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Artists on Coping: Meryl Meisler

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

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Meryl Meisler studied photography at the University of Wisconsin, and with Lisette Model in New York where she began to capture the city’s street life and infamous nightlife. A 1978 C.E.T.A. Artist Grant supported her portfolio on Jewish identity, after which she began a three-decade career as a NYC public school art teacher. Upon retirement, she began releasing large bodies of previously unseen work, including two books, A Tale of Two Cities: Disco Era Bushwick, and Purgatory & Paradise SASSY ‘70s Suburbia & The City. She is currently working on her next monograph, New York PARADISE LOST Bushwick Era Disco, and is represented by CLAMPART.

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Artists on Coping: Katrina Bello

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


In the studio, with large drawing titled Terra Magnoliaceae, April 2020

Born in the Philippines, Katrina Bello is an artist who lives and works in New Jersey. Her work is devoted to drawing, and her subjects are migration, ecology and our complex relationship with the natural world. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and the Philippines, and has been awarded residencies in the United States. She recently received a studio fellowship from the Sustainable Arts Foundation though Gallery Aferro in Newark, New Jersey. Katrina is the founder of North Willow, an informal artist-run attic exhibition space in northern New Jersey.

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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: Paul Behnke

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


Paul Behnke and Gulley in his studio in Lambertville, NJ. Photo courtesy of Robin Stout.

Paul Behnke’s painting comingles references from pop culture, religion, and imagery associated with mysticism and the occult with an abstracted interplay of pure color and open and closed spaces and forms that become further complicated by realistic collaged references. His works ultimately relate to the intersection of pop culture and spirituality and how sacred beliefs become co-opted in a disconnected, consumptive society. Behnke’s work has been exhibited in the United States and internationally. He has edited Structure and Imagery art blog since 2011 and was the co-director of Stout Projects in Brooklyn. Behnke currently lives and works in Lambertville, NJ.

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Artists on Coping: Barbara Friedman

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


Barbara Friedman in front of “Hard Rain” at the opening of “Hauntings”, February 29th, 2020, at Five Myles Gallery, Brooklyn. The show was supposed to be up through March but closed after a week due to the pandemic. Photo from the Bogliasco Foundation’s weekly newsletter courtesy of Arielle Moreau.

Barbara Friedman makes painterly paintings of unreliable narrators in scenarios that are unsettling both narratively and formally. She has had thirty-six solo shows throughout the United States, and reviews of her work have appeared in the New York Times, the New York Sun, The Irish Times, Newsday, Art in America, ARTS Magazine, and Artweek. A group of Friedman’s paintings were selected for the 2007 issue of New American Paintings, and another group for the 2010 issue. She lives, paints, and teaches in New York City, where she has been a professor of art at Pace University since 1983.

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Artists on Coping: Ellen Hackl Fagan

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

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Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue, Installation during Bushwick Open Studios, 2018. Photo: Charles Geiger

Ellen Hackl Fagan is an artist and the creator of ODETTA, a contemporary fine art gallery in Harlem, NYC. Fagan builds connections between color and sound using color-saturated paintings, sculpture, installations and collaborative projects that explore our potential for synaesthesia, often resulting in ad hoc performances with viewers. Balanced between randomness and intention, like jazz music, Fagan’s art reveals limitless possibilities for improvisation. Fagan also invented The Reverse Color Organ (RCO), a web app that enables viewers to playfully interact aurally with color. Fagan exhibits her work extensively, curates, writes, and creates opportunities for collaborations with artists, curators, musicians, and coders to further her projects.

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Artists on Coping: Rhonda Dee

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

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Photo credit: ZakiP

Rhonda Dee is from Texas and currently resides in Australia. She holds a BFA, (CCA, Seattle), and MA, from Sydney College of the Arts. Her layered works explore the body as a site of transformation between human, animal hybrids and supernatural forces. Her works are in permanent collection at Macquarie University, Australia-China Arts Foundation, and Museu Brasileiro da Escultura, Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Recently, she’s begun creating public artworks with disadvantaged communities. She features in Artist Profile, The Art Life, Torrens University Blog, Arts Hub Australia and is currently designing podcasts with Casula Powerhouse Art Centre, in response to COVID19.

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Artists on Coping: Michal Gavish

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


Michal Gavish, Hidden Features; acrylic on fabric and paper; 86”X60”; 2019; courtesy of the artist.

Using microscopic imagery and collaborative laboratory data, Michal Gavish focuses on DNA and proteins. Her process begins by adopting old traditions of nature drawings that she modifies by constantly searching for new materials. Her installations examine the delicate balance that is essential for bio-structures and their vitality. Gavish is a multimedia artist working on paper, fabric, plastic and video. With her background as research scientist she concentrates on the intersection of art and science. Her work is exhibited nationally and internationally. She writes art reviews regularly and is a contributor to SciArt Magazine.

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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: Anna Shukeylo

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


Anna Shukeylo, photo courtesy of the artist

Anna Shukeylo is an artist, curator, writer and educator normally working and living in New York City, currently and hopefully temporarily stuck in her hometown suburbs of New Jersey. Her main mediums are painting and ceramics, and her work focuses mostly on voyeuristic experiences of city dwelling. Her work has been exhibited throughout New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana and internationally. She is a contributor at Artcritical.com and is a full-time Fine Arts Lecturer at Kean University in New Jersey.

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