November 2010

Ernesto Yerena: Art Without Borders

Ernesto Yerena knows about borders. The Mexican-American has been crossing them since he was born on the national border in tiny El Centro, CA. Now the 24 year old is crossing the border from Obey Giant studio assistant to featured artist in his first solo show at White Walls Gallery in San Francisco this Saturday.

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Photo © Todd Mazer

For the past few months Ernesto has been at work in his garage/studio in Los Angeles preparing. With help of the talented photographer Todd Mazer, we get to see these exclusive images of Ernesto finishing his final piece for the show, “Ganas 20/20”.

For someone with an acute eye and the sensitivity of an artist, growing up in a border town 15 minutes from Mexicali, daily life in such a culturally rich and tumultuous environment can also be a wellspring of inspiration. The mundane, daily crossing over the border after school as a boy to visit with his grandmother and family in Mexicali, gave him insight into the complex lives of families who just happen to be geographically sprouted along an invisible political dotted line. Today that dotted line has razor wire that cuts everyone it touches.

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Photo © Todd Mazer

Ernesto began some cutting of his own when he received a stencil cutting set for his tenth birthday from his grandfather. During time away from his business painting cars and doing auto-body repair, his father encouraged the boys’ painting projects and showed him how to cut stencils. As a youth Ernesto felt motivated and supported by his family to go to art school and sharpen his artistic skills.

As he got older, the geopolitical realities of the harsh cultural and social landscape where he was growing awakened his intellectual curiosity and desire to better understand his social surroundings.

A teen listening to his own bi-national music collection including Public Enemy and Mexican rockers Mana, he got a better handle on the underlying racism and social inequities that plague the American landscape. When his artistic chops got him an opportunity at age 19 to work alongside Shepard Fairey, the street artist known for frequently incorporating social justice and political themes into his work, Ernesto found a stronger voice.

Ernesto’s world of two countries, difficult border life, socially conscious music, a deep interest in history and human rights have prepared him to face, as an artist, the recent fierce issue of immigration in this country and in Arizona in particular. In collaboration with Shepard he produced, at his imprint “Hecho Con Ganas” or HCG,  one of the posters that protesters in Arizona have used as a tool to denounce the racist and demonizing rhetoric coloring the immigration debate as well as SB1070, a bill that codifies racial profiling into law.

This Saturday night Ernesto crosses another invisible border as the White Walls Gallery provides a space for his new work in his first solo show.

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Photo © Todd Mazer

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Photo © Todd Mazer

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Photo © Todd Mazer

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Photo © Todd Mazer

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Photo © Todd Mazer

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Photo © Todd Mazer

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Photo © Todd Mazer

Click on the link below to visit Ernesto’s “imprint” HCG (Hecho Con Ganas)

Hecho Con Ganas

Ernesto’s solo show “Ganas 20/20” Opens this Saturday, November 13 at the White Walls Gallery in San Francisco. The gallery is located at 835 Larking Street. San Francisco, CA. 94109

Thanks again to photographer and videographer Todd Mazer for these images he shot exclusively for Brooklyn Street Art.

To see more of Todd Mazer work click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/legenddairy/

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C215 and “Community Service”

New Show and Book Recognize the Impact of the Global Street Stencil Artist

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

In a very short time C215 has become an important phenomenon in street art around the world. BSA has been among the crowd who have been moved by the feelings that arise with a sudden encounter of his work on the street. What gives his stencil work resonance is the light that emanates from within the people he selects from whatever neighborhood he is in. Paolo M., a photographer who goes by the moniker Unusual Image and is featured in the new collection, remarks on C215’s people, “I think that there is a kind of sense of humanity that illuminates them.” It’s an uncanny ability to summon the spirit of a subject through his deft cutting of stencils, but it’s what he does with regularity.

Further distinguishing the work is the level of detail in these hand-cut pieces, incrementally setting a new standard for stencils and portraiture. Says VitoStreet, another featured photographer who has shot numerous of the pieces in the street, “The most amazing things such as feathers, fur, beard, hair are reproduced brilliantly.” Collectively the steady development of the body of work is blurring the line between fine art and street art.

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C215 by photographer RomanyWG

C215
C215 by photographer Jaime Rojo

This Friday in Paris C215 is debuting a new show of studio work on both floors of  Galerie Itinerrance.

C215, “Community Service”
Paper Back / 132 pages / 22 x 22 cm
Critères Editions
Cover by RomanyWG
Available in bookstores in January 2011
A favorite of Street Art photographers around the world, C215 pays tribute to a dozen of them in this collection, which features Vitostreet (FR), Chrixcel (FR), RomanyWG (GBR), Luna Park
(US), Jaime Rojo (US), Lois Stavsky (US), Jessica Stewart (IT), Vinny Cornelli (US),
Elodie Wilhem (CHE), Lionel Belluteau (FR), Unusualimage (GBR), Gregory J. Smith
(BR).
Community Service is introduced by Steven P. Harrington from Brooklyn Street Art, with a preface by
Marc & Sara Schiller from Wooster Collective and Thierry Froger, collector.
The book also features an interview with the artist by Harrington.
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Mighty Tanaka Presents: “Elegant Discord” A Group Show (Brooklyn, NY)

Mighty Tanaka
Mighty Tanaka Logo

Mighty Tanaka LLC

Mighty Tanaka wants to keep you on your feet by bringing you an array of exciting and intriguing art shows, and this month is no different!  As always, we look to exhibit a variety of art that exemplifies the range and breadth of art that our generation is producing.  For November, we are very proud to bring you our latest show entitled Elegant Discord, a four person featuring Peter Halasz, Adam Miller, Fedele Spadafora and Bruno Perillo.  The four classically trained artists exemplify the growing surge of Modern Realism through their interpretations of life and the changing world around them.  We would be delighted to invite you out for the opening of this powerful and thought provoking show!  We hope that you will come join us for a night of brilliant artwork, great people and as always, we will be serving complimentary Six Point Beer!

Opening Reception:
Friday, November 12th
6pm – 9pm

(Show ends Friday, December 3rd)

Mighty Tanaka
68 Jay St, Suite 416
Brooklyn, NY 11201
(F Train to York St)

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Factory Fresh In Collaboration With All City Presents: Bushwick Block Party (Brooklyn, NY)

Block Party
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Brooklyn Street Artists Paint 200 Foot Wall, Burning Candy Crew Debut Film at Bushwick Block Party

All City, the international street art and graffiti app, is partnering up with Factory Fresh gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn to open up 200 feet of wall and turn it over to Brooklyn street artists. Chris Stain, Gaia, Skewville, Imminent Disaster and several guests artists will be tackling the project. Tek33 and Dscreet of London’s Burning Candy crew will also be in town painting and premiering their film Dots.

All City Block Party
Saturday, November 20
2:00 PM, Dots premiering at 7 PM
Factory Fresh – 1053 Flushing Avenue – Bushwick, Brooklyn

* Live painting
* Calexico taco cart
* DJs
* Beer
* Art for sale from participating artists
* Burning Candy’s Dots film premiere

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Clic Gallery Presents: Dan Witz. Book Signing Of A Hand Painted and Numbered Limited Edition Of His New Book “In Plain View”. (Manhattan, NY)

Dan Witz
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DAN WITZ “IN PLAIN VIEW: 30 Years of Artworks Illegal and Otherwise”
Limited Edition Release

Reception and Book Signing
Monday, November 22, 2010
6:30-8:30pm

Limited Edition hand painted signed and numbered copies of Dan Witz’s will be available for purchase.

NEW YORK, November 9, 2010 – Clic Gallery is proud to present the book release and signing of internationally recognized street artist Dan Witz’s new book “IN PLAIN VIEW: 30 Years of Artworks Illegal and Otherwise” on Monday, November 22, from 6:30-8:30 pm. At the evening event, Dan Witz will not only be signing books, but will also be hand painting the cover of a limited edition of 120 copies. Each signed and numbered edition will feature a fine linen, hand painted cover, in a classic tromp l’oeil style by the artist, merging his two worlds of fine art and street art through a new medium: the printed book. Hardcover, clothbound, 216 pages, 250 color illustrations, 9” x 12” (229 x 305 mm), $150, Ginko Press.

More than just a documentation of Witz’s public artworks, this book is a diary of three decades of thoughtful and emotional engagement with the ever evolving surfaces of New York City. Embracing a meticulously disciplined aesthetic inspired by the old masters, Witz has spent the last decades making easel paintings as well as street art, leaving various love letters in plain view on the doorstep of his beloved New York City.

Dan Witz is in conversation with both the conventional and street worlds of art. His work is inclusive. It is obsessive. It is acknowledged as an original voice, an inspiration and a catalyst.

Fine art prints by Dan Witz will be on view and available for sale as well as signed copies of his Hummingbirds 2011 accordion calendar, also published by Gingko Press. The Birds of Manhattan was the first of Dan’s large scale street art projects where he painted over 40 hummingbirds in lower Manhattan below fourteenth street. This twelve month calendar draws on a selection of the artist’s hummingbirds painted in 1979, 2000 and 2010, bringing the collection full-circle and completely up-to-date. The Dan Witz In Plain View book signing event is free and open to the public.

About Dan Witz

Since receiving his BFA from Cooper Union, Dan Witz has received a grant from the NEA and two fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts. His first book, “The Birds of Manhattan,” was published by Skinny Books in 1983. Solo exhibitions include Semaphore Gallery NY (1985,1986), Clementine Gallery (1996), Stolen Space, London (2007); DFN Gallery NY (2003-5, 6, 7, 8, 10) and Carmichael Gallery, LA (2009). Group exhibitions include: Buying Time: Nourishing Excellence, Sotheby’s NY(2001); and Fifteen, NYFA Fellows at Deutsche Bank, NY (1999). Today Dan lives and works in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Dan Witz

Clic Bookstore & Gallery

424 Broome Street

New York, NY 10013

Tel: 212-219-8006

www.clicgallery.com

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Slap Happy: The Humble Sticker Gets The Job Done

Stickering Adheres to Some Graff/Street Art Rules Too

Today we’re sticking to the little pieces; those quickly appearing peeled objects that people smack up on just about every smooth surface around the city. Getting your name, your art, your product out there for people to see has blossomed into a genre of it’s own, fostering shows, mini-conventions, websites, magazines, books, and collectors trading clubs dedicated to the sticky-backed missives some people call ‘slaps”. From individually handmade to glossy mass-produced pieces, the city is a magnet for these adhesive miniature works of art, accumulating them quickly in some locations like snow piling up in a doorway corner during a Nor’easter.

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

Books have been documenting the world of sticker art of late. Most notable are Martha Cooper’s tomes “Going Postal” and  “Name Tagging” from Mark Batty Publishers and this fall Rizzoli released a new book on stickers called “Stickers From Punk Rock to Contemporary Art” by DB Burkemen in collaboration with Monica LoCascio.

The humble sticker is an art medium that does not require a big production and carries a very low risk when being put on the streets and gets the job done.  Doors are often the hot spots where the stickers live together in a seemingly harmonious life – and the rules applied to other forms of Street Art regarding space and real estate on a surface roughly apply here too; “Don’t overlap your sticker on mine or Imma bust you head, son.”  In addition, getting up in as many places as possible, preferably where your fellow sticker artists can see you, is a goal.

Here are some images of richly textured surfaces around town that are “wall-papered” with a myriad of stickers. Even if we knew all the artists, it’s impossible to note them all here.

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Heist Gallery Presents: “Till Death Do Us Apart” One Year Anniversary Group Show (San Francisco, CA)

Heist Gallery

brooklyn-street-art-heist-gallery

TILL DEATH DO US PART

Gallery Heist One Year Anniversary Group Exhibition

GALLERY HEIST / SAN FRANCISCO (USA)

NOVEMBER 13 – NOVEMBER 27, 2010

Opening Reception – Saturday November 13, 2010 7-11PM

Gallery Heist is pleased to announce the opening for its One Year Anniversary

Show, “Till Death Do Us Part” a group exhibition celebrating a year of work

since the gallery’s inception. The opening will be held on Saturday, November

13, 2010 from 7-11pm. The exhibition will be located at the Gallery Heist Annex

at 1036 Hyde Street.

A new venue specific to the anniversary show.

The anniversary show will present the work of emerging and established contemporary figures from the Bay Area, as well as artists hailing from New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and Melbourne.  Along with paintings, photographs, mixed media works, and video, the show will include an installation by Ryan de la Hoz and a performance piece by Adam Rozan (of the Oakland Museum), as well as musical performances by Mark Aubert and TM.

Guest curators Allison and Garrison Buxton, of AdHoc gallery in NYC, will be co-curating and co-hosting the exhibition.

Featured artists include; Brett Amory, Adam Caldwell, Seth Armstrong, Mario Wagner, David Choong Lee, Oliver Vernon, Sean Desmond, Mike Giant, Mike Kershner, Gaia, Adam Flores, Justin Lavato, Ryan De La Hoz, Henry Gunderson, Mario Ayala, Roman Koval, Adam Rozan, Maja Ruznic, Ludo, Doodles, Helen Bayly, Miso, Daryll Peirce, Deborah Yoon, Allison Buxton, Garrison Buxton, Ezra Li Eismont, Shawn Whisenant and Bunnie Reise. These artists have come to represent what is and will continue to be the ethos of Gallery Heist.

The main location of Gallery Heist, at 679 Geary Street will feature an installation that will provide  an opportunity for viewers to observe the obscured process of curating and running an art gallery.

Included in the installation will be various pieces of ephemera from the first stages of opening the gallery through the thought processes behind every show; photos, videos, notes, business cards, correspondence between the curators and artists, writers, editors, and figures within the art community will be displayed.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the artists will have access to several walls around the city to use as their canvases and to promote the show while contributing to the burgeoning local art movements. This process will be documented and displayed during the exhibition.

The exhibition will be on view at 1036 Hyde Street from Saturday November 13 – November 27, 2010. Viewing hours will be Tuesday – Saturday 4-8PM and by appointment. Gallery Heist is located at 679 Geary Street San Francisco, CA 94102.

For further information please visit www.galleryheist.com or contact Julianne Yates. info@galleryheist.com 415.563.1708

ABOUT THE GALLERY

Art is an extension of our culture and communities, serving as a vessel for the visual definition of our times. Art is not a luxury; it is a necessity.

Our mission is to foster innovative artistic expression and provide a sanctuary for the creative process and its importance and role in the redefinition of contemporary culture. Gallery Heist is a place for artists to gain exposure and develop their careers.

We encourage freedom of expression and experimentation within their work and artistic ideas. The walls of Heist will continue to house work that is representative of the contemporary generation, offering a venue for artists who challenge and analyze our social and cultural responsibility, traditions, and behaviors; specifically those who are leading the front of a conscious art movement.

Gallery Heist was opened in November of 2009 by twenty three year old Julianne Yates and has since become a destination for urban & new contemporary art in San Francisco. Located blocks away from the commercial galleries of downtown San Francisco’s Union Square, the gallery lies near the historical Tenderloin, which sees a demographical mix that serves as a microcosm for the whole of San Francisco.

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Images Of The Week 11.07.10

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Our Weekly Interview with the street, this week featuring Chelsea Girl, ECB, Faile, Frog, Radical!, REVS, Think Fly, and Tono

Revs (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Revs continues to get up. (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile. Detail of Totem sculpture currently at Perry Rubenstein Gallery (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile in the gallery (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

And the same Faile stencil on the street (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile.  (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rich textured wall in Chelsea. Girl with a camera (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

This richly textured wall is in continuous transition. Here’s a Chelsea Girl with a camera (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Fossil "Frog" (Photo © Jaime Rojo)
Urban Fossil “Frog Upside down” (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile  “Brighton Beach Ave” (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Glass Reflection (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Glass reflection (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Radical (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Radical! does a tribute to The Situation. (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

ECB (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

ECB (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Think Fly (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Think Fly (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tono's homage to Richard Pryor (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

I’m just a booty star”; Tono’s homage to Richard Pryor (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stencils of the Week 11.06.10

Stencil-Top-5

As chosen by Samantha Longhi of Stencil History X

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Broken Crow. Project: Wide Open Walls. Gambia 2010 (Photo © Broken Crow)

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CODEFC “Utah B Soldier” (Photo © CODEFC)

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Grobkonzept Fallin’. ZugSchleife 2010 (Photo © Grobkonzept)

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Leckomio “DAREdeicated” (Photo © Leckomio)

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Lucamaleonte (Photo © Lucamonte)

To see more stencil work visit Stencil History X:

To see more of Broken Crow work click here:

To see more of Grobkonzept work click here:

To see more of Lucamaleonte work click here:

To see more of CODEFC work click here:

To see more of Lekomio work click here:

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Pandemic Gallery Presents: Richie Lasansky and Allison Read Smith “Sew Draw” (Brooklyn, NY)

Pandemic Gallery
On Friday, Nov. 12th Pandemic is very proud to host a dual exhibition of two astounding Brooklyn artists,

“Sew Draw”

Richie Lasansky and Allison Read Smith

The show, comprised of drawings, prints, and sculpture of various mediums
relays an incredible balance of styles and process, that when combined simply take ahold.
Absorbing the viewers into the compelling visions these two have portrayed.

"Riche Lasansky "Fish Girl" engraving. copyright 2010. Image courtesy of the gallery

"Riche Lasansky "Fish Girl" engraving. copyright 2010. Image courtesy of the gallery

Richie Lasansky
Born in La Paz, Bolivia, while his parents were in the peace corps, Lasansky’s interest in drawing and art stems from an age when he could first hold a pencil. His parents being music and dance performers, he traveled around with them, constantly drawing everything he saw. For a while he thought his interest in animals would lead him to a career in science. After graduation from Hebron Academy, he studied biology at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., but upon graduation, moved to Iowa to study printmaking formally with his grandfather – Mauricio Lasansky. He spent eight years in this apprenticeship.
As a printmaker, Lasansky feels many artists are not involved in an important creative aspect of the process by allowing their work to be printed by others. He prefers the complete approach. Intaglio printmaking is “such a sensual, tactile medium that if you don’t get your hands dirty and experience the feel of drawing on copper and printing the plate, you’ll never really know what the medium can do.”  Lasansky makes all his ink from scratch. This personal investment in the process is evident in his work. “A lot of artists’ work is heavily conceptual now, but mine is process-oriented,” said Lasansky. “It’s mostly figurative, not abstract.” He’s not one to analyze his art beyond that, however, preferring to quote his grandfather: “Artists and fish die the same way, by the mouth.”  Lasansky has lived in Costa Rica, New Hampshire, but was raised mostly in Maine, including a year on the Island of Vinalhaven. He now lives with his wife in Brooklyn.
Allison Read Smith "Frog King" sewn rubber. copyright 2010. Image courtesy fo the gallery

Allison Read Smith "Frog King" sewn rubber. copyright 2010. Image courtesy fo the gallery

Allison Read Smith
Allison Read Smith was born and raised in Memphis, TN and has lived and worked in NYC for the past twelve years. Merging Southern storytelling with the more brisk pace of New York she has generated a body of work that uses pedestrian materials, such as newspaper, magazines, postal stamps, cardboard, and rubber. For this exhibition she relies mainly on roofing rubber to generate a cartoonish, malleable dark humor. Her work has an intoxicating effect as the imagery she puts forth draw so many questions for the viewer. Asking what is really relevant and meaningful in our day to day lives. As a sculptor she combines many different elements into three dimensional creations of skewed beauty and wondrous theory. Pushing past the antiquated confines of sculptural work and into her own realm of an almost intangible essence.
PANDEMIC gallery
37 Broadway btwn Kent and Wythe
Brooklyn, NY 11211
www.pandemicgallery.com
Gallery hours:
Tues.-Fri. 11-6pm
Sat. & Sun. 12-7pm
closed Monday
or by appointment

L train to Bedford ave, J train to Marcy ave, or Q59 bus to Broadway/Wythe

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