Monday, May 20, 2013

Last two weeks to see our Eco-Minded Upcycled Art Exhibit featuring six International Artists




Elisa Contemporary Art co-curated an exhibit with transFORM Gallery focused on artists using recycled materials to create artwork.  The exhibit, entitled Re-Imagining Past Possessions, Works of Recycled Materials will run through June 1 at transFORM Gallery, 20 Jones Street in New Rochelle.  

 Our Earth Day tribute focuses on how discarded materials are transformed into Artwork.  Our international roster of artists use recycled and discarded materials including newspaper and magazines, screws, nuts, door knobs and corrugated metal siding, tools, mail and fabrics including ties and discarded clothing.  

Our featured artists include:

  • Chilean artist, Rodolfo Edwards                                   
  • New York sculptor, Carole Eisner
  • Korean-Irish Mixed Media artist, Lisa Mee Doherty    
  • Multi-media Canadian artist, Aurora Robson
  • Uruguayan Dimensional artist, Adriana Rostovsky


We have hosted a series of special events include Earth Day Art Workshops for kids and on May 28th from 6-8pm a special evening with Green Drinks Westchester will take place.  Green Drinks Westchester is part of the international Green Drinks network - an informal, volunteer-managed social networking group built around a common interest in the natural environment.  Join us to meet and connect with other like minded individuals and businesses...And see great art!



Here's a little about each artist:

Canadian born Aurora Robson is a multi-media artist known predominantly for her transformative work interrupting the waste stream using plastic debris, excess packaging and junk mail. And you'll have the chance to meet her on May 28th

A Canadian, Robson was born in Toronto in 1972 and has lived and worked in New York City for the past 21 years. Robson grew up in Maui, Hawaii. Her work has been featured in Art in America, Art & Antiques and recently the cover of Green Building + Design magazine. She is a recipient of the Pollock Krasner Grant, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in sculpture and numerous other grants and awards.

A "subtle yet determined environmental activist", Robson has exhibited internationally in museums, galleries and public spaces. She earned an B.A. in visual arts and art history at Columbia University, and was the Elizabeth Kirkpatrick Doenges Scholar/Artist in 2012.   As an advocate for plastic pollution awareness, Robson is the founding artist of Project Vortex, an international collective of artists, designers and architects who also work with plastic debris. 

Sculptor Carole Eisner works with the leftover materials of our civilization including fragments of ancient buildings, bridges, and scrap metal.    Eisner's larger-than-life works and small scale sculptures have been exhibited in dozens of public parks, corporate plazas, cultural centers, museums and waterfronts all along the northeast corridor in Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Florida, as well as in Belgium and France.  

She just installed a new piece, Hosea, in Manhattan at Tramway Park (60th and 2nd avenue)   Eisner is
represented by Susan Eley Fine Art and has work in private, public and corporate collections, including the Guggenheim, and has been written up in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Who's Who in American Art, Vogue and New York Newsday.









Irish-Korean artist, Lisa Mee Doherty integrates recycled fabrics, papers and metals into her mixed media paintings to help balance our frail ecological planet.   She is captivated by the rhythms and colors found in nature from the complex layering of a color-saturated sunset or the light-filled reflections from bodies of water. 





Uruguayan artist,  Adriana Rostovsky collects objects that others throw out including gum wrappers to bus tickets, empty toy boxes.    This childhood penchant for collecting “unusable items” evolved into an adult passion for treasuring day to day objects and giving them new life in the form of combined media in relief.


As a visual artist, Rostovsky is drawn to transforming into art discarded materials that bring extensive history with them. She has been engaged on an international basis in many interdisciplinary projects, with focus on sustainability, in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Holland and Portugal.   Her artwork has been in group and solo exhibitions in Uruguay, Holland, Connecticut, and New York.


Chilean mixed media artist, Rodolfo Edwards incorporates artifacts, modified pictures, photographs and papers from fashion magazines and other sources to create his architectural urban spaces.  


 




Wednesday, May 15, 2013

New York Art Gallery Elisa Contemporary Art presents Cut, Rolled and Burnt.  Four contemporary artists who are taking paper to extremes -- showing no mercy – in their pursuit of creativity.  The exhibit opened on May 10th and runs through August 11th, 2013. 


The exhibit was highlighted in the May 12th edition of Art Daily.

Michael Buscemi began his series of white paper collages in 2012. He wanted to eliminate all existing media and be left only with light, shape and shadow. He takes extra thick rag paper and with a swift and fluid cut, creates thousands of small, shaped pieces. These severed paper pieces are then built up and layered, allowing the shadows and shapes to organically form, before being set with a polimear gel.

You can also see Michael's work in the Designer Showhouse of Westchester through June 9th





 




Amy Genser’s exploration of paper as medium began in a papermaking and bookmaking class she took, while studying for her graduate degree in graphic design at Rhode Island School of Design.


Today, she masterfully manipulates paper -- each piece being cut, rolled and stacked -- to mimic organic forms and natural processes. While starting as flat piles of paper, her artwork builds and grows into 3-dimensional constructions filled with color, texture and patterns.















 



Don Morris' constructions are carefully manipulated comic book paper pages that are cut and folded to create undulating surfaces filled with gentle peaks and curves. From a distance the viewer sees only the interplay of colors and texture. However, as the viewer is drawn in, the super heroes fly, struggle, and climb. Words bubble from the comic book text and are clearly visible throughout the pieces, allowing the viewer to read the dialog of the action heroes.




Hawaii based artist, Wayne Zebzda was born in Connecticut and started his journey out west attending the San Francisco Art Institute on a full scholarship as a painting major. With day jobs in construction, he integrated the tools of this trade into his art -- creating sculptural and installation works, as well as his carbon smoke drawings made with a blow torch.

According to Wayne, the process for his Carbon Smoke drawings is:  

"I have to move continuously while the smoke pours out of the torch. If you have ever seen the film footage of Jackson Pollack painting it is a similar continuous movement, his with drips, mine with smoke and the added possibility of catching the drawing on fire. I enjoy the immediacy and physicality of drawing. The welding torch has the pressure turned down low which makes it sooty/smoky. Working back into the drawings with erasures and brushes reveals what's underneath and a clear fixative sets the soot in place (hopefully) and yes, I have burned the paper and will again."





We will be hosting an opening Reception on Saturday, May 18 from 5-7pm 
 at the Riverdale Gallery, 5622 Mosholu Avenue.


What: Cut, Rolled & Burnt. Manipulated Works of Paper.

Featured Artists: Michael Buscemi, Amy Genser, Don Morris, Wayne Zebzda

Exhibit Dates: Opens Friday May 10th. Runs through August 11.

Where: Elisa Contemporary Art, 5622 Mosholu Avenue (near 256th Street), Riverdale NY 10471.

Hours: Friday/Saturday 10 am – 6 pm, and by Appointment.

Street Parking available and accessible by public transportation.

About Elisa Contemporary Art
Elisa Contemporary Art represents emerging through late career artists from around the world and donates a portion of every gallery sale to charities helping underserved children heal through art.

We have a Riverdale NY gallery, participate in high-end art fairs in New York, the Hamptons, and Miami: curate shows in private and public art spaces within the Tri-State area, and we've been featured in Hamptons Cottages & Gardens, New York Spaces, New York Times, American Art Collector, Ocean Home Magazine and other publications and blogs. We also provide Corporate and Residential Art Consulting Services.

Designer Showhouse of Westchester

Elisa Contemporary Art is thrilled to be working with two great interior designers at part of the 2013 Designer Showhouse of Westchester

The Showhouse opened on May 1st and runs through June 9, 2013 at 2 Cooper Road in Scarsdale, NY.  The proceeds benefit Cerebral Palsy of Westchester.

You can see the artwork of several Elisa Contemporary Art artists in the lower rec room designed by Elissa Grayer Interior Design and the third floor rec room designed by Donna Benedetto Design.

Here's a peak:

On the top level, Donna Benedetto has designed a light and airy rec room full of patterns, textures and a Chrome and Glass Ping Pong Table.

Flanking both sides of the room are the White Rag Paper Collages of Elisa Contemporary Art artist Michael Buscemi.  These works - King and Queen -  are 25" (wide) x 72" (long) filled with light and shadows.  Michael, a California artist, cuts thousands of pieces of paper and then builds up his artwork.

We are featuring two new pieces by Michael in our new gallery exhibit, Cut, Rolled and Burnt.

 

Donna also designed this custom bookshelf featuring wonderful octagonal shapes



Here's a look at the full room:









As you walk down the stairs into the lower level space,  you will be greeted by a painting by Elisa Contemporary Art Hawaii artist, Carol Bennett.  This painting, Light 2, is Oil and Acrylic on Wood Panel and you transported into this world - floating in the water with the sun streaming down. The painting is 37 x 46.



As you turn left and travel down the hallway into the lower level rec room designed by Elissa Grayer, you are pulled in by these playful ceramic Jack sculptures and the serene buddhas and candles in the fireplace.

 



This seating area is filled with shapes and textures including a fabulous acrylic chair.












One of the photographs by John Conn, featured in our recent Iceberg exhibit, is placed on a wonderful architectural console.   This limited edition photograph is Antarctic 119.






Two small mixed media paintings by Rosalind Schneider can also be seen in the room.







I am delighted to have the opportunity to work with such talented designers as Elissa Grayer and Donna Benedetto in this beautiful Designer Showhouse at 2 Cooper Road in Scarsdale.

Be sure to stop by before June 9th and see these rooms as well as wonderful rooms designed by Debra Funt, Gail Green, Debra Gottlieb and others.