Contemporary Art and Culture
In MIST, four artists are brought together to take the inspiration of summer, and find a way to break through the heatwaves that have recently hit New York. There is a dialogue between the artists and their various takes on works on paper, bringing forth summer sensibilities, airiness, freshness, and a feeling of being free. Each artist offers a different series of works.
Continue reading “MIST – Fleeting moments and Summer Sensibilities at Helm Contemporary”
Mark Dagley is an artist who has exhibited his paintings and sculptures, which explore the intersection of abstraction and materiality, in New York and Europe since the 1980s. Lauri Bortz is a playwright and author whose farcical tragedies have been performed in theaters in New York, and over the past decade, she has created a series of children’s books. Abaton Project Room, or APR, is a temporary exhibition space conceived by Lauri, located at 11 Broadway, in the historic Bowling Green Office Building in Lower Manhattan. Over a one-year period (August 2024-2025), APR is alternating monthly presentations of Mark Dagley’s work—paintings, sculpture, and works on paper—with thematic group exhibitions as well as selections from Mark and Lauri’s personal collection.
Continue reading “Mark Dagley at Abaton Project Space”
There is an exciting new gallery in the Crane Building located in the Old Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia joyfully titled Box Spring Gallery, a brainchild of curator and creative director Gaby Heit. Gaby and I go way back to when I knew her as the director of Prelude Gallery in center-city Philadelphia. With her extensive background in both art and design, this place of her own sets high expectations for fresh, new work that is multidisciplinary and accessible.
Continue reading “Box Spring Gallery – Philly’s New Art Spot”
Frenchtown in the Delaware river Valley NJ is home to a fantastic new arts center with cutting edge programming: take note art lovers, ArtYard has come to town. ArtYard is a not for profit, state-of-the-art facility with two floors of exhibition space, sculpture lawn, black box theater with chic little bar and a tiny store. It is spacious, light, and beautiful: everything about this place is “feel good” and functional. It overlooks the river where bikers and hikers pass on the Delaware Raritan Canal State Park Trail an old railway track. The facade is a sophisticated blend of metal overhang elements (think Chelsea Meatpacking) and smart graphics with a large welcoming entrance. The pitch perfect brick building, designed by architects Ed Robinson and William Welch, was inspired by 19C industrial factories. The new center weaves itself perfectly into the historic fabric of Frenchtown NJ.
Continue reading “ArtYard & Paul Bowen: Drift”
Manufacturers Village Artist Studios, located in an 1880’s historic industrial complex at 356 Glenwood Avenue in East Orange, NJ, will feature the work of over 60 different artists at its annual open studios weekend, Friday 10/15 (VIP Preview) and Saturday thru Sunday from 11-5, 10/16 and 10/17.
Continue reading “Gail Winbury: MVA Open Studios”
Manufacturers Village Artist Studios, located in an 1880’s historic industrial complex at 356 Glenwood Avenue in East Orange, NJ, will feature the work of over 60 different artists at its annual open studios weekend, Friday 10/15 (VIP Preview) and Saturday thru Sunday from 11-5, 10/16 and 10/17.
Continue reading “Cheryl Agulnick Hoc: MVA Open Studios”In Dialogue with Lisa Pressman
The current exhibition at Susan Eley Fine Art, Hudson features Lisa Pressman’s newest encaustic paintings and works on paper. One of the primary series on view in this show is entitled Messages, a recent and ongoing series of mixed media works on various handmade papers. Pressman collects handmade paper, including Japanese Shikishi board, which is edged with gold, as well as Letraset—the rub-on letters employed by graphic designers before the computer era. Onto these unique handmade paper, she employs the press-on letters of the Letraset, as a mark-making tool to create a symbolic language—hieroglyphic and intuitive.
Continue reading “Lisa Pressman and Jim Napierala at Susan Eley Fine Art”In Dialogue with Melissa Staiger
In March 2020 the New York art world shut down and soon went online for exhibition opportunities. Like many artists, Mike Childs was furloughed from his job, and stayed at home, drawing as well as supporting his 6th grade son. To foster a sense of community, he reached out to fellow artist and curator Melissa Staiger to see if she was interested in combining their skills. They came up with the idea to create an online group of artists who worked on paper. The collective identity of this group was envisioned as eight individuals who reflect the creative New York community and exhibit a compulsive nature towards the making of images. Childs referred to these image makers as “producing work via a stream of consciousness in the modernist literary tradition”. In referencing this type of creative approach, Staiger immediately seized on the word to title their project Streaming, referring both to a creative thought process and the online reality of contemporary artistic existence. This led to the creation of the website https://s-t-r-e-a-m-i-n-g.com, which was the foundation for the current exhibition at Stand 4 Gallery. The group exhibition at Stand4 Gallery, brings together work by Mike Childs, Deanna Lee, Keisha Prioleau-Martin, Rafael Melendez, Benjamin Pritchard, Sharmistha Ray, Melissa Staiger, and Julie Torres. The show runs through July 10th.
Continue reading “STREAMING at Stand 4”In Dialogue with Holly Wong
Phoenix, Holly Wong’s first solo show in the San Francisco Bay area is scheduled from April 1, 2021 through May 31, 2021 at SLATE in Oakland, features work she has created during the shelter in place order over the past year. These body of work reflects her spiritual and visual responses to the pandemic, and her sense of need for personal and social transformation through a wide variety of expressions, which include Phoenix, the large-scale drawing-based installation, other larger scale paintings on paper, a series of more intimate works on paper, and assemblages. Holly Wong says that as a response to her deep sense of loss and grief at the state of world affairs, she created a large mythical bird as a metaphor for her own body—”In Phoenix I see my desire for purification, cleansing and rebirth,” she says. When the artist thinks of the central theme of the show, she remembers excerpts from the Buddha’s Fire Sermon:
“The mind is burning, ideas are burning, mind-consciousness is burning, mind-contact is burning…” “Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion.”
Continue reading “Holly Wong: Phoenix at SLATE Contemporary”
The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continued in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.
Nazanin Noroozi works predominantly in the medium of printmaking, but also incorporates moving images and alternative photography processes exploring new ways to represent the notions of collective memory, displacement and diaspora. Noroozi’s work has been widely exhibited in both Iran and the United States, including the Museum of Russian Art, Noyes Museum of Art, NY Live Arts, Prizm Art Fair, and Columbia University. She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from , Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, NYFA IAP 2018, Mass MoCA Residency, North Adams, MA and Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts Residency, Ithaca, NY and the winner of “Selection of A New Generation” competition. She is an editor-at-large of Kaarnamaa, a Journal of Art History and Criticism. Noroozi completed her MFA in painting and drawing from Pratt Institute in 2015. Her works have been featured in various publications including Elephant Magazine, Financial Times, and Brooklyn Rail.
Continue reading “The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Nazanin Noroozi”