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Throwback- NYC Murals- Nina Chanel Abney on the High Line

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Public Art
Sep 112025
 

Nina Chanel Abney created NYC LOVE for the High Line in New York in November 2022 and it was on view until November of 2023.

From the High Line website about the artist and the work-

Nina Chanel Abney creates paintings, prints, and large-scale mural installations that reflect the frenzied pace of contemporary life. In a single painting, she may merge influences from news and politics, celebrity culture and gossip blogs, social media, art history, and popular television shows, all layered together to express the overabundance of contemporary culture. Layering spray paint and acrylic paint, Abney composes scenes of everyday life with graphic, angular figures posed in narrative scenes against bright, geometric backgrounds. In one of her recent series of works, Abney sets out to realize a rural Black queer utopia, inspired by the time she spent escaping New York City during the pandemic.

For the High Line, Abney realizes NYC LOVE, a new mural that celebrates the feeling of first arriving in New York City. NYC LOVE is a whimsical take on New York City’s classic iconography. When the artist moved to New York in 2005, she would meander through the city streets from Chelsea to Times Square, seduced by the hustle and bustle, bright lights, and the idea of a sleepless city. All of the “touristy” icons that most lifetime and long-time New Yorkers take for granted were gratifying and glossy to Abney, a self-described Midwestern suburbanite. NYC LOVE is representative of Abney’s first years as a student and tourist in New York City—an ode to the feeling of newness and unfamiliarity that breeds excitement and possibility. Featuring the many icons of New York—pizza slices and the Statue of Liberty, plenty of pigeons, and one Big Apple—Abney’s mural rides the subway, floats along the waterfront, and takes in all the city has to offer. NYC LOVE graces the High Line, an icon in itself that welcomes millions of New Yorkers and visitors alike to enjoy the many offerings of the bustling metropolis.

 

 

Ohio Art- Sol LeWitt at Akron Art Museum

 Akron, Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Conceptual Art, Design, Drawing, Installation Art, Ohio Art Shows, Painting / Painters
Sep 092025
 

In honor of artist Sol LeWitt‘s birthday today (9/9), here is his work Wall Drawing #1240, Planes with broken bands of color (Akron), located at Akron Art Museum. It was created in 2005 and installed at the museum in 2007.

The piece was drawn by Megan Dyer, Tomas Ramberg, Joe Ayala, Jennifer Bair-Shipman, Ashlie Dyer, Kathy Ilg, Sarah Sutton and Kelly Urquhart.

From the museum about the work-

Presiding over the McDowell Grand Lobby is a wall drawing by Sol LeWitt, one of the leading artists of his time. LeWitt’s approach to art stressed rigorous design and geometric abstraction, rejecting narrative, emotion and representation for the reality of art’s elemental components—line, shape, space, color and the most important, concept.

LeWitt began creating wall drawings in 1968 in response to his concern-and that of other artists at the time-that art was becoming too much of a commodity. These drawings are not so much physical objects as ideas. The artist conceived and planned them; his “drafters” (artists themselves) draw them directly on the walls of museums and public spaces around the world. Drawings may share forms and motifs, but each is unique and many, like Akron’s, are site specific.

Wall Drawing #1240 was created by the artist for the 18 by 34 foot wall where the museum’s historic 1899 building and its 2007 expansion interconnect. The triangular shapes refer to the angled supports and folded forms of the newer glass and steel lobby, while the blocks of color echo the brick wall removed from the south façade of the older building. Two drafters, assisted by area artists, worked for five weeks to fabricate the wall drawing.

 

Song of the Day- Small Forward- “I Only Feel Love When It’s Missing”

 Los Angeles Events, Los Angeles Music, Music, Musicians / Bands, Spotify Playlist
Sep 082025
 

Small Forward- I Only Feel Love When It’s Missing

This song is from Small Forward‘s 2025 album, Crush.

They are playing at Zebulon in Los Angeles on Wednesday, 9/10/25, with Sharon Silva and Finnish Postcard.

Flashback- NYC Art Shows- Whitney Biennial 2024- Mavis Pusey

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters
Sep 052025
 

Mavis Pusey‘s painting, Within Manhattan, 1977, pictured above, was one of several included as part of Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing.

From the museum about the artist and the painting-

Mavis Pusey was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1928. She is known for her abstract paintings of bold shapes and hard edged lines found in architectural spaces. Pusey was a prolific artist who found inspiration in the geometric forms found both in fashion patternmaking and in the printmaking process. During sessions at the Robert Blackburn workshop, Pusey began to develop a body of work revealing the process of urban transformation happening in New York City. She was captivated by the shifts in the urban environment that kept the city suspended in a cycle of destruction and reconstruction.

Throughout her career, Pusey taught at institutions for higher education in New York, Pennsylvania, and was a high school teacher in Virginia. In 2019 at the age of ninety, Pusey passed away after years of declining health. Her legacy lives on through the collections of major cultural institutions across the U.S.

Inspired by the ever-evolving changes in the urban landscape, Pusey presents a familiar scene of demolition and construction in the painting Within Manhattan. Geometric forms resemble architectural building blocks in the process of being assembled or possibly deconstructed. The configuration of shapes in the work allows us to imagine the motion present at the site with scaffolding giving way to discarded boards, positioning us as spectators to change.

The first major museum survey of her work, titled Mobile Images, is currently at ICA Philadelphia until 12/5/25.

 

Flashback- NYC Art Shows- Katie Bell at Spencer Brownstone Gallery

 Architecture, Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Conceptual Art, Mixed Media, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture
Sep 052025
 

“In Search of Form”, 2024, Acrylic, wood, aluminum, glass, rubber baseboard, rope, plastic tubing, drywall, solid surface, and cue balls

“Through Line (Grass) 1”, 2024, Acrylic and wood

“Line of Sight (Sunset)” and “Line of Sight (Horizon)”, 2024, Wood, acrylic and rubber

The images above are from Katie Bell‘s 2024 exhibition Edges in Search of Form at Spencer Brownstone Gallery in NYC.

From the gallery press release-

The lawn’s flat nature leads your eye to the edges in search of form, and if the edges are not sharp it will not show.

Spencer Brownstone Gallery is pleased to present Edges in Search of Form, Katie Bell’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. The show is composed of a collective of individual paintings, sculptures, and installation elements that share a common visual language with influences from architecture, the landscape, and Surrealism. The title of the exhibition references the quote above, advice from a gardener on crafting the perfect lawn.

Trained as a painter, Katie Bell’s sculptural practice stems from a rethinking of the painting process in the third dimension. Basic forms and simple found objects act as individual marks within the canvas of space, most evident in Through Line (Grass). The monochrome, matte grass green prisms are assembled together and around, activating space and generating an environment of its own. Pared down to its base attributes, shape, color, scale, and quantity foreground their objectness while their modularity alludes to a whole, greater than the sum of its individual parts. The rigidity and simplicity of the form is contrasted by its color and organic arrangement.

Operating similarly are the Line of Sight paintings, compact forms reduced to its base elements. Their shape, undulating line, softer hues, and subtle change in tones recall landscapes, shifting light, and the passage of time. The opposite wall features an amalgam of fabricated and found objects. In Search of Form is various in material and texture, with components overlapping, weaving, and puncturing the other. The eyes follow the intricacies of their interaction like a visual Rube-Goldberg machine. Or like the futile attempt of some to maintain the length and shape of grass, an exercise in controlling those things in our world that resist.

Reconciliation comes in the form of bird baths. Often found on lawns or backyards where the natural order is kept at bay to the best of one’s ability, they are beacons that welcome natural behavior. Composed of a patchwork of stone-like Corian, Water Table (Bird Bath) melds with the tones of our landscape while standing out in its formality.

Bell’s overall installation illustrates the light and often hard touches of human intervention. Her constructed worlds explore the absurdity of our extreme pursuit in controlling our environment, and ultimately its analogue in art making.

Throwback- Los Angeles Street Art- Melrose Elementary School Murals

 Art, Artists, California Street Art, Los Angeles Street Art, Painting / Painters, Public Art, Street Art
Sep 042025
 

Mural by Annie Preece

Mural by Ivan Preciado

Mural by Ivan Preciado

Mural by Jules Muck

These murals were created for Melrose Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles in 2015.

California Murals- Alegria del Prado in Sacramento

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, California Street Art, Painting / Painters, Public Art, Sacramento, Sacramento, Street Art
Sep 032025
 

Alegria del Prado (artists Esther del Prado from Spain and Octavio Alegria from Mexico) created this mural in Sacramento before their 2017 exhibition at the 1810 Gallery.

Song of the Day- Fat Dog- “Peace Song”

 Los Angeles Music, Music, Musicians / Bands, Spotify Playlist
Sep 012025
 

Fat Dog- Peace Song

This song by London band Fat Dog was released as a single in November of last year.

They are playing at Lodge Room in Los Angeles on Thursday, 9/4/25, with Acid Tongue and Godly The Ruler.

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