Contemporary Art and Culture
Susan Hoffman Fishman is an artist who has addressed climate change for many years both in context of her own work as an artist and in her writing on other artists’ work in that arena. Hoffman was first interviewed with Burning Worlds about four years ago and has recently been interviewed there again on her latest series of paintings depicting coastline sink holes and other landscapes impacted by climate change,
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A droll and aptly named group exhibition opened at Pierogi in Williamsburg in early April. Entitled Out of Character, the exhibition has been curated from local artists all working in and around the figure and focused on a humorous take on the human condition.
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Rachael Wren: Site Lines at The Shirley Project Space, March 2023 – installation view. Photo courtesy of Kate Glicksberg.
The Shirley Project Space in Brooklyn is a sympathetic environment for Rachael Wren’s Site Lines, a solo exhibition of six paintings and an unexpected site-specific installation. With two large windows on street level, the gallery’s abundant natural light heightens the relationship between the paintings and the outside world. This bright and airy effect is amplified by the minimalist architecture and tall ceilings, leaving the artist’s painted trees room to grow, an illusion propelled by the restrained installation which leaves ample space around each work.
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Painter Elisabeth Condon’s reflections on a painting by Joseph Stella were initially presented in the second episode of Elisabeth Condon Describes a Painting, a new series artist Amy Talluto has recently launched in her podcast Pep Talks for Artists. In each episode in this series Elisabeth Condon shares her way of looking at one painting, here, at the oil painting (1919) Tree of My Life, by Italian – American artist Joseph Stella (1877-1946)
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Long Eclipse, Kahori Kamiya’s NY debut solo exhibition currently showing at Amos Eno Gallery, delves into the artist’s deeply personal experience of motherhood, breastfeeding, and the impact of the pandemic. Through paintings and sculptures, Kamiya explores the emotions and challenges of this unique time in her life, while also reflecting on themes of racial discrimination and grief. Her organic shapes run through semi-figurative drawings and painted sculptures, resonating with ancient Japanese spirituality and its relation to nature. The show runs through March 26, 2023.
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Gather round, me hearties, and let me tell you a tale: a tale about a much-dreaded comment received by many an artist on Instagram and during a studio visit. This comment can sound like a terrifying roar made by a fearsome beast. And it’s called—the “Leave-It-Like-That.
It’s the kind of comment we might receive on our works-in-progress (a struggling fawn just starting its wobbly walk). And we may have blithely thought to ourselves, “Hey, why don’t I post this WIP on the ‘Gram and give people a window into my process!” But…Beware ye who enter here. This generous sneak peek could attract a Leave-It-Like-That (or even its frightening brethren: the “Stop-Don’t-Touch-It” or the “Looks-Finished-To-Me”).
Continue reading “Whisperings from the Wormhole with @talluts”
The oil paintings featured in Shadow Weaving, Melanie Daniel’s second solo show at Mindy Solomon, depict magical landscapes of forests, ponds, and their inhabitants—a moth, a pair of coyotes, a beetle, an occasional mystical spirits. The paintings begin for her as meditations and transform into fleeting environments—both hallucinatory and recognizable. The show runs through March 18th. 2023.
Continue reading “Melanie Daniel at Mindy Solomon SHADOW WEAVING”Featured Project with Emma Golden
The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation Residency Program began as a dream of Sam Golden. Sam was a paint maker for most of his life at Bocour Artist Colors in New York City and in retirement, moved to upstate New York with his wife Adele. Sam was an incredibly restless retiree. Emma Golden, Sam’s granddaughter says that with the push of Adele, he called up his son, Mark Golden, and asked him to come help him make paint. That is how Golden Artist Colors started in 1980—in an old cow barn in rural New Berlin, New York. This fall I had the wonderful opportunity to be a resident at the Golden Foundation and after this deep experience I wanted to share with Art Spiel readers some insight into this unique residency by interviewing Emma Golden, who currently runs it. When he realized retirement wasn’t for him, he began making paint in a barn, delivering it to his artist-buddies’ studios in New York City.
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Scaling Nature at the Bronx River Art Center features large-scale mixed-media installation works by three artists: Michele Brody, Linda Cunningham and Wildriana Paulino. Curated by Gail Nathan, the premise of this show is to represent nature as a force of nurture and destruction through the use of materials from the ephemeral to the concrete. Paulino and Brody both work with cast handmade paper that hangs from the gallery ceiling to command the space. Their massive artworks invite the viewer to be engulfed by a feeling of being one with nature and simultaneously wary of the effects of climate change.
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Marc Straus Gallery is currently presenting the paintings of Ulf Puder, a German artist whose landscape paintings are deeply evocative and strangely alluring. I was not familiar with the artist or his work, and I’ll admit, it took a beat to enter his Universe. But once in I began to see deeper into the complex issues he deals with in his paintings.
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