The piece shows a person drowning in a sea that can be anywhere or nowhere. This scene conjures a self-awareness of someone’s position in life; waking up only to feel suffocated by all the nonsense and distorted human nature of our society. The drowning person represents an awakening of one’s existence beyond perceived reality. Outside of the mess we create for ourselves, there is something more ‘real’. The scene is constructed using a photo collage of a person drowning in water, made out of layers and layers of prints; process inspired by David Hockney’s photo mosaics. The hand is drawn in graphite and juxtaposed onto the scene and the sky is painted in.
Julia Whitney-Barnes
Rooted simultaneously in science while evoking the fantastical, my long-term study of plants and animals expands my imagination in generating ideas for my work. The appeal to me of science is not in using hard facts to explain the world, but rather, utilizing science as a medium to pry open and reinterpret life. My ideas take form in installations, sculptural reliefs, oil paintings and drawings. The painting I made for ArtBridge subtly echoes the scaffolding structure while using a tree house as its subject matter. The composition is made up of interior and exterior views of the tree house and depicts nature in opposition to the urban environment where it is installed.
Jennifer Bell
Specializing in portrait drawing as well as abstract painting, Jennifer Bell’s art captures the simple and complex patterns which are found in the natural world. Whereas Jennifer’s portraiture converts the human face into a simplified expressive emotion, her abstract painting does the reverse by magnifying the complexity of basic natural form. Viewing Jennifer’s paintings simulates the experience of a curious child looking through a microscope for the first time. Multifaceted cellular figures of infinite intricacy are a common feature of her work, evoking the simultaneous sensations of familiarity and strangeness.
Vincent Caggiano
I most enjoy photographing visions of nature including, landscapes, flowers, animals and seascapes. I earned the distinction of having one of my photos, “A Trio of Tulips”, in Timeless Memories, a hard-bound anthology published by the International Library of Photography. It is my life goal to bring stimulating visual images of our world to those who wish to see them…. from my eyes only!
Melissa Cowper-Smith
In my paintings and digital prints of interiors, I engage with the longing for a meaningful place or home. The viewer is alone in the space, which expresses the experience of creative isolation and introspection about place and objects. I am interested in the collaging of styles and modes of representation, from drawerly descriptions to photographic clarity. My work illustrates the constructive nature of memory and identity and a psychological engagement with everyday objects while alone in a private space.
Angela Deane
My work is a study of the magical thoughts and connections which happen internally to produce choices and furthermore, actions. I’m mainly concerned with those that strive to do good, yet all the while still heartily believing in the concept of fun. When patterns emerge, the ‘scales’ appear. Originating from the mythological dragon itself; wasting away hoarding gold for thousands of years, these ‘scales’ now become the vulnerability itself, the precious spot on the underbelly of the beast, the crack in the institution allowing for the flow of new people, new ways, new traditions.
Demonstina
An artist both visually and musically, Demostina has a deep affinity for color and texture. She explores her themes through the use of mixed media and often incorporates amorphous characters into her work. Her enigmatic series The Female Factor examines and celebrates the complex nature of the feminine both physically and spiritually. This multi-talented soul takes your hands, eyes, and ears and walks you through the halls of music, the vicious cycle of the human condition, the mystery of the feminine and the metaphysical – reminding us that we are continuously evolving as entities of this universe.
Anna Donado
I have painted a body lying in repose, attempting to explore the abstraction of the organism within its figurative boundaries. I am interested in the expressiveness of lines as they relate to various emotional responses. What first catches the eye is the nakedness of the body, a state usually reserved for what can be considered a private, inside space. As related to the private/public opposition, to exhibit the piece in a public space (enlarged four times its original size) intends to create an interplay between the inner and the outer, for the body is not only naked, but its bones and inner sinews are abstractly being exposed. This calls for placing perception on its deep interior core. The position of the body is as if sleeping, almost as a corpse, contrasting with the energy and chaos of the streets of New York City. Upon seeing this painting, one would hope the spectator to reflect upon three key ideas: repose in the midst of movement, the inner as related to the outer, and freedom of expression at the core of the polis.
Angela Errico
I am an artist who delves into the creative world with my mind and materials. I paint in oil and acrylic and sculpt in steel, wood, terra cotta and cement. My work — architectural in content and painterly in material — juxtaposes a well-balanced example of New York architecture with the building materials themselves. The Artbridge project enables me to give the viewer a new perception of his environment and will displace some of the jarring feelings of the changing world, making the experience attractive and stimulating. Additionally, the outdoor setting allows the viewer the opportunity to experience the weightless and ethereal capabilities of color.
Michael Filan
My work is bold, energetic and carries within it the feel and momentum of our city. The work plays with abstraction in a new way.
Jonathan Flaum
As a teenager growing up in Manhattan in the 1980s, my friends and I used to sneak on and explore the High Line. Being up on the High Line platform was a very different experience than being on the streets of New York. I felt very removed from the hustle and noise of the streets, but the High Line definitely added some other obstacles. It was like an urban tree house for my friends and I. In my adult life when I heard that the High Line was in jeopardy of being torn down I started to document it, and this photography project lasted from 1996 – 2006. My artwork piece contributed to ArtBridge is called “High Line Platforms” and is a collage consisting of nine photographs. All of the images are shot on medium format film.
Jacob Gossett
My current work explores the velocity of vision, the movement of the eye and its constant repositioning. The work is composed of geometric forms and bands of vibrating color that push the viewer through the work. This visual speed is then brought to a halt where vast areas of color absorb the eye before it is whisked away once again. These staggered rhythms create moments of information overload and meditative transcendence. The viewer is thrust into a pulsating field of symphonic visualization that can only exist in an age of technological dominance.
Laurence Groux
It is about people talking, walking, hiding. It is about “hidden” things around everyday life that most people do not take the time to see, but by which artists may get inspired: oddities walking by, animals, trees, bugs. It is about trying to pay attention to the little things. The colors in the paintings are placed in a certain rhythm. If you begin to follow a certain color you will begin to see a shape or form that transcends the idea of something which your brain will make out from sense memory. I tried to make it happy and joyful. I believe my work generally wants to give back to people.
Alicia Grullon
In an age asking what is a woman and what is a man, I see the human form becoming malleable and open for definition. I created this self portrait using the primitive Holga camera and traditional black and white 2¼ film in order to look at the human form from a fundamental perspective in photography. Juxtaposing myself with the most basic and organic of shapes, a sphere, I transform within the circular hay stacks allowing my own identity to lie somewhere between the feminine and the masculine. This image is on one piece of film creating a 2¼ x 10 inch negative. It is meant to be extremely big and much larger than life.
Dalia Haber
In my sculpture, I create metal structures that are part organic and part geometric, with natural fabrics and vinyls sewn on to the metal. The combination of these materials and forms synthesizes the organic with the man made. I like the tension between these two concepts and their power to co-exist. The drawing I am submitting to art-bridge has been made with the final product in mind. I am hoping that the energy of the color and movement of the piece will be a magnet to busy New Yorkers and will stand out in the gray urban landscape.
Robert Hammond
Water color paintings based on a series of seascapes by Hiroshi Sugimoto.
Nari Eunice Kim
I’ve been exploring working with the natural homemade pigments, such as blueberries, pomegranates and coffee. This series was created using coffee, india ink and acrylic ink. The purpose for this series was to create a visual rhythm thru different shapes, colors, textures and the energy that each medium carries. Each panel can stand on its own but as a whole piece, it creates a new harmonious energy that adds another layer of complexity to the piece.
GJ Lee
I enjoy putting things together. Through a series of adding and subtracting, I use shapes and forms to create flat scenes of repose and/or tension.
Jiyoun Lee
New York is a city of passion. Different dreams, tastes and unique pasts make a colorful harmony. These desires plant seeds, which bloom and interact. They want to tell their stories; some are recognized and blossom into the fulfillment of dreams, while others may go unnoticed. I see them as colors and shapes. I see New York as a beautiful jungle. I am a spectator, a stranger, one of many immigrants in pursuit of achieving their own small dream. This is my visual observation of this city.
Michael Lee
Any worthwhile investigation of landscape places the metaphorical on equal footing with the observational. My work does not refer to or advocate a personal connection for actual places. In my paintings it is unclear whether Nature or the human “recording” of it is responsible for creating obstacles to movement and vision. No vista opens up to allow a perch for peaceful contemplation. Space is claustrophobic. Perspective is awkward. It is theatrical space in which natural elements operate as outward manifestations of inner psychology.
Mirrored vinyl in my piece creates a frozen reflection that does not work with a passerby’s sense of space and time. Combined with the less abstract tree and plant forms, the image offers known and unknown simultaneously. Although the forms are simplified, a viewer cannot understand the image instantly.
Thomas Martin
For me, drawing is a strategy with which to meditate between (and moderate) various disparate forces at work in my life and art; simultaneously, it is a simulator, a testing ground for an unknown proposition. I have used this piece as a path out of an intellectual feedback loop which has recently plagued my work. By resolving those disparate forces mentioned above, such as the need for order and control but also personal freedom, I have made these forces into a cohesive vocabulary with which to solve the practical problems associated with producing a work on the this scale.
Xanda McCagg
At the core of my work is a fascination with the human experience. I consider systems of human behavior in relation to larger happenings: poverty, war, systems of control and understanding, government, and religion vs. mythology. As an artist, I observe and comment on the human condition on both a global and an intimate level. The dichotomies we are effected by and that which define us are the root and structure behind the work: how we are connecting or being ripped apart, what we have or lack, when we are strong vs. weak and aware or oblivious, here in the present and then gone. My interest lies in of how a subtle or vast shift alters relationships. My work continues to explore the fine line between perception and imagination of these relationships through an articulation of compositional effects. Using line and form, I determine how much or how little information is necessary to communicate these shifts.
Hidemi Takagi
Happie Photographie:When I was a little girl in Japan, I saw the Movie ”American Graffiti” on TV. I was amazed by the color in the film,everybody was dressed in bright clothes, all of the cars and furniture was extremely colorful. I felt it was very “America” and it filled me with happy feelings. In 1997, I moved to New York, again found these bright colors….my America. Many people say that my photographs seem like they come from another city. But I mostly shoot in New York.
David Weiner
Locomotion is at the heart of all living beings. One line’s path through space dictates another’s destination. I react intuitively to the positive and negative shapes evolving from line intersections. Recording of bodies in motion and their material exchange defines my most recent work. I employ skates to move with continuous fluidity while simultaneously laying down an impression of energy. Organic dyes are sprayed onto the street, forming large-scale ephemeral drawings. Video and photographic capture of this process becomes the work. Sometimes canvas is used to create a tangible record of movement.
Sculptural investigation entails the creation of environments that reduce the stronghold of gravity and friction, to create within. I choose materials with the capacity for rapid molecular realignment. For example, liquid wax injected into water solidifies on contact, enabling organic manipulation of semi-molten media. These experiments facilitate large-scale, event-based sculptures.
Jordana Zeldin
RUSH is a piece from my recently completed project, Subversions, a chronicle of the ever-changing underground landscape of the New York City subway system through photographs of advertising billboards that have been manipulated and transformed both by anonymous passengers and the passage of time. It reflects the frenzy of this very public space, with one advertisement layered on top of the next like subway riders piled on top of one another and crammed into packed cars- the kind of organized chaos unique to the urban underground.
I see its inclusion in ArtBridge as a kind of unearthing, transplanting it from one public space under the City streets to another above them, enabling passersby to appreciate it while reinforcing the notion that there is art to be found all around us.
The Artists
The piece shows a person drowning in a sea that can be anywhere or nowhere. This scene conjures a self-awareness of someone’s position in life; waking up only to feel suffocated by all the nonsense and distorted human nature of our society. The drowning person represents an awakening of one’s existence beyond perceived reality. Outside of the mess we create for ourselves, there is something more ‘real’. The scene is constructed using a photo collage of a person drowning in water, made out of layers and layers of prints; process inspired by David Hockney’s photo mosaics. The hand is drawn in graphite and juxtaposed onto the scene and the sky is painted in.
Julia Whitney-Barnes
Rooted simultaneously in science while evoking the fantastical, my long-term study of plants and animals expands my imagination in generating ideas for my work. The appeal to me of science is not in using hard facts to explain the world, but rather, utilizing science as a medium to pry open and reinterpret life. My ideas take form in installations, sculptural reliefs, oil paintings and drawings. The painting I made for ArtBridge subtly echoes the scaffolding structure while using a tree house as its subject matter. The composition is made up of interior and exterior views of the tree house and depicts nature in opposition to the urban environment where it is installed.
Jennifer Bell
Specializing in portrait drawing as well as abstract painting, Jennifer Bell’s art captures the simple and complex patterns which are found in the natural world. Whereas Jennifer’s portraiture converts the human face into a simplified expressive emotion, her abstract painting does the reverse by magnifying the complexity of basic natural form. Viewing Jennifer’s paintings simulates the experience of a curious child looking through a microscope for the first time. Multifaceted cellular figures of infinite intricacy are a common feature of her work, evoking the simultaneous sensations of familiarity and strangeness.
Vincent Caggiano
I most enjoy photographing visions of nature including, landscapes, flowers, animals and seascapes. I earned the distinction of having one of my photos, “A Trio of Tulips”, in Timeless Memories, a hard-bound anthology published by the International Library of Photography. It is my life goal to bring stimulating visual images of our world to those who wish to see them…. from my eyes only!
In my paintings and digital prints of interiors, I engage with the longing for a meaningful place or home. The viewer is alone in the space, which expresses the experience of creative isolation and introspection about place and objects. I am interested in the collaging of styles and modes of representation, from drawerly descriptions to photographic clarity. My work illustrates the constructive nature of memory and identity and a psychological engagement with everyday objects while alone in a private space.
Angela Deane
My work is a study of the magical thoughts and connections which happen internally to produce choices and furthermore, actions. I’m mainly concerned with those that strive to do good, yet all the while still heartily believing in the concept of fun. When patterns emerge, the ‘scales’ appear. Originating from the mythological dragon itself; wasting away hoarding gold for thousands of years, these ‘scales’ now become the vulnerability itself, the precious spot on the underbelly of the beast, the crack in the institution allowing for the flow of new people, new ways, new traditions.
Demonstina
An artist both visually and musically, Demostina has a deep affinity for color and texture. She explores her themes through the use of mixed media and often incorporates amorphous characters into her work. Her enigmatic series The Female Factor examines and celebrates the complex nature of the feminine both physically and spiritually. This multi-talented soul takes your hands, eyes, and ears and walks you through the halls of music, the vicious cycle of the human condition, the mystery of the feminine and the metaphysical – reminding us that we are continuously evolving as entities of this universe.
Anna Donado
I have painted a body lying in repose, attempting to explore the abstraction of the organism within its figurative boundaries. I am interested in the expressiveness of lines as they relate to various emotional responses. What first catches the eye is the nakedness of the body, a state usually reserved for what can be considered a private, inside space. As related to the private/public opposition, to exhibit the piece in a public space (enlarged four times its original size) intends to create an interplay between the inner and the outer, for the body is not only naked, but its bones and inner sinews are abstractly being exposed. This calls for placing perception on its deep interior core. The position of the body is as if sleeping, almost as a corpse, contrasting with the energy and chaos of the streets of New York City. Upon seeing this painting, one would hope the spectator to reflect upon three key ideas: repose in the midst of movement, the inner as related to the outer, and freedom of expression at the core of the polis.
Angela Errico
I am an artist who delves into the creative world with my mind and materials. I paint in oil and acrylic and sculpt in steel, wood, terra cotta and cement. My work — architectural in content and painterly in material — juxtaposes a well-balanced example of New York architecture with the building materials themselves. The Artbridge project enables me to give the viewer a new perception of his environment and will displace some of the jarring feelings of the changing world, making the experience attractive and stimulating. Additionally, the outdoor setting allows the viewer the opportunity to experience the weightless and ethereal capabilities of color.
Michael Filan
My work is bold, energetic and carries within it the feel and momentum of our city. The work plays with abstraction in a new way.
Jonathan Flaum
As a teenager growing up in Manhattan in the 1980s, my friends and I used to sneak on and explore the High Line. Being up on the High Line platform was a very different experience than being on the streets of New York. I felt very removed from the hustle and noise of the streets, but the High Line definitely added some other obstacles. It was like an urban tree house for my friends and I. In my adult life when I heard that the High Line was in jeopardy of being torn down I started to document it, and this photography project lasted from 1996 – 2006. My artwork piece contributed to ArtBridge is called “High Line Platforms” and is a collage consisting of nine photographs. All of the images are shot on medium format film.
Jacob Gossett
My current work explores the velocity of vision, the movement of the eye and its constant repositioning. The work is composed of geometric forms and bands of vibrating color that push the viewer through the work. This visual speed is then brought to a halt where vast areas of color absorb the eye before it is whisked away once again. These staggered rhythms create moments of information overload and meditative transcendence. The viewer is thrust into a pulsating field of symphonic visualization that can only exist in an age of technological dominance.
Laurence Groux
It is about people talking, walking, hiding. It is about “hidden” things around everyday life that most people do not take the time to see, but by which artists may get inspired: oddities walking by, animals, trees, bugs. It is about trying to pay attention to the little things. The colors in the paintings are placed in a certain rhythm. If you begin to follow a certain color you will begin to see a shape or form that transcends the idea of something which your brain will make out from sense memory. I tried to make it happy and joyful. I believe my work generally wants to give back to people.
Alicia Grullon
In an age asking what is a woman and what is a man, I see the human form becoming malleable and open for definition. I created this self portrait using the primitive Holga camera and traditional black and white 2¼ film in order to look at the human form from a fundamental perspective in photography. Juxtaposing myself with the most basic and organic of shapes, a sphere, I transform within the circular hay stacks allowing my own identity to lie somewhere between the feminine and the masculine. This image is on one piece of film creating a 2¼ x 10 inch negative. It is meant to be extremely big and much larger than life.
Dalia Haber
In my sculpture, I create metal structures that are part organic and part geometric, with natural fabrics and vinyls sewn on to the metal. The combination of these materials and forms synthesizes the organic with the man made. I like the tension between these two concepts and their power to co-exist. The drawing I am submitting to art-bridge has been made with the final product in mind. I am hoping that the energy of the color and movement of the piece will be a magnet to busy New Yorkers and will stand out in the gray urban landscape.
Robert Hammond
Water color paintings based on a series of seascapes by Hiroshi Sugimoto.
Nari Eunice Kim
I’ve been exploring working with the natural homemade pigments, such as blueberries, pomegranates and coffee. This series was created using coffee, india ink and acrylic ink. The purpose for this series was to create a visual rhythm thru different shapes, colors, textures and the energy that each medium carries. Each panel can stand on its own but as a whole piece, it creates a new harmonious energy that adds another layer of complexity to the piece.
GJ Lee
I enjoy putting things together. Through a series of adding and subtracting, I use shapes and forms to create flat scenes of repose and/or tension.
Jiyoun Lee
New York is a city of passion. Different dreams, tastes and unique pasts make a colorful harmony. These desires plant seeds, which bloom and interact. They want to tell their stories; some are recognized and blossom into the fulfillment of dreams, while others may go unnoticed. I see them as colors and shapes. I see New York as a beautiful jungle. I am a spectator, a stranger, one of many immigrants in pursuit of achieving their own small dream. This is my visual observation of this city.
Michael Lee
Any worthwhile investigation of landscape places the metaphorical on equal footing with the observational. My work does not refer to or advocate a personal connection for actual places. In my paintings it is unclear whether Nature or the human “recording” of it is responsible for creating obstacles to movement and vision. No vista opens up to allow a perch for peaceful contemplation. Space is claustrophobic. Perspective is awkward. It is theatrical space in which natural elements operate as outward manifestations of inner psychology.
Mirrored vinyl in my piece creates a frozen reflection that does not work with a passerby’s sense of space and time. Combined with the less abstract tree and plant forms, the image offers known and unknown simultaneously. Although the forms are simplified, a viewer cannot understand the image instantly.
Thomas Martin
For me, drawing is a strategy with which to meditate between (and moderate) various disparate forces at work in my life and art; simultaneously, it is a simulator, a testing ground for an unknown proposition. I have used this piece as a path out of an intellectual feedback loop which has recently plagued my work. By resolving those disparate forces mentioned above, such as the need for order and control but also personal freedom, I have made these forces into a cohesive vocabulary with which to solve the practical problems associated with producing a work on the this scale.
Xanda McCagg
At the core of my work is a fascination with the human experience. I consider systems of human behavior in relation to larger happenings: poverty, war, systems of control and understanding, government, and religion vs. mythology. As an artist, I observe and comment on the human condition on both a global and an intimate level. The dichotomies we are effected by and that which define us are the root and structure behind the work: how we are connecting or being ripped apart, what we have or lack, when we are strong vs. weak and aware or oblivious, here in the present and then gone. My interest lies in of how a subtle or vast shift alters relationships. My work continues to explore the fine line between perception and imagination of these relationships through an articulation of compositional effects. Using line and form, I determine how much or how little information is necessary to communicate these shifts.
Hidemi Takagi
Happie Photographie:When I was a little girl in Japan, I saw the Movie ”American Graffiti” on TV. I was amazed by the color in the film,everybody was dressed in bright clothes, all of the cars and furniture was extremely colorful. I felt it was very “America” and it filled me with happy feelings. In 1997, I moved to New York, again found these bright colors….my America. Many people say that my photographs seem like they come from another city. But I mostly shoot in New York.
David Weiner
Locomotion is at the heart of all living beings. One line’s path through space dictates another’s destination. I react intuitively to the positive and negative shapes evolving from line intersections. Recording of bodies in motion and their material exchange defines my most recent work. I employ skates to move with continuous fluidity while simultaneously laying down an impression of energy. Organic dyes are sprayed onto the street, forming large-scale ephemeral drawings. Video and photographic capture of this process becomes the work. Sometimes canvas is used to create a tangible record of movement.
Sculptural investigation entails the creation of environments that reduce the stronghold of gravity and friction, to create within. I choose materials with the capacity for rapid molecular realignment. For example, liquid wax injected into water solidifies on contact, enabling organic manipulation of semi-molten media. These experiments facilitate large-scale, event-based sculptures.
Jordana Zeldin
RUSH is a piece from my recently completed project, Subversions, a chronicle of the ever-changing underground landscape of the New York City subway system through photographs of advertising billboards that have been manipulated and transformed both by anonymous passengers and the passage of time. It reflects the frenzy of this very public space, with one advertisement layered on top of the next like subway riders piled on top of one another and crammed into packed cars- the kind of organized chaos unique to the urban underground.
I see its inclusion in ArtBridge as a kind of unearthing, transplanting it from one public space under the City streets to another above them, enabling passersby to appreciate it while reinforcing the notion that there is art to be found all around us.