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KODA – A Focus on Artists

In Dialogue with Klaudia Ofwona Draber

A person standing in a forest

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Klaudia Ofwona Draber at The Strange Foundation (https://thestrange.foundation). Photo by Willa Köerner

The idea for KODA has already germinated in Klaudia Ofwona Draber’s mind during her graduate degree at Sotheby’s Institute of Art New York. While researching extensively for her business plan, it has occurred to her that mid-career artists are not getting enough support and something needs to be done about it. She founded KODA in 2019 guided by her initial observation regarding the needs of mid-career artists. KODA focuses on artists who explore social related topics through rigorous research, providing them with exposure and enhancing their opportunities for scholarship through residencies, survey exhibitions, and community-based activities. Klaudia Ofwona Draber, KODA Founder and Board President, shares with Art Spiel the vision behind the organization and sheds some light on some of the affiliated artists.

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This Two: Sun You at Geary

In Dialogue with Sun You


No Title (detail), 2020

This Two, Sun You’s first solo show with Geary, takes place concurrently at Geary’s two locations: Bowery in the Lower East Side and Main street in Millerton, New York. Geary features You’s clay- based work which includes oven-baked polymer clay forms mounted on painted wood panels, sculpted clay forms in cardboard boxes, and a separate body of sculptures made of mixed media — metal wire, razor blades, beads, and artificial flowers “held by magnets and gravity”, as described by Michael McCanne in the press release. The show runs through March 5th, 2021.

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Mary Ann Lomonaco: With Every Fiber at Pelham Art Center


The artist and Mop with Delicas

Mary Ann Lomonaco began her artistic life as a papermaker after majoring in
Fiber art at Parsons School of Design . Ultimately this led to exploring the kitchen mop as a cellulose fiber she could use when making pulp. One day she started noticing the mophead itself as a potential sculptural element on its own. This insight subsequently led her to explore other recycled materials. Mary Ann Lomonaco recently completed commissions for Delta Airlines for their Executive Lounges in San Francisco, London, JFK, Seattle and Atlanta as well as a large piece for their Atlanta Headquarters. Her installation at the Westchester County Airport is comprised of 55 multiple pieces. Her work is also in the collections of the Neuberger Museum, Neutrogena, AT&T, PepsiCo and the World Bank Library among others.

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The Process of Weaving the Intentionally Fragmented at Transmitter


Installation of Patchwork at Transmitter, image courtesy of the gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2021)

The Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire speaks on the essential character of dialogue for revolution. Seen as the thread that connects communities to revolutionary ideas and actions, dialogue is a continual process. A continuum revolves visually and semiotically within the walls of Transmitter gallery these days with the new exhibition Patchwork. Time is of central significance as the theme of fragmentation provides illuminative access through each of the three artists in the show, highlighting complex pasts that beget the enormous project of both appreciation and reconciliation via understanding the significance of each layered memory.

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Krista Svalbonas: Recent Works at Klompching

In Dialogue with Krista Svalbonas


Krista Svalbonas

Krista Svalbonas has been capturing images since her first darkroom photography course in high school. The camera in some form — as an integral part of the work or as a reference — keeps playing a central role in her artwork, which takes shape in diverse forms such as painting, ceramics, and sculpture. Her first solo exhibition at Klompching Gallery in Dumbo, Brooklyn, features work spanning a six-year period.

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Debbie Hesse: Spatial Paintings


Debbie Hesse, Laboratory for Healing, 2018, Immersive installation at Yale West Campus, Photo Courtesy of Graham Hebel, Artspace

Debbie Hesse, the CT based artist, makes plexiglass sculptural constructions and video installations. Her sculptural installations, or “spatial paintings” are typically made of multiple planar Plexiglas and wood cutout shapes layered to create complex shapes which bring her ideas to life through light and color.

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Christopher Ulivo: The Present is Nonsense

installation shot

Christopher Ulivo, installation shot

Christopher Ulivo, the LA based painter, takes us in his vivid paintings to imaginary places, from time travel to ancestral family spirits to rewritten myths and histories. His worlds are filled with idiosyncratic, wildly imaginative narratives, where you can sense the painter’s presence as a prolific storyteller.

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Yvette Molina: Big Bang Votive at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey

In Dialogue with Yvette Molina


Yvette Molina in residence at the VACNJ before shutdown. Photo credit: Ettienne Frossard.

Big Bang Votive, Yvette Molina’s collaborative storytelling art installation has evolved over fifteen weeks, utilizing the Mitzi and Warren Eisenberg Gallery at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey through January 18th, 2021. Yvette Molina creates an immersive audio-visual experience — accompanied by a 30-minute surround sound composition played on a loop, her installation includes three hundred paintings of starry skies, some with votive symbols of delight or love taken from stories gathered from the public, a work-table with the artist’s materials, and an on-going “story catcher” project involving public participation.

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Margaret Roleke: Getting a Dialogue Started


Margaret Roleke, Margaret Roleke: Made Visible, 2020, window installation of cyanotype banners and mylar, Creative Arts Workshop, New Haven, CT., photo courtesy of Rashmi Talpade

When Margaret Roleke finished her MFA, she was a sculptor and installation artist. From early on she created installations dealing with issues of water, sound and light and after becoming a mother to four children, notions of motherhood and domesticity became central in her work. As her children grew, current political events became increasingly part of her visual expression. For instance, around 2002 she started including toy soldiers in her sculptures, referencing the Iraq war, and also around this time for a public art project in Brewster, NY, she made seating for the day-laborers who were regularly gathering on that site. She continued to make work that spoke to issues that were important to her, mainly gun control, domestic abuse, and immigrant rights. She says she had no intention to be an activist artist, but became one in the course of making art and exploring her true voice — “The Trump presidency led me to march on the streets and register voters, but I feel I can be a better activist when I create work which starts a dialogue on these important subjects, as this seems to be what comes naturally to me,” she says.

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More Time Less at Cathouse Proper

In Dialogue with David Dixon


MORE TIME LESS, Cathouse Proper: Zac Hacmon, ‘Capsule #5’ (2020); Nari Ward, ‘Anchoring Escapement (Baule)’ (2017); Elana Herzog ‘Cross Pollination #1’ (2020); photo: Dario Lasagni

For Cathouse Proper’s second ensemble exhibition, More Time Less, curator and gallery director David Dixon brought together five artists — Zac Hacmon, Elana Herzog, Aga Ousseinov, Tim Simonds, and Nari Ward — whose installations, wall-based work, and sculptures reflect our changing perception of ‘normative time.’ David Dixon describes his curatorial process, gives us a closer tour of this ensemble exhibition, and shares some background on his diverse art practices.

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