John Cullen “All About Reflections”

John Cullen
“All About Reflections”
June 11- June 29, 2013
Reception: Thursday, June 13, 5-8pm

Chelsea:  Viridian Artists, Inc. is pleased to present John Cullen’s first solo exhibition at our gallery entitled  “All About Reflections” from June 11 to June 29, 2013. There will be a reception to meet the artist on Thursday June 13, 5-8pm.

The focus of Cullen’s imagery is water, presented abstractly, with flowing lines that echo the fluidity of water’s movement and currents. His acrylic paintings on wood panels are not large and are described by the artist as “abstract impressionism”.  Sometimes he is painting the rhythms of flowing water in such a way that narratives of movement are created and filled with the simplicity of nature abstracted. Occasionally other forms overlay the liquefied tendrils, but always the viewer is confronted with water’s beautifully rhythmic journey.

Though he has worked many years and in many differing ways studying and recording the waves and currents of streams and rivers, the current selection of work encompasses selections from the last five years with a concentration on the “rhythm” series of the past two years up to the present.

Cullen feels his most inspired work comes through a sheer force of labor that ultimately fills him with a renewed sense of insight and revelation.

The artist studied at Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, New York University and Pratt Institute, where he received a Masters Degree in Art Education in 1970. He taught art on both the secondary and college level. He has been exhibiting his paintings since 1988, receiving many awards in exhibitions throughout New York State and the Northeastern coast as well as at the Vera Beach Museum of Art, the Schweinfurth Museum and the Cooperstown Museum of Art.

We look forward to your joining us at this exciting new exhibit at Viridian Artists.

For further information please contact the gallery at 212-414-4040 or  viridianartistsinc@gmail.com  orview our website: viridia

BOB TOMLINSON “Divas & Heroes”

BOB TOMLINSON
“Divas & Heroes”
oil and collage paintings
May 21 – June 8, 2013

Reception: Thurs. May 23, 5-8 pm
Coffee/Conversation with the artist:  Saturday, June 1, 3-4 pm

Chelsea, NYC: Viridian Artists is pleased to present recent oil and collage paintings by Bob Tomlinson on the ironic theme “Divas & Heroes”.  The exhibit opens May 21st with a reception on Thursday May 23rd, 5-8pm PM. The work will be on view through Saturday June 8th. The artist will be at the gallery on Saturday, June 1st, for coffee and conversation from 3-4 PM.

The dictionary defines diva as “a great woman singer, a prima donna.”  These are present in the person of Josephine Baker etc but the word is also taken in the broader sense of a flamboyant heroine, here historical or literary.  The same holds true for the heroes.  Whether heroes and heroines are possible in the modern world is open to question.  The paintings are of modest format; the focus is on single or three-quarter figures.  Having said that, the usual suspects are present, Genghi, Marie Antoinette (at least in painted versions) as well as James Baldwin, Lena Horne, Chet Baker etc.

The paintings are combinations of areas painted in oil, elaborately textured and printed papers, as well as computer manipulated photographs.  These papers are collaged on canvas and represent elements of costume or abstracted background areas.  The painter believes that the frontier between figuration and abstraction is an illusion. There is no monolithic distinction between the two modes. Whether naturalistically depicted or abstracted in various degrees, the “object” perceived in a painting (a figure or a bowl of fruit) is in fact only a combination of visual cues. Such objects are not “natural signs” (to use the terminology of semiotics) but “arbitrary” ones, that is to say only constituted at a second degree by true natural signs: colors, lines and shapes.

Art critic Lawrence Downes wrote: “Tomlinson employs classical anatomy as a vehicle for gestural abstraction.” Focusing on form and rhythm as formal autonomous entities, the artist sets his figures hovering in baroque atmospheres awash with subtle color harmonies.

Tomlinson’s themes are substantial and implore us to search our memories and connections to myth as well as to reality, but they are executed with an elegant surface treatment that often belies the anguish & emotions that lie deep in the layers of the work.

Bob Tomlinson is a Jamaican-American painter born in Brooklyn, New York.  A graduate of Pratt Institute and the City University Graduate Center, he is also a scholar of French Literature and Aesthetics. Tomlinson has shown widely in Paris, London, Amsterdam and New York and is represented in many international public and private collections including those of the Clark-Atlanta University Museum, Dr. Maya Angelou, Lord and Lady Hirshfield, M. Franco Trecanni di Montichiari, M. Pierre Cochet and Herr Waldo Klick.  He figures in the recent books, 100 New York Painters by Cynthia M. Dantzic (Schiffer, 2006), Black Paris Profiles by Monique E. Wells (2012) and is also the subject of a projected film by the well-known documentary filmmaker Louis Massiah.

SUSAN SILLS “CUTTING LOOSE/ A Walk Through Art History”

SUSAN SILLS
“CUTTING LOOSE/ A Walk Through Art History”
April 30- May 18, 2013
Reception Thursday May 2, 6-8pm

 Chelsea:  Viridian Artists, Inc. is pleased to present Susan Sills’ exhibition “CUTTING LOOSE/ A Walk Through Art History” from April 30 to May 18, 2013. There will be a reception on Thursday May 2, 2013 6-8pm.  Sills has been a featured artist in the book “100 New York Painters” and will be interviewed by the author, Cynthia Dantzic on Saturday, May 11th at 4pm.   On the last day of the exhibition, Saturday May 18th, there will be a closing reception from 4-6pm.  Gallery hours are Tuesday- Saturdays 12-6pm.

With her life-size freestanding painted 2-D sculptures, the artist Susan Sills whimsically restructures and re-constructs art history. Enlarged to life size, they are cut out of birch plywood and skillfully painted in oils in the style of each Old Master. Using a jigsaw, she releases familiar images from the confinement of the frame and thrusts them into real space to confront the contemporary viewer.

Continuing a project she started 20 years ago, Sills’ sculptures explore the magic of encountering familiar personages from Art History in a totally new context, often putting them together in combinations that tell a completely new story. This time however, the artist is not only adding new characters to the mix, but she is bringing them together in today’s world, juxtaposing them in their differing times and histories with an insouciant disregard for ordinary reality.

“Sills takes us on a journey through art history with wit and humor.” Pensacola Museum of Art, 2004.“… her groupings provide fresh insights and evoke quiet chuckles as she gently challenges our established beliefs about art history.” Vernita Nemec, 2005.  “As with all of Sills’ delightful post-Pop takes of familiar figures from art history, encountering them out of context, blown up to … life-size, is like spotting one’s favorite movie stars on the street. They look just as good in person!” Ed McCormack, Gallery and Studio, 2003.

Ms. Sills has had 16 Solo shows, has shown in Tokyo 6 times, and has been in group shows too numerous to mention. Her work is included in the Sylvia Sleigh Collection of Women Artists at Rowan University. She has had solo exhibitions at the Queens College Art Center and Pensacola Museum of Art which sponsored an educational experience for 4500 children and their teachers. Her 2-D sculptures have also been used as a set for a dance performance at the Whitney Museum.

We look forward to your joining us at this exciting new exhibit at Viridian Artists.

For further information please contact the gallery at 212-414-4040 or  viridianartistsinc@gmail.com  orview our website: viridianartists.com

VIRGINIA EVANS SMIT: “F” IS FOR FLOWERS, FISH AND FRAGMENTS “

VIRGINIA EVANS SMIT

  “F” IS FOR FLOWERS, FISH AND FRAGMENTS “

 April 9 – April 27, 2013
Reception, Saturday, April 13, 4 – 6 pm.

Chelsea NY: Viridian Artists is pleased to present a solo exhibition of prints of all sorts by the artist VIRGINIA EVANS SMIT. The exhibit will continue from April 9 – April 27, 2013 with a reception, Saturday, April 13, 4 – 6 pm.

The “F” word usually brings to mind a host of either negative or at the very least controversial associations, but in the case of the art in this exhibit, Virginia Evans Smit is instead showing us the beautiful and the flamboyant of the floral and aquatic side of nature, then playing with it ingeniously. Smit is an artist of diverse skills & interests. Foremost in her artistic explorations are the varieties of printmaking and the artist expands the media to its fullest. In this group of works she is presenting a wide range of silk screen, monoprinting, Chine colle – a unique technique in printmaking in which the image is transferred to a surface that is recollaged in the printing process- solar etchings and digital prints that echo and evoke variations on all the above.

She loves color so the floral life in Barbados, where she spends her winters, accounts for much of the subject matter in this exhibition. In her last exhibition at Viridian in 2007, the focus of the work was the blooming beauty of the Caribbean plant life residing in her garden and in 2003, the images were remembrance of travels in Japan and across the U.S. In this current exhibit, she pushes her skills to encompass a wide range of experimental approaches to both her printmaking techniques and her subject matter.

The artist has the distinction of being the first African American female to receive a Masters of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania where she received The Thornton Oakly Creative Achievement Award. She has been associated with Viridian Artists since 1978. Over that time period she has had more than fifteen solo exhibitions at Farleigh Dickenson and Columbia University’s Teacher’s College, Mehu Gallery in Manhattan, the James E Lewis Museum at Morgan State University, the Barbados Museum and Historical Society and others. Her work is in many collections including General Foods, the Hewitt Collection of African American Art, the Library of Congress, The Fuba Collection in Johannesburg South Africa, Colgate Palmolive and many other private and public collections in the U.S. and abroad.

“Wally Gilbert: New Black and White Images”

“Wally Gilbert: New Black and White Images”
March 19th – April 6th, 2013
reception Saturday, March 23, 4-6
closing reception Saturday April 6, 4-6

Chelsea: Viridian Artists Inc. is pleased to present the exhibition “Wally Gilbert: New Black and White Images”. The show opens March 19th and continues through April 6th, 2013. In celebration, a reception will be held on Saturday, March 23rd, 4-6 pm and a closing reception will be held Saturday April 6th, 4-6PM.

Wally Gilbert’s latest works play with the effects of monochromatic light. These newworks range from images taken in his travels, such as the “Roof Tiles – Tuscany” and “Chimneys – Paris” as well at the series of Water Tower studies taken in New York City, to abstractions created by overlapping images in the computer.

A world renowned scientist, Gilbert explores the medium of photography zealously, working in the past primarily with color and focusing on a wide variety of subjects. In this exhibition however, he has omitted color entirely, instead translating all the images into black, white and shades of grey, focusing on the contrast of the forms and shapes, sometimes as pattern, sometimes as objects against a background. Chimneys, roofs, stairs and other architectural elements are most often the subject translated by Gilbert into artistic images enhanced digitally both creatively and scientifically.

The Artist states, “While most of these are photographic images, converted to a grayscale continuum, some of the images were further modified in the computer to alter and to rearrange the dark and light portions in extreme ways. This procedure produces effects akin to the process of solarization that was used with wet photography and creates novel, enhanced views of the world. The printing of these images directly onto aluminum metal emphasizes the contrast between light and dark and brings out the force of the whites and the blacks.”

We hope that you will be able to meet this outstanding artist and share his vision through seeing these incredibly fascinating artworks.

ELIZABETH FEATHERSTONE HOFF “RECEIVED IMAGES”

ELIZABETH FEATHERSTONE HOFF
“RECEIVED IMAGES” 
February 25- March 16, 2013
Reception, Thursday, March 7, 6 – 8 pm.
Wine and words: Sat. March 16, 4 – 6 pm.

 Chelsea NY: Viridian Artists is pleased to present “RECEIVED IMAGES”, a solo exhibition of mixed media works by the artist ELIZABETH FEATHERSTONE HOFF. The exhibit will continue from February 25- March 16, 2013 with an opening reception on Thursday, March 7th, 6 – 8 pm and a Wine and Words event with the artist on Saturday, March 16,4:00 – 6:00pm. During the opening reception, the Lou Hoff Jazz Trio with piano, bass and alto sax will be performing.

 The artist Elizabeth Featherstone Hoff states that her images come to her “unawares”, hence the show title, “Received Images”. Hoff’s presentation is always a mixture of sculpture and painting, often issue-oriented but the artist feels she would prefer that viewers find their own meanings in what they see. Her sculpture is sensate and she follows the message and instructions given her by the materials she is working with. The artist possesses a photographic memory for images and though she often plans a work from start to finish, most of what she creates evolves out of the work as it is being created.

As a child, Hoff could not see with any clarity until she was almost four years old and learned to first “see” through the use of her hands and ears. Perhaps as a result, she sees things differently still, but her differently wired vision only adds to her visual perception and expression.

There is a diverse list of things that she cares about and that inspire each work. Her reactions to motherhood and the state of the environment are high on that list, but events like 9/11, that have affected us all, also find places in her work, both directly and indirectly.

The artist came to Viridian as a winner in Viridian’s 22nd International Juried Exhibition curated by Elisabeth Sussman in 2011. In that exhibit Hoff showed two ceramic sculptural figures of women, both of which evoked an almost tribalistic aura of feminine powers, naked and primitive in our urban twenty-first century world. In this exhibition, she will be showing sculptural objects as well as paintings.

The artist studied painting, sculpture and printmaking with artist/teachers Ann Truitt, Hermann Zagge and Jennie Lee Knight. The artist has two daughters, both artists and one who is also a research scientist. Her work has been exhibited in galleries in Europe, America, and South America, and museums in America.

Viridian Artists' 3rd International Juried Photography Competition

Viridian Artists' 3rd International Juried Photography Competition
Nat Trotman, Curator, Soloman R Guggenheim Museum
February 5 - February 23, 2013
Opening reception Saturday, February 9th, 4:00 - 7:00 pm

Danielle Austen*Zel Brook*Jodi Concepcion*Manuel Cosentino*Lindsay D’Addato* Lauren Dishinger *John Eaton*Taylor Firestein*Roger Generazzo*Aimee Hertog* Matthew Kaelin*Klaus Knoll*Jennifer Lin*Misha Macaw*Timothy Macy*DeeDee*Maguire*Mark Dorf*Freja Mitchell*Robert Moran*Ida Roden*Noah Rabinowitz*Chip Rutan*Jordan Sibley *Stafford Smith*Judith Stuart

 

Chelsea: Viridian Artists Inc. is pleased to present their 3rd International Juried Photography Exhibition. Curated by Nat Trotman, Associate Curator, Guggenheim Museum, New York. The exhibition opens February 5th and continues through February 23rd, 2013. In celebration, a special reception will be held on Saturday, February 9th, 4:00-7:00pm.

This exhibition is a diverse gathering of twenty-five photographers from the United States and abroad. They share a common interest in capturing a specific moment and situation using the photographic image as a starting point with a variety of ending goals.  First, second & third prize winners are Roger Generazzo, Jordan Sibley and Mark Dorf.

Viridian Artist, Robert Mielenhausen, chair of the committee that organizes the Juried Photographic Competition at Viridian, invited Nat Trotman to serve as the Curator for Viridian Artists third annual competition. Trotman joined the curatorial staff of the Guggenheim in 2001 as curatorial assistant and holds an M.Phil. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he focused on performance, photography, and time-based art. In his role as Curator of the photography competition at Viridian Artists, he spent many long hours viewing over 500 images sent to Viridian from around the world. 

                  In his curatorial statement, Trotman states: “Whether through their stylistic refinement, conceptual clarity, emotional power, or sheer beauty, these images offer a brilliant glimpse of what photography has to offer today”.

                  As part of Viridian’s mission is to give exposure to outstanding under-known artists, the gallery’s director, Vernita Nemec, selected the images of thirty-one photographers to be shown in an ongoing Power Point presentation during the exhibition. She states: "the multiplicity of creative expression in photography today is staggering – being uniquely creative in today’s digital & virtual worlds is no easy feat." “Director’s Choice” Winners include:

Geoffrey Agrons*Juliette Argent*Danielle Austen*Robin Becker*James Bell*Deborah Cahn* E.M. Castonguay*Virginia Coleman*Gregory Colvin*Jodi Concepcion*Pierre Cook*Mark Dorf* Megan Douglas*Miska Draskoczy*John Eaton*Taylor Firestein*Cynthia Fleury*Erika Gagnon Miranda Gatewood*Roger Generazzo* Barbara Habenstreit* Flora Hogman* Jennifer Lin * Robert Moran*Marc Newton*Noah Rabinowitz* Jane Rothman* Mark Savoia * Jeanette Serrat Priscilla Smith*Denise Tarantino

Gallery hours: Tuesday throughSaturday 12- 6 PM

For further information please contact Vernita Nemec, Gallery Director at 212 414 4040 or viridianartistsinc@gmail.com or view the gallery website: www.viridianartists.com

“Disconnected Realities” Viridian Affiliate Artists

“Disconnected Realities”
Viridian Affiliate Artists

January 15th to February 2, 2013

Opening reception Thursday January 17th, 6-8PM

William Atkins, Joshua Greenberg, Renee Kahn, Elvira Lantenhammer,
Jeffrey Melzack, Vernita N’Cognita, Lauren Purje, Michael Rippl, Sheila Smith,
Katherine Ellinger Smith, Meredeth Turshen

            Chelsea, NYC: Viridian Artists is pleased to present “Disconnected Realities”an exhibition of outstanding art by eleven artists who are part of the Affiliate program at the gallery. The exhibit will continue from January 15 to February 2, 2013, at 548 West 28th Street, also accessible from 547 W 27th Street on the 6th floor. There will be an opening reception Thursday January 17, 6-8PM. The Viridian Artists Affiliate program is a special gallery program that is an important aspect of Viridian’s mission to expand exhibition opportunities for outstanding contemporary artists. All art could be said to be the expression of an inner reality or a re-interpretation that each artist presents as their reality. In this exhibition, however, each artist has created a new reality, inspired or not by another, but disconnected and personal to their own view of life today, tomorrow and yesterday.

             William Atkins’ “Iguanodon Portraits” are a series of portraits based upon the aesthetics of 19th century photography. They were photographed with an antique camera akin to the cameras used during the Victorian era, using an 8×10 inch negative that is contact printed onto the paper. In this series, the photographer is inspired by Hiroshi Sugimoto’s belief that photography functions as a fossilization of time and the fact that the first recognized dinosaur fossils were found during the Victorian age. Atkins intention is to lead the viewer to believe these portraits, like the early dinosaur models, are correct. Upon closer inspection, however, the viewer finds that all is not as it seems, anachronisms and inaccuracies flourish in varying degrees. Atkins wants us to think about what has changed; who the characters portrayed are and ask what kind of world he or she comes from.

In this series, Joshua Greenberg  explores the expression of visual ideas through grouping related images in bold and soft colors highlighting shapes and curves with a lack of distinct color forms. He, instead interlaces the colors to provide a sense of movement which is also supported by the curves and the changing quality of light. The lines and variable textures provide a framework for the abstractions, foreshadowing the direction of movement. “The threes provide representation in a sea of abstraction and along with the lines, serve as a platform from which to explore smaller sections of the abstract image”.

            Renee Kahn’s conceptual approach to the figure has been molded by memories, emotions and reactions to body language. In her paintings, she expresses emotions through body language, design and color. Her themes are family, religion, relationships, motherhood, and life’s passages. The goal in her paintings is to create maximum intensity using the least amount of means.

In her “site plans”, Elvira Lantenhammer reprocesses excerpts of maps and street plans into painted tableaus – sometimes in large format – to arrive at the formal basic structure and essence of a place. She paints the intuitively found base-colour of the place – the radiance, the atmosphere, in superimposed layers of colour, condensed into large-format colour compositions as a “subject with variations”. In her abstract acrylic paintings on canvas or egg tempera paintings on wood, the main points of orientation for the viewer are the dominant colours. “I am inspired by the wonderful brightness of the colours of the early Italian paintings. With the background of my education as restorer, I use this traditional materials pigment/ egg tempera on wood to express what I feel about a certain place or about a place of my fantasy.”

For Jeffrey Melzack, the ancient concept of telling stories through pictorial symbols serves as the inspiration for the images in his paintings. The body of his work is connected by a symbolic language ofvisual images that gives voice to his understanding of the world and becomes a visual language without boundaries. Using an underlying formula, he has established a rational for the compositions. The artist says that “I learned that my visual language had a power I could call upon to help my understanding of the world seemingly filled with so many ambiguities, some serious, some comical, some secular and some profoundly spiritual.”

            Vernita N’Cognita’s artmaking is concerned with translating inner realities into installations, performances, photographs, monoprints and m/m collages.  Through her visual and performance art, she creates a visual autobiography addressing issues of relationship, loss and self-actualization reflecting the complexities and nuances of her 21stcentury life.  These images are from a series using body, dress and leaf prints combined with collage.

In her paintings, Lauren Purje juxtaposes cartoon imagery with painterly backgrounds, exploring the sublime and the absurd as concepts related closely to one another. She feels that the often dire circumstances surrounding thoughts of life and death, can be lightened and given new meaning when illustrated through this contrary juxtaposition.

            Michael Rippl, a German artist, re-creates images he findsand works on them time and again over the years. In this exhibit one of his works is based on a photo byAndreas Caspari, taken from a ten meter diving tower, which was enlarged on a computer monitor. A detail of it was photographed with a Polaroid camera and thePolaroid manipulated by Rippl, creating a picture from a picture.

            Katherine Ellinger Smith’s work also is involved with transforming found images into her own work, but she begins by taking digital photos of vintage movies directly from her television screen. After identifying the image she most feels a relationship with, she then recreates it as a large-scale painting.

            Sheila Smith’s images are photographs of sections of collages that she has created as raw material for her final images. She then re-composes with the camera so that she can create a variety of abstract compositions from one abstract painted collage.

            Meredeth Turshen states that  “after a year’s absence, I returned to my studio filled with energy–these pieces seemed to burst out of my pent-up longing to paint again and are an affirmation of my belief in the power of art to heal, console, enrich and enhance.”

“Endings and Beginnings” Viridian Artists & Friends

“Endings and Beginnings”
 Viridian Artists & Friends
December 18th to January 12th, 2013
Opening reception Thursday December 20th,6-8PM

Chelsea NY: Viridian Artists is pleased to present “Endings and Beginnings”,  an exhibition of art by Viridian Artists & Friends, December 18th to January 12th, 2013, at 548 West 28th Street, also accessible from 547 W 27th Street. There will be an opening reception Thursday December 20th,6-8PM. In addition, Viridian is bringing back its ArtShop of art cards, prints, books, etc., all available for under $99, so that everyone has a chance to do some last minute holiday gift shopping.

   As 2012 ends, we can look forward to a new year of promise and the chance to resolve to do all those things we resolved, but didn’t accomplish, last year. Too, the end of the year gives us the opportunity to think about what we want to change and how we can move forward.

This holiday season is a season of giving and getting, but it is much more than that. It is a time of remembering and honoring. It is a time of renewal and change. It is a time to share our good fortune with those less fortunate. It is a time to remember our families and our friends from afar whom we haven’t seen in too long a time. A chance to drop a note and invite them over to celebrate the ending of the years that have passed and the beginning of the years to come.

Each year, in a spirit of holiday giving and sharing, Viridian Artists takes this time to share the spirit of the holidays by inviting guest artists to show their creations along with us. And too, this season gives everyone a chance to stop a moment and take some time to create small but special artworks in the form of cards, books, ornaments and prints, all available for under $99 each.  And to give everyone a chance to do some last minute holiday gift shopping.

Viridian will be donating a protion of sales to the Craft Emergency Relief Fund ( CERF). Dress festively & come join us on Thursday, December 20th to celebrate “Endings & Beginnings”!

“Picture Perfect 2: Director’s Choice”

“Picture Perfect 2: Director’s Choice”
“Director’s Choice” Images from our 2nd International Juried Photo Competition
Curated by Vernita Nemec
November 27th to December 15th, 2012
Opening reception Thursday November 29th, 4-7PM

Juliette Argent . Stephanie Aust . Susan Barnett . Mimi Botscheller . Deborah Cahn . Tina Carter . Cynthia Fleury . Amanda Gahan . Ken Greene . Joshua Greenberg . Susan Evans Grove . Barbara Habenstreit . Teri Havens . Joshua Hobson . Gisa Indenbaum . Thomas Jackson . LynneJohnson . Ashley Jones . DeeDee Maguire

Chelsea NY: Viridian Artists is pleased to present “Picture Perfect: Director’s Choice”, an exhibition of photographically based art to occur November 27th to December 15th, 2012 at 548 West 28th Street, also accessible from 547 W 27th Street. There will be a reception Thursday, November 29th,4-7PM.

Although these artists/photographers were not “winners” of Viridian’s 2nd International Juried Photo Competition juried by Jennifer Blessing from the Guggenheim Museum, Vernita Nemec, Viridian’s gallery director, felt the images of these twelve photographers to be as uniquely interesting as some of those chosen by the Guggenheim Curator. Professional opinions vary widely regarding what is the “best” art, but in the end, thinking people realize it is a question of taste even in the eye of the professional.

One of Viridian’s missions is to provide meaningful exposure to under known artists. Shown in a power point presentation during the Juried exhibition last season, Viridian’s director felt these images to be worthy of their own exhibition and hence we are pleased to bring the actual works together now in this second Picture Perfect Exhibition. Each of these artists has their own personal obsession in their search for images in reality to record, capture or alter and then transform into their own reality.

Water inspires two of these photographers. For Amanda Gahan the water and sand of theFlorida beaches are important parts of her history though she now lives far away. “In “Challenge in Comfort” I attempt to find comfort in one element of my history:  water.  By performing everyday, mundane tasks underwater, I allow the water to surround me in its comfort, but in the same way that it comforts me, it challenges me with its suffocating, anti-gravitation aspects.”

Tina Carter grew up withNarragansett Bayin her back yard. Since then, water and the ocean are her ultimate target, particularly the unrestrained, unrefined passion of thePacific Northwestcoast.  Color, her first discovery in photography makes her see the ocean, and how it speaks to the land, in vivid color. “The ocean washes color into my world.”

Culture and other creative arts inspire Mimi Botscheller and Juliette Argent.

Mimi Botscheller’s inspiration is the songs of William Blake. She is drawn to Blake through a sense that there is a thread of commonality between her own perception and Blake’s awareness of the illusions of existence.  His songs inspired her to create a narrative image of a contemporary parallel universe.

Juliette Argent’s interest lies in the trans-aesthetic state of contemporary visual culture and the fusion of reality and fiction in our image saturated world. Staging a pseudo commercial photo-shoot, Argent has an archetypal female model skillfully made-up, then subjected to an extreme everyday situation causing the fragile cosmetics to disintegrate and destroy the surface illusion. She then photographs the model to highlight the absurdity of the perfected airbrushed images seen in cosmetic advertising.

A number of these photographers record Americaas it, often to emphasize the contrast to what once was. Cynthia Fleury‘s Vintage Car Graveyard is one of a series of images done in Quinn, South Dakota.  The once thriving town ofQuinn was doomed to become a ghost town when Interstate 90 bypassed Quinn in favor of neighboring Wall. This lineup of vintage cars and trucks was captured on a calm cloudy day that added to the atmosphere of this nearly desolate town of 44 inhabitants not far from theBadlands.

Teri Havens’ image was taken inSlabCity, a squatters’ community located on a desolate swath of southernCalifornia’sSonoranDesert wedged between theSalton Sea and an active bombing range where she lived part-time for three years. SlabCity is a collection of fiercely independent, utterly original individuals. Cast out of, or just drifting away from, the “American Dream,” they come here seeking freedom from rules, rent, and the assaults of a society often unsympathetic to the underclass.

Barbara Habenstreit’s photo was taken at the annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade in June 2011. She spotted some religious messengers who were trying to spread God’s word to this crowd of “sinners” onMermaid Avenue but no one seemed to pay the slightest attention to them, except for her, photographing them.

“ThriftyCenter” is one image from a larger body of work by Ashley M. Jones. This collection of images attempts to accurately document the current state of a once thriving area of downtown Savannah, the MLK corridor. The artist has spent much time observing and researching this particular community, then photographing with a 4×5 large format camera to convey a sense of truth and accuracy as well as a sincere concern for that community. Thomas Jackson is interested in reflecting the mood and feeling of our era and strives to make relevant, memorable American images that make people think and invites viewers to create their own narrative.

Others in this exhibit attempt to translate their environment as a reflection of themselves. Joshua Hobson feels his image making plays many roles in his life. One is the roles is organizational, allowing him to use his photography as an exercise in compartmentalizing the world, particularly in response to a strange environment. He feels that through his photography, he “creates visual quotations of the world that (he) encounters daily and the world as (he) wishes it to be.”

DeeDee Maguire always wondered how it felt to resemble a parent or a sibling. Initially, her self-portrait photography was a means to explore identity.  Eventually, the images grew to form a visual diary recording what happened and how she felt at a certain time, at a particular place in her life. This self-taught photographic journey began in 1978 and continues today.

Many of these artists are primarily concerned with the abstraction of their imagery. Deborah Cahn began with art quilts, moved on to mixed-media collage, and developed a serious interest in photography as the result of using photographs in collages. “I love abstract pattern and texture rather than representational images, so I compose my photographs to eliminate hints of the subject’s identity.”

Ken Greene, Joshua Greenberg and Lynne Johnson are intent on abstracting nature while Susan Evan Grove does the same with reflections. Ken Greene makes abstract images out of scenes that most would shoot as a fall “postcard” shot. Living in the Great Smoky Mountains with the abundance of beautiful imagery, he focuses on imagery that doesn’t seem like a nature subject at first glance, but clearly is upon further inspection.  Joshua Greenberg’s photo-based abstract prints combine the elements of photography with digital processing to produce a new composition. The objective is an image with its own sense of abstraction and movement, based on and retaining elements of the original photograph, in this case, representing the color, texture, and complexity of rain-washed landscape.

During her frequent walks, hikes and skis, Lynne Johnson studies the light and shadows on and about the rocks, trees and bushes. She is especially intrigued by the discovery of things not immediately identifiable that suggest something else. On second thought, the artist felt that perhaps “Cut Log in Snow” should be titled “Bangs”.

Susan Evans Grove’s vision travels along the surface of automobiles. She takes straight shots of a reflection in a car’s exterior, sometimes from the interior of the car, names them after the make of the car they are shot from and then prints on metal to simulate the experience she had recording the image.

Stephanie Aust‘s image “Horrible Things” with its dark shadows hints at a past one wants to forget & Susan Barnett‘s series of portraits of people in t-shirts with their faces not visible conveys the essence of the person through the message on their backs.

This exhibit of photography exemplifies the potential alternatives of conveying reality whether the artist does little more than record a moment in time or searches for the extremes of their message at the edges of reality.

Kathleen King “Life After Life”

 Kathleen King     
 “Life After Life”
October 16 – November 10, 2012
Opening reception, Thursday, October 18th,6-8pm

Chelsea: Viridian Artists. INC. is pleased to present, “Life After Life” Kathleen King’s 4thsolo exhibition of her most recent drawings, monoprints and 3D work. The show continues from October 16 – November 10, 2012 with an opening reception on Thursday, October 18, 6-8pm.

Textures and surfaces of objects found in nature have always held a fascination for the artist.  Both working directly and referentially with actual plant detritus, King inserts digital processes into her artistic method before applying more classical media to her finished work. Ms. King comments: “I consider 2D and 3D scanning and printing to be midway processes that enable me to visualize what form the final work may take before I complete it with more hands on traditional drawing and painting.”

Botanical detritus, which have had a past life as plants, dry and age, to become insignificant leavings. These humble fragments are treated as “relics” by the artist and constructed into “Divas” and “Dragons.” In turn, these 3D assemblages serve as the benevolent or sinister iconic subjects giving the dead botanical cast offs a new “life” in the improvised visual narratives that emerge in the finished works of art.

Kathleen King lives and works in Chicago and exhibits her work there as well as in New York, Seoul and Tokyo.  Her work is included in many collections, nationally and internationally.  For the past six summers, Ms. King had been invited as a visiting adjunct professor to teach watercolor and drawing courses in theInternational Summer Campus Programs at Korea University.  Kathleen King is also on the board of the Skopelos Art Foundation, in Skopelos, Greece where in addition to serving on the board, she has taught and held workshops in artistic practice.

For further information please contact the gallery at 212-414-4040 or  viridianartistsinc@gmail.com Viridian Artists

Carol Brookes: "Pulse"

                              Carol Brookes: "Pulse"

September 25 -October 13, 2012
Reception Thursday, September 27, 6 – 8 PM

Wine And Words reception and meet the artist, October 13, 4pm

 Chelsea: Viridian Artists Inc is pleased to present “PULSE,” an ongoing series of mixed-media wall sculptures by Carol Brookes in her solo exhibition at Viridian Artists, Inc. in New York City, opening September 25, 2012 through October 13, 2012. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, September 27 from 6 to 8 PM and on October 13 at 4 PM, a closing event,”Wine and Words”, when the artist will talk about her work.  Viridian Artists, Inc. is located at 548 West 28th Street, 6th Floor, in the Chelsea area of Manhattan.

Nails, washers, rope, tubing, wire, rubber mats, dowels, leather buckles, industrial honeycomb insulation, and tacks are some of the materials that artist Carol Brookes incorporates into her work.

Brookes’ frame-like boxes are constructed from wood and canvas and filled with mixed media materials.  “The ‘PULSE” series is material-driven and is constantly evolving. I consider the world my art supply store,” says Brookes.  “I see the world as layers of structure and surface, one upon the other – a concept that drives my work.”

“PULSE” examines the hemisphere as a structure, the ordinary forms we see each day in their many incarnations, such as an egg, a pod, an eye, the earth, planets, and domes.  The various concepts that these forms evoke are explored in the series, including thoughts and insights into life, birth, and the mystical and mysterious.

All of the works in “PULSE” involve repetition, which Brookes considers a visually stabilizing force.  In addition to the multiple hemispheres, she has also created repetition of forms in groups of structures that are the same size.  These pieces are presented in sets of two, three or larger sets forming rows or grids. The groupings establish relationships between the forms and surfaces – one to the other – and set up visual identities, similarities and differences that can be compared and contrasted.

“My work is spontaneous and controlled, playful and serious, my own personal yin and yang. Creating these constructed worlds is a mystical event for me. Although the ideas flow from one piece to the other, there are always surprises. Art is the magic of my life, and like magic the excitement comes from not knowing what wonderful new ideas, objects or materials will appear and exactly what will happen next.”

Carol Brookes’ artwork has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and cultural centers throughout the United States, including the McLarry Modern Gallery in Santa Fe, Illinois Central College in East Peoria, the Maryland Federation of Art in Annapolis, B. J. Spoke Gallery in Huntington, New York, the University of North Iowa in Cedar Falls, the Women’s Center in Los Angeles, and the Miami Metropolitan Museum and Art Center.  In addition, her work is in public and corporate collections, including those of the American Cinema Corporation inBoston, Grayco Paper Company inMiami, theMiamiDadeCommunity College, and theWaterlooArtCenterinIowa.   Brookes received a B.F.A. in painting and drawing from theUniversityofMiami, an MA in painting from theUniversityofIowa, and an MFA in multimedia art from theUniversityofIowa.

The exhibition will include:
Pulse Axis is based on the symbol “X.”  Each of the five hemispherical forms is covered with textured epoxy.  An “X” is formed on each structure with the use of a variety of materials, including hardware and found objects, leather and copper tube straps, and buckles.

Pulse Trinity is a triptych that incorporates epoxy, cut nails and washers to create strange organism-like forms.  Although at first glance each part of the triptych appears to be the same, they are actually different, challenging viewers to explore and make comparisons. The copper, silver and brass play to the “trinity” concept.

Hive Genesis is made of hemispheres wrapped with cotton rope. Rubber mats and industrial honeycomb insulation material creates a background that is dotted with bolts.  The piece creates an illusion that the hive is dissolving into honeycomb but with the promise of re-emergence.

Pulse Hydra consists of four 30″ square boxes, 10″ deep.  Made of sculpting epoxy and embellished with nails, tacks and washers, each box is filled with organic forms representing imagined worlds of sea creatures, sea flowers, and tide pools.

Pearl Synergy was inspired by shells and their pearl-like surfaces, contrasting shiny and metallic surfaces against matte, porcelain-like surfaces.  The piece explores the notion that in life, something that seems simple or plain on the outside can contain beautiful and wondrous treasures.

Pulse – Small Works consists of four sets of four 15″ square pieces that were either inspired by larger works in the “Pulse Series” or are concepts for exploration in creating new larger pieces.

“Yin & Yang: Fusing Complementary Opposites”

“Yin & Yang: Fusing Complementary Opposites”

September 4th – 22, 2012
Reception: Thursday, September 13th, 6-8pm.
Wine & Words: Saturday, September 22nd at 4 PM

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Chelsea: The opening exhibition of Viridian Artists’ fall season is a group show of gallery artists’ work that embodies the fusion of Eastern and Western artistic practices. The title of the opening show -“Yin & Yang: Fusing Complimentary Opposites” – addresses the differences & influences Eastern Art principals have had on Western Art & vice-versa.

The show will open September 4th and continue through September 22nd with a reception on Thursday, September 13th, 6-8pm. On Saturday, September 22nd at 4 PM there will be an Artist’ Coffee & Conversation giving gallery visitors an opportunity to talk with the artists and listen to them talk about their art and inspiration.

This mutual influence between the East & the West artistically has become even more defined since the artworld has become more globally connected and all is immediately viewable via the Internet. For this opening exhibit of the season, Viridian Artists were invited to explore this balancing of sensibilities of the East & the West in their creative process, though many already do. Virginia Smit, Barbara K Schwartz & Bernice Faegenberg have consistently shown the influences of Eastern art in their use of color, form and subject matter as well in their execution of line.

Many of Carol Brookes works are influenced by the art of the East. In the “Hive” group, the influence comes out in the fluid simplicity of line created by coiled rope and textured materials. The same can be said of Stacey Clarfield Newman whose collaged art was filled with an eastern edge, even before she spent a summer in an Indian Ashram.

Viridian has had a long relationship with Eastern artistic influence representing 4 Japanese artists and a Korean artist whose work all definitively demonstrates the influence of contemporary American art. Too, many of the gallery artists have shown in Tokyo over the years at the invitation of Onward Gallery. Tazuko Fujii creates three-dimensional collages of paper and fabric fragments embedded in resin and Oi Sawa creates cubist like imagery painted and drawn on tin. Kiyoshi Kawaguchi’s paintings show a distinct homage to Stuart Davis and that era of American realism while Korean artist/photographer Young Sam Kim creates totally 21st Century digital photomontages of urban scenes.

Some of the artists have chosen Asian influenced subject matter for their works in this exhibit.
Susan Sills with her painted birch figure of a Japanese woman & child modeled “After Eizan” and Deborah Sudran with her still life of “Thistles & Bamboo” are both realists who have used eastern subject matter to express this influence. With her usual political overtones, May de Viney shows a new Madonna, this time as a Geisha. Robert Mielenhausen has incorporated the enso or unfinished circle that is the emblem of Zen Buddhism, a symbol of infinity representing enlightenment and related ideas in his mixed media painting.

Dave Dorsey, a writer & painter, shows 10 digital prints of drawings he made for an unfinished novel which become illuminated haiku that parallel the progress of the figure in the Ox-Herding Songs who seeks to tame the ox–his own nature. John Cullen’s abstractions suggest a watery landscape with Asian overtones in their pattern and line while Arthur Dworin goes a step further with “Frolicking Lorentz”, a physics term for the interplay of dynamic forces- the yin & yang of energy. Photographs Robert Smith and Darryl Moody translate their vision of reality with a hint of the influence of the East in their subject matter and their approach, yet Alan Gaynor beautifully dying flowers express the ultimate Yin and Yang, that of Life and Death.
Husband and wife, Kathleen King and Michael Miller spend their summers in Seoul teaching art. King’s work seeks a consistent balancing between abstraction and realism allowing her to creatively react to her “scientific” recordings of the natural world with internalized musings that inform the narrative content of her art. Miller’s recent solo show in Seoul of his often humorous prints whose message spoke clearly through the imagery to the Korean audience.
Elizabeth Featherstone Hoff’s mixed media on wood artwork, “An Autumn Song for Toshie”, was made to honor her friendship with Japanese artisan Toshie Dowd. In fact, the core of the art in this exhibition exemplifies the need for balance in the world despite our differences and what better way to show this but through our art.

Janet Bohman, Renee Borkow, Carol Brookes, John Cullen, May DeViney,
David Dorsey, Arthur Dworin, Bernice Faegenburg, Tazuko Fujii,
Alan Gaynor, Wally Gilbert, Elizabeth Featherstone Hoff, Kathleen King,
Kiyoshi Kawaguchi, Young Sam Kim, Valerii Klymchuk, Namiyo Kubo,
Robert Mielenhausen, Michael Miller, Darryl Moody, Stacey Clarfield Newman,
Bruce Rosen, Oi Sawa, Barbara K Schwartz, Susan Sills, Virginia Evans Smit,
Angela Smith, Robert Smith, Deborah Sudran, Bob Tomlinson
For further information please contact the gallery at 212-414-4040 orviridianartistsinc@gmail.com& www.viridianartists.com
Gallery hours Tuesday – Saturday 12-6pm

Director's Choice: From Virtual to Actual

Director's Choice: From Virtual to Actual

Chelsea NY: Viridian Artists is pleased to present “Director’s Choice: From Virtual To Actual”, the art of artists from the powerpoint presentation that occurred during our 22nd International Juried Competition. The gallery is located at 548 West 28th Street, also accessible from 547 W 27th Street. Curated by Vernita Nemec, the gallery director, the exhibit will extend from June 5-23, 2012 with an opening reception Thursday, June 7, 6-8PM.

The title of the show originates from the fact that these artworks were previously shown virtually in a power point presentation during the Juried exhibition last season. The gallery director felt the images to be worthy of their own exhibition and hence, the actual works have been brought now together in their physicality. That change from virtual to actual becomes the theme of the show.

Each of these artists has hers or his own personal obsession that serves as the starting point always present in the artistic search for ways in which to transform inner investigations into reality. The results of transforming these realities into art, remains open to each viewer’s interpretation and becomes another translation of the virtual into the actual.

Although these artists were not “winners” of Viridian’s 22nd International Juried Competition juried by Elisabeth Sussman of the Whitney Museum, Vernita Nemec, the gallery director of Viridian felt the art of these artists to be as uniquely interesting as some of those chosen by the Whitney Curator. And as we all know, professional opinions vary widely regarding what is the “best” art, for in the end it is a question of taste, even in the eye of the professional. And one of Viridian’s missions is to provide meaningful exposure to under-known artists.

Included in this exhibition are artworks of all media of the following artists:

* Jacqueline Ehle Inglefield * Katherine Walton * Kim Seieroe *

Eric Whitman * Margery Freeman Appelbaum * Mark Schmidt * David Yendes *

* Suzanne Morlock * Melissa Shelly * Joyce Litting Schutter *Patrick Luber *

Kinuko Imai Hoffman * Suprina * Carolyn Applegate * Byron Lacy *

Joan Giordano * Eileen Starr Moderbacher

Oi Sawa: Oil Paintings on Tin and Drawings

Oi Sawa

Oil Paintings on Tin and Drawings
May 15- June 2, 2012
Opening reception Thursday, May 17th, 5-7p.m.

 Chelsea, NYC: Viridian Artists is extremely proud to present the 12th solo exhibition of Oi Sawa in its new space at 548 W 28th Street. Her exhibition of “Oil Paintings on Tin and Drawings”  extends from May 15th to June 2nd, with an opening reception Thursday, May 17th, 5-7p.m.
 
The noted Japanese artist Oi Sawa has made a unique choice of materials in her artmaking. For years she has created oil painting on tin and drawings on film and paper. Her images too are unique in that they transcend the influences of both Eastern & Western art, focusing on abstract structures in black, grey and silver that utilize architectural imaginings. 

One senses an Escher–like vision combined with the influence of cubism in her complex rendering of space that create both a geometry of images as well as a sense of three dimensional structures. Originally inspired by reflections on a stovepipe in her studio decades ago, she uses tin with a signature approach that has intensified and matured over the years. The artist’s limited palette of silvery gunmetal grays has deepened with the spirit of those reflections with the flames of the fires within the stove remembered with touches of reds and golds, adding the sense that nature has not altogether departed. 

Oi Sawa’s oil paintings on tin as large 56 inches by 86 inches distinctively evoke towers and orbs floating and swirling in an unknown atmosphere of perhaps the future, perhaps the past. Her tiny collage drawings on film and paper are graphically rendered and the complex images echo structures of dark and futuristic places akin to those in her large paintings. 

Until 2007, the artist was a professor at the Musashino Art University in Tokyo in their Department of Scenography, Display and Fashion Design and this year also worked with survivors of the Fukushima nuclear disaster site.

 Oi Sawa has won numerous prizes including the Noma Prize in the 27th Annual Ichiyokai Art Exhibition. Her art is included in the collections of the Russell Sage Foundation, Ishikawa Prefectual Museum of Art in Japan, the Manhattan Laboratory Museum and the Nomura Computer System America both in New York, among others. We hope that you will be able to meet this outstanding artist and share her view of life through the vision of her incredibly fascinating artworks.

Tazuko Fuji – Oil Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture

Tazuko Fuji – Oil Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture

Dates: May 15- June 2, 2012
Reception: Thursday, May 17th, 5-7p.m.

Chelsea, NYC: Viridian Artists is extremely proud to present the 12th solo exhibition of Tazuko Fujii in its new space at 548 W 28th Street. Her exhibition of Oil Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture extends from May 15th to June 2nd, with an opening reception Thursday, May 17th, 5-7p.m.

The noted Japanese artist Tazuko Fujii has been exhibiting her art for 60 years and yet the art she creates remains always in touch with both the spirits of these times and the spirits of the past. Her artistic career began with the study of KANA, the Japanese phonetic alphabet originating in China in the Kan Era. Tazuko Fujii has incorporated this beautifully executed form of brush writing into her drawings, paintings, collages and sculpture as well as in the artistry of her letters to friends and family.

May is the perfect month to see an exhibition of Tazuko Fujii’s art for her work evokes the spiritual beauty of nature that Sakura or the cherry blossom symbolizes in Japan. The abstract imagery of Tazuko Fujii’s fine art, composed of a wide variety of handmade Japanese papers, inks and kimono fabrics, create a swirling world of the past, present & future, echoed in the Kawachi Fuji Gardens in Kitakyushu, Japan. The artist believes there is a symbiotic relationship between all things, that everything contains the souls of the deceased and that all in nature must be honored.

Though Tazuko Fujii’s early paintings were influenced by contemporary American art, the roots of her exquisite black-based abstractions arise out of Japan. Akin to the collage drawings and paintings that Tazuko has created over the years are the resin sculptures the artist has made for the past 25 years in which she embeds ceremonial paper strings, hand-made papers and other materials. Her profound internal thinking which encompasses modern and classical literature, philosophy and religion has been cultivated over many years, deepening the complexity of her art.

Tazuko Fujii’s art has won numerous prizes including the Mayor Prize in the Hokuriku Modern Art Exhibit in Kanazawa City, Japan and the Mainichi Newspaper Company Prize in the Women Artists Association of Japan Annual Exhibition. Her art is in the collections of the Ishikawa Prefectual Museum of Art in Japan, the Georgia University Collection in Atlanta and the Manhattan Laboratory Museum in NYC, among others.

We hope that you will be able to meet this outstanding artist and share her view of life through the vision of her incredibly fascinating artworks.

Bernice Faegenburg – Iris a la Warhol and …

Exhibition: Bernice Faegenburg – Iris a la Warhol and …
Dates – April 24- May 12, 2012
Reception – Saturday, April 28, 2-5pm

Chelsea: Viridian Artists Inc. is pleased to present the exhibition “Iris a la Warhol” by artist BERNICE FAEGENBURG. The show opens April 24th and continues through May 12, 2012. In celebration, a special reception for the artist will be held on Saturday, April 28th, 3

A graduate of the Tyler School of Fine Arts of Temple University, Bernice Faegenburg is an artist committed to experimentation and incorporation, constantly learning new creative skills that include egg tempera, Japanese brush painting, photo transferring and a variety of methods of printmaking. Her most recent addition is digital photography printed on canvas which she then alters by hand.

In addition to being fascinated with process, Faegenburg’s art evolves out of her travels & life experiences. This predominately new body of work is informed both by Warhol’s silkscreens and the skies of Puerto Rico. In a recent trip there, the artist found herself enthralled by the constantly changing skies and cloud formations, returning with a multitude of images.

Faegenburg has always been an artist who roams media, using all that is at her disposal. Adding digital photography to her already extensive repertoire, she captured images of the cloud filled skies of PR, cropping, altering the color and even adding paint when moved to do so. These photographic images on canvas of cloud filled skies have been juxtaposed with silk screen images of irises, recreating an illusion of the lush landscape of a tropical island in the confines of a Chelsea gallery.

Faegenburg most often works in a triptych format but in this exhibition, she juxtaposes the clouds & the irises in distinctly separate formats, constructing a sensation of sky & ground through the positioning of the works on the gallery walls. As a result the viewer is immersed in the landscape as if they were actually there, but in two dimensions, not three.

MAY DeVINEY “Madonnas, Monsters, and Marie Curie”

MAY DeVINEY   
“Madonnas, Monsters, and Marie Curie”
   April 3 – April 21, 2012
Reception:  Saturday, April 7, 4-7 pm

Chelsea: Viridian Artists Inc. is pleased to present the exhibition “Madonnas, Monsters, and Marie Curie” a mixed media exhibition by May DeViney. The show opens April 3rd and continues through April 21, 2012. In celebration, a special reception will be held on Saturday, April 7th, 4:00-7:00pm.

At Viridian Artists, DeViney will show a variety of new work in the form of mixed media constructions, paintings and installations. She highlights a spectrum of issues affecting both sexes and the 99% strata.   This international provocateur continues to prove her reputation as “the thinking woman’s Red Grooms”.

DeViney is creatively inspired by a number of politically tinged issues and continues to surprise with each presentation, opening up whole new worlds of thought for viewers to consider as they meander through the artworks presented. She creates with no holds barred.

The artist has, in the past & now, demonstrated an ongoing interest in workers and domestic drudgery, often dangerously spoofing the grateful, subservient attitudes expected of those who work, most often exemplified by the Madonna. No subject is taboo to her, and her themes can overlap as when she shows the Madonna doing the laundry, nuns or burka clothed women wearing the American flag, as they remind us of the mysteries of religious practice & the ongoing situation of women.

DeViney has won many awards for a past series she did based on “home shrines” which were created to exalt and commemorate not the usual saints, but instead, the common “everywoman”. She is the one who has suffered in all cultures from the expectation of perfection and purity enforced upon her by both society and herself.

In “Unauthorized Autobiography” a show from 2000, DeViney made us privy to not only what she intended us to see, but, realized that she also unknowingly revealed “secrets”, and those “secrets”, those unintended revelations, can be as telling as the subject matter at hand. The same holds true in ordinary life, especially in this world of social media, where unknowingly, we often reveal more than we intend.

DeViney is drawn to used and aged materials, allowing us to view the art through the haze of accumulated historical value. Whether it is clothing, furniture or a gynecologist’s examining table, she is able to resurrect and transform the objects she touches with new meaning more fitting to today’s world. Her costume installations are partially inspired by the work of British artist Yinka Shonibare, but too they are emerging out of her own creative imagination.

PRESS RELEASE: 2nd Annual Juried Photography Exhibition

PRESS RELEASE: 2nd Annual Juried Photography Exhibition

Juror: Jennifer Blessing
(Curator of Photography, Solomon R Guggenheim Museum)
Exhibition: 2nd Annual Juried Photography Exhibition
Dates: March 13- March 31, 2012
Reception: Saturday Mar 24, 4-7pm

Chelsea: Viridian Artists Inc. is pleased to present their 2nd International Juried Photography Exhibition. Curated by Jennifer Blessing, Curator, Guggenheim Museum, New York, the exhibition opens March 13th and continues through March 31, 2012. In celebration, a special reception will be held on Saturday, March 24th, 4:00 – 7:00 pm.

This exhibition is a diverse gathering of twenty-three photographers from the United States and abroad. They share a common interest in capturing a specific moment and situation using the photographic image as a starting point with a variety of ending goals.

Viridian Artist, Robert Mielenhausen, chair of the committee that organizes the Juried Photographic Competition at Viridian, selected Jennifer Blessing as the Curator for this season competition. Blessing joined the Guggenheim’s curatorial staff in 2002, after previously working at the museum from 1989-97. In addition to organizing photo-based exhibitions, she is developing the museum’s photography collection. In her role as Curator of the photography competition at Viridian Artists, Blessing spent many long hours viewing over 800 images sent to Viridian from around the world.

In her curatorial statement, Blessing states: “The artists whose photographs are installed here arrested my attention because they obsessively and exquisitely represented their subjects. Whether exterior or interior locales, natural or manmade sites, portraits of humans or animals or insects, these photos all convey their authors’ investment in their images, both in terms of form and concept.”

Because she feels there is so much interesting and exciting work being done today in photography and because part of Viridian’s mission is to give exposure to outstanding under-known artists, the gallery’s director, Vernita Nemec, selected the images of twenty-five photographers not selected by Blessing to be shown in an ongoing Power Point presentation during the exhibition. She states: “the multiplicity of creative expression in photography today is staggering. I was inspired by the ability of some photographer/artists to capture unique moments of reality and the impetus that others felt to create their own imaginary reality – not an oxymoron in today’s digital & virtual worlds.”

Viridian Artists is proud to share these images and feel viewers will find this an exciting and rewarding exhibition of new art.

Group Exhibition: Juried by Jennifer Blessing
First Prize: Megan Mette Second Prize: Angela Smith Third Prize: William Atkins
Honorable Mention: Rachel Nemecek * Dahirwe Rushemeza * Shreepad Joglekar *
Colin Avery * Theodore William Arnold * Ellen Gaube * Ashley Jones * Elizabeth Jones * Sarah Nesbitt *Andreanne Michon * DeeDee Maguire * Emily Hanako Momohara *
Paul Morrison * Donna Pinckley * Harold Ross * Jane Rothman * Jimmy Salmon *
Seena Sussman * Chieko Tanemura * Samantha Vandeman

On Power Point: Director’s Choice Juried by Vernita Nemec
Juliette Argent * Stephanie Aust * Susan Barnett * Mimi Botscheller * Deborah Cahn *
Tina Carter * Virginia Coleman * Manuel Cosentino * Victor Currie * Nicholas Fedak II *
Cynthia Fleury * Jill Flyer * Amanda Gahan * Joshua Greenberg * Ken Green *
Susan Evans Grove * Barbara Habenstreit * Teri Havens * Melissa Haviland * Joshua Hobson *
Anwyn Hurxthal * Gisa Indenbaum * Thomas Jackson * David Jakelic * Lynne Johnson

Mary Wells “Ensemble: Paper Mosaic”

Mary Wells
“Ensemble: Paper Mosaic”
Feb. 21 - Mar. 10, 2012
Reception, Thursday, Feb. 23, 5 – 8p.m.

Chelsea, NYC: Viridian Artists is pleased to present a solo exhibition of work by Mary Wells in its new gallery space at 548 West 28th Street #632, also accessible from 547 West 27th Street. Entitled “ENSEMBLE: PAPER MOSAIC” the exhibit runs from February 21 – March 10, 2012 with an opening reception on Thursday, February 23, 5 – 8p.m.

Variously described as “paper magic”, “enchanting”, and “a sterling feat, piecing together something with a grand romantic sweep on a tiny scale” each of award-winner Mary Wells’ paper mosaics is a multi-hued, intricate, jewel-like and precisely detailed rendering of a lifelike image. The finished pieces glow with reflective light and a strong feeling of three-dimensionality.

Every one of Wells’ paper mosaics contains some aspect of landscape, memory or journey and each marks a moment and contains a story from her life, acting as a specific entry in her ongoing personal visual journal. While based on Wells’ life experiences, each mosaic also embraces a more universal view. The artist’s compositions are derived from her photos. Some present glimpses of places she has seen only once, while others are of places where she has lived or revisited over time. Images of sky and water are consistently featured in Wells’ work.

The focal point of this exhibit is four visual tone poems. Each is of the same panoramic view as seen from Villa Vignamaggio in Tuscany, shown in a different season. The artist’s intent is “to create a visual interpretation of the sonnets composed by Antonio Vivaldi that he used as the basis for his well-known concertos ‘The Four Seasons’, his musical version of these same sonnets”. Wells’ paper mosaics form a third component, harmonizing with and enhancing Vivaldi’s written words and music. Augmenting the four large visual tone poem mosaics are a number of smaller mosaics that highlight specific views of the gardens, flora, vistas and architecture that make up the villa’s surroundings.

Wells technique, which she describes as ‘paper mosaic’, is her own personal adaptation of the precise Italian craft ‘mosaico minuto’, developed centuries ago in Rome using miniscule broken threads of glass in place of the usual larger stone or ceramic tiles commonly used in Italian mosaics. Wells has substituted these glass fragments with tiny bits of papers that she hand-cuts and then pieces and glues together into complex assemblages of realistic images.

Wells tools and materials—scissors, papers and glue—are simple. Her work, however, is meticulous—for example each of the four panoramic seasonal mosaics in this exhibit measures 8 1-2 x 48 inches and each contains over 70,000 individually cut and glued pieces of paper. It is also time consuming—she is able to complete only one or two square-inches-per-hour. As she works, Wells focus is on the time and place she is re-creating. While some might find this “picky work for the patient hand” Wells says she finds it meditative and soothing.

Viewers not only will see her art, but will also have a chance to meet the artist at her reception on Thursday, February 23rd 5 – 8p.m. or by appointment through the gallery (212-414-4040) throughout the duration of the show. We hope to see you there.