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A Collective Exhibition: Contemporary Art at its Best: Part IV

September 5, 2006- September 26, 2006

Reception: September 7, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Trudie Canwood-Kruger, Residue, Adam Crew, Darnell Edwards, Heather Maier, Ralph Mindicino, Michele Kellner, Patricia Brintle, Laura Guese, Wesley Mawema, Marlene Sanaye Yamada, Maria de Echevarria, Bernice Michelow, Jeff Orrell, Tony Philippou, Gita Rash

Agora Gallery

530 W 25th St

Agora Gallery, located at 530 W. 25th St. in Chelsea, is pleased to present Collective Exhibition: Contemporary Art at its Best. The exhibition explores the attitudes of contemporary American society as reflected in a broad presentation of figurative imagery, featuring a spectrum that ranges from classical realism to abstraction. The bold and vivacious ethnic styling of Africa and the Caribbean mesh with a European flavor of light modeling to dive into the private world of the individual, as eternal seeker and explorer of the self.

In bright, effulgent tones and sharp line-work, Trudie Canwood-Kruger's illustrative portraits and landscapes describe blithe, luminous color patterns that are enhanced by a guileless approach to shape and composition, giving the images a forthright precision and symmetry. Uniform washes of Caribbean-inspired color create bold shapes and patterns, resulting in bright, ecstatic images, which revel in cheerfully ordinary moments.

Fascinated by shamanism, Buddhism, and the constantly shifting planes of perception, the works of Residue represent the inward response to external pressures. His mixed-media works are dreamlike in both presentation and content. The influence of ancient cultures in not hard to discern, being explicitly suggestive of petroglyphs and cave-paintings. “My work is often frantic and ritualized, always trying to match the specter of composition, narrative or sensation in a befuddled shamanic fashion.”

Adam Crew’s subjects are beautiful, famous women that have often decorated the covers of celebrity magazines. Fascinated by the people in the public arena, Crew poignantly captures the ambiguity of their emotions, the inscrutability of their private selves, as well as our constant struggle to glamorize them or bring them down. Suddenly, the familiar women become what they always were – glamorized strangers.

In a powerful integration of realism and expressionism, artist Darnell Edwards reveals a passion for the extraordinary organic machine that is the human body. With great attention to the beauty of skin and corporeal structure, of musculature and facial features, Edwards accentuates the beautifully sculpted features of the face and the sensuality, vitality and power of the body.

Heather Maier paints portraits, landscapes and still-life compositions that combine realism and poetry. The viewer can easily see the influence of Chuck Close, Jan Vermeer and Salvador Dali in her work, and at times, it seems at that all three artists are at work, creating a uniquely stylish result. In all her work, it is evident that Maier possesses great talent in interpreting the world around her and translating everyday scenes and faces into artwork that captivates her viewers.

The work of Ralph Mindicino is varied and complex, with a charged emotional impact on his viewers. The artist states that he seeks to “explore the dehumanizing effects of corporate culture, its destructive effects on society and the inevitable disintegration of empathy in American culture.” Mindicino’s work conveys this sense of sterility with his bold and brilliant colors depicting city streets contrasted with a cartoon-like figure painted in a subdued black and white.

In her new series "Through The Glass Lightly: Reflections On Storefronts," self-trained photographer Michele Kellner sweeps the viewer into a three dimensional stereogram of multiple perspectives. The resulting black and white images are phantasmagoric, near-abstract arrangements, for which her purpose is clear “We all have our own, rather narrow view of the world,” says Kellner, “I want to broaden that outlook to show that there are several truths happening at the same time — all the time.”

Originally from Haiti, Patricia Brintle's native land's bright and vibrant colors are tangible in every aspect of her work. Warm colors, bestowed upon on her subjects by the sun, dominate her paintings. Reflective of her emotions, she paints in the moment and is inspired by world events, friends, dreams, and images from contemporary media. Her portraits capture the life-story of the personality before her, focusing on the expressive quality of the eyes.

With striking depth and luminosity, Laura Guese captures transitory wonders of the sky in stunning hues. Cognizant of beauty's ephemeral nature, Guese dramatizes the concept of impermanence through sublime expressions of color that not only replicate skyscapes with true-to-life brilliance, but preserve moments in time. Reverent and contemplative, Guese takes her admirers on breathtaking journeys of light, where color softens and intensifies, waxes and wanes with the rise and disappearance of the sun.

The work of Wesley Mawema is a testament to Shona Sculpture, a sculptural movement begun in Africa in the twentieth century and becoming collected throughout the world. “Shona” is an African way of life that believes in the fundamental relationship between the physical world and the spiritual world. The work of Mawema is a stunning example of this dual relationship between the material and the art derived from it.

Impressionistic and harmonic, the paintings of Marlene Sanaye Yamada take the simple beauty of color and transform it into symphonies of movement and visual delight. Sanaye’s works seem to shimmer before the viewer’s eyes, as we are drawn into her fluid brushwork, varying shades of color and palette knife accents. The viewer shares the excitement of the artist’s discovery in each unexpected color combination and sensuous form.

Maria de Echevarria’s work embodies another realm, a realm with no solid ground, and images that elongate towards celestial heights. Her color palettes seamlessly mingle with one another to create a shadowlike silhouette instead of restricting outlines. The figures float and move as if they are revealing a whisper. The process of Echevarria’s craft provides an intense feeling that transfers her emotions to a visual plane.

Bernice Michelow's versatile oil and pastel works exist in the tension between her virtuoso displays of photorealism and the emotional abandon of abstract expressionism. Her elastic body of work, ranging from fluid pastel portraits to the precise, abstract mathematical geometries of her serigraph prints and dramatic oil portraits, showcases a sweeping, experimental posture regarding both form and content.

Moody, evocative and enigmatic, Jeff Orrell’s paintings are a beautiful and thoughtful riff on Abstract Expressionism. His paintings are washed in subtle colors that permeate the underlying tone, while in each composition; a black slit or rift opens in the middle of the painting. Whether this black slash threatens to tear the painting apart or invite the viewer into a new reality is up to the viewer himself.

The foundation of Tony Philippou’s paintings and illustrations are the principles of light, color and design. Following in the footsteps of Vermeer, he has put light and perceptions of it first and foremost, allowing the viewers to grasp mood based on illumination. Philippou uses pulsating colors and geometrical figures to contextualize his subjects and define their character.

For artist Gita Rash, “to dream, to imagine, and to create from it is…sublime.” The melding and blending of oil paints that permeate her paintings emulate the sensory experience she once had with her French environs. Whispers of Cezannesque perspective, coupled with reverberations of Gauguinesque moods that characterize her evocative landscapes, transporting the viewer to the space of her artistic birth.



Books and DVDs related to artists in this show

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