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Exhibit: NEXT IN LINE: DRAWING IN THE 21st CENTURY at Kunsthalle Galapagos

admin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 04:29:44 +0000

NEXT IN LINE: DRAWING IN THE 21st CENTURY curated by Erin Brown

work by: Joseph Burwell, Martí Cormand, Adam Fowler, Margaret Inga Wiatrowski, Dustin London, Chris Nau, Allyson Strafella, and Ilene Sunshine

March 23rd–April 22nd, 2012

Opening Reception March 23rd, 6-9 pm

Early in the 20th century, drawing underwent a dramatic transformation: as advances in photography freed drawing-based processes of their traditional obligation to communicate information or illustrate events, drawing became a direct and immediate method of expression, fueled by the rapidly changing ideological landscape of early abstraction. The principles of drawing—and line in particular—began to permeate the visual vocabulary of other media, and inform the way painting, sculpture, installation and performance work was made. Line came to the forefront of the page and canvas: no longer a mere subservient undergirding but a vital, vocal tool in expressing energy, movement, emotion, and boundaries in these new idioms.

This exploration continues today, with drawing undergoing constant permutations as technology advances and ideas continue to shift. Next In Line engages the work of eight New York Foundation for the Arts drawing fellows and examines how each artist utilizes line as a means to achieve a unique voice, both formally and conceptually.

For Allyson Strafella, whose whisper-thin copy paper sheets are perforated with thousands of typed colons, line is a process of accumulation, a concept that recurs in Adam Fowler’s sweeping gestural drawings that have their negative space removed by hand with an exacto blade before they are layered one atop the other in a diligently meditative process. The act of removal serves Dustin London in a different way—rather than eliminating negative space to highlight lines laid down on a plane, he carefully removes strips from the micaceous iron oxide surface of his work to create stark lines of negative space that serve as a formal foundation for his drawings.

Margaret Inga Wiatrowski gives line an eerie sense of demarcation as she creates work that charts the boundaries and negative spaces of physical places that have ceased to exist, while Joseph Burwell shapes impossible architectures with draftsman-like precision in layers, one over the next, to leave vestiges of their history behind in erased lines and burred furrows where a pencil engraved the surface of the board. Impossibility and absurdity also play a crucial role in the work of Martí Cormand, where gorgeously rendered graphite landscapes are transected by aggressive-yet-playful, otherworldly pipes of bold primary colors, accentuating the emotional power of a single line.

The exhibition features three large-scale, site-specific works that address the issues of material, space and the body. Chris Nau’ssweeping, 25-foot wall cut utilizes principles of space and form to create gestures that are at once physically energized and utterly serene using line as a non-entity and playing on notions of physical reality and illusion. Working with found objects and non-traditional media, Ilene Sunshine will create a drawing that engages with Kunsthalle Galapagos’ unique architecture and invites viewers to move through as well as circumnavigate it. Adam Fowler will further engage the viewer in their physical awareness as he utilizes the body as an expressive mechanism for line in his gestural wall drawing.

Broad in its scope, Next In Line aims to engage the viewer in a lively visual discussion of emerging implications and impact of art making’s most fundamental gesture.

Dawn Henning

Mike — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 01:00:36 +0000

Ochre & Orange

Nomadic Cowbird

Mockingbird Music

In Praise of the Pidgeons

Amanda's Warbler

Artist Statement
My love of birds and their gift of flight is a recurring theme in much of my work often used used as a metaphor (although I rarely paint them in flight.) for life. The subtlety of patterns in natural forms and the colors as they appear in the natural world interest me. That juxtaposed with my love of patterns and color in textiles and the material world is the basis for much of my visual exploration. I have always been interested in our relationship with nature.

I have been Influenced greatly by my years working as a printmaker. Paper is my favorite surface to paint, and often paint in layers working with the residue of pigment that gets trapped within the fibers. City parks and the wildlife they support have been my refuge growing up in Brooklyn, they continue to be my tonic for life.

Contact information:
henning.dawn@gmail.com
www.dawnhenning.com
blog:sketchjay.wordpress.com

Meredith Hoffheins

Mike — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 00:48:30 +0000

Statement
Meredith Hoffheins’ meandering hands create imaginative and lyrical works on paper that intuitively portray a desire for the unattainable. Her works can be spare and visionary, or abundant with internal information.

Website
http://reseda.tumblr.com/

Current Exhibit
http://extensionsofmemory.tumblr.com/

Lindsay Kolk

Mike — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 00:30:47 +0000

Lattice

Shell

Vestige

Statement
Whether printed on the page, manifest in continuously looped forms, or carefully arranged structures Lindsay Kolk quietly meditates on the repeated mark. At once familiar and consistent, these marks are intuitively and carefully manipulated, obscured, even destroyed; efforts that intrinsically assign value even to that which appears as a remnant.

Website
http://elmehr.wordpress.com/

Current Exhibit
http://extensionsofmemory.tumblr.com/

Cynthia Sparrenberger

Mike — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 23:25:10 +0000

Empty House

Muse

Psychic Carnivale I

Psychic Carnivale II

Sanctuary
Artist Statement
These mixed media “drawing/paintings” find their roots in the exploration of unconscious images.

That” inner landscape” of the human soul where the boundaries of reality seemingly merge with the uncontrollable “netherworld” of dreams, visions, and nightmares.

Executed in pen and ink, as well as pulverized graphite, oil paints, oil sticks, pastels, charcoal and collage on both canvas and paper, the intention is to leave space for the viewer to individually engage, seeing or not seeing in relation to their own imagined perceptions of the images before them.

Website
http://sparrenbergerstudio.com/

Francisco Lopez

Mike — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:04:55 +0000

Artist’s Statement
Film, obsession and beauty
The focus of my work is in the chance union of forms, symbols, images and colors. It is through cosmetics, in the sense of making up the world in an almost shaman-like manner, that my work plays with a pre-established language of beauty pervasive in popular culture and attempts to establish a complicated link to a mythological world. My work is about obsession and beauty.

Bio/Resume
Born in Florida, and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, Francisco López has been based in New York since 2001. He graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in 1999. His work has been exhibited at the Boston ICA, Trieste Film Festival in Italy, Sala Mendoza in Caracas, and Transhudson Gallery and Momenta Gallery in New York. In 2004 he showed a video installation as part of the Young Architects Program at PS1 MOMA in New York and his video “Telepathic Numbness” was exhibited at the British Council Electric Earth Show in Caracas, Venezuela. He has lectured at the California Institute of the Arts and Fashion Institute of Technology in 2009.

Website
http://www.mogollon-ny.com/

Daniel McDonald

Mike — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:42:13 +0000

Visitation, 2009
7 layer/14 impression silk screen
25 x 33 inches
edition of 25

Found, Gowanus, 2009
oil, pastel and wallpaper
18 x 22 inches

Along the Way, 2008
pastel on paper
31.25x 69.25 inches

Horizontal Triptych II, 2009
oil on linen
30 x 36 inches

Book, 2008
7 layer/14 impression silk screen
25 x 33

Artist Statement
The complexity of the art world is curious, it has spawned many different artists in so many directions in the last century. Looking back I discovered that the direction I related to is “. . .free art from the burden of object.” — Kasimir Malevich. I appreciate the pure and simple aesthetic and I have always related to a spontaneous approach to painting and printmaking.

Website
http://www.artbrooklyn.com

Rebeca Olguin

Mike — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:32:45 +0000

Hidden Treasure

On Second Thought… Panic

Mom, Listen to the Sea

Artist Statement
My son’s birth has meant an encounter with a completely new form of experiencing life and interacting with the world. Since the moment I knew I was pregnant, parenting has been an existential experiment –an involuntary, uncontrolled one– marked by the encounter with a being that was, first, a part of me, but then became an Other, becoming ever more different from me with each second, becoming more Other. Motherhood has been, for me, the progressive development of an I that opens to an Other in a process marked by a bittersweet recognition and simultaneous estrangement. It has brought the opportunity to experience the Other not by means of a confrontation, in time and space, of two different persons, but through the gradual separation of one in two.

I’m Open to You is a series of photographs –taken and digitally altered by the artist– in which some of my son’s favorite objects and toys appear. These objects have invaded every space of my everyday life, as a symbol of my son’s existence installing itself in my own existence, as well as in his father’s. I experience this existence as open to me, and at the same time as a door to revisit my own existence, an opportunity to formulate fantastic hypotheses to explain places and things that had become common for me over the years. Many of these photographs are also the telling of the act of daring to open and be open to something, with the hope to make an unexpected discovery through an irreversible process, like maternity itself.

Website
http://www.rebecaolguin.com/

Scott Faucheux

Mike — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:09:13 +0000

lines 001: 9″ x 9″; ink, paint marker, automotive paint, on paper

bagtag 006: 9″ x 9″ ; found printed paper and glue on paper

lightning: 24″H x 36″W; found printed paper and shellac on canvas

jellyfish: 72″W x 48″H; housepaint, acrylic and shellac on canvas

Artist Statement

my work is about the mechanical expression of natural phenomena. I’ve heard my studio described as the CERN lab of patterns, as if i am actually getting all these individual visual elements moving near light speed and just smash them together on a canvas, looking for the birth of a new universe.

that actually doesn’t sound bad.

each of my pieces is the result of dozens, hundreds or thousands of actions taking place in the same space. each actions bends and transforms the next, adding layers and layers of richness to the surfaces. i have almost found the secrets to bending these forces to my will. almost.

Website
www.scottfaucheux.com

Lauren Simkin Berke

Mike — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:10:51 +0000

Artist Statement:
Excavations and Adaptations is a series of more than sixty small works that combine ink drawings from my sketchbooks (through the use of xerox transfer) with collage. The drawings are mostly based on photographs, both found and personal, with a few drawn from direct observation. The collages vary from simple swaths of color to complex abstract patterns.

About five years ago I started to collect old photographs, and then I began to draw from them. I find these photographs at flea markets, in antique and junk shops. They are often family snapshots, from the 1920s through the 1970s, or studio portraits from the last quarter of the 19th century. I find it strange that these documents are for sale as part of a consumer market place, instead of being in albums on bookshelves in the homes of the families of those in the photos. I find myself at the intersection between a fascinated voyeurism and a determination to know these documents as well as humanly possible in order to give them new, longer life.

Website
http://www.simkinberke.com/

Rosa Ruey

Mike — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:22:15 +0000

Module Assembly Factory

Untitled (Aerial View)

Alchemic Transmogrifier For Distressed Emotions

Where The Wilderness Evolves

Chrono-Particle Processor

Artist Statement
For my work I’ve created a concept called Fantastic Functionalism. This concept involves creating an alternative reality filled with objects and environments which are imbued with extreme idealism and hope. I look at everyday problems on a emotional, physical and social level and imagine new possibilities and solutions for them. I think of my work as the sketches or plans of a mad and naïve inventor creating fantastical machines, passageways, bus stops, transportation devices and shelter from a playground of transformed shapes and bright colors that stems from the ordinary.

Website

http://www.rtimesr.com

Miles Wickham

Mike — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:07:12 +0000

Boombox, watercolor ink paper, 18×12

z denz 07 50%, spraypaint, paint markers, wood

Untitled, watercolor ink paper, 11×14

Artist’s Website
http://www.mileswickham.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mileswickham/

Alex Downs, Laura Gibson, Chad Rimer

Mike — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:04:19 +0000

Exhibit at Sweet Lorraine Gallery, contact artists for viewing information.

Alex Downs – Vessels
Email: downs2681@gmail.com
Web: http://www.flickr.com/photos/downs2681/
Phone: 347-387-2382

Laura Gibson – Drawings
Email: bella.gibson@gmail.com
Phone: 718-775-1557

Chad Rimer – Sculpture
Email: chadrimer@yahoo.com
Phone: 718-775-1556

Diana Leidel

Mike — Mon, 04 May 2009 23:34:32 +0000

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

Black and White Chair, acrylic on paper

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

Helene Mukhtar

Mike — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 00:36:16 +0000

East West (2007)
Paper collage and oil paint on canvas
30″x40″

“East West” explores the visual similarities between Western graffiti and images from Eastern societies. This series, which I just started, is inspired by a recent trip to Pakistan.

Subway Space 2
Paper collage and oil paint on canvas (2006)
36″x36″

In my series “Subways”, I contrast the vulnerability, helplessness and passivity of the subway riders to the hardness of their surroundings: the metal structures, beams, platforms and tunnels. The riders are reduced to “subway legs” which evolve in an angular, distorted and somewhat threatening environment. These paintings and collages were triggered by the subway bombings in London and Madrid and my own experience riding the subway in New York City.

Harmony 4 (2007)
Paper collage and oil paint on canvas
30″x40″

“Harmony” is an attempt to reconcile and join two geometrical symbols, the
circle and the line through the imagery of architecture and music.

Artist Statement
My work reflects the tension, uncertainty and unease permeating our societies today. These feelings are in part generated by international terrorism, violence and militarism.

My photographs are usually at the base of my creative process. I travel extensively and the shots taken on my trips are integrated into my paintings. In recent years, I have been particularly fascinated with graffiti and photographs of graffiti have now become an important visual element in my work.

These images are printed on paper and glued onto the canvas. Graffiti from New York, Paris and Berlin, glass architecture from modern European cities, Mogul buildings from Pakistan, headless mannequins from the streets of Paris are collaged together. They may or may not “fit together”. Out of this visual cacophony, I create a harmonious whole. It is like a puzzle. I use oil or acrylic paint. I proceed through trial and error and constantly build and destroy. Each piece is different with its own unique problems and solutions.

In my latest series “ Veni, Vidi, Sgraffiti”, I started incorporating drawings into my work. This new development has enabled me to inject humor in a serious discussion about war and violence.

Website
http://www.helenemukhtar.com/

Tom Motley

Mike — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:03:19 +0000

About the Artist

Tom Motley is a comic artist and cartoon illustrator. A native of Denver, Colorado, Tom moved to Brooklyn about a year and a half ago and now resides happily in Kensington, along with his wife and daughters. He teaches cartooning at the School of Visual Arts and the Abrons Arts Center, and his Tragic Strips appear monthly in The Brooklyn Rail.

Tom’s cartoons range from the funny to the grotesque, and include a healthy measure of surrealist play and formal experimentation. The illustrations shown here are from a book of short stories, The One Marvelous Thing, by Rikki Ducornet, published by Dalkey Archive Press.

You can find Tom’s Aline the Alien comics for kids at Kidjutsu.com, visit his sketch blog, and check out his website for more cartoons and illustrations.

Meghan Keane

Mike — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:00:03 +0000

“Hair Urchin”
Oil based ink on white rag paper (paper origin unknown)
16 x 16 in.
2008

“She never saw it coming either”
Oil based ink on white Arches paper
30 x 22 in.
2008

“Vanity Curls”
22 x 30 in.
Oil based ink on white Arches paper
2008

Artist Statement

My artistic vision takes traditionally unsavory subjects and playfully seeks to extract beauty from them, suggesting that the viewer always take a second look–that which repulses us has equal capacity to attract and fascinate. Having previously used human hair to render line physical in paintings, I am now using drawing and printmaking to achieve the effect of hair (the whirl, the loop, the ringlet) without reverting to a material so burdened by its historical connotations. I find that the immediacy of drawing–either in the traditional sense or via monotypes–lends itself to my process of constructing dense forms out of line en masse. In larger conceptual terms, I am greatly informed by the idea of the abject, the gendered, and the liminal in these recent explorations. Through ongoing experimentation with line quality and layering, I have come closer to the place I had been seeking with these new works: an oeuvre that flirts with the universal by emphasizing the curious and unexpected.

Website

http://meghankeanestudio.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/meghankeanestudio/57207652532

Alex White

Mike — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:02:31 +0000

Traffic Lights, Pastel on Paper, 20×26

Side by Side, Mixed Media on Paper, 14×17

Pencil and Pastel, 20×30 paperboard

Artist Statement

Through expressionism, my work intends to communicate energies and questions that are nestled within our everyday surroundings, yet uncovered only in glimpses and moments. My work begins with a questioning of a temporal communication or detection of a striving connection made with my surroundings in a certain moment. I am using pastels, pencil, oil paint, watercolor and mixed media to explore the reflection of these sensations; recreating the city in a language of line and color that speaks to that moment of mystery and clarity. I am questioning the city – how it relates to us as a human form, a collection of humanity, a source of inspiration and energy.

The city, as a collection of energy and humanity is a source from which we all draw or can draw, and its’ synergies and metaphysical phenomenon allow us to experience life in parallel to others and experience collective emotions. But as a consequence how does this reality affect our mentality and reflection, both individually and as a society/culture, and ultimately instill itself in our identities.

The city as the mental construct of a built, social and natural environment, changes and morphs in relation to our state of mind. When one closes their eyes, everything we associate with the city, in this case New York, can vanish; we can take ourselves anywhere. Yet in the moment we open our eyes we are flooded with the associations, emotions and self-identification that is our place and connection to the city. What is this connection and what does this tell us about ourselves, as both a social and imaginative people?

We must push these notions by examining our environment further to better understand ourselves as it is our imagination, systemization, fear, and humanity that we instill in our built environment, and it is under different lights, hours and mettles that the city changes, just like its creators. Creating a language that can stimulate and explore this dialogue is my challenge.

When people see my work, I’d like them to leave more imaginative, curious and sensitive to their surroundings, and more inquisitive of how we are and how we bend with the temperament and air of the city.

Website

http://alxwyt.blogspot.com/

Barbara Ensor

Mike — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:17:21 +0000

House Beautiful, October 2008

Bio

Barbara Ensor is an author and artist whose words and pictures have been praised in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vanity Fair and elsewhere. A graduate of Brown University, Ensor’s previous careers include stilt walking, and journalism. She is a dual citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom, has two children and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Website
www.BarbaraEnsor.com

Exhibit

Opening party for Thumbelina, Tiny Runaway Bride, an exhibit and a book.
WHERE: The Old Stone House, Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets, Park Slope Brooklyn
WHEN: Saturday November 8th, 6 to 9 pm
MORE INFORMATION. OldStonehouse.org

Visit the exhibit throughout the months of November and December during these hours:
Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 4 to 6 pm
Thursdays 4 to 8 pm
or by appointment (917) 604-8732

Dmitry Borshch

Mike — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:50:02 +0000

Untitled, 2008

Ink on paper, 15 x 15 ins.

The work of Dmitry Borshch will be shown in the following exhibits:

“Common Threads: Artists in Spite of Retail” at the Brecht Forum
November 7-31, 2008

“Allied Artists 95th Annual Exhibition” at the National Arts Club
November 14-December 2, 2008

Pamela Enz

Mike — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:49:18 +0000

“I Have Been Circling God ” – Oil, paper, ink and cut plastic on canvas – 36×53 inches
“ ….circling round that great tower and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, a storm or a great song” – Rilke.

“Down Here” – oil, cut paper, ink on canvas – 16 x 20 inches
I started this piece after reading personal accounts of the mostly anonymous builders of our grand public spaces. One worker Mr. Kumaran “.. I wish the rich people would realize who is building these towers, I wish they would come and see how sad this life is.”

“Traveling Thru” – oil, paper, crayon, ink on canvas – 20 x 26 inches
I struggle to put this one into words, as it was driven by the impalpable. It concerns the sense of aloneness common to all creatures big and small.

“Re:Henry”- oil, paper, plastic, pencil shavings on canvas – 36 x 26 inches
I completed this piece after the death of my best friend Henry forcing myself to go on out of respect for him and who he was. It was just one of the numerous gifts of his friendship.

Artist Statement

Over the past decade I have worked as a performance artist, a filmmaker and visual artist. Most recently I have been working on ever expanding collage. I start with a collection of my own drawings which I then tear, cut and layer before pencilling and painting into them. They are on both paper and canvas. Often however the foundation of a piece is text – most often my own – but also a range of words that haunt and continue to inspire. Some I have taken from the sublime ( the poet- Rilke ). Others from the absurd ( The New York Post ).

Biography (partial)

Exhibitions – Recent Work

ArtWalk 2008   Brooklyn , NY July 2008
Incongruities 2.0 – Ashawagh Hall East Hampton, NY July 2008
Private Viewing – Sunday Afternoon Series. Brooklyn Heights –Nov 2007
Letters to Joan Emergency Arts – solo – collage – NYC – April 2007
Recent Works Emergency Arts – group show – NYC- November 2006
2006 Square Foot Show – Art Gotham   NYC – March 2007
Incongruities   Ashawagh Hall – East Hampton, NY. – March 2006
Cryptopsychographies Tin Garage – Tarrytown, NYC – December 2005

Traveling the globe Ms. Enz exhibited in Corfu, Paris and Tel-Aviv as well as stateside at Hofstra University, East Hampton, North Shore Arts and NOW in NYC. Due to the toxicity of materials and the proximity of her newborn daughter she worked to become a performance artist, filmmaker, and playwright. After winning a second Edward F. Albee Fellowship for writing which included a residency at The Barn in Montauk, she began with Mr. Albee’s encouragement to incorporate her own text into large collage which she now uses as a backdrop for performance work. They also stand alone as works of art .

More Information

http://sonofanobody.com/bios_pamela.html

Dmitry Borshch

Mike — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:15:05 +0000

1. Untitled, 2008, photograph (edition of 10), 11 x 22 ins.

2. Untitled, 2008, photograph (edition of 10), 9 x 12 ins.

3. Untitled, 2008, photograph (edition of 10), 7 x 9 ins.

4. Untitled, 2008, photograph (edition of 10), 9 x 22 ins.

5. Untitled, 2007, photograph (edition of 10), 5 x 7 ins.

6. Untitled, 2008, photograph (edition of 10), 10 x 21 ins.

Artist Statement

I favor a compound approach to all visual problems that occupy me. By compound I mean multiform – I present my solution to a given problem in as many forms or through as many means as are available to me. These may be painting, printmaking, sculpting… The meaning of each completed piece is deferred until other pieces, materially and thematically linked to it, are completed. They form the understructure upon which their meaning could rest.

Not able to describe a piece outside of its progressing context I hesitate whenever I am asked for an “artist’s statement”. I cannot “state” my art’s meaning; its current subject, however, can be “stated” – it is rectilinear geometry.

Please visit http://www.thetatechelsea.com and http://www.fineartadoption.net and find Dmitry Borshch there.

Susan Norton

Mike — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:13:11 +0000

Artist’s Statement

Skool: a Comic

Skool began as a personal project, started in college to remind myself of lessons learned outside the classroom. Now, like a graduate program, it is what employs my time in replacement of having a full-time job or a savings account. I draw it by hand, with a pen that I dip in ink.

All of the stories are culled from actual experience (quoted as faithfully as a panel’s small space will allow), my dream world, and my fantasy life. Invaluable to this are my excellent friends and family, the crowds of people with whom I regularly interact, strangers, children, and the creative personalities who drive my experiences. Also the unearthly beauty of the Vermont Republic and the soundtrack constantly rolling through my headphones, my speakers, and my memory.

I currently live in the last cheap shithole apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I may be contacted for illustration work and would be happy to provide those interested with printed versions of my art. More information about me is available by reading my comics, viewing my blog, and/or sending me an e-mail.

Artist Website and Contact
www.nortonanalog.blogspot.com
nortonanalog@gmail.com

Niesha White

Mike — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:24:54 +0000

Niesha White, “Deer”

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

artinbrooklyn.com » Drawing

Exhibit: NEXT IN LINE: DRAWING IN THE 21st CENTURY at Kunsthalle Galapagos

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