“Alhambra” is a solo exhibition featuring artwork by Ibrahim El-Salahi. On display in the Salon 94 gallery, it is located at 243 Bowery New York, NY 10002. The show will be on view between March 1st, 2016 and April 23rd, 2016. Entering this gallery requires the viewer to descend a long staircase. The gallery consists of an entry way with a couple of works and one room at the bottom of the staircase where the majority of the art hangs on the four walls. Entering the one room, spectators note the consistent use of raw, earthy colors in El-Salahi’s artwork. The color palette feels very organic, similar to the colors of pottery or mineral rich rocks. The works include a number of paintings and drawings. All of the art features bodies and figures, most of who have been assembled through the emphasis of basic forms and shapes. The choices the artist has made to render these works suggest an opposition to the artifice. These shapes that El-Salahi uses to draw, though strange as representations of bodily forms, are not truly foreign or false as representational of the body. The shapes that the figures in all the works in the gallery are fashioned with are the basic shapes that all physical forms are comprised of. The work Flamenco Dancers (2012), with a width of 122 inches, hangs directly across from the long staircase. It was the first work that I, as a viewer, noticed. It drew me into the room to stand before it. Its placement alone on the wall and its size commands attention. With its large size, almost confrontational, the forms by which the figures in the work are composed of become an affirmative statement of existence. We inhabit and view bodies every day. Flamenco Dancers’ composition consists of organic forms with an emphasis on basic shapes that are assembled in a way that creates a recognizable human figure in natural colors. The work becomes an invitation by the artist to redefine the artificial application we may apply to our bodies, reconsider the foundations by which our physical bodies manifested from, and speculate as to what natural really is. Overall, the show Alhambra reclaims a sort of ancient truth of human form and existence. The way colors and shapes are composed in each of El-Salahi’s works reinforces the idea that despite what popular culture may claim, our foundations are not artificial. Image #1 Above
Ibrahim El-Salahi Flamenco Dancers, 2012 Oil on Canvas Overall dimensions: 66.875 x 122.875 x 2 inches Each Panel (6): 32 x 40.125 inches (IbEI I)
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“Postcard Paintings” is a solo exhibition featuring works by William Wegman, an American artist. On display at the Sperone Westwater Gallery, it is located at 257 Bowery New York, NY 10002. The show will be up between March 17th, 2016 and April 23rd, 2016. The show includes a variety of paintings and mixed media works. Wegman takes postcards and books and places them on wooden panels which are then painted in ways that incorporate the existing images of those objects. Deceptively clever, the illusionistic composition Wegman creates within the pictorial plane makes the viewer consider how easy it is to fool the viewer and to be dubious. For example the work Inside Outside (2014) shows a postcard placed in the center of an oil painting. The image of a man on the postcard is then continued on the panel with oil paint. Wegman then makes the background of the rest of the postcard look as though it is a painting the wall of the room the man depicted is sitting in, keeping the white boarder of the postcard which imitates a frame. The viewer is presented with a contradiction. Can the man be in the room and the landscape? The duplicitous nature of the work causes the viewer to hesitate before any image that appears obvious visually. Wegman’s sense of humor is an element of the exhibit that becomes apparent the further you go in to the gallery. For example, the work, How--To—Do – It #3 (2015) features an encyclopedic book that appears to be from the 70s. It has been centered on the panel and depicts a late 90s image of a father fixing the television set in the living room of his house with his “mechanix illustrates” encyclopedia. Wegman, as seen with the other paintings in the show, continues the existing image of the book cover. However, he also adds a new element, a man who appears to be from ancient times stands in the background, in what looks like a mouth of a cave (paradoxically placed in the living room in the painting, with a hand lifted as though praising the man who is following the cliché, “how to” book. The show contains many engaging works. The use of objects with existing images which are then dispersed and hidden within each work makes the interaction between the art and viewer in this show extremely dynamic. Altogether, I would say “Postcard Paintings” is a show worth seeing if you are headed to the Lower East Side. Image # 1 Top
William Wegman Inside Out, 2014 oil and postcard on wood panel 30 x 40 inches SW 16047 Abrams: Illustrated p. 78 Image #2 Bottom William Wegman How -- To -- Do -- It #3, 2015 oil and mixed media on wood panel 14 1/2 x 29 1/2 inches SW 16050 Futuristic Fantasia is a show that features digital based artworks by Mecca Alim. The show is on display at The College of New Rochelle Mooney Center Gallery. It will be on exhibition between March 11th and April 10th, 2016. Futuristic Fantasia includes a variety of graphic design prints and a video. As you enter the gallery, you are drawn to a wall full of 36 inch tall prints. Across from that there are two works. The first includes a variety of smaller prints arranged in a pyramid formation and the second is a poster that comments on the domestic violence in Afghanistan. The final wall has a television that plays a short film on loop as well as several printed stills from the video. The various types of strokes and techniques Alim uses makes these prints and images feel very much as though they were drawn or painted with traditional materials such as charcoal, graphite or watercolors, rather than computer programs. This paradox makes the art visually intriguing and draws me in as a viewer. Two themes that are evident when walking through the show are personality and sexual identity. Many prints in the show appear to be portraits of individuals. This is seen in the work “Buddy Wall” (2015-2016), which includes several small prints in a pyramid formation, seems to represent different identities and personalities of particular people Alim is or was close to personally. In contrast, the larger works, such as “Confrontation” (2015), feature individuals who seem to represent the image of particular types of attitudes or personalities. The size of these works creates a sense of monument, presenting these people as pillars of historical importance in expression of physical or sexual identity. The viewer is then compelled to see these individuals as, perhaps, heroic figures of legend. The work, “V.D. Version 1” (2015), in particular, emphasizes the power of sexuality and asserting that sexuality. The figure in this piece looks like a creature from mythology. The luster of the creature’s skin is unnaturally shinny and there is a glow around him, her, or they. However, it appears as though this creature has a vagina enlarged to the length of the individual’s torso with teeth or thorns. The striking association with the female genitalia, the graphic elements applied to the image and the large size make the work a firm statement of female sexuality as powerful. Overall, Futuristic Fantasia invites the viewer to investigate and challenge his or her established definitions of what gender and sexuality can be. Image #1 Top
"V.D Version 1" (2016) 24 x 36 inches Image #2 Left "Buddy Wall" (2015-2016) 40 x 50 inches Image #3 Right " Confrontation (2015) 24 x 36 inches |
Emily B. PosnerNew York based artist and editor. Archives
November 2016
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