Christine Heller, Into the Crosscurrents

Main Galleries:
Christine Heller
Into The Crosscurrents












“Into the Crosscurrents is a series of new works from a year of non-stop painting; a year in which tumultuous shocks have thrown me into a new stage of life. The act of painting has been a haven and in each stroke, I have been excavating what has gone before.

Painting for me is an extremely physical act, improvisational choreography that generates the strokes of paint, leads me into the core of a painting and prods me to go where I have never been before. New patterns of color, movement and form result from making marks that are authentic, clear, and accessible - without interference of preconceptions.

While I am painting, one response incites another until I see clarity developing, which tells me I have gotten all that I can from the painting. But sometimes the painting does not let me go. I persevere, going deeper, as if digging for relics, not knowing what I will find. The process leads me until I reach the crux of the work.

My paintings are the tracks left after a choreographed excavation. They are sometimes a distillation of memories and often a visceral search for essence."

Christine Heller
2009


















Sculpture Garden:
John Ruppert

"The chain-link fabric sculptures have evolved over the past several years, influenced by the urban context of my studio. These sculptures are translucent and are an antithesis to the mass of the castings. The shapes of the fabric sculptures are determined by the structural characteristics of the chain-link fabric, stainless steel retention rings, zip ties, aircraft cable, and gravity.

Context is critical to these sculptures. The indoor and out surroundings, as well as the relationship to other objects and each other, are in constant flux. In an outdoor setting the sculptures act as a monitor to the surroundings; interacting with the context of the site (with each other ... if there are more than one form) and the various weather and light conditions."

John Ruppert
2009
























Carriage House:
Installation Linda Mussmann
light bulbs, zip cord, handmade dimmers, handmade light instrument

"Linda Mussmann started making lights out of #10 tomato sauce cans discarded from the pizza parlors in New York City in the early 1970's for her theater Time & Space Limited.

Why did she do this? Because she did not like traditional theater lights. They were too big and too bright and did not fit the thinking she had about the theater she was making...and this theater (TSL) was about space and time and light and language and words and sound (all parts needed to be recognized independently).

Linda wanted lots of lights and lots of dimmers and lots of things going on and off and lots of little cans hanging from the ceiling so people could see the light and not be afraid of real stuff. Linda did not like illusion. She believes in truth. Then Linda kept on making lights and installed ideas for more spaces...sometimes real spaces and sometimes invented spaces. She has worked in theaters, and museums (Whitney, MOMA, major theaters such as Merce Cunningham's space, Riverside Dance theater, Marymount Theater, LaMama Annex theater etc).... and now she works every day in Hudson, New York at TSL in the theater space that she co-directs with Claudia Bruce.

Linda will make the elevator shaft (located in the barn at the John Davis Gallery) a place that will have handmade lights, a site specific installation lighting the “elevator shaft".

Linda Mussmann
2009
























Second Floor:
Sara Garden Armstrong
Shadow Memories
Photocollage, pastel, graphite, gel medium mounted on Lucite

“I have always been intrigued with natures fleeting moments, forever changing, constantly being renewed. I try to interpret the processes that are organic and dynamic capture a moment and trace time to paper surface.

One body of works examines winter shadows as they arrive, transition and depart. Shadows embody the ephemeral moments in the composition of our lives. The forms they create can suggest poignant memories, or the lapse between what is real and what is not.

I photograph shadows and details of nature including previous artwork, select portions to print and collage, and apply pastel and graphite to the composite image. I then coat the image with multiple layers (upwards of 25) of gel medium, adding depth and dimension. This slow process of layer coating allows me to explore the changes that occur as light moves through the medium to the image, the end result being an alteration of focus."

Sara Garden Armstrong
2009


















Second Floor:
Evan Venegas

“My work looks deep into the evolution of city life. The inspiration comes from the energy created by the masses of people and how weaved together we form a changing backdrop for city living. Another form of stimulation is the urban shapes which are sharp, curved, bold, delicate and combine into an infinite number of both simple and complex configurations. This has evolved into a symbolism that reflects the distinction between anthropomorphic shapes and those that have a manufactured quality. I fuse these two classes of shapes in my painting to represent what happens daily in the urban environment."

Evan Venegas
2009

















Third Floor:
Christopher McEvoy

“My latest paintings began with the desire to explore interconnectivity. I am influenced by the fluid nature of memory, experience and perception. To explore these ideas, I captured a series of images, generally landscapes that chronicle my surroundings, then used drawing and digital technology to manipulate each image, thus creating a record of perception and emotional response without giving the viewer direct access to the stimulus. In the paintings I develop from these images, structures vie for dominance within the canvas, much as sensory images or impressions might come to the forefront or recede in the mind or memory. Color and scale serve as a means to magnify and distort the experience of the viewer, ultimately amplifying a common location or a commonplace experience. To this end, technology is used to create the image, but it is the act of painting that makes the image more real, or larger than the reality it was derived from. Ultimately, the paintings lead the observer to question whether what he sees is directed by the artist, or directed by the viewer’s own personal set of experiences."

Christopher McEvoy
2009


















Fourth Floor:
John Van Alstine
Sisyphean Holiday Series

"SISYPHEAN HOLIDAY SERIES is a “tongue in cheek” spin-off from my recent Sisyphean Circle Series (2005-9), which examines parallels between the Greek mythological character Sisyphus and the plight of the artist.

Because of a lifetime of transgressions when Sisyphus reached the underworld he was forced as punishment to roll a large stone up a steep hill, only to have it tumble back after reaching the top. This toil lasts all eternity and, I believe, is a perfect metaphor for the creative process and especially applicable to those, like myself, who uses stone as a primary material.

However, to view the creative process simply as toil or a punishment is obviously too narrow and negative, I prefer to see it in the context presented by Albert Camus, the French existentialist in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus. Here Camus uses the myth to illustrate the idea that reaching ones final destination is not always the most important and if one “reconsiders Sisyphus” as he suggests, the struggle or journey reveals itself as ultimately the most meaningful - an idea that I, and many others, believe is central to the creative process and life in general.

After completing over 30 sculptures in the Sisyphean Circle Series, I created the new Sisyphean Holiday Series and present these works in a light hearted, “tongue in cheek” way. They suggest giving Sisyphus (and me) a break or “holiday”. Here Sisyphus's “stone” is placed in a form similar to an Adirondack guide boat or canoe which, I believe, gives the sculpture a playful and local summer twist."

John Van Alstine
2009

Fran Shalom with Douglas Culhane, Erin Walrath, Grace Bakst Wapner, Jeremy Hoffeld and Barry Bartlett

On Thursday, September 17th the work of the featured artist Fran Shalom was displayed in the main galleries with sculpture in the garden by Douglas Culhane, an installation by Erin Walrath in the Carriage House atrium, mixed media work by Grace Bakst Wapner, Erin Walrath, paintings by Jeremy Hoffeld and porcelain sculpture by Barry Bartlett.

Main Galleries: Fran Shalom Paintings "I am a modernist abstract painter with a pop sensibility. My works balance the formal with the playful, paring down shapes and ideas into their most basic forms. It is a search for clarity and humor, as is evidenced by the shapes and colors in my paintings: cartoony, bright, blobby and fun. But, like life itself, there is an undercurrent of conflict beneath the whimsy, as reflected in the tension and interaction between the shapes. Ultimately, it is important that the viewer becomes involved with the paintings, tempting them to stay long enough with the images to connect to a narrative that is at once ambiguous yet taps into the specifics and subtleties of their own lives." Fran Shalom 2009

---

Sculpture Garden:

Douglas Culhane

At The Blind Window

"Things - solid inanimate objects - seem to be the most knowable, reliable and defined entities of our daily experience. I have always suspected that this is not the entire truth. As a sculptor I explore the inner potential of things and create works that make the mystery, uneasiness and animate presence of solid objects more apparent. The possibility of articulating ideas, feeling and questions without language is the aspect of sculpture I find most compelling.

These pieces were made with the knowledge of many other related objects in mind. Although they have no other utility than their accessibility to contemplation, their vocabulary is derived from the features of utilitarian objects. Form and function are confounded, mutated and hybridized to illuminate the richness and complexity of their being and of our experience of this world dense with things."

Douglas Culhane
2009

---

Carriage House:

Installation: Erin Walrath Installation Force of Habit, 2009 (ongoing)Retired Socks, Reclaimed Wooden Objects, Nails, Glue Currently 8 x 11 feet but size indeterminate "We are creatures of habit. And as we go about running our particular programs and patterns, we leave in our wake, a trail of debris. That debris is sometimes saturated with meaning and is sometimes perfectly boring. Recently, I have begun to build visual tapestries from the things I collect, giving voice, or at least new context to the otherwise less interesting object. I find that this process has created an impetus to look at the world more optimistically. It also allows me a sort of indulgence and a freedom that I had not previously permitted myself; to be less cerebral and more playful in making art. For the past two and a half years, I have been gathering material for the piece that is the focus of this body of work. 'Force of Habit' is an installation comprised of collected socks that have been naturally worn out and, in some cases, outright obliterated. They have been saved, collected and submitted by hundreds of individuals. The intention was to create a project that could continue to grow, at times on its own, taking on whatever form it would. It became apparent to me somewhere in the process that I was creating a piece that would somehow reference the fine line between absurdity and gravity that seems to be the uniquely human experience." Erin Walrath 2009

Second Floor: Grace Bakst Wapner Collage "The focus of this series is first and foremost about color and texture. The format of a smaller rectangle inside a larger rectangle suggests a smaller world within a larger one and often there is a dialogue between the two. This dialogue is primarily about the play between fabric and paint or stitching and the painted line. The concern is with the abstract: with formal aspects of color and placement, with the difference between a line stitched and a line drawn, with the texture and character of stitched threads, and with the play of reflective light on fabric contrasted with the surface of paint absorbed into paper. Sometimes the outlines of houses can seem to be nestled in towns or colorful villages can be seen within gray cities but these images evolve from attention to abstract form, color and placement and are of secondary interest as the piece is worked." Grace Bakst Wapner 2009

Third Floor: Jeremy Hoffeld Drawings and Paintings "My recent drawings and paintings are closely tied to language. My mark-making units are words and sentences. Each picture is a type of entry, composed with distinct written content, ranging from commentary, to stream of consciousness, to confessional. Through the layered application of sentences a charged surface emerges, which is infused with the underlying feeling of the words, but in which the legible content is mostly abstracted." Jeremy Hoffeld 2009

---

Fourth Floor: Barry Bartlett Beer Steins and Buddhas Amalgams of Desire Barry Bartlett's narrative sculptures, in ceramics and mixed media, have long explored the realm of socio-psychological issues, from evolution to warfare to suburban sprawl. In Bartlett's latest work, iconic motifs are reconfigured using porcelain castings of mass-produced souvenir molds. These eccentric, over-sized steins and Buddha icons are superimposed with casts of cultural, religious and political figures, fantastical animals, holiday chotchkes, etc. Essentially, a stein is a lidded tankard or mug. The lid was originally conceived in the late 1400's (following the lessons of the bubonic plague that killed over 25 million) as a sanitary measure to protect against hoards of little flies that frequently invaded Central Europe. With the decrease in population, landless day laborers that had survived the plague could now command higher wages and afford small luxuries. And so it was that the stein, vessel for the newly improved beer - a.k.a the flowing bread - was born. Beer was now made with quality ingredients, not the slop of rotting cabbages and bread, and promised many health benefits. Through the centuries, the stein, with its luxury value manifested via allegorical, biblical and historical vignettes, became a status symbol, reflecting current cultural interests and trends. Bartlett's act of recontextualizing these icons reminds us both of their permanence in our imaginations and their vulnerability as icons. Commemorative vessels, once a mainstay of events such as world's fairs, are now usually relegated to the realm of kitsch; reinterpreted as political commentary, however, they seem to regain a kind of expressive power. What was exotic has become trivial, historical events turn into shallow representations, kitschy fantasy figures become almost anonymous in their new, strange surroundings, as Bartlett says, and commemoration becomes commentary. The bourgeoisie have reached astronomical proportions.

Joseph Haske

Main Galleries:

Joseph Haske

Paintings

"Painting is a language. When painting, one is in a dialogue with other artists past and present and then with all things seen and remembered.

At some point I came to believe in a Jungian idea that there are universal archetypes. This led me to look for images with symbolic content, sometimes conscious geometric devices such as squares and the golden rectangle but just as often intuitively non literal, non verbal ideas. Lately I have been re-examining my own history of surfaces and paint handling to see if some discarded device might have a new usefulness.

Gesture, the mark of the brush, and the surface of the painting have always been very important to me. Sometimes these swirling lines make me think of the snakes of Medusa's head and at other times just the simple curving of a sound in the air. The underlying surfaces of these paintings appear very solid and mural-like. These layers of marble dust give off luminosity and the actual painting is usually just thin glazes, almost stains, on that surface."

Joseph Haske

2009

________________________________________

Sculpture Garden:

Jon Isherwood

Due to a delay in customs, the sculpture of Jon Isherwood did not arrive in time for the previous opening exhibition. This exhibition will introduce this new work for the first time.

"China is a fascinating blend of the ancient and the modern. It was therefore a particularly appropriate place to find inspiration for these sculptures, in which cutting edge digital technology was used to make sculptures made of stone, the oldest, most resilient and unforgiving of materials.

One of the greatest challenges for me, however, was that my approach to creating sculpture in this project was the reverse of how I normally work. I usually begin by modeling my sculptures in clay, and then use digital technology to model and cut the stone. In this case, however, the work began using 3D Studio Max to conceive the sculptures, which were then made into prototypes and eventually sent to China to be carved by hand. In other words, my normal working method is from the hand to technology, and in this project the artistic process began with technology and finished with the hand.

What was both daunting and intriguing about this way of working was the speed that the computer afforded in the design process. The 3D modeling technology enabled me to design a number of forms very quickly in the computer, and from those I could choose a few to print using a rapid-prototype machine. From working with the prototypes, I was able to see them as real objects and thus to see what needed to be changed or to understand the form. In the computer one finds a virtual scale that is relative to the screen, but in actual scale, it scales to the real world: the body, the hand. Rapid-prototyping facilitated a tactile intervention in the virtual design process.

One very exciting thing that occurred while using the 3-D Studio Max software was that it provided me with the ability to overlay patterns onto each other and onto form. For example, in one of the pieces that I created for this exhibition, I used the computer to take a traditional Chinese calligraphic pattern and overlay it with an abstract geometric pattern of my own design-another collision of the ancient and the modern. I then superimposed these merged patterns onto a form, which became the sculpture "In Deep" and "Burning through History". The technology allowed this overlay, which would not have been possible otherwise.

My travels through China in 2007 /08 were a main source of inspiration for the pieces I created, which are not a series, but rather four distinct responses to what I saw and absorbed. At the Dazu rock carvings, for example, I discovered an overwhelming experience of pattern and imagery bursting forward from the rock surface in high relief, surging forward in terms of dimension and yet still very attached to the earth. The issue of repetition and pattern and the aesthetic proportioning of the objects that led to a face-on frontal address from a sculpture were striking, and led to some of my sculptural explorations in pattern and form for this exhibition.

China is a fascinating blend of contrasts and contradictions, and it has been an inspiration for the work I have made using the 3D modeling technology. Whilst I feel really excited and confident in these pieces, I also feel that they represent four distinct new beginnings in the further evolution of my work."

Jon Isherwood

2009

________________________________________

Carriage House:

There are five artists within the carriage house: an installation by Sara Jane Roszak, paintings by Larry Brown and Peter McCaffrey and sculpture by William Ransom and Anthony Garner, in addition to a continuously changing group show of gallery sculptors on the first floor.

Carriage House Atrium:

Sara Jane Roszak

Installation: Jacob's Ladder

"An Installation made from rope and wood found in the area of Gloucester, Massachusetts, evoking the reflection of the winter sunset on the tree branches and sailboat ropes in the Harbor."

Sara Jane Roszak

2009

Second Floor:

Larry Brown

Paintings

"As a consequence of political inaction and ideological misdirection, the calamitous results of dramatic climate change seem quite evident. These new paintings are framed in that context. Although quite abstract, this new work tends to imply a collaborative relationship between the rather forceful character of nature's imperious beauty and its powerful destructive potential.

My work has evolved over the years from a general notion of the interaction of science and nature to, now, the suggestion of dynamic situations or events which are emphatically urgent, dangerous and potentially irreversible. The implication that everything in these paintings is in motion and dependent on a relative system of established structures reinforces the prescience of nature's command as well as its seemingly eternal presence.

The architectural elements reference a kind of gestalt of containment; a series of corridors or passageways which have been breached or opened incidentally.

Finally, the attempted dialectical tension between the foreboding content of this work and the magical process of painting itself is significant. Although this sense of conceptual opposition has been a long term focus of my interest, in the end, the seductive character of the paint and its unique processes still remain the primary and dominant subject."

Larry Brown

2009

________________________________________

Second Floor:

Peter McCaffrey

Among Fields

A Selection of Paintings and Works on Paper

"Images of animals dominate these works on paper and panel. Some are endowed with divine attributes. Others rise above their lowly status as icons of a simpler life. In the creation of an icon, gold represents solar light and heavenly intelligence. These are icons invented without rules. Yet their creation is an act of reverence, a way of working back through layers of obscurity to a source of imagination; to a primeval, rustic spirit-filled world. The element of gold acts as a beacon to the emerging image. These icons are a devotion to creatures in transition. In the drawings, a

meandering line defines a space and delineates the boundaries. The traces from erasure expose a thought, and I hesitate before making the final mark. I am drawn to the beautiful cursive handwriting of old letters and ledger books. The marks of the original hand remain firm and intact, and add a layer of history to the renderings I make on them. I feel an innate curiosity about the domestication and "interior life" of the animals I have chosen as subjects. My intention is to draw the viewer in: to tell the story of a distant memory, or a lost connection, and everything I hold dear."

Peter McCaffrey

2009

________________________________________

Third Floor:

William Ransom

hold back, hold forth

"Growing up in the rough-sawn world of a dairy farm in the hills of Vermont, I used my hands every day and built a foundation for knowledge of tools and materials; cutting firewood, fixing machinery, constructing and repairing buildings and picking rocks. I learned early about life and death, connection to place, the importance of family, food, storytelling and the cycles of the natural world. These lessons continue to inform how I live and demand that I strive to maintain connections despite my perception of a cultural disintegration of familiarity with the intricacies of the world. I constantly seek balance in my life and work: as a diabetic, balance between my sweet tooth and insulin injections; as the son of a bi-racial union, balance between black and white; as a farm kid living in LA, balance between rural and urban, city and soil. I navigate the world trying to keep my mind and eyes open to the realities of the biological and social systems I engage and the extent of my impact on them. My work reminds others to recognize the roots of their own connectedness. This is not a didactic morality tale. It is more an idiosyncratic vision of my own role in the world, rooted in my observations, my personal history, and the way I connect with my physical

surroundings.

Direct, hands-on interaction with material has always been important to me. For a long time wood has been my primary material and I choose wood deemed to be without value, found in dumpsters or scrounged from debris piles at construction sites. I enjoy how readily we associate the corporeality of wood with our own bodies, and how easily it can remind us of the entropic biological processes of growth and decay, loss and regeneration, consumption and excretion. Transformative processes that reflect the passage of time and that we are as inevitably susceptible to as everything else alive in this world."

William Ransom

2008

________________________________________

Fourth Floor:

Anthony Garner

Sculpture

"Art is an effort to study and to communicate the tactile and visual experience I have of the world around us. Sculpture affords me the best opportunities to combine those tactile and visual experiences. I enjoy the complex possibilities for revelation and contemplation that sculpture offers: sculpture may be both sensual and cerebral, both process and product, both space and form. My recent work combines the sensual aspects of carved wood with the conceptual ideas of articulated and compressed space."

Anthony Garner

2009

David Hornung at John Davis Gallery with Leticia Ortega, Dionisio Cortes, Chris Bertholf, Philip Douglas Heilman and Lucy Reitzfeld

On Thursday, July 23th the work of the featured artist David Hornung was displayed in the main galleries. An installation, when skies hang, by Leticia Ortega and Dionisio Cortes was on extended display in the Carriage House atrium. Paintings by Chris Bertholf, Philip Douglas Heilman, and Lucy Reitzfeld were also be on view on the upper floors of the Carriage House. Main Galleries: David Hornung: Paintings "This recent group of oil paintings follows a series of experimental gouache paintings I made in 2008. As in the gouache paintings, I have retained my longstanding iconography, i.e., rude structures, garden architecture, tools, flora, fauna and other objects that refer to a rural existence. These elements appear within an equivocal pictorial syntax held together through the agency of varied and sometimes contradictory modes of representation. The tension that results when a picture's parts disagree with one another is an ongoing fascination of mine, especially when those contradictions add up, paradoxically, to a sense of psychological unity. I am also drawn to the quality of illumination, both in the representation of light and in its literal manifestation through color. The experience of light in painting is rich with poetic implication; its metaphorical potential enhanced by its inherent seductiveness. It can make us feel whole." David Hornung 2009

---

Carriage House:
There are three artists within the carriage house: Chris Bertholf, Philip Douglas Heilman, and Lucy Reitzfeld in addition to a continuously changing group show of gallery sculptors on the first floor.

Second Floor: ChrisBertholf The Mysterious Landscape "The work in this show began as I fell in love with the landscape and the trees of the Hudson River valley. I'd work in my sketchbook from nature and then reworked the sketches into watercolors and, later, into oil paintings. I want to transform the essential elements of trees, and their relationship to the figure, into archetypes that can be interpreted through the prism of the viewer's experience. All interpretations are valid to the degree that they depend on the interrelations between the trees, the figures, the negative spaces and how these blend together into abstraction. These are the images that are meant in these works to grow organically, fusing into each other, shouldering aside quick impressions. Light and shade, life and death, growth and decay enable me to instinctually express the poetry that is intrinsic in these natural and geometric relationships." Chris Bertholf 2009

Third Floor: Philip Douglas Heilman Grids and Landscapes "I want to invent something that I've never seen before...paint what lay behind or before me in life. Academic statements make me suspicious. I've always felt a dual polarity in the cause for academic discussion vs. just getting on with the work at hand. Stanley Kubrick, when asked about what the meaning of his film 2001: A Space Odyssey said (and I paraphrase):"They are the areas I prefer not to discuss, because they are highly subjective and will differ from viewer to viewer. In this sense, it becomes anything the viewer sees in it. If it stirs the emotions and penetrates the subconscious of the viewer, if it stimulates, however inchoately, yearnings and impulses, then it has succeeded". Maybe I'm reaching just a bit. But the suspicious statement surely has roots in my training and background. One of my college instructors, painter Fred Mitchell, told me that if I wanted to teach, "...stay in college and get a higher degree. But if you want to paint" he said, "go to New York and open a studio and paint". I knew that I wanted to paint. So after college I headed to New York (West Haven Connecticut actually, but close enough having moved up from Baton Rouge. The move to New York City came eight years later). In his poem/treatise 'Arrivederci Mondernisimo': Carter Ratcliff said (again I paraphrase) "Arrivederci at last Modernisimo, dear--I was a young man in a hurry then, and I noticed that the history we were making had gotten into a funny habit of passing us by... I wanted to catch up. I wanted to be more myself". Academic; but real insightful. Duality indeed.I set out to be 'more myself'. I spent 15 years learning craft & discipline. Like all seekers of truth, all "artists" I had to investigate the enormous force of history that I deeply felt and embrace or discard the various art-isms in order to find the well spring of my own vision. But through the sidetracks and diversions a voice in my head told me to paint what lay right in front of me. 'If you can't find it in your own backyard you'll never find it'; another piece of sage advice from a former college instructor (a much more "Bookish" one). All those hundreds of bad paintings contained kernels of individual thought; pure invention, willful independence, forward progress. 'One must weed out the garden before the flowers can blossom'. I don't know who said that. I just like it. The act of painting itself becomes an act of invention; it's what painter Thomas Nozkowski calls "the territory of invention". Sources and inspirations are all around me in everyday life. So I paint what I know and what I see. I paint life in front of me. PDH Columbiaville, New York 2008

---

Fourth Floor: Lucy Reitzfeld Mercer Street "Lucy Reitzfeld introduces a series of small oil paintings devoted to observations from windows of her SoHo loft. Completed over the course of several seasons, the series began as "studies" for larger works. Over time the artist began to delight in the small scale and decided not to transpose the works to a larger format. The smaller and often odd shaped panels provided great possibilities for studying patterns of shape and color. As the light and seasons change, patterns of shapes take on different hues. Reitzfeld is always searching for the meaning of color and light. Light is made of color. Color describes light and color describes form. Her paintings function as a cumulative response to the observed world. Certain elements appear and reappear and take on an iconographic character. The imposing Trump building with its orange passenger elevator, the water towers across Mercer Street, the small spots of distant buildings in the North view. "I do not set out to make a picture of anything. The fact that a painting might actually look like something is always a surprise to me. It is the unconscious gathering of sensations that builds a painting." Lucy Reitzfeld 2009

Renee Iacone Clearman: Figures, Forms and Fetishes with Leticia Ortega, Dionisio Cortes, Kellyann Burns and Robert Reitzfeld

June 25th, a new exhibition opened at John Davis Gallery. The work of the featured artist Renee Iacone Clearman was on display in the main galleries under the title, Figures Forms and Fetishes.

An installation, when skies are hanged, by Leticia Ortega and Dionisio Cortes was in the Carriage House atrium. Paintings by Ortega, Cortes, Kellyann Burns, and Robert Reitzfeld (Che. An Exploration) were on view on the upper floors of the Carriage House.

Main Galleries:Renee Iacone Clearman:

Figures Forms and Fetishes


"Clay has been described as the ultimate "primitive" material. It has been used for thousands of years and continues to be a substance which is inherently sensual and evocative. For a number years my exploration of the human form involved a mixed media process utilizing rusted metals, old fabrics, glass, wire, string and numerous variations of cultural detritus. This exhibition represents my continuing exploration of the human form in clay.

Clay is a new medium for me and quite challenging.

The association of a pot to the human figure is age old. Even the identification of a pot's parts - foot, lip, body, belly, and mouth reflects this comparison. This association motivates my interest in using clay to express the human body as vessel in all its various capacities. Some pieces imply fetishes which might be part of ritual use while others relate to the body as container. Some works are evocative of chunks of landscapes which suggest the human form to me.

For instance, the White Place figures are inspired from that area of New Mexico which haunts my imagination. It's a moonscape peopled with towering, weathered "figures" slowly deteriorating under the harsh elements.

The Tent Spikes series are a reflection of my fascination with a set of hand-carved Civil War tent spikes, some still adorned with disintegrating hemp around their throats. Each spike contains a story, a history, a soul that I strive to capture. Clay represents the primal material of life which both liberates and binds a form. In many ways, it is this paradox as it applies to the human body which keeps me interested."

Renee Iacone Clearman

2009



________________________________________

Sculpture Garden:
Mary Ellen Scherl



My defining moment as a sculptor was in 2001 when I began to work on Monumental Woman, the first of a series of life-size, classically rendered obese figures which went beyond the intention of merely achieving verisimilitude. Whereas my artistic practice previously featured realism and attention to detail, with Monumental Woman these aspects were married to emotional content; body image issues, dignity, pain, and healing. These qualities continue to influence my figurative work.

Since 2001 I have worked almost exclusively with one model. With her my intention has been to challenge the classical "Greek ideal" and today's waif-thin standard of beauty. Many have remarked that Monumental Woman, 50 DD, and Bathing Beauty are reminiscent of the ancient, ample Venus of Willendorf. My inspiration, however, comes from the mid-century Earthly Bodies photographs of Irving Penn and the more recent fleshy paintings of Lucien Freud. Corpulent and honest, my figures explore in clay what these two artists explored in paint and film.

In the last three years some of my work has departed from realism. Cellulite Series, a group of five figures celebrates the essence of the fertile, fecund, female form. Whereas earlier sculptures of my muse achieve verisimilitude, these ironically are minimalist in approach by addressing only the uniquely female anatomy, and eliminating extremities. I am intrigued by how Maiden Voyage feels at once goddess-like and pagan, it reminds me of masthead, albeit without the head. The freedom to simplify and exaggerate, as in Blue Muse and Feminine Alter has been a pleasure. The surface texture reflects how I build body-mass with layers of tiny lumps of clay until a generous fleshy form meets a sinuous line. I think of these 'lumps' as cellulite. In my realistic work the 'cellulite' gets blended together. In Cellulite Series I allow the process to show. The resulting pieces bear a resemblance to the human fragments in Penn's images and to the sensual and playful sculptures of Ken Price.

I find it meaningful that I am able to make a difference through my art. The practice of developing ideas, crafting images and objects feels as essential to me as food, water and shelter. I love making objects. I love making a difference. And I love making objects that make a difference.
Mary Ellen Scherl
2009



________________________________________


Carriage House:
There are four artists within the carriage house: Leticia Ortega, Dionisio Cortes, Kellyann Burns and Robert Reitzfeld in addition to a continuously changing group show of gallery sculptors on the first floor.

Installation:
Leticia Ortega & Dionisio Cortes
when skies are hanged..., 2009
Site-specific installation
water, plastic bags, nylon thread
360" H x 96" W x 120" L

Leticia Ortega and Dionisio Cortes join labors once again to construct a playful and whimsical collaborative install

ation. They used the three-story high elevator shaft at the Carriage House to install hundreds of plastic bags filled with water. The hanging bags will be grouped in clusters to create a sort of hovering clouds. The water filling each bag becomes a lens reflecting and refracting light and space.

This installation is based on a simple, small-town, Mexican custom, which is believed to scare houseflies away and/or stop them from entering a space. The custom calls for hanging clear, plastic bags filled with water on a window or door threshold. It is argued that the distorted and augmented reflection of the surroundings and/or the flies themselves, scare flies away as they may perceive these images as huge predators. These bags are mostly used in modest restaurants and street vending carts.

We are always mesmerized and captivated by the beautiful way these bags reflect the sky. Inspired in one of e.e. Cummings poems, our intention is to use this popular practice to create a playful and elusive piece. In the inspirational poem, images of summer are found in between a brimful of lines that make music for you before (if ever) they make sense.

________________________________________

Second Floor:
Kellyann Burns

"My process is my subject. The harmonic balance of color, of light and form found in nature is constantly shifting, subordinated by nature's own process, its own need to transform.

I paint, I sand, I turn the canvas. I paint, I sand, I turn the canvas. I build with color and focus on the conceptual elements of painting, not the decorative. Over time as in nature, order and form unite, until a harmony is revealed between light within the painting and light reflecting from the painting."


Kellyann Burns

2009

________________________________________

Third Floor:
Leticia Ortega & Dionisio Cortes





Leticia Ortega - In my new work, I develop images both freely and painterly, but also with control and fine detailing. I obsessively work and rework areas to build an all-over emotional atmosphere of space and color. Although abstract in essence, the work however, evokes notions of waterscape.

Dionisio Cortes - My recent work continuous to explore the possibilities of the "gesture". I construct patterned and highly ornamental paintings. I build up my subject matter by laying rhythmic and gestural patterns over decorative designs [drawn from materials and patterns found in the decorative arts]. The work reflects my interest in the search for the "ideal beauty" in the age of surplus information.

We both develop surfaces by carefully accumulating tens of layers. Substrates are coated with dry/oil gesso, which yields a smooth, luminous surface. Veils of paint are layered in an obsessive and ritualistic process. The pieces interweave materials and methods allowing for translucency. This meticulous and laborious process is encrypted and recuperated in the finished product.

Collaborative Work - For the first time and for this show we are showing a series of collaboratively paintings. (In the past we have worked together in installation and sculpture). In our individual work, processes and materials are frequently shared. As a husband-wife team, many of our mutual experiences feed the content of our personal work.


Leticia Ortega & Dionisio Cortes

2009

________________________________________




Fourth Floor:
Robert Reitzfeld
Che. An Exploration




" On New Years Day 1959, the Cuban revolutionaries took over the island as the dictator Batista fled. Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara rode into Havana as liberators.

Che, in part because of an iconic image, became a folk hero as well as a source of income for t-shirt manufacturers.

The truth is that Che was notoriously homophobic and had many Cuban homosexuals imprisoned, tortured and killed.

It is well known that many extreme homophobes have buried in them homosexual desires that they subvert by over protesting."


Robert Reitzfeld

2009

Rosanna Bruno, Mary Ellen Scherl, EJ Hauser, Molly Herman, Sharon Butler

May 28th, a group of women artists opened the season with a medley of exhibitions for the Main Galleries, Sculpture Garden and Carriage House. In celebration, the gallery had four solo exhibitions by abstract painters in both the front galleries and Carriage House. The sculpture garden featured a figurative sculptor, sculpting women. The exhibition was on display through June 21st.

Main Galleries:

Rosanna Bruno

"I am interested in the act of painting itself. Through the process of painting I feel it is possible to work out the jumble of constant visual stimulation through the experience of just making. It is a form of translation, utilizing the language of paint to speak to endless experiences. My paintings are seemingly direct, though often constructed with a complex network of color and line-- color being the primary structural element. I am most interested in the paintings that ultimately belie the experience of making them—offering instead a sense of falling into place or appearing without effort. Play and struggle coexist in painting and it is in this relationship that I find meaning."

Rosanna Bruno

2009

Sculpture Garden:

Mary Ellen Scherl

"My defining moment as a sculptor was in 2001 when I began to work on Monumental Woman, the first of a series of life-size, classically rendered obese figures which went beyond the intention of merely achieving verisimilitude. Whereas my artistic practice previously featured realism and attention to detail, with Monumental Woman these aspects were married to emotional content; body image issues, dignity, pain, and healing. These qualities continue to influence my figurative work.

Since 2001 I have worked almost exclusively with one model. With her my intention has been to challenge the classical “Greek ideal” and today’s waif-thin standard of beauty. Many have remarked that Monumental Woman, 50 DD, and Bathing Beauty are reminiscent of the ancient, ample Venus of Willendorf. My inspiration, however, comes from the mid-century Earthly Bodies photographs of Irving Penn and the more recent fleshy paintings of Lucien Freud. Corpulent and honest, my figures explore in clay what these two artists explored in paint and film.

In the last three years some of my work has departed from realism. Cellulite Series, a group of five figures celebrates the essence of the fertile, fecund, female form. Whereas earlier sculptures of my muse achieve verisimilitude, these ironically are minimalist in approach by addressing only the uniquely female anatomy, and eliminating extremities. I am intrigued by how Maiden Voyage feels at once goddess-like and pagan, it reminds me of masthead, albeit without the head. The freedom to simplify and exaggerate, as in Blue Muse and Feminine Alter has been a pleasure. The surface texture reflects how I build body-mass with layers of tiny lumps of clay until a generous fleshy form meets a sinuous line. I think of these ‘lumps’ as cellulite. In my realistic work the ‘cellulite’ gets blended together. In Cellulite Series I allow the process to show. The resulting pieces bear a resemblance to the human fragments in Penn’s images and to the sensual and playful sculptures of Ken Price.

In 2005, in an effort to try to help heal on a larger scale, I asked myself, “What if my art could help fight breast cancer?” The result of my query was Mamorial; a breast cancer awareness installation that has grown into a project echoing the AIDS Awareness Quilt. Mamorial provides therapeutic healing for breast cancer survivors and a visceral awareness experience for the general public. Two-hundred-fifty survivors from twenty-three states have made molds of their cancer affected chests and have written about their breast cancer experience. The resulting life-casts and soundtrack of testimonials comprise the traveling multi-media Mamorial installation. Creating Mamorial and witnessing its powerful and healing benefits recently inspired Hallowed Ground; a new direction intended to combat systematic genocide.

I am neither a breast cancer survivor nor a relative of a victim of genocide. Yet, I find it meaningful that I am able to make a difference through my art. The practice of developing ideas, crafting images and objects feels as essential to me as food, water and shelter. I love making objects. I love making a difference. And I love making objects that make a difference."

Mary Ellen Scherl

2009

Carriage House:

There are three artists within the carriage house: EJ Hauser, Molly Herman, and Sharon Butler in addition to a continuously changing group show of gallery sculptors on the first floor.

Second Floor:

EJ Hauser

"It seems I’m always trying to find a way to bring my notebooks into the world…my notebooks serving as a kind of personal repository for holding images and words that I think of as energy and force…while working in the notebooks, I also make drawings, clip images from the newspaper, and write down strings of words…these drawings and lists become the origin for my paintings…and, I basically develop the heavy paint paintings similarly to how I develop the word paintings…it is a kind of semi-free associative process, where an idea (word or image) goes up on the panel, and I react to it…building layers, adding and subtracting, looking for something resonant.

And, the paint and color of my thick paint paintings has become more resonant to me since embarking on the purely word paintings…the landscapes, geological arenas, and oceans where semi-fierce animals, heads, and weird creatures roam has become more unencumbered since making these word paintings …it’s as if the structure and text dreaming within the word paintings has created a kind of extreme position to push against…one in which the paint has become freed up as a kind of sculptural tool for my imagining."

EJ Hauser

2008

Third Floor:

Molly Herman

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.”

-- Theodore Roethke

“This sing-song incantation from a Theodore Roethke’s villanelle, “The Waking” could be taken as my mantra for the tangent in my new work.

I began by asking: “How to reduce the act of painting to its most elemental?”

I decided to build a painting from a sequence of obvious and repeatable marks and focused on a particular pigment in each piece.

Quickly, this process evolved and broke from a methodical printed pattern into a kind of layered and textured “Free Verse.” Compositions are arrived at through an open-ended search; a process embedded in the painting.

As with my previous work, I continue my interest in exploring the physicality of the paint. The “flesh” of these paintings is dense and mottled, made of scraped-into and scumbled-on stratums of color, while the simplicity of the stamped image reaches toward a more earthy metaphor.

Molly Herman

2009

Fourth Floor:

Sharon Butler

Beacon Paintings

"For four months last summer, I spent Mondays in Beacon, NY, working quietly in a solitary 4’ x 5’ shack. I had heard of a project called “Habitat for Artists” from Chris Albert, a blogger I met during the Blogger Conference at the Red Dot Fair back in March. “Habitat For Artists” was organized by artist Simon Draper, who built twelve small sheds on the grounds of Spire Studios and invited a group of artists to use them for the summer. Traveling to Beacon was more time-consuming than working in one stationary location, and I painted less on days spent there. But by expanding my world, the shack helped enrich my work.

At the beginning of the summer, I was entering a transitional phase, unsure where I was going but confident that the discipline of daily practice would lead somewhere. Though known mainly for Flavin, Lewitt, and Serra’s resolutely intellectual brand of minimalism, Dia:Beacon, just a few blocks from my little shack, was featuring installations by colorists Blinky Palermo and Imi Knoebel, which impelled me to consider color more intensely than I ever had before. As the summer unfolded in my shack, I extended the limited, austere palette I’d been using for years to include the entire spectrum.

This series of small paintings is the result of my time spent in Beacon. Their scale, handmadeness, and intuitive form constitute an emotive and spontaneous counterpoint to the cerebral and exhaustive exploration of mathematical and geometric constructs and the meticulous experimentation with industrial materials predominantly showcased at Dia."

Sharon Butler

2009

Lois Dickson

Lois Dickson:

Paintings

April 30 – May 24, 2009.  

The new work reflects the artist’s ongoing exploration of the natural world. While earlier paintings explore subject matter monumental in scale--glaciers and geysers of Chilean Patagonia-- Dickson now considers a sphere of radically inverse proportion: the micro cosmos of butterfly wings. Barely legible as lepidoptera, moths and butterflies morph into organic forms that emerge from dense, thickly painted surfaces and/or thin washes of iridescent hue.  The butterfly provides the artist with endless metaphoric and pictorial possibilities.  “Butterflies change shape, reading as volume one moment, line the next.  Variations of color and form are infinite.  The metamorphic cycle of butterflies’ lives is a symbol of decay and renewal, a theme I’ve always been interested in.”

Several paintings take as a departure point the wing pattern of various species. The prominent eyespots on the ventral hind wings of the Caligo Owl Butterfly have special implications for the artist.  As complications with her own eyes have developed, Dickson has searched for equivalent forms appropriate to her art.  Intended to disorient predators, the Caligo eyespots also disarm viewers of these paintings with their deeply felt gaze, both plaintive and defiant.

 In contrast to the ephemeral quality of their primary motif, many of the paintings have a tough touch which the artist ascribes to the physicality of her painting process:  “I work with a brush in one hand, and a palette knife in the other--troweling on and scraping off until the image is ‘excavated.’  ”  The new work also demonstrates a kind of synergy between pictorial “order” and “chaos” ; tangled knots of organic form play against a rigorous grid, evoking both Apollonian and Dionysian intent.   “I want to balance the intensity of my emotional response with a rational, more measured quality.  One hopes the paintings engage the viewer in a way that invites multiple readings and a wide range of personal responses.”