a clearing at NIAD curated by Mel Prest


a clearing - opens April 1 at
NIAD
Walking down a narrow path, you're surprised as you reach a clearing.
This sudden openness makes you stop short and catch your breath as you begin to absorb the change in landscape.
Works in a clearing beckon, inviting you to enter.

a clearing artists include: Carlotta Rodriguez, Debra Ramsay, James Heartsill, Jeremy Burleson, Melissa Staiger, Prajakti Jayavant, Shante Robinson and Scott Malbaurn.

Each artist composes forms evolving from intuitive, rather than predetermined, thinking. In these works, the initial pattern elements break down and fall away, creating an opportunity for something unknown to arise. Overlapping and unpredictable shapes and colors create conversations, inviting viewers to come closer, soften their gaze, release expectations. Through a variety of materials, these artworks attain a color energy using vibrant hues and textures. Optical vibrations and textures rumble as deeper looking opens to a clearing.

In the Belly of the Empress at Equity Gallery

"In the Belly of the Empress" is an ongoing series, started in the winter of 2021. It is influenced by the memories of art created outdoors. These small works on paper allow me to move and experiment freely through the drawing and painting process. I’ve used caran d’ache or watercolor pencil for the line and gouache and acrylic paint for the bright solid and sometimes washy colors.

The abstracted forms are organic, and have a sense of a figure present. They feel like botany in an internal space. The colors are lush, rich and regal - with shiny silver color, fitting for an Empress. Many of the paintings have a central composition with forms that grow and radiate outwardly in wave-like patterns.

In the tarot, the Empress card depicts a peaceful woman who has every luxury she needs. In this series, I was imagining what she might be eating. Are there flowers on her meals? What is she digesting? The Empress card can also stand for pregnancy in the physical sense, ideas you are harboring, or, what projects you are giving birth to?

The ‘Empress’ can take ‘mental health days’ whenever she needs. Her life is balanced and free. During this stressful pandemic time, I was worried about family and friends, like everyone. I find myself creating art projects in new places. I started arranging a seashell garden around the trees by the curb, or a two-floor mirrored textile work in the airshaft of my building, and a rustic rooftop garden.

The title of this exhibition was inspired by and pays tribute to Niki de Saint Phalle’s photograph in the ‘Belly of the Empress’ It features a lavish mirrored mosaic dining room she built in her Tarot Garden in Italy.

S-T-R-E-A-M-I-N-G.com

Mike Childs and Melissa Staiger are thrilled to start this new online project to be able to serve artists. It started during the pandemic in 2020 to shine a light of hope and support. 100% of sales generated from this project go to the artists. www.s-t-r-e-a-m-i-n-g.com

Julie Torres, Melissa Staiger, Sharmistha Ray, Ben Pritchard, Rafael Melendez, Keisha Prioleau-Martin, Deanna Lee, Mike Childs

The artists represented in this group show all produce works on paper of an intimate scale, not as a plan for larger projects but as a complete idea in and of itself. The work is boiled down, strong and intense. This seems at times to be going against contemporary art with its pension for largeness equated with importance. 

Each artist shows a kind of manic drive. An "unable to stop" stream of work that flows from them naturally and compulsively as cataloged on their social media presence. Working on images for them seems as natural as taking a breath.

Color in this group show, either polychromatic or monochromatic, stems from a historically emotive reference. Many of the works are often referring to this history of expressionism. There is an emphasis also to unlock the contemporary expressive possibilities of color, perhaps even as a response to the current struggles in many of their lives. Perhaps color can work like music here, where the artist uses it as a medium to channel their varied experiences of social unrest, conflicts, tragedies, self-care and/or peaceful balance. 

The group pays great attention to the actual application of paint onto paper, sometimes via collage. There is a heightened attentiveness and dedication to the specific nature of their chosen medium and the hand that applies it. All have that same dedication to the practice of painting imagery as an activity both current and meaningful.


studioELL FlatFile Launch to help Scholarship Program

studioELL's FLATFILE features artwork for sale from professors and selected artists. Artists retain 50% of sales and have generously agreed to give the remaining 50% to help fund studioELL's Scholarship Program. The FLATFILE is physically located at our offices in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NYC. Please look for my ten collages in the “Growth” series.