lovers and lunatics lost in the stratagem

When I wrote my first artist’s statement over fifteen years ago, it wasn’t so much a statement about my art as it was a love letter to my muse, completely and unabashedly from the heart, but perhaps best kept in a shoebox.    If like me, you have no mastery of words, instead of a letter, imagine giving a work of art to yourself or someone you love. Art is long-lasting, metaphorically rich, keeps you company, speaks meaningfully in wordless language, and  enriches your life. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the art’s the thing.

I would like to invite you to a group show I’m in called “WannA Piece?” curated by Francesci Arcilesi Fine Art.  The opening party is Wednesday, February, 8th from 6-9 at 122 W. 26th street (btw 6th and 7th Ave), on the 5th floor at Contra Studios, NYC.

Below is the artwork that I’ll have in the show.  40″x60″; 2012; Watercolor, ink & enamel on transparency film mounted on archival paper.

lovers and lunatics lost in the stratagem

remembering landslips and houseboys in dustcart storybooks

Box art.                                                                                                                                      Outside: Watercolor, ink and enamel.                                                                                    Inside: Poured enamel with tiny people caught in daily life.

   

    

Studio Visit Magazine volume 16

My artwork was selected by Tang Museum curator Ian Berry to be in the just released Volume 16 of Studio Visit Magazine.  The two paintings, spindletop boomtown and oompop are available for purchase at Cohn Drennan Contemporary in Dallas.

Studio Visit volume16

Studio Visit volume16

Aqua11 and Fountain Miami Art Fairs

Art fairs – you either love them or hate them, or like facebook you love to hate it but use them anyway.  After doing two art fairs this year on my own (AAF in Brussels and Berliner-Liste in Berlin) I see the value of art fairs -the sheer number of people who get to see your artwork on one long weekend, the chance you get (over and over again) to talk about your artwork to strangers, the lessons in commodification of art and the hype cycle experience, all, good and bad, but worthwhile as an artist to experience.

For galleries, it seems the advantages are pretty identical,  kind of a repeatable black friday for the art world.

I’m excited to be represented by both William Baczek Fine Arts at Aqua 11 Art Fair and by Francesca Arcilesi Fine Art at the Fountain Art Fair in Miami, FL Dec. 1st-3rd.  My artwork will be in great company at the William Baczek Gallery since WB will also be showing artwork by Kurt Vonnegut.   Below is some of my artwork that will be available.

'Juriks trembling hands moved toward Euler's piece of cherry pie' at WB

from 'chautauqua zoo' series at FAFA

'staring down the hole' at WB

  2505 N. Miami Ave (at the corner of 25th St)

 

1530 Collins Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33139

it’s an ugly scene inside of me

I recently posted the below comment on an e-blast that I sent out regarding an upcoming show in NYC.  A gallery owner in NC thought the language in my e-blast was “very unladylike”.   Was he offended at my use/visual of the word ‘butt’ or was he more offended by my political leanings?  Or was he simply being patronizing?  I’ve never liked being called a lady.  Growing up in the south the word ‘lady’  has the taint of misogyny attached to it.   I much prefer woman or simply artist will do.

“There are times when I pull my head out of the butt of my existence and I look around at what is going on in the world and I blink … and I blink again … and I rub my eyes … and I think- who are WE?
And I vacillate between wanting anarchy and sympathizing with the powerful and monied, and with that, I put my head back in the sand, knowing that I’m an impotent, small and effectual citizen. Warmed and coddled by the same society that I can’t bear to watch because it feels like a train wreck, like we’ve collectively gone off our meds and think we’re acting normal.

And then like some OCD disorder take-over I’m hit again with my constant to-do list:
1. remind people that I’m still inexplicably creating art
2. pretend, pretend and pretend again
Yet, here it is all the same. My struggle between feeling compassion,impotence, selfishness, powerlessness and ambitious; coupled with the constant pull I feel to create beauty/symmetry.

It’s an ugly scene inside of me… am I the only one to feel this cognitive dissonance?

Francesca Arcilesi Fine Art will be presenting a group show I’m in called ‘Sorry 4 the wait’ at 122 w. 26th St. btwn 6th and 7th Ave., NY, NY. The reception is Thursday, Nov. 17th 6-9pm.”

“my pockets are full of you” solo pop up show courtesy of FAFA and Bond in TriBeCa NYC; Wed – 9/7@6:30

FAFA PR sheet – my pockets are full of you

my pockets are full of you

handling the myths of Hadean

back 40

Berliner-Liste Art Fair

I’ll have several pieces up at this years Berliner-Liste Art fair in Berlin, Germany – Sept. 9th – Sept 11th, at TRAFO, Köpenicker Straße 70 Berlin-Mitte.  Below are the pieces I intend to bring to this show.   These works are from my migration project where I continue to obsess on trying to find the internal and external intersections of my past, and the texture and stories created from that landscape.  As Wallace Steven once said, “The greatest povery is to not live in a physical world, to feel that one’s desire is too difficult to tell from despair”.

a sensitive dependence on initial conditions

a warm stellar wind

as I see it, we were wrong

relativity of being wrong

the sun itself is solitary

“Glimpses Beyond” Group Show FAFA in TriBeCA 8/3/11

'Glimpses Beyond' Group show-Francesca Arcilesi Fine Art  
Opening Reception 6:30-8:30 pm Aug. 3rd 2011
TriBeCa Group @ Bond, 25 Hudson St. btwn Duane and Reed, Manhattan
Below are the two paintings I'll have up.

the nuisance of a single thought

entwining arms, the star shaped ocean animals did a polka