. Underscored with post-colonial sensibility, these intimate narratives humanize and defy the stereotype of what is “oriental.”

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Rutland: Real and Imagined

Ric Kasini Kadour, The Modern Is The Way, photo courtesy of the artist

Photography is inherently effective at telling a story of place. Not only of documenting its history, but also possibly of predicting its future – projecting how a place is or is in the process of becoming. For the group show, “Rutland: Real and Imagined,” which opens in January 31, 2019 at The Alley Gallery in Rutland, Vermont, artist and curator Stephen Schaub brings together eight internationally recognized artists who interpret through their use of photography what constructs a sense of place. Altogether, the resulting photographic imagery in this exhibition creates an engaging story about Rutland – not as a single place but rather many places that come together in the minds and lives of the people who live there.

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Cultivate Your Own Garden at the Painting Center

Ashley Garrett, No Exit
Ashley Garrett, photo courtesy of the artist

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”

Return to Light at The Green Door

Rico Gatson, Natalie Moore, Paul D’Agostino
Rico Gatson, Natalie Moore, Paul D’Agostino

All Photos courtesy Susan Sechler Luss

The Green Door gallery was created at the Divine Mercy Cultural Center to foster a sense of community in the Williamsburg neighborhood. The venue was initiated  by Father Thomas Vassalotti, who, along with Father Paul Anel of Heart’s Home, reached out to the artist and curator Elisa Jensen with the wish to connect to the many artists in the neighborhood.

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