Gallery Watch: 'There's the Air' by Clare Grill at Derek Eller Gallery

Text and photos by Clare Gemima 

There's the Air, 

Derek Eller Gallery, 300 Broome St. 

Clare Grill delivers a deeply woven sadness through the formation of beautifully crafted oil paintings in her show There's the Air.

The work is fragile and joyful, fast but considerate, and made me feel instantly calm even amongst Grill's vast range of strokes covering each and every inch of her canvas. 

Grief weighs heavily in the narrative that informs Grill's paintings, and when you look closely at the named work you can find hidden forms like boots and brown bananas in Gull and adolescent-looking butterflies flying around in Emaline (oil on paper). 

When I read more about how this artist works and what she aims to communicate through her work, I actually began to notice more recognizable illustrations that were child-like, or even infantile in nature. 

Abstraction is so rampant in Grill’s works that once you process her sensibility around color, shape and composition and start to see shapes like the ones I mentioned above, it feels as though you've been captured in her own sorrow. 

You can feel the work change after a while of contemplating it. It makes sense to learn that these works were made while the artist experienced what I can only imagine being intensive sadness. 

Grill can work on a piece for months or even years before the painting is given a name. So while this show centers around grief, a newness comes from these paintings' existence. Once named, they are almost like the gift of a child. The light at the end of a tunnel, or some other terrible cliche grief quote.  

Grill's works are full of texture and incredibly satisfying renderings of shadows and light sources. Colors vary in hues and opacities and showcase an exorbitant talent for abstract painting. 

Although fun and unruly at first glance, this body of work is actually dealing with a lot of serious stuff — a true testament to an effective and thought-provoking show.

There's the Air is on view at Derek Eller Gallery, 300 Broome St. between Eldridge and Forsyth, until April 24. Hours: Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and by appointment.

 

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Clare Gemima is a visual artist from New Zealand. New-ish to the East Village, she spends her time as an artist assistant and gallery go-er, hungry to explore what's happening in her local art world. You can find her work here: claregemima.com 

Gallery Watch: 'Group Sex' at Full Tank Moto Cafe

Text and photos by Clare Gemima 

Group Sex

Full Tank Moto Cafe, 49 Monroe St.

The New York City health guidelines — via its updated Safer Sex and Covid-19 fact sheet — discourage group sex, but provide advice for interested parties, suggesting “to find a crowd, pick larger, more open, ventilated spaces”…

This is an open-minded safety precaution endorsed by the New York City health department to take during the pandemic ... and also a genius conceptual parameter for a visual-arts exhibition. 

The East Village-based Ed. Varie is presenting Group Sex in their newest collaborative location on Monroe Street that showcases the works of artists Cavier Coleman, Colleen Herman, Esteban Ocampo-Giraldo, Giorgio Handman, Ivy Campbell, Leticia Infante, Moises Salazar, Nina Gilkshtern, Sarah Hombach, Scout Zabinski and Ted McGrath. (To learn more about each artist, please visit the gallery website here.)

The show explores group sex, sexuality and sensuality — both metaphorically and literally — in a raw, 2,000 square-foot space. This particular Ed. Varie collaboration marries gallery with the new Full Tank Moto Cafe — part cafe, motorcycle workshop and future bookshop all under the same beautiful roof. 

The building used to be a glass factory, and (thematically, if you will) hosts chains hanging from the ceiling. Ed. Varie founder Karen Shaupeter had to enlighten me that the bondage decor was not part of the show but a happy accident nonetheless. 

Through linoleum prints, gouache and acrylic paintings, soft sculpture and collage, the grit of the work in the space left an enduring impression as I walked through and witnessed exposed brick walls around the canvases and spilled dog food along the gallery floor. 

There were spirit and realness both on and off-canvas, and if you’re exhausted by the Chelsea gallery hoity-toity, then please visit Group Sex for a revitalization. Authentic work is out here in the Lower East Side, ready to challenge and capsize the whitewashed and straight status-quo of what being an artist in New York looks like. 

Thank you Ed. Varie for curating a show that, much like its title, isn’t afraid to show its roughness, its realness, its core. Among the standout work: Esteban Ocampo-Giralso’s Mañanas oil painting, depicting an illusionary, self-pleasuring scene that collides ecstasy with the mundanity of one's own bedroom confines. The forms in this piece are curvaceous and rich with highlighting and shadow play that is seductive and wildly transportive.

Another highlight was Ted McGrath’s Marat Moods/“…stop me if you heard this one…”/Haw haw haw. For me, the more disturbing looking the work is, the better. In this oil painting, we see multiple characters looking both humanly and mystically entrenched in a scene that looks so uncertain and on edge that it becomes nerve-wracking and uncomfortable to be around. There are skulls, banana peels and a sense of impending doom all captured in a sizeable canvas. Confusing and wretched, my favorite work in the show, hands down. 

And there is Spring Fever by Moises Salazar, which captured me immediately both from Ed. Varie’s social media and in person. The work depicts a female form wearing heels on a fur backdrop embellished with constructed floral arrangements. 

This to me is a kitsch daydream from the color right through to the glitter, yarn and sequins used to create the piece. The work is so polished and technically precise that it will leave you wondering how Salazar made it, let alone how the idea came into existence. Super cute, super ridiculous and super exciting to see how this artist grows. To no surprise, this piece has already sold.

If you are in need of a visual explosion, or even a new lease on your own creative practice, then I recommend visiting Ed. Varie’s amazing new space, and even striking up a conversation with its founder and staff. The experience was extremely welcoming and informative and I thank Karen for curating a potent and memorable show that represents a handful of talented and young practitioners. 

Group Sex will be showing until April 18 at 49 Monroe St. (across the street from Coleman Skatepark under the Manhattan Bridge). Full Tank Moto Cafe is open daily from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the gallery will remain open until 6 p.m.

Ed. Varie’s sister location, 184 E. Seventh St. at Avenue B, is currently exhibiting a solo show of Cavier Coleman’s work titled Heaven & Hell, also showing through April 18. 

 

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Clare Gemima is a visual artist from New Zealand. New-ish to the East Village, she spends her time as an artist assistant and gallery go-er, hungry to explore what's happening in her local art world. You can find her work here: claregemima.com 

Gallery Watch: 'Black Femme: Sovereign of WAP and the Virtual Realm' at Canada

Text and photos by Clare Gemima 

Black Femme: Sovereign of WAP and the Virtual Realm

Canada, 60 Lispenard St. 

The WAP in the title of this show could not be more relevant after the huge success of Megan Thee Stallion at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards last week, taking home the title of Best New Artist. 

Unfortunately for me, the WAP had nothing to do with one of Cardi B’s best songs ever, but instead with something called Wireless Application Protocol, which the show’s description prefaces. Six female-identifying Black artists celebrate the Black Femme body through a post-internet art lens in the form of textile, paint, appliqué and video sequencing. 

Through various mediums, a heavy-hitting and sensitive topic are embraced through color, figurative play and an undeniable boldness that permeates as soon as you walk into the gallery. The work aims to dismantle and challenge the societal restrictions that are forced upon female Black bodies both offline and online, in virtual reality and AFK (away from keyboard). 

This group show intends to initiate discourse around the politics of sexuality, gender and femininity. The group show was curated by Christina Ine-Kimba Boyle and showcases the works of Caitlin Cherry, Delphine Desane, Emily Manwaring, Kenya (Robinson), Sydney Vernon and Qualeasha Wood. 

Black Femme: Sovereign of WAP and the Virtual Realm will run until April 10.

 

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Clare Gemima is a visual artist from New Zealand. New-ish to the East Village, she spends her time as an artist assistant and gallery go-er, hungry to explore what's happening in her local art world. You can find her work here: claregemima.com 

Gallery Watch: 'Dress Up My Lindsay' at Public Access on St. Mark's Place

Text and photos by Clare Gemima

Dress Up My Lindsay 

Public Access, 8 Saint Mark's Place 

Public Access is a cute space tucked away on a lower-level storefront on Saint Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue that has been exhibiting an eclectic and impressive mix of artists since opening this past September. 

For the gallery's latest show, Marika Thunder has painted 10 large-scale oil paintings in her solo show, Dress Up My Lindsay. While slightly disconcerting in some painted moments, the show presents autobiographically intriguing and nostalgic plays on pain and heartbreak that we find within celebrity culture. 

Dress Up My Lindsay showcases a bittersweetness of what adolescence promises versus what it actually provides. The recurring motif used in Thunder's body of work is the child star turned troublemaker Lindsay Lohan, famous for her roles in "Freaky Friday," "Parent Trap" and "Mean Girls." 

The power and influence that Lohan had on her community were at an all-time high in the 1990s. It is no surprise that young girls all over the country idolized her, and for Thunder's case, started to religiously follow her tabloid headlines and celebrity behaviors by collaging magazine clippings into notebook pages for fun. 

The compositions of her paintings in Dress Up My Lindsay are reminiscent of her collaging days, bringing life to scribbled pages and dirty marks now with oil paint and a bolder delivery. The smudginess and lack of realism make these paintings unique and stand out amongst each other distinctly. Most paintings don't necessarily consider the precise rendering of Lindsay Lohan, positioning Thunder's subject more as a projected catalyst or representation of the artist's own childhood. 

This is an exciting space that pushes the boundaries of contemporary art and culture. I am grateful to have been greeted and shown around by a lovely man named Diego. He outlined to me how Public Access aimed to be a hospitable and inclusive art gallery that maintained a welcoming attitude regardless of who walked through the door. 

The experience he facilitated was very down-to-earth and inquisitive. I find it to be such a nice rarity when people working in an exhibition context wish to engage in dialogue with their viewers. It's also gratifying to see and feel so much passion in a newer space.

Dress Up My Lindsay at Public Access will be showing until April 12. The gallery is open Thursday through Sunday from 2-7 p.m. You may schedule an appointment for viewing here. 

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Clare Gemima is a visual artist from New Zealand. New-ish to the East Village, she spends her time as an artist assistant and gallery go-er, hungry to explore what's happening in her local art world. You can find her work here: claregemima.com 

Gallery Watch: 'Last Supper' at LatchKey Gallery

Text and photos by Clare Gemima 

Last Supper at LatchKey Gallery 

Group Show, 323 Canal St. 

Canal Street for a new-ish comer is so hustle and bustle that it is often easy to miss the hidden gems amongst the light stores, plastic museums and fake Louis Vuitton’s lining the sidewalk. 

LatchKey Gallery offers a refreshing respite to this, an incredibly large and open space with a dedicated ethos toward advocating overlooked artists. In this week’s Gallery Watch, I am excited to provide insight into this nomadic contemporary art space that is challenging the status-quo on several different levels. 

The powerhouses behind LatchKey Gallery are Natalie Kates and Amanda Uribe. I was lucky enough to meet Natalie at Silo6776 in New Hope at Scooter LaForge’s exhibition Beef Jerky late last year. I could tell Natalie was an enthusiastic and passionate art lover, but it wasn’t until I had come to learn about her Artist Residency Program that she spearheaded with her husband Fabrizio Ferri that I really got the gist of her dedication to emerging artists. 

Scooter kindly passed on a Zoom invite to Natalie in conversation with Dana Robinson, (a previous artist in residence), which is how I came to learn of LatchKey’s current exhibition Last Supper. 

The show, curated by Tamecca Seril showcases the works of 12 Black female artists, referencing the significant event of the show’s title where Jesus and his apostles gather and consecrate around a banquet feast.

The classic, white-washed representation is (and forever will be) a staple in art history, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be challenged. Last Supper at LatchKey Gallery builds a new table that lifts and honors voices that art history seems to leave out of its canon — those that belong to Black women. 

Last Supper celebrates fellowship and organized radical thinking amongst the curated group of artists. The show positions their work within a contemporary context, in turn creating a discourse around what it means to be Black, female and creative while inevitably disrupting the art world’s tiresome and often gross institutionalized normality. 

Last Supper showcases the works of Shervone Neckles, Ify Chiejina, Turiya Magadlela, LaToya Hobbs, Kimberly Becoat, Nkechi Ebubedike, Josie Love Roebuck, Jennifer Mack Watkins, Dana Robinson, Dominique Duroseau, Ariel Danielle and Ashante Kindle.

The pieces by Shervone Neckles are photographic and hanging from the ceiling, offering something I have never seen before in a gallery space. History, time and torture are suspended in her golden-framed objects and these works were definitely what excited me the most. 

Other works that stood out for me: Jennifer Mack-Watkins’ majestic and sweet prints, Turiya Magadlela’s stunning sewn fabric work at the entrance of the space and Dana Robinson’s charming dappled painted transfers on panel.

As I was watching videos, admiring large-scale paintings and pestering the extremely hospitable and lovely Amanda, I noticed a large back-space to the gallery. Unbeknown to me, this was the studio hosting Kates-Ferri Project artist residency. 

The divide from gallery to artist studio space was raw and generous for the average gallery-goer. Once stepping inside the residency quarters, I was enthralled by another young maker’s world. February’s artist in residence was the beautifully spoken and gifted Eric Manuel Santoscoy-Mckillip, who has filled the space with painted sculptures, freshly designed rugs and a working studio that I was delighted to receive an invitation to tour. 

Born in El Paso, Texas, Eric plays with ideas of overlapping and blurring — subjects that seek to reflect the in-between space of the U.S. and Mexico border. His work is rich in color, crazy with texture and so bold and confident to the point of intimidating. 

At first glance, it looked as though the work was made with 100 percent pure pigment, but thanks to the nature of the studio space, I learned he was using flashe. The artist has built a lexicon around their work that is felt, heard and seen. Eric pays homage to a complex history and identity in the way he uses, as an example, stucco as both a protectant layer and texture creator. 

He has an invested interest in design, derivative colorways and has an explorative and deeply personal practice that pays respect to its roots. He moves between painting and sculpture and has been producing experimental work during his time in the residency. To see more of his work, you can visit his website here.

Last Supper will be showing at LatchKey’s Canal Street and Industry City locations until March 20. To book an appointment, please visit their website. A special thanks to Eric and Amanda for having me.

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Clare Gemima is a visual artist from New Zealand. New-ish to the East Village, she spends her time as an artist assistant and gallery go-er, hungry to explore what's happening in her local art world. You can find her work here: claregemima.com 

Gallery Watch: Heart, Heart by Anke Weyer at Canada

 Text and photos by Clare Gemima 

Heart, Heart by Anke Weyer

Canada gallery, 60 Lispenard St.

Canada gallery presents new paintings by Anke Weyer in a sharp and beautiful exhibition, Heart, Heart. 

The crazed, large-scale paintings line the space of Canada on Lispenard, the best gallery on the street. The painting’s grand marks and dramatic compositions speak to the kinetic rhythm of the human organ in which the show is named. 

By letting shit hit the fan, Weyer’s gestural abstractions dominate the space and entirely devour members of its audience, chewing them with scribbles and squiggles, swallowing them through the artist’s plastering of exotic color.  

The show resonated with me in an almost exclusively corporeal sense. I was aware of how small I was within the grand scheme of the installation. As I moved from one painting to the next, Heart, Heart transformed into an orchestral arrangement playing different rhythms of our most integral organ. 

Several paintings looked and felt as though there was more pain and anguish than replenishment and joy, which offered a fresh insight into Weyer’s varied methodologies and larger studio practice. She eloquently responded to her chosen subject matter via nonsensical and heroically bold painted abstractions. 

Heart, Heart is showing at Canada gallery until Feb. 27.

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Clare Gemima is a visual artist from New Zealand. New-ish to the East Village, she spends her time as an artist assistant and gallery go-er, hungry to explore what's happening in her local art world. You can find her work here: claregemima.com 

Gallery Watch: Time Dilation at Perrotin Gallery

Text and photos by Clare Gemima 

Time Dilation by Daniel Arsham

Perrotin Gallery, 130 Orchard St.

Walking into this show will leave you star-struck by the (literal) crystallization of time and memory through Daniel Arsham’s grandiose and hyper-realistic sculptures.

The array of resin sculptures lining this beautiful gallery expand on the idea of what has been, or is actively sacred, and how the definition has been shaped by cultural, social and digital life. The screen in which we all know far too well has allowed ancient treasures an elongated life-span, a ploy Arsham somewhat inverts with his use of analog and digital in the making of his Pokémon series. Classical statue meets pop-cultural Japanese mythology. Two sources that inhabit an infinite amount of online heritage explode as resurrected time stamps in Time Dilation, a showcasing of neo-sacrality at Perrotin Gallery. 

This show is joyously playful and delusionally dream-like. Time Dilation makes you ponder on what cultural signifiers will exist well beyond the 20s, and what of them will be glorified or worshipped. Will Charmanders one day be Gods? Will Ancient Grecian sculpture be deduced to existing only as kitsch online graphics? Is this what we’ve come to rely on when we see art depicted with rock, crystals, ceramics or marble? Time, labor and love regardless of its historic gravitas? 

An extremely popular show, I would suggest visiting the gallery early before it becomes over-powered with keen visitors. Time Dilation is extremely Instagrammable, making it a slightly harder show to navigate but it is definitely worth the effort. 

Time Dilation will be showing at Perrotin until Feb. 20.

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Clare Gemima is a visual artist from New Zealand. New-ish to the East Village, she spends her time as an artist assistant and gallery go-er, hungry to explore what's happening in her local art world. You can find her work here: claregemima.com 

Gallery Watch: 'Friend Zone' at Half Gallery

 Text and photos by Clare Gemima 

Friend Zone

Half Gallery, 235 E. Fourth St. at Avenue B

Friend Zone, curated by Vaughn Spann, consists mostly of contemplative figurative paintings. Some carry a sense of unease and vagueness through their figure’s expressions and body language (Elliot by Sarah Ball), others celebrate passion more directly (Lovers by Taylor Simmons) and some are just downright quirky (One liner — Lambullghini...produce/reuse by Jan Gatewood). 

The age-old conventions of friend-zoning suggest that one person is in love and willing to engage with someone who does not reciprocate these feelings at all. Upon extrapolating the push and pull of this awkward and somewhat painful notion, the 44 artworks in the show appear to embrace reminiscent ideas like uncertainty, longing, and in some cases, torment. 

Seeing works through this lens serves as an enjoyable experience immediately, allowing for creative narratives to form around visualized characters and situations. 

My favorite work in the show was Brianna Rose Brook’s oil and airbrush on canvas called God bless this kitchen. Two figures play against a crazed kitchen scene where items have been chopped up and strewn across a table, a stovetop has been left on and maybe hair is being dyed at home? Is the dynamic between the two strained or suggestive? Sexy or struggling? 

The uncertainty of the relationship is such a seductive tool in this work, something that is consistent throughout the young artists practice. For more of her incredible paintings, you can visit her website.

All American Girl, aka: Cowboy of Ohio was another work I could not stop thinking about from Friend Zone and I am grateful, as it has lead me to discover more of Oscar yi Hou’s works, which is honestly just to die for. If I could use swear words to exaggerate, trust me there would be a long list of them here.

The artist’s seemingly deliberate and frisky exuberance can be seen through multiple layering and building of form through strong strokes of oil paint. 

Themes of diaspora and the slippage between Western and Eastern culture seen in this painting could be evocative of America’s friend-zoning of everything that is other or sadly not white, but for the artist’s intention, I cannot of course be certain. 

Their exemplary use of contrasting and complementary colors creates a character that is sexy and charismatic, a palette that has been adopted throughout an extremely impressive body of work that you can find here.

Friend Zone is packed to the brim with works that force us to examine the importance of human bonds and relationships we have with each other. The consternation that shadows over relationships that can’t be defined or in some cases do not want to be has exacerbated over the course of our global crisis. Is the world in fact friend-zoning us? Instead of thinking about this too hard, go and see the show instead. 

Friend Zone at Half Gallery will be up until Feb. 24. 

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Clare Gemima is a visual artist from New Zealand. New-ish to the East Village, she spends her time as an artist assistant and gallery go-er, hungry to explore what's happening in her local art world. You can find her work here: claregemima.com