iconography – Art Spiel

November 7, 2022December 30, 2022, by Saul Ostrow

Emily Mae Smith: Heretic Lace at Petzel

Emily Mae Smith, Heretic Lace, 2019, Oil on linen, 48×37 inches

Walt Disney has taught us that cartoons can be used to distract us while conveying the most serious of subjects. Understanding this Emily Mae Smith in 2014, introduced into her developing iconography an anthropomorphized, androgynist broom consisting of a featureless phallic shaft attached to a twig brush. This broom, a descendant of the demonic mops portrayed in sorcerer’s apprentice section of Disney’s Fantasia (1940), has become a signature image in her work. Joined with icons associated with desire and fear, Smith has used this figure as both a male and female trope, as well as an alter-ego. To greater and lesser degrees Smith uses her glossary of icons in some cases to engage in heady meditations on such topics as death, vanity, desire, history, etc. and at other times to enigmatically introduce such subjects with little or no commentary.

January 17, 2022January 9, 2022, by Etty Yaniv

Brenda Zlamany – Shifting Historical Iconographies

In Dialogue with Brenda Zlamany

Portrait of Brenda Zlamany with *the Davenport Dining Room Scene*, 2018. Oil on panel. Left panel: 58 x 42 in. Right panel: 58 x 39 in. Photo courtesy of Robert Lowell.

In recent years we have been experiencing a major re-examination of iconographies and narratives portrayed in historical paintings and sculptures—portraits of male figures re-evaluated and removed, portraits of females and people of color, added. Working within the context of historical portrait painting, till surprisingly quite recently, has implied working within a mostly male dominated territory, for both artist and subjects. Additionally, depicting Historical figures requires the artist to develop their own research approach, which typically differs from the process of depicting living subjects. Painter Brenda Zlamany, who has been commissioned to paint several substantial group portraits of historical women, among them—Yale’s First Seven Women PhDs and Rockefeller University’s five women scientists—elaborates on these issues and describes her approach to historical portrait paintings.

June 10, 2021July 22, 2021, by Etty Yaniv

The Location of Serenity at D R O N E

In Dialogue with Gryphon Rue

A picture containing indoor, floor, building

Description automatically generated — *The Location of Serenity* (installation image, 2021). Photo: Jimi Billingsley

The inaugural group exhibition at D R O N E, a non-profit arts space in Tribeca, brings together four New York-based artists – Elsa Rensaa, Viktor Timofeev, Yasue Maetake and Eddie Natal – who explore recent memory from loss and death to spiritual regrowth. Gryphon Rue, a New York-based artist, composer, and curator, organized the exhibition and sheds some light on its premise. The show closes June 29th, or July 10th, 2021, depending on imminent leasing of the space.

January 12, 2021February 26, 2021, by Etty Yaniv

Samira Abbassy: Hybrid Iconography

A person sitting in a chair

Description automatically generated with medium confidence — *Studio Portrait, 2016 at EFA Studios*

Samira Abbassy’s paintings and drawings portray mysterious iconic figures, primarily female, who inhabit an ambiguous space. While her pictorial world resonates with archetypal imagery from eastern and western cultures, it equally pulsates with an urgent psychological core, creating an invigorating tension which prompts the viewer to search and discover rich layers for meaning.

April 16, 2020April 15, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: Mary DeVincentis

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

Painter Mary DeVincentis employs a deeply personal iconography to investigate the mysteries and dilemmas of existence. Her most recent body of work, Between the Light and Me, will make its debut at M. David and Co. Gallery in Brooklyn later this year. Her work was recently featured in ArtMaze Magazine, winter 2020 edition. She is represented by M. David and Co. in New York and by Gibbons and Nicholas in Dublin, Ireland.