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.

Continue reading “Yvette Molina: Big Bang Votive at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey”

Artists on Coping: Jeanne Brasile

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

A person looking at the camera

Description automatically generated

Jeanne Brasile is an artist, curator, art educator and writer and is also the Director of Seton Hall University’s Walsh Gallery.

Jeanne Brasile is interested in repurposed paper as a medium, especially when its original function is outmoded, and structured to communicate information that is currently transmitted in a digital format. Most recently she has been working with library card catalogues, Braille newspaper pages, vintage dictionaries and newsprint to make wall sculptures on canvas or board. She shreds, cuts, folds, weaves, sews and curls paper – reassembling the pieces to alter the data it once conveyed. Her work has been shown most recently at the Montclair Art Museum, The Pascal Gallery at Ramapo College of New Jersey and the Mattatuck Art Museum.

Continue reading “Artists on Coping: Jeanne Brasile”

Sandra Chamberlin, on Breathing Underwater

Sandra Chamberlin, Procession, charred cedar, 2019, variable size. as shown 20’ x 10 x 26” d

“The stream of sap in the trees varies according to the phases of the moon.”

-Theodor Schwenk, Sensitive Chaos

Sandra Chamberlin’s sculptural installations invites the viewer to enter a three-dimensional drawing of alternate life-forms. Lines made of wood float off the walls, hover in the air, or balance on the ground, altogether creating a sense of abstracted life-forms. These linear sculptures are deeply rooted in the artist’s intriguing relationship to materials and processes which overall tie into her intricate perception of nature. Since the early eighties, Chamberlin has been making out of wood abstracted shapes through meticulous manual and mechanical processes she has perfected over these years.

Continue reading “Sandra Chamberlin, on Breathing Underwater”

Visual Arts Center of New Jersey – Global Angst

“Containment”, partial Installation view at Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, (right wall: Erin Diebboll,  center front: Linda Ganjian,  left: david Packer), photo by Etienne Frossard

The  group of international artists throughout the two exhibitions at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey – “Containment” and “Oh what a world! What a world!” are altogether reflecting on social, political, and cultural changes in recent history.  “Oh what a world! What a world!”,  located in the Main Gallery, addresses a wide array of issues related to immigration, gender equality, civil rights, policing, protest, and the state of our Democracy. “Containment”, at the Eisenberg and Strolling Gallery, addresses specifically  hot trade issues –  how the use of shipping containers affects our ability to trade and ship goods globally, coming to the forefront with Trump’s attempts to remove the country from existing trade deals. Both shows were curated by  Mary Birmingham. The following preview on the two shows is largely based on text provided by the NJ Visual Arts Center.

Continue reading “Visual Arts Center of New Jersey – Global Angst”