I am What I am Not Yet, A Surevy of Brooklyn's Moment

During the summer of 2015, I curated a group exhibition featuring 23 artists living and working in Brooklyn, New York.  The exhibit was titled, I am What I am Not Yet, A Survey of Brooklyn's Moment. It spanned July 25 through August 21, 2015.  I conducted studio visits with the artists and formed new relationships with about half of the roster. The following list provides one to two sentences of that which stands out about each artists, albeit their entire body of work teaches us more insight. 

Nichole van Beek: fashionably paints multifaceted layers of hard and soft edged shapes on dyed canvas.  Forms derive from alphabet stencils, represented by Jeff Bailey;
Christian Berman: stellar use of materials, Bushwick based with an intriguing biography; 

Erik den Breejen:  paintings inspired by music lyrics and husband to Maria Louisa Calandra, also in this show; 

Deborah Brown: a renaissance woman! founder of Storefront Ten Eyck Gallery, in Bushwick, and confident-manipulator of Dutch portraiture in her primary role as contemporary oil painter; 

Maria Louisa Calandra: author of pencilinthestudio.com sketch artist who documents - through her drawings and blog - experiences while visiting renowned contemporary artist's studios, such as Wendy White and Trudy Benson; 

Jaqueline Cedar: massive, allegorical canvases and graduate of Columbia University;  

Austin Eddy: comical subjects in collage and canvas materials, could be Picasso's great grandson;
Charlotte Evans: forte equals nostalgic-dreamscapes painted with unique colors, from London now living and working in Bushwick; 

Matthew Fisher: contemporary painter meets waves, suns, sunsets, and unique imagery influenced by a touch of folk in a modern era; 

Xiao Fu: born in China, living in Bushwick, installations based on corruption with Chinese government, sculptural concept is greater than material; 

Charlotte Hallberg: graduate of Yale, day job as designer for the Judd Foundation, shaped panels depict ethereal eyes attributed to the sky;

Steven Hirsch: photojournalist for the New York Post by day, artist by night, represents Gowanus, Brooklyn, in his photographic series of its' polluted canal;
Benjamin King: curator and painter, using wide-ranging mixed media and heavy-tactile mediums,  his use of materials for sculpture include found river-wood and rocks; 

Osamu Kobayashi: i have curated Osamu's works into many exhibitions in NY, his style perhaps speaks to one who appreciates Zen philosophy;
Lauren Luloff: builds wall-fabric-canvases using hand dyed fabrics and techniques learned while living and working in India, she she recently had a solo show at the hole gallery;
Katherine Newbegin: represented by Leslie Heller; photographer who seeks abandoned buildings and empty environments around the world, i.e., temples, theaters, and stadiums;
Gary Petersen: Contemporary painting meets the Jetsons, works in his studio in the heart of Bushwick with an extensive exhibition history; 
Sarah Peters: fine sculptor with a recent review in the New York Times, devoted to bronze;
Willie Wayne Smith: head designer and builder for Macy's windows, a painter and installation artist, style evolving rapidly;  

Letha Wilson: represented by Higher Pictures, excellent exhibition CV, photography/ sculpture based artist who errs more on the side of being a sculptor, which is imperative to understanding her work - watch this video; 

Birgit Wolfram: born in Germany, lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where she maintains a studio and dedicated painting practice - recent series entitled, Schiller that was exhibited by myself in 2014 and with new works by other curators in Germany this past summer; 

Sun You: puts together office pins, pink plastic flowers, brass-chains, tiny nails, magnetic spheres, and rods, upon visiting her studio I viewed hundreds of tiny wall sculptures the size of quarter dollars.

Below is the press release. For this one in particular, I focused on an underlining tone of promoting artists in Brooklyn, as they say, the Brooklyn way. 

        Nichole van Beek, Doodad, 2015, acrylic and fiber paste on dyed canvas, 22 x 22 in

Big things are happening in 2015. In Brooklyn, things are changing fast, and artist Meccas are being created. This rapid change spurs creativity and innovation, and in a few short years, Brooklyn has become a global brand. The eyes of the entire world are following Brooklyn to determine what happens next. From June 25 - August 21, 2015, Brooklyn comes to Westchester. 22 re-defining, Brooklyn artists, representing a sampling of the Brooklyn vanguard, will be exhibiting their newest work at Madelyn Jordon Fine Art in Scarsdale.  If you've been reading about all the dynamism taking place in this borough, this is your opportunity to get a firsthand experience of Brooklyn's pulse.The exhibit title, I am What I am Not Yet, is inspired by a quote of the late philosopher of aesthetics, Maxine Greene.  Greene believed that artworks we encounter are “situated encounters”, meaning, an audience of a given artwork apprehends that work in the light of their backgrounds, biographies, and experiences.  In I am What I am Not Yet, 22 Brooklyn based artists have each experienced Brooklyn through their own unique lens, and try to relate their own “situated encounters” in a way that, in aggregate, conveys a multi-faceted interpretation of Brooklyn. -Diana Buckley

Deborah Brown, Masquée, 2015, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 in

Maria Louisa Calandra, Loren Munk's Studio, 2014, pencil on paper, 8 x 11 in
(as published on Calandra's art blog, pencilinthestudio.com)

Osamu Kobayashi, Filling, 2015, oil on canvas, 58 x 60 in

Charlotte Hallberg, Skies Eyes, 2015, oil on shaped panels, 38 x 19 (L) x 38 x 21 (R) in

Willie Wayne Smith, Things To Bury, 2013, airbrush on canvas, 40 x 50 in

Letha Wilson, Salt Flat Cement Dip (3), 2014, c-print, white Portland cement, 30 x 40 in

                             
Social tags:  #IAWIANY #Brooklyn #Westchester @Madelynjordonfa #DianaBuckley @Diana.buckley 

Heui Tae Yoon, Studio Visit

Heui Tae Yoon’s studio on 38^th Avenue near Times Square is large by New York standards.  When I visited this past April, the 11^th floor art pad felt lived-in and had a plethora of desks and painters carts.  I could see that he spent a lot of time working in his studio.  A new series of paintings with a theme exploring the western and eastern medical industries leaned against one wall, while older work -- erring heavier on the side of large scale illustration painting -- was archived in a corner.  In addition to paintings, he showed me a couple of conceptual sculptures that he made during his last two years in Pratt’s MFA program, and a sketch for a neon sign that he was developing.  

Interestingly, Heui Tae titled the painting below with a simplified form of the strokes on the painting, e.g.,  -|__ .  Being almost the same height as Heui Tae himself, this superlative work particularly struck a chord with me.  In this painting, I can envision snorkeling in Honolulu’s Hanauma Bay –a world-famous snorkeling destination I visited when I was eighteen.   I can see coral reef on the ocean floor and Echinoderm animals to which I am unfamiliar; the blurred surface is reminiscent of fogged goggles.  Copious coiled formations ignite a flashback to a class on Land Art at the Art Institute of Chicago; ghostly shadows depict hands akin to primitive iconography from the Pacific Islands.  Most integral to this painting is the inherent glow throughout the image.  Undulating luminosity carries the pattern, forcing inveterate crevasses to shed radial symmetry in this submersion of shallow water.   

-|__   / 2014  / Acrylic on linen  / 70 x 60 in

For this series his process for the large, plastic-like brushstrokes involved making them on individual sheets of plexiglass.  Once the thick, acrylic brushstrokes dry, he peals them off to apply directly onto the canvas’ surface.  Fans of Roy Lichtenstein, these are similar to his gargantuan, outdoor Brushstroke sculptures. 

Heui Tae Yoon standing by, |||-_

Heui Tae said, “I was questioning what makes a painting a painting, and then realized that all it really is is paint and a brushstroke”.  In that sense, he has questioned the concept of painting at its core, allowing a simple thing like a yellow brushstroke to be current and stylish.  Warhol, too, was successful at making ordinary things hip, stating, “I happen to like ordinary things.  When I paint them, I don’t try to make them extraordinary.  I just try to paint them ordinary-ordinary.” 

Detail, -|__ 

Heui Tae’s white-toned paintings were painted in March.  He described them at length in the earlier part of the visit, which led me to interpret the one entitled, Organ, below, as a storyboard about Heui Tae’s perspective on the progress of the Western medical industry and how he sees ambiguity and unaccountability in varying forms of Chinese medicine and acupuncture specialists.  Heui Tae said that both practices have impacted the illness, as well as the recovery-stages, of his father’s liver transplant and kidney disease. 

Organ, 2015, Acrylic, pencil and oil on linen, 70 x 60 in

The painting below, Habits to Effect, is a self-portrait of Heui Tae; there is an outline of lungs in the middle, and in the top left corner there is a heart spewing blood.  To me, this painting is about an internal war where the grim face on the figure conveys mistrust, habit and struggle.  Moreover, these new works are highly personal, and the bond between Heui Tae and his father, a MD-PhD in South Korea, is sincere and loyal. 

Habits to Effect / 2015 / Acrylic and oil on wood / 48 x 36 in

Lastly, the mention of a soundtrack is needed in relation to the work entitled, Hospitalized, below.  The extremely reductive and tense manner to which this work is painted is befitting to Moby’s album, Destroyed.  In its excellent production, its musical score exudes penetrating isolation, the kind you feel when you walk through a hospital hallway, or a New York City subway tunnel late in the night.

Hospitalized, 2015, Oil on canvas, 70 x 60 in

Studio View

Window #2, 2015, Acrylic and oil on linen

16 x 12 in

Window #3, 2015, Acrylic and oil on linen

16 x 12 in