Dicey Fabulous Carnival is the new exhibit of paintings by New York-based artist Jeni Spota C., currently at Brennan and Griffin Gallery (Bowery), and it sees her furthering an investigation into magical imagery and generous materiality. Thickly piped with designs of subdued harlequin colors, these paintings evoke banners and Maestà altarpieces, teaming with faces, symbols, and decorative...
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SHAWN ALLEYNE
This past weekend was the fourth annual Black Comic Book Festival at the Schomberg Center in Harlem, and it seems finally to’ve outgrown its space. Besides half-hour lines around the block just to get in, the aisles in-between the booths were so crammed with onlookers that it was difficult getting near much of the art. Eric...
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ANNA ZEMÁNKOVÁ
So while it’s true that this blog normally covers contemporary artists living in NYC, the new retrospective of work by Anna Zemánková (1908-1986), at the Cavin-Morris Gallery in Chelsea, was just too good to pass up. Here’s why: First, Zemánková’s botanical drawings twist and sway like dancers; using delicate pastel, ink, pencil, and crocheted details, the...
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RITHIKA MERCHANT
At the center of Rithika Merchant‘s visual language is the issue of natality. Indeed, the umbilical cord is attached to a variety of life sources in her work, though each carrier—from winged goddesses to humanoid females, to the fabled Tree of Life—suggests a pseudo-scientific explanation for why things are the way they are. Merchant is not...
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DAVID LANTOW
Full disclosure: I am a current grad student at Brooklyn College and David Lantow is an adjunct art instructor there. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never run into him—myself being an art history major—yet there is something distinct about his work that reminds me of other artists associated with the school. (See previous blogs...
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AUREL SCHMIDT
Let no one say New York City hasn’t a low-brow scene of its own! Sure, compared to the West Coast, it’s small here. But its doyen—Aurel Schmidt—has been making quite the splash this last half-decade. Schmidt is an illustrator with a penchant for mixing anti-capitalist sentiment with ancient mythology. Her work is smart, sexy, and pop-obsessed. Illustrations...
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