Notice: Function WP_Object_Cache::add was called incorrectly. Cache key must not be an empty string. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.1.0.) in /www/artspiel_344/public/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131

Artists on Coping: John Descarfino

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

A picture containing room, white, kitchen, many

Description automatically generated

Current drawings in progress.

John Descarfino is a Brooklyn based artist whose painting and drawings are informed by places in ways both literal and metaphorical, while exploring the complexities of perception and image structure. He has exhibited at the McNay Art Museum; Galeria Espacio 48, Spain; Centotto, Brooklyn; Lucas Schoormans Gallery; Blum and Poe; The Berkshire Museum; and The Edward Hopper House among other venues, His paintings are included in several collections including the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark; JP Morgan Chase; and Capital Group Companies. Descarfino received grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and recently, from the Café Royal Cultural Foundation.

Continue reading “Artists on Coping: John Descarfino”

Artists on Coping: Diane Englander

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


Gatherings I (2019), 21 x 24 x 2 inches, mixed media

With color, composition, line, texture, Diane Englander is aiming for a place between discord and tranquility, a zone with a charged harmony that energizes as it also provides refuge. Her inspiration to work on a specific piece comes from curiosity about the materials. She’s always thinking (though not necessarily in a conscious way), What would happen if I did this? What would this other thing do? But always bending back to the goal of creating a place of calm energized by tension.

Continue reading “Artists on Coping: Diane Englander”

Artists on Coping: Farrell Brickhouse

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


Experimenting with my wife Beverly Peterson’s VR gear

As a mature artist Farrell Brickhouse states: “I have this large vocabulary to draw from, imagery that has woven its way thru my entire career is available and malleable even as new stories continue to emerge.” He has a long Exhibition history in New York and across the U.S. A. including One Person Shows @ Julian Pretto Gallery, Max Protetch Gallery, Pamela Auchincloss Gallery, Life on Mars Gallery, John Davis Gallery, Fred Giampietro Gallery and elsewhere. His work has been reviewed in the major publications. Farrell has taught at The School of Visual Arts since 1980 and recently retired.

Continue reading “Artists on Coping: Farrell Brickhouse”

Artists on Coping: Anki King

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

A person sitting posing for the camera

Description automatically generated
Anki King courtesy of Grace Roselli. Image was taken as a part of Pandoras Box Project

Anki King creates oil paintings and sculptures of life-sized figures that act as symbols for feelings that can’t be accurately described in words. The viewers meeting with the figure frees the narrative from being contained within subject matter and brings it into the viewing space.

Continue reading “Artists on Coping: Anki King”

Artists on Coping: Sylvia Schwartz

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


Queen and Dressing Up, ODETTA 2019

Sylvia Schwartz was born in Australia but has lived more than half her life in NYC. Her art work explores the relationship between drawing painting and sculpture, or the shifting relationship between the imagined and the real. A recurring theme in her work is the physical and psychological spaces we inhabit. Schwartz’s work has been seen in group exhibitions in Manhattan, New Jersey and Brooklyn, including ODETTA, Lesley Heller gallery, Nurture art, several university galleries, the Attleboro Museum, and the Visual Art Center of New Jersey.

Continue reading “Artists on Coping: Sylvia Schwartz”

Artists on Coping: Patricia Miranda

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

Patricia Miranda in her studio

Patricia Miranda is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and educator, and founder of MAPSpace and The Crit Lab. Her process-oriented objects and installations utilize found textile and books altered with handmade natural dyes and pigments as acts of ecofeminist lamentation and resistance. She has been awarded residencies at I-Park, Weir Farm, Julio Valdez Printmaking Studio, and Vermont Studio Center, and been Visiting Artist at Vermont Studio Center, the Heckscher Museum, and University of Utah. She received an artist grant from ArtsWestchester/New York State Council on the Arts and was part of a year-long NEA grant working with homeless youth.

Continue reading “Artists on Coping: Patricia Miranda”

Artists on Coping: Mary Mattingly

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


Swale, Concrete Plant Park 2018, Photo: Subhram Reddy

Mary Mattingly works with photography and sculpture. She is currently artist in residence at the Brooklyn Public Library. In 2016, she founded Swale, an edible landscape on a barge to circumvent New York City’s public land laws, and in 2018 dismantled a military vehicle and deconstructed its mineral supply chain with BRIC Arts.  Her work has been exhibited at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de la Habana, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Storm King, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Palais de Tokyo. It has been featured in Artforum, The New York Times, Le Monde, New Yorker, NPR, Art21, and included in books such as MIT Press Documents of Contemporary Art, and Henry Sayre’s A World of Art.

Continue reading “Artists on Coping: Mary Mattingly”

Artists on Coping: JoAnne McFarland

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

JMcF_Selfie_With_Swiss_Chard_3584.jpg

Selfie With Swiss Chard, 2020

JoAnne McFarland is an artist, poet, curator, and independent publisher. She is the Artistic Director of Artpoetica Project Space in Gowanus that exhibits work exploring the intersection of visual art and literature. She is the former Exhibitions Director of A.I.R. Gallery in DUMBO. She has exhibited her artwork nationally and internationally for over 30 years, and is the author of ten poetry books, chapbooks, and libretti. Her most recent curatorial project, co-curated with Sasha Chavchavadze, is SALLY, a multi-venue, muti-year exhibition that showcases lost histories of women artists and philosophers, and contemporary artists whose work exemplifies passionate inquiry.

Continue reading “Artists on Coping: JoAnne McFarland”

Denise Sfraga: Constructing and Disclosing

:cARtSpiel:Art Spiel opener.jpg
(left) Malignant 40” x 32” flashe, pastel on paper 2019, (middle) Gone (series of 9) 8” x 6” each colored pencil on paper 2018, (right) New Mourn 40” x 32” flashe, pastel on paper 2018

The NYC based artist Denise Sfraga intersects in her work photography, drawing, and painting. The evolving processes, history, and aesthetics of photography altogether inform Denise Sfraga‘s thought process and practice. This results in an abstracted biomorphic imagery resonating with botany and other organic life forms. At first glance her well defined colorful shapes appear as beautiful abstractions but as you spend more time with them, you may realize that their beauty is a camouflage for darker, mysterious and disorienting undercurrents. Denise Sfraga first elaborates for Art Spiel how her way of thinking came about and then takes us through different series of work to reflect on her process in depth.

Continue reading “Denise Sfraga: Constructing and Disclosing”

Yasue Maetake – Intersubjective Narratives

A picture containing indoor, wall

Description automatically generated
Urethane Flower on Steel Stem Clad with Foam (2013-2019), H91 x 110 x 67 inches (H233 x 284 x 177 cm), steel, polyurethane resin, epoxy clay, burnt and varnished Styrofoam, photo by Mark Waldhauser

The Japanese born Brooklyn based sculptor Yasue Maetake largely draws on laws of nature like gravity, as well as on her Japanese cultural heritage like Butoh dance/theater. The artist describes for Art Spiel her artistic impetus, layered ideas, and elaborate process.

Continue reading “Yasue Maetake – Intersubjective Narratives”