Alan Gaynor is exhibiting two photographs in “Picturing New York” :
Press Release: New Arts Prospect: Artists from Japan Series IX, 2022 “Pieces for Peace~ what artists can do”
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New Arts Prospect: Artists from Japan Series IX, 2022
“Pieces for Peace~ what artists can do”
Curated by Sai Morikawa
August 8 - 20, 2022
=ARTISTS=
C’est Gentil /Chikako /Daisuke Hayashi /Eri Hirano /Gani
Hiromi Minami /Hiroyuki Saida /Hisayuki Doi /Housei Yamakawa
Ichigo Nohara /K-Junko /Ken Shiraishi /Koichi Suzuki
Mariko Okabayashi /Megumi Matsukawa /Miwako.K./Minako Ito
Misato Ando /Monzo Watanabe /Morihiro Okamoto /Motoko Ogawa
Natsuya Myoui /Rena Kasuya /Ryuga Tenzan /Shingo Fukuyama
Surhands Tanaka /Mask /Teruko Asuguchi /Shingo Hayamizu
Tomomi /Shingo Fukuyama /Yoshi Hiramitsu
Yoshihiro Kogure /Yukiko Uchida /Yuko Sato
New York is a city where the top artists of the world have long coexisted, creating much diversity of art. The series “New Arts Prospect: Artists from Japan” is currently in its ninth year. Having started in 2014, the exhibition is already well established and attracts a lot of attention. Its purpose is to introduce popular Japanese artists who are well known and respected in Japan to new audiences in New York City.
The exhibition, held yearly in the summer, has been highly rated year after year since its inception. Its purpose is to attract art-loving New Yorkers who have a good eye for skillful work. It will especially attract anyone who has an appreciation for the particular unique expressions behind the Japanese cultural background and it's delicate and elaborate techniques. The artworks in the exhibition reveal a deep commitment and a high quality of artistry by their creators.
Series Number Nine is titled “Pieces for Peace: art works for peace, what artists can do”
The pandemic is showing signs of settlement, and the mask requirement has been greatly eased in New York City. Broadway has been packed every day, the city is back in full swing, and the bustle of New York's metropolis is being restored. However, just as the Corona policies became standard in NYC, the world has become shocked by the news of “War of aggression in Ukraine."
The real-time news reports of bombed-out Ukrainian cities and people fleeing the country for refuge were so disorienting that it was hard to believe that this was happening. There have been massive anti-war demonstrations in Times Square here in New York City and similar anti-war protests in other parts of the United States and Europe. The invasion that took place in February is still going on, with no end in sight.
Adding to the world’s tensions, in Japan the former Prime Minister in charge of the long-term administration was assassinated, an incident rarely seen in Japanese history, causing many people to feel a deep sadness.
People kill each other, why and for what?
This exhibition will present what we artists can do to appeal and build a peaceful society without weaponry, we will present works that express our wishes and messages for a peaceful world without war and conflict.
This is the fourth year that the New Arts Prospect artists and curator are showing at Viridian Artists Gallery in Chelsea. Established in the late 1960’s, Viridian Artists has supported outstanding, “under-known” and emerging artists for more than 50 years. After having a highly successful exhibition last August at Viridian, the artists of New Arts Prospect were again invited to exhibit at the gallery to show their most recent outpourings of creative expression and visitors will not be disappointed.
This exhibition, curated by Sai Morikawa, aims to promote and nurture the cultural exchange between Japan and the US. This exhibition will also be a significant milestone for the participating artists as they build their artistic careers. Regardless of their career stage, these ambitious artists will be showcasing an amazing lineup of art works through which they hope to send a strong message to the world.
Alan Gaynor's Photography will be showcased in "Scenic 2022" : an international online group exhibition.
Photograph by Alan Gaynor to be featured in “Scenic 2022”
Congratulations to Alan Gaynor! This photograph will be featured in the “Scenic 2022” international online group exhibition.
The selected work is part of Gaynor’s City project and was shot in 1996 on T-Max 4”x%” film and then scanned to be finished in Photoshop.
Vernita N'Cognita will be performing at the Zürcher Gallery: Saturday, July 23 at 3PM.
Vernita N’Cognita will be performing in “Tangled Moments” at the Zürcher Gallery
with Toki Ozaki & Kazuo: Saturday, July 23rd at 3PM.
Alan Gaynor: Juried winner in the New York Center for Photographic Art's' "URBAN SUBURBAN RURAL 2022" Call for Entry
"ACROSS 6TH AVENUE, NYC" by Alan Gaynor
Congratulations, to Alan Gaynor! "ACROSS 6TH AVENUE, NYC" has been selected by juror Richard McCabe as a Juror’s Selection in NYC4PA’s URBAN SUBURBAN RURAL 2022 call for entry.
In addition, Mr McCabe has selected "UNDER BB MAN" as an Honorable Mention.
Here is Gaynor’s statement about this project: “I began this photographic project as an outgrowth of my interest in Architecture and Urbanism. While it has been said that architecture is frozen music, I think this series of photographs, which I call City Project, demonstrate that in a City, it is not the individual building but the urban context or layering, which most resembles music.”
Click here to view the New York Center of Photographic Art Website
Vernita Nemec: Exhibiting work in Art Fluent's online exhibit : WABI-SABI
Vernita Nemec
PS, Remember I Don't Love You
Discarded plastic packaging on rag board with paper
Vernita Nemec’s work is currently on view in WABI-SABI: an online exhibition on the Art Fluent website. Click here to view the entire exhibition.
WABI-SABI
A certain courage is exposed when life is expressed in such a blistered tone. Each piece in WABI-SABI breathes an experience that we have not quite seen collectively before. Vulnerability and confidence move through this exhibit like wisdom, becoming exposed through its scars. WABI-SABI is a Japanese term that refers to that which is impermanent, imperfect, aged, humbled, and unconventional. It is a state of mind and a way of being. It expresses a whole new world of seeing. The rawness and purity within WABI-SABI are without limit.
Press Release: Marco Lando: “Fragmentation”
Marco Lando: “Specter of Belief #78”: Digital Giclee Archival Print on Baryta Paper Prestige 340 gsm Mounted on dibond and wood frame; 24x15 inches
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MARCO LANDO
“Fragmentation”
July 5th – July 30th, 2022
Opening reception : Thursday, July 7th: 6–8PM
Artist Talk: Saturday, July 16, 4–6 PM
*Face Masks are Required
Chelsea: Viridian Artists Inc. is pleased to present an exhibition of post-apocalyptic imagery by the photographer Marco Lando entitled “Fragmentation”. The show opens July 5th and continues through July 30th, 2022. You are invited to meet the artist and celebrate the opening of this exhibit on Thursday, July 7th, 6 - 8 PM & on Saturday, July 9th, 4 - 6 PM.
Marco Lando’s work is influenced by his New York theatre background. Combining existential plot lines, dramatic lighting, and surrealist stage design, the otherworldly mise-en-scenes he creates operate on a visceral, symbolic level. Always shot in black-and-white, and manipulated digitally, his imagery explores the human psyche, eschewing the rational and moral world in favor of the unconscious and instinctual. The absence of color lends a forensic quality to the uncanny nature of his subject matter and avoids pushing it into the realm of the sensational.
Hermetic figures occupy dark and moody landscapes that recall the mystical and esoteric realms of Symbolists like Odilon Redon, William Blake, and Arnold Bocklin, along with their surrealist offspring — photographers Raoul Ubac, Man Ray, and Hans Bellmer --- who manipulated the photographic medium for similar affect
The artist is presenting two projects in this exhibit which have main characteristics in common. Each have the theme of fragmentation juxtaposed with the whole: in one, there are portions of cities that dissolve and detach themselves from the earth, in the other, we have mosaic tiles crumble and then eventually merge into new forms. Both evoke the loss of symbolic order, and in both projects we find the theme of the starry sky which gives to the show a formal and symbolic coherence.
The post-apocalyptic realm of Alchemy (2016-ongoing) presents deranged aerial scenes of the heavens where architectural images, ancient and new, float amid stormy skies and portentous moons. These stark black-and-white worlds evoke the loss of symbolic order. From twinkling skyscrapers to cold slabs of stone, these monuments to human progress are mysteriously set adrift in a cold, godless universe. Their fragmented, abstracted, and tilting forms seem to fall and rise in response to gravitational forces beyond their control. Like futuristic landscapes the nature they conjure is a fearsome one presided over by the power of the full moon. Moving through space, unmoored by gravity and purpose, they are sci-fi ruins from a defunct planet long ago forgotten.
In “Specter of Belief”, a project sponsored by the municipal government of Ravenna that was conceived by the artist for the city, was exhibited in 2020 at the NiArt Gallery in Ravenna and in 2021 at the Gobbi Photo Studio Gallery n Urbino. Lando adapts the ancient Byzantine tradition of mosaic in photo-based compositions, referencing the renowned 5th and 6th century mosaics of Ravenna. These fragmented, dissipating forms loom large amid dark starry skies. These constellations of half-formed, recycled powers from ancient Rome shape-shift their way through space and time, contemplating the enduring potential of myth, and offering us the “specter of belief”.
Viridian first came to know Lando’s work in our 29th International Juried Competition in which he was a Director’s Choice winner. Currently residing in Padua, Italy he is truly an international artist. Lando has shown his work at the Studio Psacaropulo Museum in Trieste (Italy), and recently at the Site: Brooklyn Art Gallery and at the Viridian Artists Inc. both in New York City. His project for the city of Ravenna (Italy), was presented at the NiArt Gallery in 2020 and most recently in a personal show in 2021/2022 at the Gobbi Photo Studio Gallery in Urbino (Italy); he won the 2021 “Special Prize” for photography and digital art at the DeSidera Art Festival, was longlisted at the 2021 BBA Photography Prize in Berlin, and was a finalist at the 2016 WAC in Wells, UK.
We look forward to sharing with you this fascinating exhibition of post-apocalyptic imagery by Marco Lando.
For further information please contact
Vernita Nemec, Director or Jenny Belin, Assistant Director
Visit us on Instagram @viridianartistsinc, see us on Facebook & YouTube at
Viridian Artists Gallery or visit our website at viridianartists.com
Irene Christensen: Exhibiting work at Galleri Schaeffersgate in Oslo, Norway
Congratulations to our new Affiliate artist, Irene Christensen! Irene will be exhibiting work in Oslo
at:
GALLERI SCHAEFFERS GATE 5
Schæffers gate 5 • Sofienberg • 0558 Oslo • NORWAY
Press Release: "Anticipation"
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“ANTICIPATION”
June 7- July 2, 2022
Opening Reception : Thursday, June 9: 6-8PM
Closing Reception: Saturday, July 2: 4–6PM
SABINE CARLSON * ARLENE FINGER * ROSEMARY LYONS * SHAWN MARSHALL MICHAEL RECK * LAURA RUTHERFORD RENNER * KAREN ROTH
Chelsea NY: Viridian Artists is pleased to present an exhibition of outstanding art by artists who are part of Viridian Artists' Affiliate program. The show opens June 7th and continues through July 2nd, 2022 with a reception to meet the artists Thursday June 9th, 6-8PM. The artists featured in this exhibit are Sabine Carlson, Arlene Finger, Rosemary Lyons, Shawn Marshall, Michael Reck, Laura Rutherford Renner and Karen Roth. In addition to seeing this exhibit in person, you can view this fascinating exhibit on the Viridian Artists website at www.viridianartists.com.
Our lives continue to be on edge and it is safe to say that most everyone is anticipating better times and a return to old times, but the likelihood is that our lives are changed forever. The artworks of the artists in this exhibit give a clue as to how their creative process has helped them to endure, reflect their concerns and anticipate solutions.
Sabine Carlson creates fanciful 12 inch square paintings on wood about the thin ice of today’s existence with her creatures traversing color landscapes on skates or floating devices so that they are ready for anything. Talking about the meanings in these works the artist states: "I strive for these encounters to exude a sense of shared displacement that leaves room to anticipate ways untenable circumstances might be changed.”
For Arlene Finger, color and line are important characteristics of her work. She feels architectural rendering, room interiors and eco-friendly ideas imitate life in her compositions.
The artist Rosemary Lyons has continued making her illuminated paintings but because of the pandemic and personal health issues found it unable to create for a year, and the work she has created since has a totally different tone. Always political in her subject matter, this series “Now that I have Your Attention”, pairs beautifully detailed illuminated paintings of vehicles with uncomfortable captions intended to reflect the anger and confusion of the moment.
Shawn Marshall’s abstract work explores our impact on the environment through an overhead lens, viewed like unearthed excavations of cities, garden ruins, gritty sidewalks, empty billboards, etc. Though worn and rough, with imprints and patterns left from human imposition, beauty still exists. As we explore the weathered layers, we find remnants known and unknown, man-made and natural, leaving us with a memory of what was, and a sense of wonder and hope about the future.
Laura Rutherford Renner enjoys painting figures engaged in the experience of their environments. Her work has been recently described as “Bold, brave, and a true voice.” Renner states: “Capturing contemporary life snap shots in two dimensions is an exercise and a source of calm. I relish mixing pure colors, keeping my palette simple to create authentic observation. The quiet engagement of brush to palette and brush to board provides meaning for me every day”. Laura, an occupational therapist for the past 27 years, has recently retired from this important work. She lives with her husband, their child, and their snarky, beloved cat, Lulu.
Michael Reck refers to these recent works as The Medusa Paintings. Medusa, whose hair was instead live venomous snakes, Reck uses as inspiration for his strokes of pigment snaking across the surface of the canvas, blending as they cross, becoming as unfocussed as the vision of those who gazed on Medusa and turned to stone.
Karen Roth’s current work consists of abstract paintings with geometric, colorful shapes set against a primarily monotoned and textured background. The movement of the shapes and colors the artist feels can be interpreted as the excitement of anticipation.
We look forward to sharing these diverse artistic responses to this strange and uncomfortable moment in time we are currently caught in as we anticipate the future.
For further information please contact
Vernita Nemec, Director or Jenny Belin, Assistant Director
visit Instagram @viridianartistsinc, see us on Facebook & YouTube at
Viridian Artists Gallery or visit our website at viridianartists.com
Brett Poza: Exhibiting work at the UMass Chan Medical School: Worcester, MA.
Viridian Affiliate, Brett Poza is exhibiting work at The Lamar Soutter Library at UMass Chan Medical School.
This Body of Work: “Portraits from the Inside Out” will be on display from May 3rd until the end of June.
The Lamar Soutter Library is located at: 55 Lake Ave North Worcester, MA.
Click here to read more about the show!
Congratulations, Brett!
Press Release: Bernice Faegenburg: "Water"
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Bernice Faegenburg
“Water”
May 10–June 4, 2022
Opening reception: Thursday, May 12, 6 – 8PM
&
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 14, 4–6PM
Chelsea: Viridian Artists Inc. is pleased to present an exhibition of art by the artist Bernice Faegenburg entitled “WATER”. The show opens May 10th and continues through June 4th, 2022. You are invited to meet the artist and celebrate the openings of this exhibit on Thursday, May 12, 6 – 8 PM & on Saturday, May 14th, 4-6 PM.
Bernice Faegenburg has been represented by Viridian Artists since 1977 and her 4 decades of art making have included a wide variety of techniques and imagery. For this exhibit, the artist has decided to focus on her lifelong love of water. Fittingly, her sign is Pisces. Living for much of her life in the Hamptons of Long Island has given her reason to create many kinds of images relating to the liquid part of earth.
In this exhibit, the artist has elected to show both artworks from her early years as well as more recent iterations of aqueous imagery. Her earliest paintings were hard edge depictions of the reflections and distortions of the ocean’s surface. During those years she snorkeled, and scuba dived and so saw the bottom of the ocean which also has inspired much of her imagery, particularly the painting the artist calls "Underwater" that abstractly depicts the ocean's floor.
Faegenburg’s most recent work in the show will be large canvas & mesh works with paint & collage combined with her photographs of the ocean and other bodies of water, harking back stylistically to much of the mixed media art she has created over the years as a printmaker and practitioner of Japanese brush painting.
The artist earned a Bachelor of Science degree at the Tyler School of Fine Arts at Temple University with post graduate work at the National Academy of Design, a Masters of Science degree in Art Education from CW Post College and did workshops in Asian brush painting with Okimoto, a noted Japanese American artist, among others. She was a past president of the National Association of Woman Artists. Her art has been featured in the Zimmerli Museum, the Nassau County Museum of Art, the Parrish Museum and the Richmond Art Museum. An exhibit at the Chelsea Museum was a prize. in addition she has been invited to participate in the Biennale Internazionale Del’Arte Contemporanea in Florence, Italy on numerous occasions.
We look forward to sharing with you this fascinating collection of watery images by Bernice Faegenburg.
For further information please contact
Vernita Nemec, Director or Jenny Belin, Assistant Director
visit Instagram @viridianartistsinc, see us on Facebook & YouTube at Viridian Artists Gallery or visit our website at viridianartists.com.
A 1998 dialogue between Vernita Nemec and former MoMA curator, Robb Storr
Before becoming director of Viridian Artists, Vernita Nemec (aka Vernita N'Cognita) was the executive director of ArtistsTalkOnArt in Soho. While there she instigated interviews & dialogs with important artworld figures. Hoping that you enjoy this look back at ArtWorld History!
"As a part of their ongoing “Legacy Series”, ArtistsTalkOnArt is re-broadcasting a 1998 dialogue between performance artist and former ATOA executive director, Vernita Nemec and former MoMA curator, Robb Storr."
Press Release: Wally Gilbert: “Images from Life”
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Wally Gilbert
“Images from Life”
April 12th - May 7th, 2022
Opening reception Thursday, April 14, 6 – 8 PM
Second Reception: Saturday, April 23, 3–6PM
Chelsea: Viridian Artists Inc. is pleased to present an exhibition of new digital imagery by the artist/scientist/photographer Wally Gilbert, entitled “Images from Life”. The show opens April 12th and continues through May 7th, 2022. You are invited to meet the artist and celebrate the opening of this exhibit on Thursday, April 14, 6 – 8 PM. There will be a second reception on Saturday, April 23, 3–6 PM.
Wally Gilbert is a prolific artist/ photographer who has been exploring color and form in a multitude of solo exhibitions at Viridian as well as other locations since the early 2000’s, digitally experimenting and analyzing a range of imagery. Sometimes he explores the details of beautiful decay as in his Norblin Project, the documentation of a former factory in Poland, while at other times he digitally alters and transforms the imagery of machines, towers, plants, doorways, fruit – beginning with images of daily life that he encounters with his camera, perhaps in travel or perhaps on just a walk through a park.
Working with digital photography, Gilbert, the artist/scientist, approaches his imagery as he would any scientific investigation, exploring and experimenting in a thousand ways before accepting his findings. He has scrutinized color and form in extreme detail, become more and more involved with transforming and layering until new patterns emerge, almost of their own accord. Investigating and manipulating, he transforms and combines fragments of photographs into arresting artworks that are simultaneously abstract, multi-faceted and multi-layered.
In this most recent series of images taken with his i-phone, Gilbert is exploring the world around us, seeing and recording the beauty of nature and then transforming on the computer what he sees, adding black boundaries as if drawing his own version of a reality filled with the intensity of life exemplified through his intensifying colors.
Gilbert brings us into his process, not really revealing his inner self, but offering us a choice through his various interpretations of what he sees. With “Red Flower”, “Yellow Flower”, “Purple Flower”, only the “Broken Flowers” hint at more in their titles which on the surface speak to the broken image only. “Forever Red”, “Forever Blue” could be portraits of the land but it is up to us to fill in the details and “Sunset” barely reveals two hidden structures behind the black silhouettes of foliage under a burning red sky that if we let ourselves, we could think might be the fires of California.
We look forward to sharing with you, Wally Gilbert’s latest investigations, artistically inspired.
For further information please contact
Vernita Nemec, Director or Jenny Belin, Assistant Director
visit Instagram @viridianartistsinc, see us on Facebook & YouTube at Viridian Artists Gallery or visit our website at viridianartistsinc@gmail.com
Laura Rutherford Renner : Exhibiting work in Lambertville, New Jersey
Viridian Affiliate, Laura Rutherford Renner is exhibiting work at the Artists' Gallery
in Lambertville, New Jersey.
”BEGIN, Again”
Recent work by Alla Podolsky and Laura Rutherford Renner
April 7–May 1, 2022
Opening Reception: April 9, 1–3pm
Artists' Gallery
18 Bridge St, Lambertville, NJ 08530
Ellen Burnett: Exhibiting at City Gallery: New Haven, CT
Ellen Burnett is exhibiting work in a group show at
City Gallery, in New Haven, CT.
The show runs from April 1–May 1. 2022
Opening Reception: Sunday, April 3, 1:00–4:00PM
Click here to read more information about the show
Colonel Mustard by Ellen Burnett
Better Living Through Chemistry by Ellen Burnett
Press Release: Robert Smith: "Curtain Call"
Robert Smith“: “Curtain Call 9865”
30” x 20”; Archival Pigment Print
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“CURTAIN CALL”
ROBERT SMITH
March 15th - April 9th, 2022
Reception Thursday, March 17 th, 5-8 PM
Chelsea NY: Viridian Artists is pleased to present a solo exhibition of compelling photographs by Robert Smith entitled “Curtain Call.” The show opens March 15th and continues through April 9th, 2022 with a reception Thursday, March 17th, 5-8 PM. In addition to seeing this fascinating exhibit in person, you can see the exhibit virtually on the Viridian Artists website at www.viridianartists.com.
Following on his 2016 exhibition, Smith continues to explore the nexus of the material world of fabric and the physical world of motion created by the movement of air currents through cotton curtains.
While Smith’s oeuvre has consisted mainly of the closeup undisturbed natural landscape, in later years he has become absorbed with the closeup imagery of the interplay of curtains and the wind. Here, the result is a panoply of visual sensations, from the bold and dramatic to the lyrical and sublime. A breeze develops into a wind that catches the fabric, moving it serendipitously, capturing it into artistic compositions that recall the abstract paintings of Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, and the photographs of Aaron Siskind.
These deconstructed images reveal the chiaroscuro of light falling on ephemeral folds of curtains backdropped by the sash and trim of the screened windows. Compositions range from the simple to the complex with powerful and evocative blacks measured against mysterious and magical shadows. While each image is further titled only with a digital number, they could conjure their own title, e.g., “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair” and “Shark Tank.” The artist wonders if the viewer could spot these.
Smith considers his curtain series a dynamic metaphor of the ever-changing world, offering myriad possibilities of bringing people and the environment into symbiosis with the prospect of a more positive future. Perhaps the next time you see a curtain blowing in the wind, you will be reminded of this experience. Take a bow, Robert!
Smith’s work is in numerous private and corporate collections in the United States, Canada, Japan, South Africa and throughout Europe.
For further information please contact
Vernita Nemec, Director or Jenny Belin, Assistant Director
visit Instagram @viridianartistsinc, see us on Facebook & YouTube at Viridian Artists Gallery
or visit our website at viridianartistsinc@gmail.com
Ellen Burnett: Finalist Award Winner in the 50th International Artavita Competition
Ellen Burnett: “We are, after all, brave” : 12"h x 15"w;Mixed Media including watercolor, acrylic paint, sand, ink, bronze powder.
Congratulations to Ellen Burnett,
Finalist Award Winner for Distinguished Art in the 50th
Artavita competition with the theme of “Hope”.
Photography by Alan Gaynor featured in New York City's International Art Fair (IAF)
Press Release: David Fitzgerald: "No Escape"
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"No Escape"
DAVID FITZGERALD
February 15 - March 12, 2022
Opening reception: February 17, 6-8 PM & Closing reception: March 10, 6-7 PM
Masks required
Chelsea NY: Viridian Artists is pleased to present an exhibit of new work by David Fitzgerald. The exhibition opens on February 15 and continues through March 12, 2022, with both opening & closing receptions. The opening reception will be on February 17th and the closing reception will be on March 10th. Both are from 6-8pm. In addition to seeing this exhibit in person, you can view the work online at www.viridianartists.com.
David Fitzgerald’s practice has changed recently. For many years, he focused on making sculptural pieces but when the pandemic struck, the process involved felt exhausting and overwhelming. In the past, his three-dimensional work had incorporated photography. Over the past two years, he began to use his own photographs and appropriated imagery, drawing on a sheet of paper placed over the photograph and then fusing the sheets of paper with epoxy. The work is painterly and visually provocative. Many of the images were shot out of the window of his Brooklyn studio during the lockdown. They echo the sense of entrapment that we felt during those early days.
It’s Rear Window without the murder. People are observed doing the most ordinary things, reading, listening to music, smoking a cigarette. There’s a poignancy to these images, a yearning.
Fitzgerald grew up in New York City and moved away for many years, but he recently returned to Brooklyn. During the pandemic, he was reminded that as a city dweller you are really never alone. “There are always people in the street or outside in the backyards of the brownstones on our block,” he writes. “Home a lot, I began to take photographs of them. In a sense the images are voyeuristic, but they’re also empathetic.” Fitzgerald also includes work that features a July 4th Celebration during the pandemic at Rip Van Winkle, a miniature golf course in upstate New York, and other-worldly images taken in Taos, which was the last trip he took before the world shut down.
Viridian’s first encounter with Fitzgerald’s work was a juried competition at the gallery which he entered with three dimensional dioramas incorporating photography inside box-like structures and was selected for the Director’s Choice digital presentation that occurs simultaneously during the exhibit. With “Director’s Choice” alongside the juror’s choices, Viridian emphasizes the reality that everyone sees art in their own way and each juror selects different favorites. Subsequently, Fitzgerald became a Viridian Artist. This is his first solo exhibition at the gallery.
For further information please contact
Vernita Nemec, Director or Jenny Belin, Assistant Director
visit Instagram @viridianartistsinc, see us on Facebook & YouTube at Viridian Artists Gallery or visit our website at viridianartistsinc@gmail.com
Press Release: "Artful Realities"
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"ARTFUL REALITIES"
January 18th – February 12, 2022
Closing reception pending pandemic
Brett Poza * Joshua Greenberg * Sarah Riley Barbara Hillerman Lieske * Kathleen Shanahan
Charles Hildebrandt * Jenny Belin
Chelsea NY: Viridian Artists is pleased to present an exhibition of outstanding art by artists who are part of Viridian Artists' Affiliate program. The show opens January 18th and continues through February 12th, 2022 and includes Brett Poza, Joshua Greenberg, Sarah Riley, Barbara Hillerman Lieske, Kathleen Shanahan, Charles Hildebrandt and Jenny Belin. In addition to seeing this exhibit in person, see this fascinating exhibit on the Viridian Artists website at www.viridianartists.com.
What is reality? When we share experiences with others, often there are differing opinions of what happened. Artists see reality uniquely and in a variety of ways, focusing on different aspects of experiences and sites that few record in the same way, even when working realistically. Greenberg’s photos of abstracted reality are very different than Hillerman Lieske’s images of coffee shop table arrangements, but they are each expressing a version of reality. Brett Poza’s portraits using MRI’s, cat- scans, etc. are unlike the usual concept of portrait as are May DeViney’s portraits of Madonna’s which she portrays as ordinary women. Riley and Shanahan take printmaking to different places as do Hildebrandt and Belin take painting.
Thematically speaking, Kathleen Shanahan’s works are layered with meanings and associations. Mixed media works that are heavily reliant on print making processes and practices, these works also include collage materials that are byproducts of the print making processes.
Short order or informal dining is ingrained in American popular culture. “Still life” table arrangements including condiments, interior design, and restaurant name all define the personality of the establishment. Through her work Barbara Hillerman Lieske highlights what may otherwise be overlooked in her environment while these same elements may engender memories of similar experiences.
Charles Hildebrandt’s paintings in this exhibit were inspired by the many trips he has taken over the years across the Tappan Zee bridge. To look down at the Hudson River below and see the infinite distance of cliffs and water with a fleet of sailboats in the foreground is to him a wondrous site and the source for many of his works.
Brett Poza created these portraits from medical images; MRI's, X-rays. CT scans, Ultrasounds- technology generally used to diagnose and create interventions for healing. “Not anonymous, people close to me donated their records for this body of work. Some indicate illness, some ended up being perfectly normal. Representing people of different ages, ethnicities and race, they are portraits that reveal everything and nothing- pictures of people from the inside out.”
These images by Sarah Riley started with a photo of a palm tree from Gulf Shores, Alabama. “I added the flamingo. A flamingo proudly preens, reminding me of a cowboy I once knew. With these characters in mind, I combined photos and scans of my drawings, prints and paintings on the computer to create these montages. The two figures together bring to mind contradictory partnerships such as Mrs. Dalloway and Peter Walsh (from the Virginia Woolf novel), or the real tensions between artists Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin.”
Jenny Belin’s focus this past year has been a body of work she calls 100,000 Flowers: an ongoing series of paintings to commemorate victims of COVID-19 and to raise funds for healthcare workers. Half of the proceeds from sales have been and will continue to be donated to New York- Presbyterian: Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. In June, she began creating digital images with intricately collaged elements from her flower and cat paintings.
Joshua Greenberg uses abstract photography to create contemporary art. In the Abstract Still Life series, he uses discarded items under an elevated railroad track to show the beauty in everyday objects. They appear as natural, but unfinished still life compositions, baked with sunlight. Discarded metals, wood, string and shoelaces covered with ivy, grass, and weeds, waiting to be discovered. This series illustrates how photo-based prints combine elements of photography with digital processing to create abstract art.
Viridian has created several programs to give outstanding “underknown” artists an opportunity to have their work seen. Our Affiliate program gives artists an opportunity to show a small series of artworks annually. Sadly, in these times of the Covid Virus, seeing art virtually is the safest way for all and thankfully websites and social media are making it possible for more & more individuals to have alternative opportunities, but people are nevertheless invited to come to the gallery to see the work in person wearing masks, of course.
For further information please contact
Vernita Nemec, Director or Jenny Belin, Assistant Director
visit instagram @viridianartistsinc or our website at viridianartistsinc@gmail.com