Home»Archive for June, 2008

Lynn Christian

Jun 29th, 2008 5 Comments

Lynn Christian “#12″ 18 x 24 inches, oil on canvas

Lynn Christian “#18″ 30 x 30 inches, oil on canvas

Lynn Christian “#13″ 20 x 20 inches, oil on canvas

Artist Statement

These paintings usually begin with an idea about color, and a feeling, sometimes of a memory. They evolve on the canvas through an interplay of application and correction, based on no program or requirement. Emotion, music, subconscious, and practice, attempts to visually represent itself while aspiring to a type of balance.

Website

http://www.lynnchristianpaintings.com/

Nathan Kensinger

Jun 26th, 2008 1 Comment

kensinger_01.jpg
“Brooklyn Navy Yard: Building 128″, photograph

kensinger_02.jpg
“Brooklyn Navy Yard: Admirals’ Row, Grand Ballroom”, photograph

kensinger_03.jpg
“Brooklyn Navy Yard: GMD Shipyard”, photograph

Twilight on the Waterfront: Brooklyn’s Vanishing Industrial Heritage

My photographs bring you inside places you may have walked by a thousand times and always wondered about. They take you into Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront, a world closed to the public for decades. These fenced-off factories, refineries and shipyards lining our waterfront are often beautiful and full of surprises. They are also quickly disappearing. In 2007, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed Brooklyn’s entire industrial waterfront at the top of their “Most Endangered” list. Many of the places in my photographs have already been torn down as the pace of development quickens.

Once, Brooklyn had the most vital working waterfront in America. Today, its industrial heritage is almost gone. My photographs document the twilight of the waterfront.

I grew up within view of the San Francisco Navy Yard and now live two blocks from the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. I have always been fascinated by the edges of waterfront cities. My documentary work is informed by many artists, including the anonymous photographers of the international Urban Exploration movement. They explore the off-limits parts of cities while ignoring traditional trespassing laws. Visiting old tunnels, factories and military bases, they document the true history of the urban landscape. Through their large network of online photography communities, I’ve met many talented photographers who were often with me as I explored the waterfront.

Now Exhibiting at the
Brooklyn Public Library
June 17, 2008 – August 30, 2008
Central Library, Grand Lobby

For more information on the exhibit, click here.

and at

The Brooklyn Museum
Click! A Crowd Curated Exhibit
June 27–August 10, 2008

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/click/

Contact the artist: http://kensinger.blogspot.com/

Paul Catalanotto

Jun 24th, 2008 Leave a comment

Paul Catalanotto,
Paul Catalanotto, “Those Places That Once We Visited” 30×36 inches

Paul Catalanotto,
Paul Catalanotto, “Seeping Beauty” 80×36 inches

Paul Catalanotto,
Paul Catalanotto, “Neuron Roulette” detail

Artist Statement

My current work is about how we see and experience color. It is based on my theory that colors have universal physical properties. I rely heavily on these physical properties, how they react with each other and my plaster medium to embody our visual experience.

I developed a white plaster medium that, when mixed with colors, takes on the personality of each color. I apply the tinted plaster with trowels and other various plastering tools. My trowels become forces of nature, compressing, burying, scraping back, pushing and pulling the colors around. The stress I apply to my medium helps bring out its true colors.

My white plaster medium is stored energy, akin to other white things in nature — seeds, sperm, fat, clouds, snow. “The known undecomposed earths are, in their pure state, all white.”* When red is mixed in, the plaster is transformed. It runs, it bleeds, it seeps into the other colors like a virus. Blue, at the other end of the spectrum, makes the plaster thick and sticky. It stays. It blankets. So sticky that, as light, it clings to the air in the sky. Yellow, between the two extremes, has what I call the Goldilocks effect – it’s just right. Creamy and spreadable, it is the easiest color to apply with a trowel.

In order for my Polished Frescos to connect to people on an individual basis, I never have any set imagery in mind. My job is to pay attention to color order and harmony; light and shadow; and the laws of physics, especially gravity, to achieve some sort of imagery.

At certain points in the process, I let the colors take over while my role is to recognize and freeze moments in time. I strive to capture these spontaneous moments between the struggle to exist and the flow toward nothingness.

My work is a product of a long term relationship with tinted plaster and a sense of responsibility to let the medium thrive in an unrestricted environment. It’s about finding ways to work with the plaster as opposed to dominating it — to let it go in directions untethered to a set destination.

*from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) Theory of Colours, first published in English in 1840.

Contact the artist

Gavin Thomas

Jun 17th, 2008 1 Comment

Name:
Gavin Thomas

Neighborhood:
Greenpoint

Media/Materials/Tools:
Analog Cameras – Holga, LCA, Dianna, Yashica T3

Describe your process:
Double Exposures and using old expired Film

Is there a common theme or subject matter in your work?
People

How do you work with your materials, do you use any unique applications?
I still shoot film and use alternative processes.

Describe your studio or ideal working conditions, when are you most creative?
When Im exploring a new city or country. When I travel. I like being a tourist, never know what your going to find exploring the streets.

What factors make you consider a work finished or successful?
I like the viewers to be interested in the images. Whether it is simply enjoying the colors or asking how did you do that? Being able to get some reaction is key.

Website/Contact:
www.gavinthomasphoto.com
gavin@gavinthomasphoto.com
917.572.0884

Niesha White

Jun 12th, 2008 1 Comment

Niesha White,

Niesha White, “Deer”

Niesha White,

Niesha White “Eloise”

Niesha White, “Bottom In Drag”

Artist’s Statement

My name is Niesha White and I am the daughter of an ex-Mormon hippie mom and an ex-Muslim hippie dad who raised me in the sea-salt air of a fishing town south of LA. After surviving a cross-country relocation, I ended up rooted in the beautifully strange spiritland of Brooklyn.

When I was small, I trusted art to be my companion. I knew, in that bold knowing way of children, that I would be an artist. But, just as knowing develops layers and confusing corners with experience, my artist identity bumped into various obstacles. What I have learned, however, is that each time I come back to my artwork, there are trace elements of whatever I have experienced while I was away. My art, therefore, carries hints of all the stages of my life, from magic realism to political activism, from modern dance to linguistic exploration.

Most recently, I have been working on a series of wood burnings and paintings which I call masks. This series, which uses animal heads on human bodies (and vice versa at times), is an exploration of how identities can change in stages of one’s life or even due to a new situation. The following narrative was written from the perspective of one of my pieces:

Masks Narrative

She was straight up fierce once, all boots and dreams. But the spin of the clock and a few unexpected outcomes had worn down her dreams into new shapes she kept mistaking for ordinary objects. Even her boots lost their shine. But what choice did she have but to live that way, waiting between breaths for a big bang shift of perspective.

On a random day in snow covered January, the tilt that she would later refer to as the ‘new beginning’ occurred. A casual downward glance is all it took, a realization that the subtle sexy sag in the seams of her tired boots made them more beautiful than ever. Then, like the slow relief of a late night aspirin, she began to see bits of glimmer in the corners of her dreams again. Packing this new view of herself, now masterfully woven from the reeds of who she had been, she picked up the mask and took her first grown-up swagger into ‘I can be anything’.

Contact the Artist

About this Site

Jun 7th, 2008 Leave a comment

I was inspired to start this site after going to several open studio tours in Brooklyn and seeing how much great art is being made right where I live. Unfortunately, there are a limited number of venues that show artwork and many of these are available to a select number of artists. I wanted to create a more accessible forum to view art, and so ArtInBrooklyn was born. The nature of this site is DIY/experimental/fun – and there is no obligation, fee, royalties, commissions or payments involved for the artists.

Call for Artists

Jun 6th, 2008 2 Comments

Have your artwork displayed on ArtInBrooklyn!

I’m starting this site to promote artists working in Brooklyn. To apply, please send an email to ArtInBrooklyn@gmail.com with a brief note about yourself and links to your work online or attach a few low res jpegs (700×700 pixels max). All styles, media, and subjects considered – I’m really looking for a broad selection of art. The format of the site will be to post an interview, bio, or artist’s statement along with a few images of your work. The nature of this site is DIY/experimental/fun/anything goes – there is no obligation, fee, royalties, commissions or payments involved.