“ALONE TOGETHER”
ARTISTS WORKING COLLABORATIVELY
September 30- October 17, 2020
Kiffi Diamond & Alan Gaynor Renee Cuny & David Fitzgerald
Kat King & Angela Smith Ellen Burnett & Vernita N’Cognita
May DeViney & Marco Lando May DeViney & Pavel Muller
Dorothy Braudy & David Fitzgerald
Chelsea: “ALONE TOGETHER”: Artists Working Collaboratively will be Viridian’s first exhibit in the gallery since March. This exhibit features 7 pairs of Viridian Artists working to create artworks together, a fitting reminder that though we are in isolation, we are not alone. During our Pandemic schedule, the gallery will be open Wednesday through Saturday, 12-6 PM, with all visitors requested to make appointments and to wear masks. Viridian Artists will continue to present Virtual Exhibitions, viewable on Viridian’s website at www.viridianartists.com.
The “ALONE TOGETHER” exhibition was conceived by Pavel Muller, a Viridian Artist who lives in Canada. Muller proposed that gallery artists pick partners and work together distantly, however they see fit, to create collaborative artworks. During these times of isolation, creating collaborative artwork seemed a perfect antidote to the remoteness of our current seclusion. As one of the collaborators, Dorothy Braudy, states, “with the pandemic, I’ve had a hard time getting down to work, and the prospect of this artistic partnership gave me a new burst of energy.”
The resulting works ranged from the humorous to the frightening to the surreal but for some it proved to not be an easy process, balancing the efforts of two artists working to make one coherent artwork. Some artist/collaborators sent one another simple images for the other to add to, others sent completed works of their own which were then transformed by the additions of the other. The artists were free to use any media for their working process, though for the exhibit, all the images have been digitally printed in limited editions on canvas and hung in groups to be viewed by masked viewers coming to the gallery by appointment.
When Renee Cuny & David Fitzgerald decided to collaborate, they found a connection in their fascination with boxes as containers of memories, secrets, and gifts. This led to Renee’s discovery of "Tear Catchers" - Vials people once believed were used for holding people's tears during mourning. When the tears evaporated from the vials the mourning process was over, but it turned out that the vials are just old decorated perfume bottles. Not only mourners’ tears, but messages in a bottle have been a long-held fascination for many of us, the thrill of finding a letter from someone in the past reaching out into the future.
Fitzgerald did a second collaboration with his mother, Dorothy Braudy, a painter who was a Viridian Artist more than 40 years ago. “I’ve been around my mother’s work, primarily paintings based on photographs, since I was born and have been influenced by it in subtle and not so subtle ways. When the pandemic started in March, I had been working on a series of owl sculptures which no longer seemed viable. I once again started working with photographs tracing, drawing on them and adding colors to them. When Viridian Artists came up with the theme of collaborating with other artists is was a opportunity to work with my mother. The surface image may seem prosaic, an ordinary moment in human lives. But the overlays of color and line entice you to wonder what underlies the moment, the turmoil below the surface.”
For Marco Lando & May DeViney the collaboration was begun with images Lando sent to DeViney from part of a series originally imagined by him of young women playing with toys that held for them sacred meanings. Lando who lives in Italy often creates photographic images with darker overtones that emphasis his fascination with the hidden meanings and metaphors in objects and garments. DeViney, whose art often has political overtones, works instead with found materials that she always juxtaposes in provocative ways. She picked two of his images and then added her own visions of meaning to them.
DeViney also did a second collaboration with Pavel Muller involving Muller’s photos. DeViney added collage elements resulting in a new surreality being added to Muller’s original imagery that was created by the scale and strangeness of her additions.
Kat King and Angela Smith’s collaboration involved the layering of Smith’s photographs of her own body with hand-drawn tattoos of organs & muscles under King’s improvised 3D dragon models. King hand-rendered passages of color media using ballpoint pen, color pencil and pastel. This final layer of color over the original black and white photograph, added a different presence, bringing the artwork into the realm of fantasy as opposed to the depiction of reality in Smith’s original photograph.
The collaboration of Alan Gaynor and Kiffi Diamond also was a colab between a photographer and an artist who works primary with found objects composed into low reliefs. In this situation. Diamond sent Gaynor fragments of images which he then added to his photographs which served as the backdrop for strange creatures in urban settings.
Ellen Burnett sent photographs to Vernita N’Cognita who sent Burnett abstract watercolor washes. Each used the images of the other to create overlays incorporating abstract as well as realistic imagery to create their self-defined works. N’Cognita added a layer of collaged imagery over Burnett’s photographs while Burnett added her photographic imagery over the watercolor washes of N’Cognita.
All the collaborative artworks in this exhibit have been printed digitally on canvas in limited editions of 10, available in 11x14 or 16x20 or sizes near to that. The smaller will be available to collectors for $150, the larger images for $200 & all will be accompanied with a certificate of authenticity. The works have been priced low purposefully with 30% of the sales being donated to Doctors Without Borders.
Viridian Artists asks that guests email the gallery at viridianartistsinc@gmail.com to make appointments for viewing and to wear masks while there. For everyone’s safety, the gallery also will allow no more than 5 people in the gallery at a time.