Contemporary Art and Culture
Carol Salmanson began as a painter and then gradually started embracing the use of LED lights in her work. In “Two Sides to a Coin,” Salmanson’s recent solo show at SL Gallery, she shows her paintings and light work side by side. This results in a dynamic conversation between the two forms. Salmanson shared with Art Spiel the genesis of her work, thought process, and projects. Continue reading “Carol Salmanson: Two Sides to a Coin”
Get Loose, the three person show Curated by Tracy McKenna at Rick Wester Fine Art, features work by Cat Balco, Ben Godward, and Jason Rohlf, who all show a knack for unexpected twists of material resulting in exuberant abstracted forms and unorthodox color across the board. The abstract paintings and sculptures in the show prompt loose interpretations of Geometric Abstraction, where the hand is rigorously present. Continue reading “Get Loose at Rick Wester Fine Art”
Continue reading “Visual Arts Center of New Jersey – Global Angst”
Katerina Lanfranco explores through painterly means the intellectual and physical freedom of making art at different scales and in various mediums. In her multi-faceted installations, paintings and sculptures she re-imagines scientific possibilities of human interference, interaction, and creativity in nature. Lanfranco, who is also a curator, educator, and writer, shares some thoughts on her journey, ideas, and curatorial practice with Art Spiel. Continue reading “Katerina Lanfranco- Resisting Binary Oppositions”
Helen O’Leary‘s sculptural paintings are delicate and rough, subtle and raw, literal and metaphoric – they embrace and prick the viewer at the same time. Her current exhibition “Home is a foreign country“ at Leslie Heller indicates not only clear incisiveness and impressive mastery of form, but also a deep generosity- sharing with the viewer her rigorous process of grappling with material: visible jointing, disjointing, bending, folding, knitting. She says that somewhere through the struggle some magic happens. And magic does happen in her artwork. Continue reading ” Helen O’ Leary: No Place for Certainty”
What happens when artists who come from different worlds encounter one another through art? How does access to information and materials in the U.S. and the constraint and lack in Cuba affect making art? What does a dialogue look like without words? The exhibition “Hecho en Tránsito / Made in Transit” that is currently presented at the LIU Salena gallery, is posing these questions with rigor. The artwork in this show is resulting of a long term project which was designed to foster intercultural dialogue between U.S. and Cuban artists, primarily through the exchange and collaborative creation of artwork. The visual dialogue between the artists is sustained in thought provoking ways across time, place, cultural differences, and political transitions. Continue reading “Hecho en Tránsito / Made in Transit at Salena”
“OnEdge” at The Painting Center features ten contemporary painters who interpret the notion of ‘edge’ in their abstract paintings, conversing with mid-20th century abstraction sensibilities like Op Art and Washington Color, or early Mondrian. Patrick Burns, Anthony Falcetta, Astrid Fitzgerald, Lori Glavin, Celia Johnson, Julie Karabenick, Richard Keen, Scot Sinclair, Audrey Stone, and Jennifer Woolcock-Schwartz explore the tension between separation and union with color and line. In her curatorial note, Susan Post says that the shift between separation and union triggers the sensation of being ‘on edge’ – a prevalent state of mind at the moment. Continue reading “OnEdge at The Painting Center”
I have been following Farrell Brickhouse’s work since 2014, when he showed his work at Life on Mars in Bushwick. You do not just “view” Brickhouse’s paintings, you experience them on a deeply intimate level. He unabashadly talks about painting in relation to “soul” and “subconscience”. As a painter who can show an outstanding body of work which convincingly resurects these modernist notions from oblivion, he also freshens these notions for the next generation of artists. Farrell Brickhouse graciously conducted with me the following interview. Continue reading “Farrell Brickhouse: Counter – Punching with Paint”
Wave Hill* is a twenty eight acre public garden and cultural center overlooking the spectacular Hudson River and Palisades. Wave Hill aims to celebrate the artistry and legacy of its gardens, to preserve its magnificent views, and to explore human connections to the natural world through programs in horticulture, education and the arts. For the ninth consecutive year, Wave Hill opens Glyndor Gallery as workspace for selected New York-area artists, giving them the unique opportunity to explore the winter landscape and develop innovative work based on direct observation from nature. Continue reading “Meet the artists at Wave Hill’s Open Studios”
“Surface Tension”, Peter Fox’s third solo exhibition with Front Room gallery features a series of new paintings in which he manifests a controlled self-reflexive state – the layered painting application itself defines form and gesture. In this new series Fox has reduced his palette to earth tones, creating a rich counterpoint – burnt siennas, dark browns and yellow ochres play off cool blues in Payne’s grey. Continue reading “Peter Fox – Surface Tension at the Front Room Gallery”