This painting, Dream Spiral Kitten, 2022, by Haley Josephs was part of the 2023 group exhibition Oh, What a World at Jack Barrett gallery in NYC.
Nov 092024
Nov 082024
This mural was created by Florida artist Taylor Smith aka Dreamweaver for the 2022 edition of SHINE Mural Festival in St. Pete.
You can find more of her recent work on Instagram.
Nov 082024
This mural was created by San Francisco artist Ricky Watts for the 2021 edition of SHINE Mural Festival in St. Pete.
Check out his Instagram to see more of his recent work.
Nov 072024
This mural was created by Ben Johnston for the 2022 edition of SHINE Mural Festival in St. Pete, Florida. You can also find his recent work on Instagram.
This year is the 10th Anniversary of the festival which begins tomorrow 11/8. On Saturday, 11/9/ there is a kick-off party, taking place at FloridaRAMA.
Nov 012024
Work by Jani Duerr (left) and Yarissa Luna (right)
Work by Jess Slavic (left) and Andy Vible (right)
Work by Andy Vible (left) and Seth Pala (right)
Work by Roderick Hidalgo II
Tonight is the closing reception for Awakening at Chris White Gallery in Wilmington, Delaware, curated by Seth Pala of Alone Time. The exhibition included 27 artists and 141 pieces of art.
Below is a list of the artists from the gallery’s website-
- Jess Slavic @soreeyesdesign
- Yarissa Luna – @yarissa
- Erin Silva – @eyebawl_
- Will Ramirez @willramirez.us
- Andrew Larason @ailarason
- Jeremy Boyd @sp1it
- MikeBecker @mikebecker14
- Seth Pala @sethpala
- Jani Duerr @janiduerr
- Samara Weaver @samaracweaver
- Andy Vible @Fatfingers;
- Chloe McEldowney @Chloemceldowne
- Cassie O’Neal DeBord @cassietattoos
- Caitlin Herrschaft @tangledmesspress
- Sean Flynn @seanflynnart
- SHAN-Z @shannonzembriski
- Claire Ciccarone @agardenofsorts
- Finley’s Flowers @finleys_flowers
- Cony Madariaga @cony.madariaga
- CHEZ @hey_chez
- Roderick Hidalgo @r.hidalgoart
- Matty Geez @anordinarydaze
- JaQuanne LeRoy @jaquanne.leroy
- Shonté Young Williams @shonteyoungwilliams
- Ellen Salvatore @ellensalv
- David A. Celli @obeseocelot
- Shannon Zembriski @shannonzembriski
This event is part of Wilmington’s First Friday Art Loop, an event highlighting the city’s arts and cultural scene.
Oct 312024
The painting above is Norman Rockwell’s The Fiddler, 1921, currently on view at Brandywine Museum of Art in Pennsylvania.
From the museum about the work-
Best known for the paintings he did as cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post, Rockwell also did extensive work for other major publications. “The Fiddler” appeared as a cover for The Country Gentleman in October 1921, still relatively early in his career. Rockwell celebrates autumn and Halloween, represented by both the grinning jack-o-lantern and the corn cob and autumn leaf garland. He skillfully mimics the effect of stage lighting in this painting, highlighting the musician’s expression and hands, creating an illusion of three-dimensionality.
Oct 312024
Adrienne Elise Tarver
Cara Despain
Cara Despain
Ashanti Chaplin
Ray Anthony Barrett
Ray Anthony Barrett
Olivia “LIT LIV” Morgan
One room of the gallery with Margaret Griffith sculpture (center)
Jane Chang Mi
Andrae Green (paintings) and Phoebe Collings-James (sculpture)
Andrae Green
Margaret Griffith
Margaret Griffith (detail)
Against Dystopia, the group exhibition at Diane Rosenstein curated by niko w. okuro, presents a variety of interesting work that speaks to the times we are living in.
The exhibition includes ten international artists representing twelve cities across the United Kingdom, Jamaica, and all five regions of the United States- Ray Anthony Barrett, Ashanti Chaplin, Phoebe Collings-James, Cara Despain, Andrae Green, Margaret Griffith, Jane Chang Mi, Olivia “LIT LIV” Morgan, Esteban Ramón Pérez, and Adrienne Elise Tarver.
From the gallery-
Presented on the eve of the 2024 presidential election, Against Dystopia is ‘a far-reaching exhibition, both in terms of the diverse backgrounds and approaches of its featured artists, and the social, cultural, and geographic ecosystems those artists represent and critique,’ writes okoro, who is based in New Haven, CT. The exhibition ‘features artworks that inhabit a spectrum of anti-dystopian thought, from mobilizing conceptualism to overcome historic traumas and the precarity of the present, to envisioning future utopias against seemingly insurmountable odds.’
Against Dystopia transforms fear and anxiety surrounding the uncertainty of our shared future into a tangible site of hope—one where collective memory reminds us of our agency to enact change today, and rich cultural traditions empower us to imagine alternative futures. Of significance is the inclusion of artists who identify as multi hyphenates, playing numerous social roles within their communities, such as advocate, change agent, chef, documentarian, educator, father, filmmaker, mother, musician, oceanographer, researcher, and too many more to name.
Artworks are grouped into three thematic sections, each of which explores creative strategies of resistance and works against dystopia at all costs: field research, symbolic interactionism, and speculative fiction.
Ray Anthony Barrett (Missouri), Ashanti Chaplin (Oklahoma), Cara Despain (Utah/Florida), and Jane Chang Mi (Hawai‘i/California) use field research to map histories of frontierism, settler colonialism, and land politics onto ecological and socioeconomic systems today. With a focus on listening to the land and sea to both unearth and atone for difficult truths, these artists name and dismantle dystopian practices on the path to reconciliation. Embracing an appreciation for both hyperlocal traditions and the tenets of global citizenship, each underscores our shared duty to ensuring ecocultural sustainability and Earth’s habitability for future generations.
While Margaret Griffith (California), Olivia Morgan (New York), and Adrienne Elise Tarver (New York) work through markedly different mediums and styles, they share a fearlessness in addressing ongoing tensions and questions surfaced amidst the political firestorm of 2020. Embracing tenets of symbolic interactionism, or the theory that individuals shape and are shaped by society through daily interactions and the co-creation of meaning from symbols, these artists remind us of the power of human connection to bridge difference. Each steers towards social cohesion by processing collective grief and the enduring impacts of the 2020 presidential election, the proliferation of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter Movement respectively. Whereas Morgan and Griffith subvert symbols that often polarize rather than unite us within physical space—such as fences, face masks, and smartphones—Tarver reaches into the past to pull forth reimagined symbols that speak to our spiritual interdependence.
Phoebe Colling-James (United Kingdom), Andrae Green (Massachusetts/Jamaica) and Esteban Ramón Pérez (California) boldly envision alternative realities by using speculative fiction and symbolic allegory to sew threads of connection across time and space. Each resists linearity and subverts narrative tropes to instead materialize the fluid spiritual dimensions of lived experience. Through their layered ceramics, paintings, and sculptures, these artists mine the depths of their respective Jamaican/British, Jamaican/American, and Chicanx heritages to comment more broadly on social conditions today, prompting us to dream beyond what’s readily visible or knowable.
Against Dystopia opens concurrently with The Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: Art x Science x LA, which similarly explores, “opportunities for civic dialogue around some of the most urgent problems of our time by exploring past and present connections between art and science.” By convening an international group of visionary artists to help initiate these dialogues, Against Dystopia prompts viewers to pursue deeper understanding of shared challenges and solutions, on both the micro and macro levels.’
This exhibition closes 11/2/24.
Oct 302024
Brian Rochefort’s ceramic sculptures for Staring at the Moon at Sean Kelly gallery are an incredible mix of textures and colors. Based on his travels to several natural environments around the world, the work combines the familiar with the unusual to form fascinating results.
From the gallery-
Brian Rochefort’s mixed-media sculptures incorporate a variety of different textures, surfaces and colors to create rich, otherworldly forms. Referencing his travels to some of the most remote parts of the planet, such as the Amazon Rainforest, the Galápagos Islands, and the Ngorongoro Crater, in Tanzania, he internalizes and translates his experiences in these secluded, ancient landscapes into potent sculptural forms.
Rochefort’s sculptures are built up in a unique process of layering, wherein the initial form undergoes multiple firings. Between each firing, he airbrushes the works and applies glazes, many of which he has developed himself through extensive experimentation. This process pushes the technical limits of ceramics in pursuit of evocative, otherworldly new forms. As he states, “Some of the most successful pieces that I’ve done in the past have been works that I’ve built up too fast… but somehow I’ve managed to save the form, and it turns into a different monster.” He works intuitively to build a composition, not unlike an abstract painter, and cites artists such as Albert Oehlen, Joan Mitchell, Franz West, and even photographer Aaron Siskind as influences for their daring deployment of color and texture. His virtuosic control of his medium is tempered by the element of chance inherent to the process of firing the sculpture. In this way, the completed works are the result of a dynamic interplay between his highly developed technique, the distinctive character of each sculpture, and ultimately chance.
Rochefort is equally inspired by his travels to remote and untouched ecosystems, such as barrier reefs and rainforests. A vital form of inspiration for him, the rare and vibrant natural forms found in such locations are apparent in the works. His intent, however, is not to directly represent the landscapes that he visits, a task he describes as “nearly impossible to do.” The sculptures take on the formal qualities of the landscapes through an almost volcanic layering of form upon form, color upon color, and texture upon texture, ultimately blooming into vivid, texturally sumptuous works. His larger freestanding works, which he refers to as Craters, evoke the fundamental quality of his sculptures: a powerful moment of contact with something deeply elemental and otherworldly.
The gallery also posted the video below where he discusses the work.
This exhibition closes 11/2/24.
Oct 292024
“Earth Lament”, 2023, Pigment and pencil on Aquacryl on canvas and aluminium
“Earth Lament”, 2023,Pigment and pencil on Aquacryl on canvas and aluminium (detail)
“So Far So Near”, 2024, Pigment and pencil on Aquacryl on canvas and aluminium
“So Far So Near”, 2024, Pigment and pencil on Aquacryl on canvas and aluminium (detail)
“Cicada”, 2023, Pigment and pencil on Aquacryl on canvas and aluminium
Currently at Lisson Gallery is Shirazeh Houshiary: The Sound of One Hand, an exhibition of the artist’s new and recent work. For the paintings she combined distinct color formations with intricate patterns drawn on the surface using pencil. The details are astounding when seen up close.
From the press release-
For her first solo show in Los Angeles for over a decade, the British artist Shirazeh Houshiary presents new and recent works, exploring the origins of life and the mysteries of the cosmos, from a microscopic cellular level, to the stratospheric phenomenon of the aurora borealis. The show’s title relates to a Zen Buddhist teaching that instructs the student to listen to the sound of one hand clapping, in order to open their mind to such a possibility and transcend the constraints of the physical body. Despite not being a Zen practitioner, Houshiary realised that her work revolves around the insistent sound made by one of her hands, making tiny, looping, scratched marks in pencil onto large aluminum surfaces, building up worlds through the silence of her inscribed words.
Houshiary’s abstract paintings emerge from an initial pour of liquid color that floods the surface in irregular pools, before she then covers these areas with her own calligraphic gestures in graphite, which are in fact tiny repetitions of the Arabic phrases: “I am” and “I am not”, which she also likens to the natural act of inhaling and exhaling. For one of the two largest works in the show, entitled Enchanter (2024), Houshiary applies red pigment and pencil to a black ground in five ring shapes, recalling structures of carbon particles linked in a chain. Matching this in scale but cooler in tone, is the painting Earth Lament (2023), with two silhouetted blue figures that somehow materialized from the sedimented pigment, one appearing to soar and the other seemingly being dragged down. This accidental figuration also occurs in the work Cicada (2023), which could just as easily be a depiction of the wings of this insect as it could be a representation of its rhythmic song. At the other end of the scale are the galactic indigo swirls of So Far So Near (2024) and the bands of ethereal light crisscrossing the work titled Aurora (2023), recalling those seen occasionally streaking across a night sky.
Occupying the floor is a sculptural installation in nine parts, made from an open latticework of aluminum bricks in blue and green hues, each with the same footprint, but all at different heights, growing at increments of one layer at a time (the shortest has five layers, the highest thirteen). Entitled Maelstrom (2022), these curved forms, both hard and supple at the same time, recall not only the molecular structures of the red painting Enchanter, or “that primeval storm within the spiral of creation where something grows,” as the artist puts it, but also the shape of the ouroboros snake eating its own tail.
A second sculpture, seemingly another form defying logic and gravity, bursts from the wall. Its two sinuous, entangled lines are the artist’s approximation of the movement of a solitary wave – lending it the name Soliton (2024) – which is a type of swelling or surging motion that is not dependent on previous pulses, or followed by other waves. From such unfathomable objects, to minute molecules and gigantic expanses of space, Houshiary’s artworks represent a journey through everything from the chaos and messiness of the Big Bang to the silent contemplation of the resulting energies that surround every one of us.
This exhibition closes 11/2/24.
Oct 242024
For Petrit Halilaj‘s installation Abatare at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, he used children’s doodles found on desks in his former school in Kosovo to create sculptures that bring these drawings to life around the outdoor garden. As a former refugee these drawings he found were personal to him and you can sense that in the way they are grouped together and his use of birds and flowers.
From the museum-
Halilaj was inspired by children’s doodles, drawings, and scribblings found on desks at the school he attended in Runik, Kosovo. For The Met commission, he expanded his research to other schools in Albania and countries from the former Yugoslavia, which are now undergoing significant cultural and sociopolitical change. Furtive drawings from kids’ desks have been enlarged into three-dimensional metal sculptures, each retaining the trace of the original. Together, they bring to public view the collective memory and imaginative power of generations of students whose lives were marked by traumatic conflicts and territorial divisions. Kosovo experienced the last of a series of wars in the Balkan region in the 1990s, during which many children were denied access to education on ideological grounds. Abetare borrows its title from the book the artist and his peers used to learn the alphabet at school, each letter linked to a lesson in pictures and text.
In Abetare, culturally specific references to different political ideologies, religions, and local heroes coexist with more universal symbols and playful nods to pop culture, art history, and sports. Spread around The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, the “drawings in space” merge with the surrounding architecture and landscape to create a multivocal scenography with an open-ended narrative. A celebration of the shared impulse for personal expression and mark making, Abetare is an opportunity for discovery and an invitation to expand our capacity to imagine transformative futures.
In the video below from The Met, Halilaj discusses the work with curator Iria Candela, including the discovery of the desks, and shares some of his personal history.
This exhibition closes 10/27/24.