Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Guo Hongwei: Plastic Heaven at Chambers Fine Art

Guo Hongwei, Transformed by the Setting Sun No 1, 2017, oil on canvas, 78 3/4 x 59 inches.

Chambers Fine Art gallery in Chelsea is currently presenting a collection of work by Beijing-based artist Guo Hongwei for the exhibition entitled Plastic Heaven. For this show, Hongwei unveils several of his signature oil paintings, made up of both still-lifes and abstractions.

Hongwei’s use of the medium is very distinct. He mixes his oil paints with different types of varnishes and traditional materials such as megilp, a mixture of mastic resin and linseed oil that was widely used in the 19th century. Hongwei has the ability to create ‘confined’ brushstrokes which can be manipulated separately in order to create different textures and forms. In doing this, he carefully maneuvers each brushstroke based on the appearance of his subjects.

Guo Hongwei, The Gate, 2017, oil on canvas, 78 3/4 x 59 inches.

One piece that truly stands out is a colorful painting known as The Gate, depicting an entrance or doorway in the middle of a gray fence, with sapphire-blue doors topped with a curved, rose-colored crown. Below the doors lies a rose-colored base, with an emerald-green step leading up to the entrance. According to Hongwei, The Gate was inspired by a plastic walker used by his young son as he was learning to walk. Sitting out on the balcony one morning, he noticed sunlight streaming through the brightly colored doorway, as if the plastic doors were the entrance into another realm. Plastic Heaven, the title of the exhibition, shares its name with one of Hongwei’s paintings in the show. The piece depicts two golden signs with Chinese characters, based on an actual photograph. The original image on which the piece is based caught Hongwei’s attention, and during the process of transforming the image to canvas, he purposely framed the piece in such a way so that the signs lost their original meaning, and the two fragments instead formed a new phrase: Plastic Heaven.

Guo Hongwei, Green in Snow, 2017, oil on canvas, 78 3/4 x 98 1/2 inches.

Hongwei also depicts objects that are covered or disguised in some way, shape, or form. Several of these paintings illustrate objects wrapped in Styrofoam netting such as Green in Snow and Red in Snow, which both depict pieces of fruit in their respective colors, wrapped in a pure white lattice. Similarly, Rose in Azure depicts roses wrapped in light blue netting, as the title suggests. A pair of paintings depicting covered objects, Transformed by the Setting Sun and The World Unfurled No. 1 are much darker by contrast as they depict barely distinguishable, unidentified objects wrapped in dark colored cloths with a pitch-black backdrop.

At Chambers Fine Art, 522 W. 19th St., through Dec. 9. The gallery is open Tue.-Sat. from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

ALISON MARTIN

ALISON MARTIN IS A LIFELONG RESIDENT OF NEW YORK CITY. SHE LOVES TO WRITE AND HAS A GREAT APPRECIATION FOR THE ARTS AND IS VERY KNOWLEDGEABLE AND PASSIONATE ABOUT NEW YORK CITY’S SITES, ATTRACTIONS, AND NEW ART EXHIBITS.

Independent New York by Tagboat Japan at The Ashok Jain Gallery

The Ashok Jain Gallery on the Lower East Side is currently presenting a group show entitled Independent New York presented by the organization Tagboat Japan.

The show features a variety of work by 16 artists mostly from Taipei or Japan that range from paintings to mixed media installations. Two notable pieces that stand out are paintings made from wood panel and acrylic paint by Jim Hashimoto. The works, both entitled Cosmic Code 1 are composed of square tiles each with different patterns. According to his artist statement, the works reflect Hashimoto’s perception of the downhill direction of the world after World War II. He explains that the repetitive process of painting, carving, and shaving the material is an important part of his art. “I believe ‘time’ within my repetitive art works acts to make space for understanding corporeal and personal connections with time anew,” he says.

Another installation that truly stands out is one by an artist known as “M.yam” entitled Someone’s Window. The installation includes an excerpt from a book she wrote where she describes visiting an elderly neighbor in Tokyo about 30 years ago who had a shelf in her kitchen which she prayed daily over and contained items like detergent bottles, Buddha statues, family photos, religious figures, hand cream, and a bottle of Tabasco sauce. A detailed ceramic replica of the shelf and its contents are presented next to her book excerpt.

Also of note are Yutaka Okada’s works depicting birds (mostly owls) made from materials such as acrylic, pearl powder, and snow powder clay among other things, Harano’s illustrations of a young girl shown in different contexts, and Naritaka Satoh’s depictions of young girls and women with innocent doll-like faces and bodies with his series of charcoal and acrylic on paper/panel drawings.

The show was put together by Kenji Tokumitsu who is the CEO Tugboat Japan (a.k.a. Gallery Tagboat) which is an artists’ organization that connects art in Japan and the United States.

Installation view of *Independent New York* group show at Ashok Jain Gallery, New York.

Kyoko Sato curated a special section on the website called “New York Standard”. She is an independent curator based in New York City who earned a degree in art history at Waseda University where she wrote her thesis on Jackson Pollock. She’s been living in the United States since 2002 and started her career as a freelance curator. She has worked at places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and as a producer at NHK group. She has also held two exhibitions about the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 and 2016.

The participating artists featured in her ‘Tagboat’ project (which is a booth exhibition) include Beth Moon, Johan Wahlstrom, Jamie Martinez (AF publisher), Marcellus Hall, Paul Brainard, Ivan Valtchev, and Egon Zippel. Additional information about these artists and Sato’s project can be found here.

Independent New York by Tagboat Japan at The Ashok Jain Gallery, New York.

Every year, Gallery Tagboat presents a booth exhibition event where young, budding artists can exhibit and sell their own artwork.

In addition to being a place to present new works at the event venue, it is also a place to discover artists that galleries will exhibit. Judges of the selected galleries will carefully evaluate the work, so it is important for the exhibiting artists for their future careers.

At Ashok Jain Gallery, 58 Hester St., through Nov. 19. The gallery is open Wed.-Sun. from 12-6 p.m.

ALISON MARTIN

The Fall Residency Show at Con Artist Collective

Con Artist Collective and Gallery on the Lower East Side is currently presenting its 2017 Fall Residency show featuring a selection of outstanding work by five artists working with various types of medium. This year’s participating artists are Michelle Kim, Joe Arnold, Brianna Olson, and AnnaLeena Prykari, and Seunghwi Koo who has been chosen to be “Artist of the Week” at Artfinder.com.

Koo presents several mixed media installations mostly revolving around pigs. Notable pieces on view include Piggies #21 and Red People which are mixed media collages of small and colorful figurines of the animal grouped together. There are also several other installations of hers around the gallery such as a cloud with pigs floating on and around it, a pig at the top of the Empire State Building, and a couple of pigs gathered near a slice of pizza and a can of Pepsi representing Koo’s lunch.

For Koo, the pig has been an influential creature as her father owned a butcher shop in Korea and saw several of the animals butchered. In Eastern culture, the pig is used in celebratory occasions where its head is placed in the center of the room while money is shoved in its mouth. In Western culture, however, the pig carries the negative connotations of greed, disgust, and selfishness.Michelle Kim specializes in photography and imaging whose subjects include still-lifes, portraits, and individuals going about their daily lives in the cities of New York and Seoul where she splits her time. For this show, she presents a collection of photographs entitled Synonyms for Memory that depict her memories with her family and events that took place in cities including her native Seoul.

Joe Arnold is an interdisciplinary artist and photographer based in Brooklyn who specializes in Lens-Based Arts. Arnold’s work explores imaging the gay male persona and masculine identity and seeks to understand what it means to look at and consume the image of the gay male body. For this show, he presents two large-scale photographs entitled Inferno I & II depicting extreme close-ups of clothing materials such as silk and fur coats.

Brianna Olson specializes in video art and has directed several music videos. However, for this show, she presents a couple of mixed media installations such as the symmetrical Hablame, which features two large earrings shape like owls with blue diamonds, and below are two small skeleton figures with two light-green diamond studded snakes below. The piece is sparkly and aligned with jewels and a large opening in the middle reveals a background of dried rose petals.

AnnaLena Prykari, *And We Never Happened* *Sequence 1 & 2.*

AnnaLeena Prykari presents And We Never Happened Sequence 1 & 2 which she describes as “an ongoing love letter for mental illness.” Three stacks of this work are presented on large papers toward the front of the gallery creatively wrapped in colorful yarn. One of the stacks includes free copies to take home. The piece includes lines such as “I medicate you to be balanced” and “We use mixed messages, flirt, play, hard to catch, Bound me or not.”

At Con Artist Collective and Gallery, 119 Ludlow St., through Oct. 20. The gallery is open Mon.-Sat. from 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

ALISON MARTIN

Highlights from Clio Art Fair in Chelsea

This weekend, a group of approximately 42 artists are participating in this year’s Clio Art Fair in Chelsea. Known as the “Anti-Fair for Independent Artists” each participant brings creativity and originality with their different backgrounds, the variety of medium of which they work, and the different themes their works convey. Jeffrey Bisallion, for instance examines the psyche of dangerous people in powerful positions like Kim Jong-Un, with paintings of prescription bottles for conditions like “Domprocet” (to maintain feelings of world domination) or “Racisanix” (for treatment of racist zealot ideals).

Robby Davis presents several ethereal oil paintings such as Diana or I’m Coming Out depicting the head of a woman wearing makeup situated on what appears to be a mountain illustrated by smooth, blended strokes of red, yellow, orange, and white paint. On either side of the woman and the mountain are stroke of dark green, light blue, dark blue, and purple strokes of paint illustrating the night sky. Other notable paintings by Davis include Birth of An American Witch depicting a young child lying on her stomach holding a lighter in one hand and a torch in the other, and The New Ark which is Davis’ painting/collage version of Noah’s Ark with occupants such as Jay-Z and Beyonce, Barack and Michelle Obama, in addition to all the animals.

In addition to paintings, there are numerous mixed media installations. One that truly stand out is a group of fantastical life-size wire mesh pieces by Kaya Deckelbaum that depict nature with pieces like Enchanted Forest, Spirited Cloud, and En’Light A which depicts the face of a Goddess. Also of note are pieces by Alexandra Holownia such as Dolly, a playful configuration of colorful fabrics and clothing articles that nearly engulf the body of a baby doll. Holownia also include a photograph entitled Dolly that depict two “dolls” of women sitting in chairs next to each other with somewhat disfigured bodies and dressed in eccentric clothing. One doll has brown skin and is made from porcelain, while the other is made from white yarn.

Other aesthetically pleasing works include some mixed media paintings by Amanda McCauley such as one somewhat whimsical piece entitled State of Affairs depicting a red wagon rolling down and slightly off a hill carrying a wooden chair. The piece features scattered polka dots and is made from assorted types of pressed flowers on board and sealed with wax. McCauley also presents several large-scale images of ballet leotards, and women’s undergarments also made from pressed flowers on cotton and mounted on board, and various other floral images with subjects like a piñata, a clock, a woman’s boot, and a heart with a lock and key.

Clio Art Fair, 508 W. 26th St., through Oct. 22. The space is open Fri-Sat. from 11 a.m.-8 p.m. and Sun. from 12-6 p.m.

VIP opening night for Clio Art Fair, New York.

Installation by Jamie Martinez (AF publisher).

Owner and director of Clio Art Fair Alessandro Berni with his wife the artist Borinquen Gallo who is expecting.

Artist Lainard Bush in front of his work.

Artist Shreya Mehta talking to collectors about her work.

(L-R) Art by Michael Greenwald and Bryanna Millis.

ALISON MARTIN

Watercolors by Fahren Feingold at Untitled Space Gallery

Fahren Feingold, Clandestine Curses, watercolor on paper, 11″ x 15″, curated by Indira Cesarine, courtesy of The Untitled Space Gallery, New York.

The Untitled Space gallery in Tribeca is currently presenting the debut solo exhibition of works by artist Fahren Feingold, featuring more than 50 of her large-scale watercolor paintings along with other signature works. The show is curated by gallery director Indira Cesarine. Feingold’s subjects are mostly women as she seeks to capture the natural beauty of the female form, with a focus on bold feminine nudes referencing images from the French erotica era of the early 20th century, American vintage magazines from the 1970s and 1980s, and today’s Internet imagery.

Despite their soft-core sensibility, Feingold’s paintings manage to maintain an ethereal quality. By combining bright pastels and softer colors, she invites the viewer to capture how the women are feeling and allows them to step inside the subjects’ dreamy, sensual world. In each piece, different parts of the women’s body are different colors, and are not necessarily the true colors of their skin or clothing articles but rather the varied patches of color represent how they might feel within certain parts of their bodies. “When I paint a woman, I imagine giving back her emotional voice, where she may have felt stifled otherwise. I don’t look to paint people as they look, but rather as I feel them, which is why viewers will often not know the natural skin color – since I paint in watery aura like dreamy colors,” says Feingold.

Feingold is an artist quickly gaining worldwide recognition. Her work has been exhibited in London, Paris, Tokyo, Los Angeles and New York, and featured in publications including Vogue, The Huffington Post and V Magazine. Feingold was born in Los Angeles and moved to New York at age 17. She earned a BFA between her studies at the Parsons School of Design and the Glasgow School of Art. Feingold has also worked as a fashion designer for brands like Ralph Lauren and J. Crew among others.

Alexander Calder’s Style Influences Chinese Contemporary Artists

Installation view, Referencing Alexander Calder: A Dialogue in Contemporary Chinese Art, courtesy Klein Sun Gallery. Photo by Drew Dies.

Alexander Calder is having a good run in New York this season. Besides the blockbuster exhibit of his work at the Whitney Museum, the Klein Sun Gallery is featuring works by contemporary Chinese artists influenced by his style and ideas.

The exhibition entitled Referencing Alexander Calder: A Dialogue in Contemporary Chinese Art features work by eleven Chinese artists whose work resembles or has been influenced by Calder’s style.

When the Klein Sun Gallery first opened 10 years ago, its inaugural show also revolved around Calder, though it focused more on his influence on his Western artists.

Vivien Zhang, Cursory Eddy, 2017, acrylic, oil, and spray paint on canvas, 55 1/8 x 63 inches (140 x 160 cm), © Vivien Zhang, courtesy Klein Sun Gallery.

The thing that Calder is best known for are his mobiles, but throughout his career which spanned nearly five decades, Calder also experimented with stabiles, graphic works, and the concept of flow. The installation that most closely echoes his mobiles is Li Jingxiong’sEGOBY that features several footballs that are half white and half-gray or half-black hung together on a wall by a black string. The piece is meant to convey male dominance in the contemporary world. Vivien Zhang’s painting entitled Cursory Eddy most closely echoes Calder’s fascination with movement as it depicts several groups of bubbles expanding and images of three hands resembling a cursor of a computer mouse trying to pick some of the bubbles up or move some of them around. Similarly, Zhao Yao’s painting entitled A Painting of Thought V-368 depicts movement by several different-colored lines with round ends moving across a grid in different directions much like the game of Pac-Man.

Zhao Yao, A Painting of Thought V-368, 2015, acrylic on found fabric,
70 7/8 x 70 7/8 x 3 1/8 inches (180 x 180 x 8 cm), © Zhao Yao, courtesy Klein Sun Gallery.

Referencing Calder’s stabiles are several steel sculptures by Huang Rui are connected to Calder’s steel sculptures and include two abstract representations of animals entitled Monkey and Cat.

A couple of pieces that convey the concept of flow are a dynamic wax sculpture by Yangjiang Group entitled Flight of Dragon and Dance of Phoenix, and a painting by Shen Fan entitled Shan Shui C-27 which has a calming effect as it features a mountain and a wave of water depicted with thin black strokes of paint and illustrating the relationship between solidity and movement.

At the Klein Sun Gallery, 525 W. 25th St., through Oct. 7. The gallery is open Mon.-Sat. from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.