Friday, July 13, 2007

The Betty Bowen Award

I was recently in a benefit auction with PONCHO in seattle which helped raise funds for this grant, it's a great opportunity for Visual artists living in Washington, Oregon or Idaho, sorry no performing arts.

contact the Seattle Museum at the link below;
http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/visit/bowen.asp

I have a fondness for Seattle, support art!

Sunday, July 08, 2007

SMALL WONDERS
(image from (c)apexart's brochure)

You never know what little gems can be found at a small works show. With the summer season upon us, there have been quite a few recently. Nurture Art recently had there "nurturing the edge 07"small works exhibition hosted by the Cue Foundation which brought a large number of eagar collectors.

apexart's "the most curatorial biennial" benefitting the Robinhood foundation featured a wide range of work considering the 8" x 10" size constraint. There were table top sculptures, prints, and photographs, works on paper, collage, paintings, drawings and a light box displayed on 3 levels of wall rails throughout the gallery.

There's always a great piece to found at these exhibitions if you have the patience and time to wander through them.
contact:

apexart gallery
291 Church street btn white and walker
for further information or to bid on a piece. www.apexart.org/biennial/

Tequila Don Julio and The Mexican Museum

The exhibition is traveling before landing in it's final destination, The Mexican Museum.

Tequila Don Julio and the Mexican Museum premieres
Nuevo Arte: Colección Tequlia Don Julio at White Box gallery in Chelsea, NYC January 12-February 2, 2007

The Exhibition will be traveling nationally continuing on to Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles. Tequila Done Julio is gifting Nuevo Arte: Colección Tequlia Don Julio to the Mexican Museum which is awaiting the construction of it’s new building in the Yerba Buena arts district near downtown San Francisco

The show highlights contemporary and original art work selected by Tere Romo, Curator of exhibitions at The Mexican Museum, San Francisco, CA.
Featuring new works by some of today’s most innovative Mexican and Mexican- American artists the work ranged from teacups to translucent encaustic paintings to car rim drums and blown glass. “This collection captures the cutting –edge vitality and original content of contemporary Mexican and Chicano artistic expression,” Romo says.

I made my way down the long entrance to White Box with great expections. As a whole, the exhibition lived up to all my hopes. The work was engaging and impressive. Clear tongue like sculputural pieces filled with a variety of materials from mushrooms to seeds to rice hung on the wall. One tongue included a bud-like flower made from feathers sitting “on the tip of the tongue”. The visual connected to your sense of taste which started to make my mouth water.

A series of five Encaustic Monochorome Paintings titled, Cinco Elementos,(The Five Elements), by Jorge Rojas were very powerful in their subtlties. I found my self completly submerged in the contemplative nature of the surfaces and their varying colors. Muted under the wax, green, grey, blue, sienna and natural wax tones conversed in a quiet dialogue of surface material and color while creating a sculptural depth for further exploration. I felt the sense of a “human element” within the natural wax tone and texture.

Jorge Rojas stated, “My fascination for art derives essentially from the process of exploration, which demands a constant investigation and experimentation between technique and materials. In this series, I continue my exploration in a minimalist vein in an effort to discover new ways to observe and interpret color, and to reduce the line that exists between painting and sculpture. Consequently, I try to capture and communicate some of the ethereal qualities inherent in color. The way I work with encaustic allows me to achieve simultaneously a certain form of transparency, depth and fluidity. Through this specific process, the layer of wax functions as a portal or window through which the viewer can rediscover and reinterpret the essential colors existing on the other side. The subtle texture on the surface reflects the effects of the environment in which it is created.”


Artists: Ray Abeyta / Tania Candiani / Caleb Duarte / Camille Rose Garcia / Dr. Lakra / Michael Hernandez de Luna / Franco Mondini-Ruiz / Julio C. Morales / Tatiana Parcero /Viva Paredes / Marcos Ramirez ERRE / Jorge Rojas / Betsabeé Romero / Arturo Romo / Taka / Einar & Jamex de la Torre /

If you missed this exhibition at Whitebox, you have a second chance.....

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

More Than A Tree Is Growing In Brooklyn !

image; Untitled, the home series (c) Chris Coffin
15" x 60", digital C-print






Brooklyn’s BWAC Red Hook and Carroll Gardens open studios June 9-10, 2007 created a garden of art and dialogue through out the borough. I down loaded a great self guided tour map, which included 32 destinations and headed back to my hometown. Artists of all calibers and disciplines are leaving their marks as Brooklyn’s Open studios weekend made evident, they have found fertile ground in the borough to create innovative and interesting work.

On foot I navigated through myriads of studio buildings, galleries and artists project spaces. In a large warehouse building at 98 4th street in Carroll Gardens, I visited artist Chris Coffins studio, which he shares with fellow artist and curator Jennifer Burbank. Coffins intense personal connection to water and his urban environment are evident in his triptych photographic works, which seek a deeper understanding of the connection within the two “places”. They are contemplative images finding their own dialogue in which to converse. Abandoned buildings and underwater shots of jellyfish, which he shoots looking up from under the water find, and connect within reflective abstract space and color. Jennifer Burbanks large black and white wall drawing solicits conversation through line and form. A large black circle collaged to the wall seems to be in the process of moving out of the space and off the wall, grounded to it’s environment by thin elegant lines leading back through the work. Vince Contarino also in the 4th street building presented works on paper, which he may use for larger paintings. Contarino painstakingly collages tiny bits of colored and patterned paper into highly controlled lines, which are released into organic flowing gestures reminiscent of plant life, or a diagram of some strange unknown organism.

These artists capture your attention with a quiet ease, simply giving over something of yourself in order to sit with them for more time then you realize, suddenly hours go by... and your wishing you had more time.