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FRAN O’NEILL: LEFT TURN

by Benjamin LaRocco

I love the idea of taking a line for a walk. It creates a very evocative image in my mind. Elaborating on his ingenious coinage, Paul Klee wrote:

“An active line on a walk, moving freely, without goal. A walk for a walk’s sake. The mobility agent is a point, shifting its position forward.”

Klee’s attribution of agency to the point is noteworthy, shifting emphasis away from the creator toward the creation. Where might this line of thought lead us in making a painting? I am provoked into this consideration by several of Fran O’Neill’s new paintings “shape of things” and “low hang.”

“shape of things” (70x100 inches, oil on canvas, 2022) runs a swirling gamut of yellows, greens, pinks and chromatic grays on its way between dominant keys of orange and purple. The swirl is O’Neill’s signature movement of a flat brush through thin, wet oil paint over large swaths of canvas. The movement routinely doubles back on itself until it fills the field. The line here, as in all O’Neill’s canvases, is recursive, conforming as it moves to the parameters of speed and scale initiated in its coming into being.

Back to the point (pun intended) and its agency. If we think of the point as the place of contact between brush and canvas, O’Neill’s walk is then a long one following a path that is not predetermined but consistent in its rhythm: a stroll. True to Klee, I sense no agenda for the painted lines pushed and pulled through space, encouraging the impression that the walk is the point (self-referentiality). The joy of a walk always resides in its essential self-sufficiency. “low hang” (70x100 inches,oil on canvas, 2022) further teases out the trajectory of O’Neill’s line. The title for this work conjures shades of Eva Hesse’s “Hang Up.” A tangle of white and black lines at its center, hanging out playfully from its environment, further underscores the comparison. Though it is tempting, due to methodological similarities, to make analogy between O’Neill’s work and that of painter Karin Davie, an element of predetermination in the latter’s gesture often seems to declare itself, setting Davie’s work on a different course from that of O’Neill. I feel more comfortable following O’Neill’s line, like Klee’s self-directed point, toward Hesse’s indeterminate, three-dimensional space.

Though she spends time in New York, O’Neill lives and paints primarily in her native Australia, a land I know mainly through Bruce Chatwin’s Songlines. What the book might lack in contemporary references, it makes up for in romantic depth and I envision O’Neill’s lines moving through just that space. Though I don’t wish to suggest that O’Neill’s painterly line walks an Aboriginal Songline, it does seem that the rhythmic charting of linear movement through vast open spaces might be a priority O’Neill’s painting shares with Australia’s earliest culture.

ABOUT FRAN

An Australian-American, Fran O’Neill, was born in Wangaratta, Australia, and currently lives and works between Australia and Brooklyn, New York. O'Neill attended Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, earning a BFA and Post Graduate Degree. Her post-graduate work continued at the New York Studio School's Certificate Program, and her MFA was completed at Brooklyn College. She has received a Joan Mitchell Foundation award. O’Neill’s solo exhibitions include at: Sears Peyton Gallery, NYC; Hathaway Contemporary, Atlanta, GA; West End Gallery, Melbourne, Australia; David Schweitzer Contemporary, Bushwick, NY; Miller Gallery, Cincinnati, OH; BMG Gallery, Adelaide, Australia; TW Fine Art, Brisbane, Australia; Life on Mars Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, John Davis Gallery, NY; New York Studio School, NY; and Sussex College, Hastings, UK. In 2016 her work was exhibited at MOCA in Jacksonville, FL in a group exhibition titled Confronting the Canvas: Women of Abstraction, and most recently her work was included in Vital Presence, curated by David Cohen at 1GAPGallery, in Brooklyn. O’Neill’s work has been included in various group shows throughout the USA and in Australia. She has recently taught at the New York Studio School, Arts Students League and Pratt Institute. Her work resides in private collections in the USA, Australia and UK, and in the permanent collection of MOCA Jacksonville, FL.

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Bruce Gagnier, Odille, hydrocal plaster, 67 x 22 x 18 inches, 2017

BRUCE GAGNIER: CITIZENS

John Yau writes, “The tension between classicism and chaos is one of the many things that sets Bruce Gagnier’s art apart from figurative sculpture stretching back to Auguste Rodin, Camille Claudel, and Edgar Degas.” For his debut at Equity Gallery’s new courtyard exhibition space, Gagnier will show an ensemble of largely life-sized bronze sculptures that have been described as inside-out representations; works that make visible the internal struggles of the human psyche rather than the armored reflection of the ego and its will to perfection.

Bruce Gagnier attended Skowhegan School and received a BFA from Williams College and an MFA from Columbia University. Solo exhibitions in New York include Lori Bookstein Fine Art, M13 Gallery, Leslie Cecil Gallery, and Thomas Park Gallery. Additional solo exhibitions include Gaumann Cicchino Gallery, in Fort Lauderdale, Thomas Park Gallery Seoul South Korea, Gallery JJ Seoul South Korea, the ISA Gallery, Montecastello di Vibio Italy, the University of Kentucky, Haverford College and the New York Studio School Gallery.

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Anthony Rebholz has been working as an artist for over 30 years. His focus has been primarily on painting in a style that though representational, privileges a near naïve application of bold color and primitive form to emote mythic content. Fleurs Dans le Noir comprises three new large scale floral paintings that recall the graphic precision of a Loel Nesbitt bloom infused Burchfield’s fairy kingdom incantations.

Rebholz currently lives and works in Brooklyn NY. He has shown and taught art in the United States and in Europe. He has earned degrees in the Arts from Byam Shaw School of Art, MFA program, London UK, The New York Studio School and Fordham University in NY.

Curated by Alaiyo Bradshaw and Matt Rota

“Personal Geographies showcases artists working in the intractable media of watercolor to explore the intersection between place and memory. This is a juried exhibition featuring works done completely or mostly in watercolor. The theme Personal Geographies is about exploring memories through objects, landscapes, and atmosphere which carries the weight and implications of personal histories and places.”

Participating Artists:

Alessandro Levato, Andrea Geller, Blair Thornley, Carla Lobmier, Carol Fabricatore, Carrie Hawks, Dina Weiss, Elizabeth Haidle, Farwah Rizvi, Hema Bharadwaj, Jill Shoffiett, John Patterson, Kelley Simons, Laura M Cleary Williams, Leah Reid, Maryanne Pollock, Melanie Vote, Nora Rodriguez, Phyllis Beinart, Rachel Walker, Riccardo Vecchio, Shiri Mordechay, Stephanie Rauschenbusch, Stephanie Tager, Sunny Chapman, Susan Strande, Warren Linn, Yi-An Pan, Yuko Takei

Opening Reception:

Thursday, Oct. 6th, 6-8 PM

A 2022 NYAE Curatorial Residency Program Exhibition

Curators: 

Beth Barry, Haylee Barsky, Fran Beallor, Lois Bender, Hadasa Castro, Sunny Chapman, Naomi Frank, Eileen Hoffman, Kristin Reed, Barbara Sherman

Participating Artists: 

Ellen Alt, Audrey Anastasi, Hilda Green Demsky, Jodie Fink, Sharon Florin, Cyan Garma, Ellen Grossman, Agnes Grochulska, Carly Haffner, Alice Harrison, Sarah Hearn, Kristen Heritage, Dayeon Kim, Kerry Law, Judith Luongo, Geanna Merola, Joyce Raimondo, Marcy Rosewater, Phyllis Rosser, Andra Samelson, Joanne Steinhardt, Veronica Zavel.

Residency Leaders:

Hayley Ferber and Luciana Solano

Opening Reception:
Saturday, Sept. 10th, 5-7 PM

Closing Reception:
Sunday, October 2, 2-6 PM

This show is the product of the Equity Gallery Curatorial Workshop Series, an exhibition development program hosted, supported, and sponsored by the New York Artists Equity Association.

In response to chaotic and difficult times, artists continue making art, expressing their feelings while reflecting the beauty and angst of the world. Underneath everything is a delicate tension between fragility and strength.  

The New York Artist Equity Association’s exhibition, Shifting Balance speaks to the isolation and anxiety of the current atmosphere, and a search for equilibrium. Between loss and discovery, chaos and construction, growth and decay, the known and the unfathomable, these artists have put their finger on a flickering pulse, cultivating myriad possibilities that struggle and flourish. 

Here, balance is found in real and imaginary landscapes and environments, human architecture and skeletal remains— grounding us on earth and tying us to a place and a history. Symbols and icons remind us of birth, death, and infinity while the abstraction of patterns, rhythms or cosmic bodies hovers far above the mundane. Some works are playful, dancing with color; others approach with somber stillness. That ever-shifting dialectic, never achieving equipoise but perpetually pinballing between two extremes, finds expression in the diverse selection of works that make up this show.

CURATED BY MICHAEL GORMLEY AND PETER TRIPPI

JUNE 8– JULY 9, 2022

OPENING RECEPTION: JUN. 9, 6-8 PM

Featuring:

Featuring: Steven Assael, Mark Beard [Bruce Sargeant (1898-1938)], Sammy Bennett, Michael Bergt, James Bidgood (1933 - 2022), Charis J Carmichael Braun, Sherry Camhy, Landon Clay, Andrew Conklin, Matthew Conway, Bob Clyatt, Willaim H. Crist, Edgar N. Hartley, Lori Horowitz, Balbir Krishan, Kristin Kunc, Peter Erik Lopez, Daniel Maidman, Ellen Maidman-Tanner, Parme Marin, Jeff Mathison, Jeff Miller, Jordan Mejias, Adam Miller, Sean O'Connor, Mel Odom, Tracey Padron, Nelson Shanks, David Sokosh, Darryl B. Smith, Brandon Soloff, Savannah Spirit, Dan Thompson, Hui Tian, Basia Tov, Alessandro Tomassetti, Miguel Villalobos, Patricia Watwood, Forrest Williams, & Brenda Zlamany

Every human body is a thing of wonder—a naturally occurring marvel of anatomical design, a practical machine in which we live our lives, sometimes an enticing object of desire or a blank canvas that we tattoo or pierce to convey our personalities.  But in the past and present of Western art, it is usually the female body—especially when it’s unclothed—that captivates artists and viewers, primarily because it offers men a chance to take a long look without accusations of impropriety.

This exhibition shifts our attention toward men’s bodies, and specifically how contemporary artists working in a wide range of materials and styles see this timeless subject. Their inspirations come from all directions—from antiquity and academic classicism to modernism, the conceptual, and the digital. Some work from the live model, others entirely from imagination; some are frankly erotic and others quite chaste. 

All that these exhibited works have in common, then, is their subject matter, and their excellence. They remind us that the genre of male nudes is thriving, despite its being comparatively overlooked in the art world even now. The Male Nude: Turning the Gaze provides an opportunity to set that imbalance right by highlighting more than three dozen artists. Judging from what’s here, we all have cause to be optimistic about the field’s future.

A New York Artists Equity Back Office Exhibition

Equity Gallery is pleased to present “Tides,” a back office exclusive exhibition featuring small works by Linnea Paskow. Starting in 2002 and completing in 2020, Paskow’s series of paintings commemorate 18 years’ worth of outings to Brighton Beach, a popular summertime destination in Brooklyn. Part impromptu polaroid snap-shots, part expressionistic plein-air painted sketches, this collection of work presents different decontextualized vignettes from carefree, lazy vacation days and beach retreats. They capture the intimate rituals and sights associated with these brief moments of reprieve, ranging from contemplative coast-side walks, vistas of weathered boardwalks, to overstimulated children in action, casual gatherings, and questionable decisions fueled primarily by cheap light beer.

Paskow depicts these scenes as displaced from a specific time and place, yet rife with details. Human bodies are flattened pops of color among the beachside locales, becoming part of the seascape. Memories meld together and are compressed. Sensory aspects are heightened and made physical — atmosphere and surf are made viscous and heavy, just as present as the figures. The surrounding environments are manifested in the paintings as nebulous and fluid, defying gravity and flooding into every open negative space. The scenery clings to the human subjects, evoking sea salt sticking to sunscreen-smeared skin and palpable, humid air ladened with brine, smoke, and sweat. The vivid, somewhat surreal unreality present in the very nature of memories — particularly within highlighted, pleasurable memories — is brought to the forefront within Paskow’s paintings.

RSVP TO THE OPENING RECEPTION HERE!

In Making Sense Without Consensus, 14 artists explore making sense of the senseless from multiple perspectives producing drawings, mixed media, painting, sculpture and photography.  These artists explore reality through fragmented connections.  Their interactions with geometric materiality investigate whether the linearity of time is real or if past and future overlap.  

Consensus presupposes that a question has a single answer: the truth. More and more we understand those truths to be dogmatic, follow biases or are results of single minded ways of thinking.  What was once considered normal may have been societal constructions and therefore changeable. Instead of going back to a dual world, the artists move forward into new dimensions by building a dynamic reality in their creative open ended processes.

Parker Manis’ (b. USA, 1984) use of dyes and pigments creates a level of depth that draws the viewer into an intimate sense of isolation. Emulsive corrosion serves as an impediment to the clarity of viewership, and a reminder that some things that were, are no longer, and are but remnants left from our own personal processes of trial and error.  Karen Margolis’ (b. USA) compositions emerge through accumulating, building, layering and then unraveling, burning and dismantling exploring internal mechanisms through intimate expressions of how we are touched by circumstances of life.  Gabriel Castro’s (b. Brazil, 1986) wall works are the result of a complex layering process where he adds and removes layers of paint and paper to create meaningful visual patterns. He then uses discarded materials and fragments from his paintings in assembling paired sculptures.

Will Hutnick (b. USA, 1985 ) explores an “other”, undefined space that exists between our familiarity: a maze of self-similar patterns, underlying deviations, systems of recursion and objects in transition through the use of mixed media and repurposed collage.  The work is simultaneously object and remnant, an archive, a glimpse.  Linda King Ferguson (b. USA, 1954) investigates feminist subjectivity through what is and what is not, giving space and voice to an in-between of possibility. Color is saturated, communal, and contrasting: surfaces are thin, stained, and raw; forms are structured, incised, and permeated; space is autonomous, dependent, and open.

Sara Jimenez’s  (b. Canada, 1984) collages explore the material embodiment of deep transcultural memories, exploring concepts of origins and home, loss and absence through visual metaphors that allude to mythical environments and forgotten artifacts.  Anna Parisi (b. Brazil, 1984) provokes, invokes, and evokes cathartic, visceral experiences that invite engagement and allow space for self-reflection, vulnerability, and healing.  Ana Biolchini’s (b. Brazil, 1953) work investigates memory, ancestrality, traditions and archetypes systems related to the unconscious dimensions of the collective. 

Brigitta Varadi (b. Hungary) delves into craft, and the everyday rituals of working life as she investigates themes of sustainability and cultural heritage interweaving notions of fine art connecting us to the importance of tradition.  Peter Fulop’s (b. Hungary) work emerges out of a conversation with tradition and folklore while seeking to exploit the elemental processes of material intertwined with the use of gestural actions. These reflective works allow an embodied awareness of objects and object making.  Bel Falleiros’ (b. Brazil, 1983) artistic practice is driven by her relationship with the land. Working across different social and natural landscapes, she looks for the stories that unite us. 

Laura Lappi’s (b. Finland, 1979) sculptural practice explores the relationship between physical spaces, man-made structures, and the human mind – the psychogeography of places. Lappi’s work examines how architecture and spatial environments influence our perceptions and affect the fluid boundaries between reality and fiction.  Tom Capobianco’s (b. Brazil, 1984) sculptural work is a synesthetic experience that leads us to reconnect with the tactile sense through vision.  Diogo Pimentão’s  (b. Portugal, 1973) works play with viewer’s perception and how we translate medium and form into reality, expanding the boundaries between drawing and sculpture.

The artists search to expand perception and perspectives of their constructed reality. Their artworks offer a controlled external space that we can see from the outside where we may understand the underlying structures we live immersed in. The exercise of making what’s so big into a small space our eyes can navigate is one of the most powerful experiences art offers us.

RSVP TO THE MAR. 10TH OPENING RECEPTION HERE!

“Street photography is the art of capturing moments. The quality of those moments is in the photographer’s ability to see and respond.

Seeing is a direct link to one’s awareness of the moment. Sometimes I embark on planned photo safaris, but I always have a camera in hand.

Through the process I learn something about myself and perhaps humanity. I document in order to share what I discover.” — Christopher Calkins

ABOUT THE ARTIST

When Christopher Calkins was twelve, his father, a professional photographer, gave him a camera; in the next sixty years, he has never been without one in hand.  It’s been a mirror, a witness and a psychological distillery in a life that Calkins designed as an adventurous exploration: of communities, human interactions and the way individuals in the most specific narrative circumstances refract into our universal shared experience.  His life has been about seeing, and the awareness that lies behind it.  

Calkins has brought his photographer’s eye to his kaleidoscopic life experience, including the thirty jobs he had by the time he was thirty.  He has worked as a stunt cowboy in Old Tucson, Arizona, taught yoga at an ashram, been a construction worker,  a car salesman, was named one of Esquire Magazine’s Best Dressed College Men, and worked as a professional model with the Wilhelmina agency.  He managed a rock band, and a jazz club, joined AFTRA and drove a New York City cab; was a professional photographer’s assistant, a restauranteur, and started the restaurant division of Starbucks; he co-founded Spinelli Coffee in San Francisco, created his own coffee roasting company in Red Hook, and made wine in the Napa Valley.   His camera was the one constant, weaving together captured visual moments and surprise from the panorama of his experience.   “A photo,” Calkins believes, “should  capture the emotion you feel when you take it.”

 Born in Eugene, Oregon, Calkins grew up in Norwalk, CT just outside New York City.  Camera in hand, he spent his free time growing up exploring Chinatown and streets of Manhattan.  He was present at Woodstock, and at the Beatles’ first appearance at Carnegie Hall.  He has created a life where the vantage point of his lens is always surrounded by unending visual riches.

 His work has been exhibited on both coasts, and is held in numerous private collections.  Calkins lives and works in Manhattan.

Curator Artists: Elizabeth Winnel, Masa Ono, Jordan Baker, Ashok Sinha, Matt Rota , Mike Porten, Steve Schlackman

Print Artists: ALEXEY ADONIN, ANA CARRIÇO, BARTON LEWIS, DEBRA GOERTZ, DENISE DUNDON, DMITRII PATAPOV, DONNA FARANDA, ELIZABETH BROOKS, EUGENE M. RINCHIK, GRAHAM EARNSHAW, HALEH JAVANSHIR, JONATHAN DICKSON, KATHRYN REICHERT, KELLY PENZ, KIYEMBA MUHAMMAD, LAUREN HANA CHAI, LEE O'CONNOR, LEE O'CONNOR, MARIE GAGNE PEREZ, MARSHA KLEIN, MARTIN NORMAN, NICO PEARLEYES, NIKAH BENNE, RUBEN CUKIER, SARAH MARIA SCICLUNA, TANJA LANGGNER, VERONIKA DOLJENKOVA, WALTER WINCHURCH

An exhibition of the artists of artrepreneur.com, featuring a selection of highlights from Artrepreneur’s new Print on Demand Giclee print site. These prints are representative of the wide range of members’ work featured and available on artrepreneur.com. 

Coinciding with the print exhibition is a selection of work from the esteemed curators responsible for assembling the body of prints in this show, as well as overseeing the company’s daily curations and various creative endeavors. 

Opening Reception: Jan. 13th, 6 — 8 PM
(REGISTER HERE TO ATTEND!)

Juried by Savona Bailey-McClain,
Noah Becker, and Melissa Staiger

Featured Artists: Amy Bassin, Carol Diamond, Patricia Fabricant, Linda King Ferguson, Susan Hensel, Steven Anthony Johnson II, Toshiko Kitano Groner, Lisa Lebofsky, Carla Lobmier, Christina Massey, Kellyann Monaghan, Susan Reedy, Deborah Sherman, Susan Stillman, Christopher Stout, Sue Strande, Ellen Weider, and Siyan Wong.

Equity Gallery is pleased to ring in 2022 with the NYAE Annual Members Invitational, the latest iteration of our annual juried group exhibition, exclusively featuring artwork by Rose, Emerald, and Lifetime members of New York Artists Equity. The exhibition is Equity Gallery’s first new show of the new year and will run from January 12th through February 19th.

The eighteen artists featured in this year’s show are Amy Bassin, Carol Diamond, Patricia Fabricant, Linda King Ferguson, Susan Hensel, Steven Anthony Johnson II, Toshiko Kitano Groner, Lisa Lebofsky, Carla Lobmier, Christina Massey, Kellyann Monaghan, Susan Reedy, Deborah Sherman, Susan Stillman, Christopher Stout, Sue Strande, Ellen Weider, and Siyan Wong.

All artworks in this exhibition were selected by a panel of accomplished artists and arts professionals, including director/chief curator of the West Harlem Art Fund Savona Bailey-McClain, artist and publisher of Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art Noah Becker, and visual artist, educator, and independent curator Melissa Staiger. 

The Annual Members Invitational celebrates both New York Artists Equity Association’s legacy and history by highlighting the artworks of its current members. Artists Equity was founded in 1947 by over 160 prominent American artists, including art world luminaries such as Jacob Lawrence, Louise Nevelson, and Edward Hopper, and continues to be an influential and guiding organization for artists today. The organization is composed of a diverse community of artists, patrons and allied professionals who view themselves as cultural stewards, charged with advancing the professional aspirations of emerging practitioners.

A WEST WING PROJECT SPACE EXHIBITION

Naomi Andrée Campbell's (b. Montréal) work is known for her conceptual social and political commentary of environmental issues through sense and perception in art and science. Her recent series of watercolor works on paper, focuses on how the pandemic’s continued isolation and confinement have altered our perception of space and time, allowing us to think/see differently. Continually living in the same environment day in and day out, the everyday objects around us whether cups, stacks of books, or our own clothes, begin to conflate with the liminal spaces. These objects achieve new readings while exploring the universal ideas of loss, meaning and memory.

The exhibition title “Penumbra,” originating from the Latin word meaning “almost or nearly,” is associated with the partially lit shadows offered by occluded objects. Here it refers to the new order of past, present and future.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Naomi Andrée Campbell was born in Montreal and is a graduate of Champlain College, Quebec; The Art Students League of New York; B.A. summa cum laude SUNY, New York. She studied at the School of Visual Arts, New York and has won numerous awards including four Gold Medals of Honor. Campbell has exhibited work at institutions throughout the world, including Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art, Japan; Museum of Fine Arts, Split, Croatia; Asian Contemporary Art Fair, New York; The Center for Contemporary Art, New Jersey; MUSE Center for Photography and the Moving Image, New York; Heidi Cho Gallery, New York; and Denise Bibro Fine Arts, New York. Her work is featured in public, corporate, and private, permanent collections; of note, MTA Arts for Transit, New York; The New York Public Library, New York; City of Geochang, South Korea; City of Irving, Texas. She has contributed to American Artist, Artscape, and Linea Art Journal. She was reviewed in The Brooklyn Rail, The Huffington Post, Sculpture magazine, and Watercolor Artist, and featured in more than twenty book publications. Campbell has been an instructor at The Art Students League of New York since 2007, where she teaches the contemporary figure in watercolor. Naomi Campbell lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Artists who Refuse to Put Away their Toys

John Arehart
Phil Buehler
Sally Curcio
Peter Drake
Steve Ellis
Barbara Friedman
Linda Griggs
Amy Hill
Tine Kindermann
Mary-Ann Monforton
D. Dominick Lombardi
Andrew Cornell Robinson
Mary Jo Vath
Melanie Vote

Featuring Art Toy Collectables By 
Trenton Doyle Hancock
Takashi Murakami

Curated by Linda Griggs
December 1— December 30, 2021
Opening Reception: Thurs. December 2nd, 6 — 8 PM, 245 Broome St., NYC*

RSVP TO THE DEC. 2 OPENING RECEPTION HERE!

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Equity Gallery presents I'M NOT DONE PLAYING WITH THAT: Artists Who Refuse to Put Away Their Toys. The show comprises original works of 14 artists whose practices intersects with toys to address whimsical, demented, or somber understandings of disposable consumer culture, art collectibles, questionable childhood safety, painterly concerns, corporal punishment, class struggle, and the enormity of war.  In addition, the exhibition will include limited edition toys by Trenton Doyle Hancock and Takashi Murakami.

Throughout their long association, modern artists have come to this rich and loaded subject from every angle. They create, appropriate, depict, dissect and upcycle. At bare minimum, the list includes Picasso, Lyonel Feininger, Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Robert Gober, Malcolm Morley, Mike Kelley and Louise Bourgeois. The extraordinary history of Surrealists and Post-Surrealist using toys is thoroughly explored by David Hopkins in “Dark Toys: Surrealism and the Culture of Childhood” (Yale University Press, 2021). More recently, artists such as KAWS, Futura 2000, and Yayoi Kusama have followed the collectibles model by creating limited edition art toys. 

I’M NOT DONE PLAYING WITH THAT includes collectible art toys by Trenton Doyle Hancock and Takashi Murakami, works that address our disposable consumer culture by D. Dominick Lombardi, Phil Buehler, and Amy Hill, while Mary Jo Vath and Barbara Friedman use toys as a vehicle for painterly concerns examining their demented appearance and wondering “if their stories can be trusted”.  Questionable childhood safety is explored by Mary-Ann Monforton, John Arehart, Sally Curcio, Melanie Vote, Linda Griggs, and Steve Ellis and finally, Tine Kindermann, Andrew Cornell Robinson and Peter Drake use small toys to confront the enormity of class struggle and war. 

Artists have often repurposed discarded, non-art objects. Toys as objects are no exception, though a discarded toy is especially disconcerting since children imbue them with tremendous meaning, but ultimately (and seemingly nonchalantly) cast them aside. 

Freighted as they are, it is no surprise that toys often make their way into the artists' process.

*In the interest of safeguarding our community members, Equity Gallery manages access to its space and invites visitors to follow CDC and NY State Guidelines. Kindly  RSVP via Eventbrite to attend!

A Metalpoint Group Exhibition Organized by
DFN Projects and New York Artists Equity

Opening Reception: Nov. 18th, 6 — 8 PM at
16 E79th St, Garden Floor, G2, New York, NY

Artists: Steven Assael, Noah Buchanan, Sherry Camhy, Jeannine Cook, Diana Corvelle, Lori Field, Margot Glass, Josh Henderson, Margaret Krug, Helena La Rota López, Tom Mazzullo, Phil Padwe, Lauren Amalia Redding, Ephraim Rubenstein, Koo Schadler, Jos. A Smith, Darryl Babatunde Smith, Costa Vavagiakis, Jenny Walton, Tamia Alston Ward, Lea Wight, Dan Witz, and Zane York

As the seasons cycle towards year end, the city quickens for one last grand finale and displays a sublime picturesque of half lights, tracery branches and pearlescent skies heralding winter’s approach. We draw your attention to the subtlety of this scene--a nuanced play of light and movement as a gestural expression of archaic longing.  

Understated, yet meticulous, silverpoint drawings display a comparable hushed beauty.  

A technique employed by scribes, craftsmen and artists since ancient times, a silverpoint drawing is made by dragging a silver rod or wire across paper, parchment or panel support prepared with gesso or primer. Prized as a media capable of retaining fine details, silverpoint emerged as a favored drawing technique in the late Gothic and early Renaissance era—particularly in the Florentine and Flemish schools. Jan van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer and Raphael count among silverpoint’s master practitioners.   

The increasing availability and versatility of graphite and chalks in the 1500s, which allowed for greater gestural expression while requiring far less preparation and technical acuity, hastened silverpoint's demise.  Though some late practitioners, including artists Hendrick Goltzius and Rembrandt, retained the technique through the 17th century, the general trend amongst modern practitioners privileged media, such as natural chalks and charcoal, capable of producing immediate results. By the 18th century, silverpoint was considered obsolete.  

In our contemporary artworld, awash as it is with disposable images produced and consumed with speed, the currency of immediate results and brash gestures no longer retains any novel allure or real value. Discreet works, slowly wrought, now appears to be the more radical idea, as does the practice of draughtsmanship.   

 The artists assembled for “Silver” would concur.  Silverpoint drawings betray an outré sensibility and a paradoxical pursuit that is both understated yet alert and exacting.  Ultimately however, these works evoke a substantive and enduring triumph in a world prone to blunting erasure.  

AN EAST WING PROJECT SPACE ONLINE EXHIBITION

“The title of my exhibition, “Art About Art,” describes paintings that focus on art and the daily practice of making art. The paintings can be seen as self-referential, but they also point to the lives of artists doing their work in the studio and interacting with other artists, the art world, and the world at large.”

— Ellen Weider

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ellen Weider is a native New Yorker living in Manhattan. She holds an MFA from Pratt Institute, and a BA from Hunter College. Weider’s work is included in many collections including the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC; Rutgers Print Study Archive, Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, NJ; and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Art Collection, NYC. Her catalog “E.W. Squared: Ellen Weider Drypoint Prints” is in the collection of the Widener Library, Harvard University. Recent shows: “Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love,” The Painting Center, NYC; “Rock, Wood, Paper Scissors,” Lockwood Gallery, Kingston, NY; “Ellen Weider: Art About Art,” Equity Gallery, NYC.

Curated by Ben Pritchard

Opening Reception:
Thursday, November 4th, 6 — 8 PM at 245 Broome St., NYC*

New York Artists Equity Association is pleased to present a solo show featuring a survey of paintings and drawings by Eric Holzman. Utilizing a vast scope of media including oil paint, egg tempera, watercolors, charcoal, and pastels, the artworks exist within their own temporal realm, divorced simultaneously from both modernity and the past, undefined by time and place. Teetering on the edge of contemporary and classical, Holzman’s art evokes and combines the aesthetics of disparate styles and eras. Visuals of ancient Roman frescoes, Renaissance, Symbolist, Impressionist, and Abstract Expressionist paintings, and traditional Chinese and Japanese ink wash works meld together in an effortless, seamless manner. The artist forges a meticulous, ethereal visual language that manages to encompass perfectly its many parts while still being distinct and unique.

Plants, landscapes, human figures, and still lifes shift in and out of the nebulous atmospheres in which they are situated. His subjects dissolve and become diffused into the background, collapsing visual planes. Elegant, flowing linework is interspersed throughout the dreamy, hazy environments created by Holzman, weightless and untamed. Voluminous, ample bundles of leaves and greenery spill into the air, unrestrained like radiating light. Often, Holzman depicts the accessible — scenes from the Catskills, Hudson Valley, and Westchester County, as well as objects such as pottery, household decor, and produce. Yet, in his rendering, they are communicated as heavenly bodies, imbued with a type of divinity, and transformed into the mythical.

Yet, Holzman still imparts his work with a weighty earthliness, contrasting the blissful, picturesque aspects. Ink and paint wash over and cake the surfaces of his drawings and paintings, giving the artworks a bronzed patina composed of intermingled colors. Holzman’s already warm, luscious tones of emerald, sapphire, and gold are further deepened and enriched through this additional layer. The paper of Holzman’s drawings does not hide the wear and tear of his artmaking process, often exhibiting slightly tattered rough edges. They appear weathered, but actively resisting the ravages of time like long-lived culturally significant artifacts crafted of precious materials.

Holzman’s work thrives within this painstakingly cultivated equilibrium; ancient and current, grandiose and grounded, celestial and worldly.

*In the interest of safeguarding our community members, Equity Gallery manages access to its space and invites visitors to follow CDC and NY State Guidelines. To that end we will host an opening reception in our courtyard space; More info to follow!

A West WING Project Space Online Exhibition

“I had never imagined myself a landscape painter. Iceland changed all that. “

The works in this exhibit cover the years between 2019 and 2021, and reflect the artist’s passion for the moody, austere landscapes of Iceland. Maidman-Tanner takes numerous photographic images of Iceland during her visits, composing for paintings as she goes. The result are works of spare intensity, designed to relay her love for the unspoiled terrain. “To see what untouched, geologically ‘young’ mountains and plains look like, was a spiritual, life-altering experience for me, one I felt moved and challenged to more deeply investigate in my studio. “

— Ellen Maidman-Tanner

About Ellen Maidman-Tanner:

Maidman-Tanner studied at the Philadelphia College of Art and in the Fine Arts Department of York University in Toronto. Her early works, shown in galleries in Toronto and Israel, were installations on topics from current events to life stories. She attended the Cuttyhunk Artists’ Residency in 2019, and has taken courses recently with Dean Fisher, Alyssa Monks and Zane York. Over the last two years, her drawings and paintings have appeared in numerous juried exhibits and are included in private collections in the United States, Spain, Iceland and Denmark.

AN EAST WING PROJECT SPACE ONLINE EXHIBITION

Postcards from America is a mixed media project, which explores unrealized expectations and the American dream through digital painting and collage. Utilizing an ongoing practice of constructing a postcard as a ritual to time stamp the duration of a global crisis, by repurposing and manipulating web-based media ephemera depicting theme parks and cartoon characters, the project investigates displacement and the construct of a particular cultural identity.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Katya Grokhovsky is a New York-based artist and Founding Director of The Immigrant Artist Biennial. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Grokhovsky has received support through numerous residencies and awards including The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Program, SVA MFA Art Practice Artist in Residence, Pratt Fine Arts Department Artist in Residence, The Museum of Arts and Design Studio Program, BRICworkspace Residency, Ox-BOW School of Art Residency, Brooklyn Arts Council Grants, among others. Grokhovsky earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from Victorian College of the Arts, Australia.

A 3-person exhibition of new works by Allen Hansen, Christopher Stout, and Miguel Otero Fuentes

October 6—October 30, 2021
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 7th, 6—8pm at 245 Broome Street, NYC
…
Equity Gallery is pleased to announce “III”, a 3-person exhibition which includes new works by Allen Hansen, Christopher Stout, and Miguel Otero Fuentes — abstract, minimalist artists who find common ground with the use of sensory geographies, as well as architectural and organic symmetries.

The title “III” contains an acknowledgement of three distinct voices which hold cooperative elements within their work. “III” is as abstract as the featured art is, holding meaning beyond the literal, attributed definitions and asking the audience to experience the art’s purity of form.

By reducing complexities to their bare elements and fundamentals, the works by these artists evoke time, place, and memory. There is a preoccupation with the physical use of mediums, which is made prominent on the artworks’ surfaces. Together, these artists initiate a dialogue which celebrates both their effortless correspondence and interdependence.

*In the interest of safeguarding our community members, Equity Gallery manages access to its space and invites visitors to follow CDC and NY State Guidelines; RSVP via Eventbrite to attend!

A WEST WING PROJECT SPACE ONLINE EXHIBITION

“When I was seven, I moved from a diverse community to one that was homogeneously white. At this formative age, I recognized this lack of diversity as a loss. The awareness that came from this shift in surroundings became my MFA Thesis's primary focus and a foundation for my continued work.

I work with various painting and print media to create abstract and figurative portrayals to address white privilege. As part of my creative process, I sift through American Culture's detritus, finding inspiration from children's books, news footage, comic books, and advertisements. I use imagery as a nuanced commentary, allowing different perspectives to dialogue on issues that have reached an apex.

These paintings are the products of three varied projects from September 2019 to July 2021. Although the representations in these paintings are differential in style, periods, and initial intent, they conjoin through proximity and their place of white privilege.”
— Norton Pease

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Norton Pease received his MFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 1999. Norton's work has been exhibited nationally in museums and galleries across the US. In addition to his practice in fine art, Norton has industry experience as a graphic designer from 2002-2011, creating Flash websites that have won awards, including several American Advertising Awards, formerly the ADDY's. In addition to published work, Norton has a US Patent for a painting technique. He currently lives in Statesboro, GA, where he is an Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities and is a Professor of Art in the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art at Georgia Southern University.

An East WING Project Space Online Exhibition

During the pandemic, Dorine Oliver found herself quarantined in New York City. Needing renewal and respite, she started to explore a “happy” theme to get away from the darkness of the environment. Utilizing her primary medium of watercolors, she opted to paint colorful, lighthearted depictions of a variety of cakes to bolster her own spirits and spread cheer. Through the pure, exuberant joy of her depictions of delicate, vibrant confections, Oliver invites the viewer to partake in a moment of levity.

About the Artist:

Born in Paris, France, Dorine Oliver attended the School of Decorative Arts ( E.N.S.A ). She came to New York and studied painting, sculpture and lithography at the Arts Students League.

Dorine shows her large watercolors at the Theater for the New City Gallery since 2015.

Artists: Cecilia André, Alaiyo Bradshaw, Petey Brown, Julia Campisi, Charis J. Carmichael Braun, Jenny Carpenter, Jeanne Ciravolo, Srishti Dass, Carol Diamond, Camilla Fallon, Justin Kim, Lisa Lebofsky, Patrice Lorenz, Tiantian Ma, Juliet Martin, Nina Meledandri, Alison Mustokoff, David Reisman, Cynthia Reynolds, Manju Shandler, Sylvia Vander Sluis, Rachael Warner, Brenda Zlamany

Juried by: Sharon Butler, Judy Glantzman, and Daniel Maidman

September 8th— October 2nd, 2021
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 9th, 6 — 8 PM at 245 Broome St., NYC*

New York Artists Equity Association is pleased to present our latest juried group exhibition, “Recumbent: The Art of Lying.” The show, juried by the founder of Two Coats of Paint, Sharon Butler, artist Judy Glantzman, and figurative artist and art writer Daniel Maidman, features over 20 artworks, all of which focus on the reclining body, one of the most popular and ubiquitous figurative positions in art history. This visual motif is firmly embedded within both Western and Eastern traditions, conjuring up a wealth of associations, which can vary greatly in meaning depending on time, place, and context. Each of the artworks selected for this exhibition successfully re-invents and re-evaluates the trope of the reclining figure. The featured artworks explore a range of themes, including pleasure and sensuality, such as Tiantian Ma’s “Jackie With My Painting.” Others display unflinching, subversive examinations of culturally ingrained iconography originating from religion, mythology, and antiquity such as Manju Shandler’s “Medusa Column.” Also on exhibit are contemporary recontextualizations and reinventions of the classic pose, as  seen in Rachael Warner’s “The Hostess,” and much more. Brought together by the unifying theme of the body in repose, the artworks in “Recumbent: The Art of Lying '' create a comprehensive survey to how a single gesture is able to encompass and convey a complex and nuanced collection of cultural ideas and attitudes. 

*In the interest of safeguarding our community members, Equity Gallery manages access to its space and invites visitors to follow CDC and NY State Guidelines. To that end we will host an opening reception on Sept. 9th in our courtyard space; RSVP via Eventbrite to attend!

CLICK HERE TO RSVP!

A Redux of a Year's Exhibitions at 1GAP Gallery, Brooklyn at Equity Gallery, New York

Artists: Willard Boepple, Erin O'Brien, Drew Lowenstein, Fran O'Neill, David Rhodes, Jennifer Riley, Fran Shalom, Jason Stopa, Kim Uchiyama, and Adrian Wilson

Curated by David Cohen

“The condominium building at One, Grand Army Plaza, designed by Richard Meier, has a longstanding tradition of ambitious loan exhibitions by contemporary artists in its common rooms and public spaces. Initially, these were curated by Suzy Spence with active oversight from the arts committee of building residents and its president of several years standing, Ana Delgado. Both Suzy and Ana are themselves visual artists. In the year or two since Suzy stepped down, curators have been appointed for a single year with a remit to produce three exhibitions. My stint at this honor coincided with the lockdown year, but despite not being able to share the exhibitions with the general public or staging any receptions, the building and the artists I had invited persevered and the exhibitions took place.

When Equity Gallery invited me to curate their summer exhibition I persuaded them to allow me to honor the nine artists who participated in my three 1GAP Gallery exhibitions. The irony is that a small artists space on the Lower East Side will be open to a socially distancing public while the magnificent premises where the original shows took place were sadly not. Luckily, the last two of my exhibitions were superbly documented by the photographer Adrian Wilson whose work is also represented here.

The opening 1GAP exhibition, in the spring of 2020, was titled Vital Presence in acknowledgement of the unusual exhibiting circumstances. Indeed, the pandemic would be touched upon in the next two exhibitions as well. The artists in that initial show, the most restricted of the three in terms of outside visitors, were Drew Lowenstein, Fran O'Neill, and Fran Shalom, each represented at Equity Gallery by a painting that had been in that show. A video of the installation by Kate Prendergast with commentary by the artists, provided some interface of the venture with a larger public.

Next came a solo presentation of work by Jennifer Riley that included a site-specific installation that lent its name to the title of her show, Schmetterlingshaus (Butterfly House). This large, ambitious mural in steel and other painted elements was intended, by Riley, to reflect the experience of kids growing up in a modernist condominium building under lockdown. Rather than dismantling it at the end of her show, I had it carry across to the third exhibition, Unfurled (in Brooklyn through August 24) of six artists: Riley plus Willard Boepple, Erin O'Brien, David Rhodes, Jason Stopa and Kim Uchiyama. Adrian Wilson will be represented by his superb photographs of Riley's installation. "Unfurled," as a title, reflects the formal qualities linking the six artists while also celebrating the sense of relief at coming out of lockdown.

"The Secret Garden" in my show title at Equity Gallery references Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic children's book replete with all its strangely timely comments on health, recovery, entitlement and privilege. For the curator, this show is a wonderful opportunity, in tight quarters, to test the overlaps between the artists in my year at One Grand Army Plaza, to make one show out of three, and three weeks out of a year.” — David Cohen

A West WING Project Space Show

Presented by New York Artists Equity Association and 1000Museums
Artists: John Cox, Stephen Maine, Alicia Philley, John Pomara, and Amy Vensel
Curated by: John Cox and Alicia Philley

New York Artists Equity, in partnership with 1000Museums, is pleased to launch the inaugural exhibition for our NYAE Print Shop, Equivalents. The show, curated and organized by NYAE Members John Cox and Alicia Philley, utilizes the unique facets of Equity Gallery’s online West WING Project Space to exhibit artworks tailored to be shown in a virtual format. Instead of viewing digital galleries as just an intermediary space designed to temporarily sustain art organizations during lockdown, the artists within Equivalents recognize this expansive new virtual domain as an ideal channel to explore the fundamentally transformative nature of sharing art online. 

Leading up to 2020, the work of the five artists featured in this exhibition was firmly rooted in the physical experience of painting as objects. Then the COVID-19 pandemic forcibly changed the way we experience art. While restrictions on gathering in person may be easing, the online exhibition biome developed by museums and galleries during the past year continues to grow and evolve as its own environment. 

Like many artists, the participating painters recognized that posting images of their physical work was not an authentic replacement for in-person viewing. Online, the art was consumed and digitally transformed by viewers who magnified, deconstructed, rearranged, and decontextualized it. This experience, while at times unsettling, was also an education in the newly-forming language of the digital gallery. The artworks on display in this online exhibition were born out of the effort to translate creative practices from physical to digital. Each artist embraces the drastically distorted viewing experience of the screen and its inevitable color distortions and size restrictions. 

Equivalents highlights the reality that the online gallery dwells in a space most often associated with commerce. The artworks were created digitally, specifically to exist on the West WING Online Project Space's "walls." Yet, viewers can engage with the show as they would any other online space, picking favorites and clicking to customize so an object—in this case an archival art print—is shipped to their homes. By giving the viewer the opportunity to own a copy of these works, it is revealed how fundamentally the act of viewing and owning art has been altered by the internet. The border between the intangible and physical is further blurred by the act of reconstituting and possessing a duplicate of the works while the “original” will exist indefinitely online.

Visually, each artwork in the show also similarly skirts the line between incorporeality and tactility. This ambiguity can be seen in the intermingling, overlapping reservoirs of vibrant colors of Stephen Maine, the dizzying, undulating patterns of John Cox, John Pomera’s fraying images interlaced with intrusive black bars, the soft, flowing petal-like structures in the works of Amy Vensel, and Alicia Philley’s explosive, highly kinetic ribbons of color. The implication of painterly material is imbued within each of the digital works while still fully embracing their digital nature. 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

John Cox (born 1980) is an abstract painter based in Croton-on-Hudson, NY. His work embraces technological glitches by employing machine-customized tools to translate experienced digital disorder into gestural marks that imprecisely mimic wave patterns.

Stephen Maine (born 1958) is a painter in West Cornwall, CT. Combining the materials of painting and procedures of printmaking, he conveys paint to canvas with an indirect, intentionally imprecise production method using printing plates, which provides a concrete way to think about color, surface, scale, seriality, figure/ground, original/copy, and the psychology of visual perception.

Alicia Philley, born 1972, is an abstract painter based in Austin, TX. In her works on wood panels, she layers shimmering lines over the brightly stained wood grain to explore the ways we perceive reflective light and motion in nature.

John Pomara, born in 1952 in Dallas, is an American abstract artist who explores the role human error plays in technology, and his paintings intend to capture that concept visually.

Amy Vensel is an American painter based in Las Cruces, NM. Her meticulous process involves the layering of acrylic polymer and pigment to create luminous paintings that echo the backlit screens of today's digital landscape.

PRESENTED BY VAULTWORKS, DUGGAL VISUAL SOLUTIONS, AND NYAE

ARTISTS: TIM BRET-DAY, PHIL KNOTT, DERRICK SANTINI, AND ERNIE Paniccioli

Exhibition Dates: Wednesday, July 14 — Sunday, July 18th

Regular Gallery Hours: 12 - 6 PM

Eye Contact Closing Bloc Party: Sunday, July 18th, 4 - 8 PM

VaultWorks, Duggal Visual Solutions, and the New York Artists Equity Association are pleased to present the New York edition of VaultWorks: Eye Contact, a touring gallery exhibition of rarely seen Fine Art photographs of iconic musicians who became cultural pillars. Through a specially curated collection of limited edition brilliant portrait work by its represented photographers - Tim Bret-Day, Phil Knott, Derrick Santini, and on this stop only, New York Icon Ernie Paniccioli - VaultWorks is telling a story in tune with the beat of New York's measured reawakening into the summer. The classic photographs show icons before the depth of their cultural impact was fully realized, and beg the question: What's next as New York re-emerges from its slumber, as it has so many times before? This is the first stop of a global tour, which will include Nashville, L.A., London, and other cities to be announced.