Elevator By Alessandro Gallo (All Photos By Gail)
If you are intrigued and delighted by the idea of perusing an exhibition made up of hyper-realist sculptures depicting Humans with Animal Heads, then you will love Italian artist Alessandro Gallo’s latest body of work, For Some Reason (the follow up to his 2014 show, Strani Incontri) up now at Jonathan LeVine Gallery. Continue reading Jonathan LeVine Gallery Presents: Alessandro Gallo, For Some Reason
DurgaMa (All Photos By Gail)
C24 has been one of our favorite galleries since we first discovered it with This Exhibit almost three years ago now. And the long wait we endured for the gallery to move into its new bi-level space, just half a block west of the previous West 24th Street location was well worth it, because with its cool new lower floor atrium, C24 can now showcase some truly monumental pieces, such as the hyper-realist sculptures of Carole A. Feuerman.
Installation View: Leda and the Swan (Foreground), Monumental Quan (Background)
Feuerman is a pioneering figure in the world of hyper-realistic art, as well as her new approaches to sculpture with painted bronze pieces for the outdoors and in water. The artist works in both miniature and monumental size sculptures. We were first introduced to her work at the Jim Kempner Fine Art Gallery a few years ago, and since then we’ve seen her work in public spaces and art fairs as well — her iconic stye being immediately recognizable.
The new exhibit, Hero and Leander takes its title from a Greek mythological story of Hero (a priestess of Aphrodite) who lived in a tower off a waterway, and Leander (a young man from the opposite side of the strait). Leander fell in love with Hero and would swim very night across the waterway to be with her. Hero would light a lamp at the top of her tower to guide his way. These trysts lasted through one warm summer. On a stormy winter night, the waves tossed Leander in the sea, while the breezes blew out Hero’s light. Leander lost his way and was drowned. When Hero saw his dead body, she threw herself over the edge of the tower to be with him in death.
Releve
Hero and Leander features sculptures of swimmers/bathers, dancers and gymnasts, as well as a silkscreen on canvas swimmer triptych, pictured below.
Capri, Catalina, Moran Triptych
New York Slicker
The Dancer With Ball
Carole A. Feuerman’s Hero and Leander will be on Exhibit Through June 25th,2016 at C24 Gallery, Located at 560West 24th Street in the Chelsea Gallery District.
Beyond The Golden Mean
Scrum 2 (All Out War) By Dan Witz (All Photos By Gail)
This past week, when a friend or coworker would ask me what I did over the weekend, or if I’d seen any good art lately, I felt like I had to qualify my response by first asking, “Well, do you know what a Mosh Pit is?” And usually that person would say that they did, or at least that they had some idea. The reason I had to ask was to put in context the exhibit I had just seen at the Jonathan Levine Gallery by contemporary hyper–realist painter Dan Witz, who is all about the mosh pit action. Nobody paints a pit like Dan Witz.
Color Bow By Melodie Provenzano (All Photos By Gail)
I stumbled on the listing for Melodie Provenzano’s Stealth Peace exhibit (on now at Nancy Margolis Gallery) when I was looking for cool shows to add to last week’s art crawl, and was immediately attracted to her painting of the above image: a giant colorful bow. I love hyper-realism and the more I looked at the online preview, the more I knew this would be a must-see exhibit. I was not mistaken.
Stealth Peace, Provenzano’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, features a new series of highly detailed paintings of single objects and still lifes, all based on objects — toys, glassware, figurines, bows — the artist has collected herself. It is really quite charming and compelling, and I would recommend it especially for fans of Jeff Koons’ Banality series.
Melodie offers that her collections, “is a well of inspiration that I rely upon when composing the still lifes that I draw and paint from direct observation. The artworks are like a catalog of dreams with layers of meaning open to interpretation.”
She continues, “One may find impressions, reflections and sensations as various as the objects in them. The meanings are revealed through visual metaphors of the experiences that we share as human beings, dependent as much upon where the viewer is coming from as where I have been.”
Provenzano works on one painting at a time, making it her world until it’s completion, and her attention to detail in each work is just insane.
She even paints the shadows!
Paintings such as Heaven and Hell have a specific theme in contrast to Champbaby! (above), a straightforward, playful spin on the common found object – a full champagne glass spilling out miniature toy baby figurines.
Reign Bow
In addition to her still life compositions, Provenzano paints singular objects, notably, the two largest paintings in the exhibition, Color Bow and Reign Bow, each 54” x 72”. Enlarged way beyond their normal size these otherwise mundane objects are imbued with a gorgeous powerful presence.
Nostalgia, memory, loss, a bygone era, these are the underlying themes of Provenzano‘s work. Bringing together her passion for collecting found objects, which eventually become the subject of her paintings, we see this melding into her art practice alongside a thoughtful searching with-in.
Melodie Provenzano’s Stealth Peace will be on Exhibit Through June 27th, 2015 at Nancy Margolis Gallery, Located at 523 W 25th Street, in the Chelsea Gallery District.
All Photos By Gail
Artist and Former Musician Dan Witz, whom I’m just going to go ahead and label the Norman Rockwell of Hardcore, is back at Jonathan LeVine Gallery with an outstanding collection of his hyper-realist style paintings and portraits of Hardcore music fans captured in their natural habitat: The Pit. NY Hardcore is Witz’ second solo exhibit at LeVine, following Mosh Pits, Human and Otherwise in July of 2011. The current show features select paintings previously exhibited in 2011.
It’s hard to believe that these are paintings and not photographs. They look so real, I can almost smell them.
I like this one a lot.
Artist Dan Witz at the opening reception chatting with fans. He is very nice.
NY Hardcore includes both crowd scenes – captured from various vantage points – and individual portraits.
Everybody knows this dude, right? I think I used to see him at the Fleetwood (Redondo Beach, CA) back in the early ’80s.
I’m pretty sure that this guy is meant to be gallery owner Jonathan LeVine.
Dan Witz: NY Hardcore runs through May 3rd, 2014 at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery, Located at 529 West 20th Street, 9th Floor, in the Chelsea Gallery District. Gallery Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 AM to 6 PM.
OK, Who wears a Nirvana shirt at a Hardcore show?