Artists on Coping: Liz Sweibel

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

Untitled, 2020, thread and vellum, 8×8 in

Liz Sweibel’s work is an exploration of liminal spaces, points of contact, and unseen forces:  wind, history, values, math, gravity, emotion, memory. Her drawings, sculpture, and installations are spare and abstract, using specific yet ordinary materials and gestures. She often salvages materials, sources, and forms from her older work and uses them to make sense and establish identity in the present. Her studio process is low-tech, immediate, and improvisational.

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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: Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong

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


Constellation, 2017-2018. Installed at Seward Park Library, Lower East Side, NY.

Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong is a New York-based artist and trained architect working at the boundary of art, architecture and social practice. Cheryl investigates the transformation of shared space over time through sculpture, installation, performance and site-specific architectural interventions. Cheryl received her B.A. in Art and Italian at the University of California at Berkeley, studied sculpture at Brera Academy and earned her Master of Architecture from Columbia University GSAPP. Cheryl’s work has been commissioned by NYC Parks and DC Percent for Art and she has exhibited at Triangle Arts Association, NYFA, Istanbul Design Biennial, Taliesin West, Venice Biennale, Berkeley Art Museum, Museo della Permanente.

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Artists on Coping: Wendy Letven

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


Wendy Letven, Flowtopia II, 2020. Site-specific installation, Urban Outfitters Headquarters ©Wendy Letven, courtesy Urban Outfitters

Wendy Letven interprets natural form and pattern through a reductive creative process in sculpture, installation and painting. She received a B.F.A. from Tyler School of Art, an M.F.A. from Hunter College and is a MacDowell Colony Fellow. She’s created installations for Urban Outfitter Headquarters (Philadelphia, 2020), Portal: Governors Island (New York, 2019), Art on Paper Fair (New York, 2019), Flatiron Prow Artspace (New York, 2018), and The Sheila R. Johnson Gallery at the New School (New York, 2018) among others. Wendy currently has a solo show at Fou Gallery in Brooklyn, entitled, Lines Falling Together in Time.

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Artists on Coping: Rosa Valado

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

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Rosa Valado, Corona Scroll in progress – home studio during COVID-19 PAUSE; 2020; mixed media and graphite on paper; 16”X120”; photo courtesy of Rosa Valado

Rosa Valado creates immersive installations, multilayered sensory experiences, utilizing diverse approaches, from the smell of burning wax and music to architectural elements and engineering problem solving. Throughout her body of work which includes architectural elements, drawings, paintings, and sculpture, she explores notions of space and time, and elements of light. Valado has created public art projects and been in solo and group exhibitions in Austria, Germany, and Holland, and exhibits regularly in New York City. She has received many grants and fellowships, including a Pollock-Krasner, Sharpe-Walentas, Yaddo, Jerome Foundation, and has been featured in the New York Times, Art Forum, Art in America. Juries and panels include Hamilton College and Jerome Foundation.

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Artists on Coping : Gregory Coates

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

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Physical distance can translate into uncontested time—studio shot “Center left, Center right” acrylic, feathers 48×360” 2018

Despite gaining recognition as an abstract expressionist for his bold sculptures, installations, and assemblages, Gregory Coates primarily defines himself as a painter. Coates exploratory studio practice and compositional experiments with found objects have established him as a prolific artist with a compelling and extensive catalog. He studied at Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. and has been exhibited at museums and galleries around the world including, the Smithsonian Institute of American Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, The Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, Galerie Denkraum in Vienna, Austria, and Kamigamo Shrine in Kyoto, Japan among others. Recent publications include an opening paragraph of “Abstract Truths” by Angela N. Carroll for Sugercane Magazine, Art Pulse, and White Hot Magazine. He is exhibiting with N’Namdi Contemporary, Miami.

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Artists on Coping: Kelin Perry

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


Holding up the Umbrella, 2019

Kelin Perry is an artist and architect in Atlanta, Georgia. She uses mostly found objects in her art, seeking to give voice and meaning to the unseen and discarded. Kelin’s work has been shown at Hathaway Contemporary and Lowe Gallery in Atlanta. She is represented by M. David & Co. in Brooklyn, where she has been part of several shows.

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Artists on Coping: Mary Waltham

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

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Refuge I of V

With degrees in biology and fine art, Mary Waltham’s work reflects the fragility of our environment as seen through the eyes of a scientist and artist. She was Managing Director and Publisher of The Lancet, and President and Publisher of Nature, before returning to her early passion for art. She works in a variety of media, including drawing, painting, video and installation works, incorporating natural materials collected locally, with the intention of merging the landscape with environmental issues to spark new conversations.

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Artists on Coping: William Norton

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


William Norton in his studio. Photograph by Rafael Fuchs

William Norton’s medium of choice is a mixture of drawing and carving, using a dremel and a router to carve lines by hand into large plexiglass sheets, letting light be what illuminates the artwork through casting shadows and reflections. Working from charcoal drawings and photographs all the work is autobiographical in nature, mostly an attempt to understand what it means to be a man, an issue that’s plagued him for decades stemming from the moment his 4 year old son was kidnapped and disappeared.

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Museum as Muse at the Flatiron Project Space

Museum as Muse, Installation, Image courtesy of Leigh Behnke

A favorite experience of mine is to visit the Metropolitan Museum without a show or work of art in mind to see. I enjoy wondering the galleries until I come across something I had not noticed before and then spend the time looking and analyzing the work. This experience is likened to one I have recently had at “Museum as Muse”, a show curated by Leigh Behnke, consisting of works by the artist herself, Joe Fig and Peter Hristoff. The show is not at a sprawling Chelsea gallery or at a small, but relevant Lower East Side venue. It is tucked away within the confines of an academic institution, School of Visual Art, located on 21st Street in the SVA Flatiron Gallery Project Space. As the title suggests, all three artists have used the museum in some capacity as a starting point for their work.

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