Home»Archive for May, 2009

Steve Riley

May 31st, 2009 Leave a comment

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Good Morning Universe, 8×9.5″, 2009

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Brave New World, 8×9″ 2008

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Broken World, 8×9″, 2008

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Stream, 10×10″, 2008

Artist Statement

I am drawn to everyday objects that are often overlooked or discarded. Using a wide range of disciplines, I transform the materials into small works. With a modern primitive style I balance the positive and negative space that gives a piece a sense of beauty. Taking an unorthodox approach I embellish the surface of my work with steel nails and apply tiny circles to explore nature and its relationship with the synthetic.

Website

http://www.steveriley.artlogsites.com/

Brooklyn Studio Tour in Red Hook this Weekend

May 29th, 2009 1 Comment

May 30 & 31 (Saturday and Sunday) noon – 6 p.m.

Visit the wonders of Red Hook – buy strangely named furniture at Ikea, shop for groceries at Fairway, eat delicious food at the Red Hook Ballpark, and SEE FANTASTIC ARTWORK.

More details at http://brooklynstudiotour.com/

Karen Connell

May 25th, 2009 5 Comments

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SEASCAPES
The seascapes are a series titled “Anywhere But Here”. The series consists of 436 different scenes.  The water is actually 1/8″ thick pieces of clear, vacuum-formed plastic.  The varied molded forms create the wave structure. The water color is created by placing layers of acetate underneath the plastic.  The coloring and sky are created with lights and backdrops.  The entire construction is eight inches square. I shot the scenes with a 35 mm camera using a macro lens.  I chose to shoot this small film size so that the image would be grainy when enlarged. The photograph then literally breaks down.  This is intended to reinforce the idea that the image is a simulation.  They have been shown singularly and as installations of between 1,113 and 2,712 images mounted to walls (each photo is 4″ x 6″).

ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Postcards, billboards and magazines instill in us a desire to be physically and emotionally transported to “a better place”.  We see digitally enhanced, perfectly-lit and styled homes, gardens and people. These commercial images are merely representations, completely unattainable. These constructions are meant to instill longing in the viewer.

I, too, create such non-places: images that appear real, but are, in fact, simulations. I construct images of locales, persons and lifestyles. My work is meant to isolate and emphasize the desire for the other, which is, in the end, just a creation. The viewer is left to consider this cycle of desire and dissatisfaction.

We peruse decorating and travel magazines, read adventure travel stories and scan billboards. These things instill in us a desire to have and/or be somewhere else, someone else, but some place where all our wants may be fulfilled.

Born:Chicago, 1970.
Lives and works in Brooklyn.

EDUCATION
MFA-Rhode Island School of Design
Providence, RI(1995)
B.A-DePauw University, Greencastle, IN (1992)
Parson’s School of Design, Paris, France (summer 1991)
Essex University, Essex, England (1990-91)

WEBSITE
http://www.karenconnell.com

Randall Stoltzfus

May 17th, 2009 Leave a comment

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“Bear Lithia,” 2009, oil, iridescence, and gold leaf on linen, 48″x72″

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“Passing,” 2009, oil on linen, 46″x74″

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“Five Miles Out,” 2009, oil and gold leaf on canvas over panel, 20″x36″

Artist Statement

When I moved to Brooklyn from Virginia I started making these dark landscape paintings lit in strange ways.  When I started the paintings usually they were of something burning.  Now there is often something backlit, or overwhelmed by light.  And there is more and more texture.  The paintings make light from texture.  There is something in memory that is like this light.  Brooklyn, with its dark heart, and my memory of the south provide the shadows.

I tend to paint many different paintings on a canvas or panel before finding the final image.  Some layers are figurative; some are more abstract or obscured.  Eventually the layers add up and I start to see their sum.  Maybe there is a drawing that lives just in the texture of the surface.  Two of the images might become present at once, or are trade places as the light in the room changes.  These unexpected shifts open the painting up.  If the painting surprises me, it has the potential to surprise the viewer.  It is this potential that I use to decide when a painting is finished.

As the grandson of an Amish deacon and farmer, my personal experience as a contemporary painter living in New York has its own set of layers.  With their blinding light and yearning for the soil, the strata of these paintings are a personal metaphor for the spirituality that underlies my urban experience.  The result is necessarily a bit enigmatic.  What remains unresolved allows an open space for each viewer’s individual interpretation.

Website

http://sloweye.net/

India Street Mural Project Opening

May 15th, 2009 Leave a comment

The India Street Mural Project Opening is tonight, May 15th at 303 Grand from 6-8pm.

The India Street Mural Project is the North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition (NbPac) first project. NbPac was launched by Council Member David Yassky  to work with local artists, community members, arts organizations and businesses to revitalize North Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Tonight’s opening will introduce the six artists selected for the India Street site. Examples of the artist’s work will be shown, entry is free. For more information and a sneak preview of the artists go to NbPac’s blog at http://nbpac.wordpress.com/.

Maddy Rosenberg

May 10th, 2009 1 Comment

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Berlin Faces (triptych)
2008, oil on panel, 40 x 22 inches

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Book of Days
2008, oil on panel, 12 x 12 inches

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Wood, Stone, Bone
2004-5, oil on panel, four 1 x 10 inch panels

Artist Statement

My work has been greatly influenced by urban environments. I respond to the architecture of a place as it bears its own history, of its time and place when constructed.  A building is also the witness of subsequent periods from those who have lived their lives within to those who have briefly passed through its walls. For me, though inorganic, buildings contain remnants of a human touch.

Though based in New York City, I also gather much of my imagery from my travels. In fact, bits and pieces of places I have seen are deconstructed and reconfigured in seamlessly assembled compositions. Objects, images, architectural details are placed within a newly invented context, as I seek to transform even the mundane into the strange and intriguing.

The juxtaposition of flat planes of saturated color with these finely painted details more clearly defines the abstract nature of the paintings while simultaneously emphasizing the evocativeness of the imagery. The trompe I’oeil images become more than mere depictions of reality, with the shapes of pure color a reminder of the identity of the painted surface.

I have been dealing with the ideas of multi-panels for a number of years. With its sequential aspect, spaces fluctuate between the surface and glimpses behind it. Ambiguity is further created through unusual combinations of perspectives, mixtures of light sources, and unsettling color choices. By using the relatively small scale, I can draw the viewer into a minute representation of a world that offers reality with a twist. This invites an intimate, thought provoking relationship between participant and the work. It is an immersion in spaces that are uninhabited, uninhabitable, a discovery of the unexpected. One’s sense of order and proportion is challenged, as the implied presence of human life coupled with the subtly disturbing images evokes an uneasy response and re-evaluation in the viewer, who begins to realize that things are not what they seem.

Website

http://www.maddyrosenberg.net/

Diana Leidel

May 4th, 2009 5 Comments

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Toujours Prêt, collage and paint on wood, 14″ x 10″

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Black and White Chair, acrylic on paper

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4-Part Red and Yellow Chair, acrylic on paper

Artist Bio
Diana Leidel is an artist who is also a creative director in magazine publishing and is currently art director at Playbill Magazine. She has been the recipient of numerous design awards for her work with Pointe magazine, Pilates Style magazine, and Dance Magazine, and has been a contributor to Graphic Design USA. She holds a BFA from The Cooper Union and an MA from New York University, where she also taught graphic design.

She exhibits in New York and Brooklyn and is a member of the Brooklyn Artists Gym.

Her paintings, on canvas and paper, are color studies of single objects that celebrate the world of the everyday.

Diana describes  her collages and drawings as Non-Fiction Art, in which the fictional world in the artist’s mind meets the news in the real world. She combines words and statements from news stories and consumer media with painting, collage and found containers to make wall-piece boxes. The pencil drawings are portraits of newsmakers, performers and innocent bystanders, from chickens to tango dancers
and health workers. Her abstract work is also inspired by images from print media.

Website
http://dianaleidel.com

Brooklyn Museum Staff Exhibit

May 4th, 2009 Leave a comment

Brooklyn Museum staff are exhibiting their personal artwork on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooklyn_museum/sets/72157617467528759/