ArtBUZZ: April 29-May 5, 2010
Alex White Mazzarella, Becoming Bubblegum. Courtesy of Soapbox Gallery.PROSPECT HEIGHTS
Opening Reception: Friday, April 30, 6-9pm
Six neo-expressionist, mixed-media paintings that visually communicate our perceived societal condition and the increasing threat it holds to our humanity. A highlight in the show is a seven feet tall painting/drawing, titled Becoming Bubble Gum, made from oil pastel, charcoal, acrylic paint, enamel, coffee grounds and buckets of water. Building upon street art and graffiti as the cave paintings of today, Alex White Mazzarella’s work expresses perspectives on contemporary humans in an urban, aesthetic language.
WILLIAMSBURG
Opening Reception: Friday, April 30, 7-9pm
Tim Lokiec's new body of work employs a faux aesthetic of painterly ease; emphasis is placed on the formal concerns of composition, geometry, and psilocybin design principles. In these oil paintings, Mr. Lokiec creates an evocative surface with foggy passages that satisfy a playful simplicity. His imagery draws upon dance music references, the Internet, and the collective drawing zine he publishes with friends. His use of projection and repetitive re-painting, as well as a tendency towards abstraction, articulate his attempts at a kind of painterly thoughtlessness.
From "Monica Canilao: We Are Dust." Courtesy of Cinders Gallery.
Opening Reception: Friday, April 30, 7-10pm
We Are Dust, a new solo exhibition by Monica Canilao, explores our past histories through her delicate implementation of found materials into collages that involve drawing, painting, printmaking and sewing. Every life leaves an imprint on the people and places around it. Just as plants shoot out roots and embed themselves into their surroundings, we also lay our roots in the places we live and the communities we are a part of. We Are Dust is a grouping of portraits taken from nearly forgotten lives enshrined in the collections Ms. Canilao has amassed over time. Collections of discarded materials that are left like historical breadcrumbs and then picked up along her path and resurrected in her work. The compositions seamlessly meld the old and new: stained paper, withered fabric, bones, and feathers combine with her hands to take part in creating new stories that then emerge and grow roots of their own.
GREENPOINT
Reception: Sunday, May 2, 6-10pm
Group show curated by Jesi Bender, featuring artists Greg Baker, ChangoBi, Michael S. Hoefler Jr., Ana Marie "La Barbilona" Martell, Karlyn Myers, Jared Spafford, Timothy Taranto, Arianne Zager, and Jesi Bender, with special musical performances by Johnny Childs at 8pm, and Little Body and the Big Sound at 8:30pm.
RED HOOK
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 1, 6-9pm
A group show curated by Kathleen Smith, featuring new work by: Eric Ayotte, Eliza Myrie, Owen Rundquist, Karin Stothart, and Brian Zegeer. In an investigation of drawing, an exhibition that regenerates, subverts, and expands; that draws from non-normative and resistant histories; from the violence of exclusion; in the charged liminal space between media; to question rather than to answer.
PARK SLOPE/GOWANUS
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 1, 6-8pm
These artists go into the studio with an open end. They value their commitment to the studio as a venue for exploration and risk taking. Their avenue toward fresh and original results requires dispensing with a carefully devised plan of action. It is not to say that restrictions and specificity are not in play. Even artists who surrender to accident and surprise still enjoy setting complex limitations and devising systemic parameters. Their joy in the studio, in striking a balance and/or duking-it-out between strategy and reckless abandon is evident in their work.
Curated by Vicki Sher, artists exhibiting include: Ky Anderson, Brion Nuda Rosch, Franklin Evans, Shaun Krupa, Joe Hart, Daniel Wiener, Lauren Luloff, Elisa Lendvay, Tyler Dobson, and Vicki Sher.
