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PAST
EXHIBITIONS
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Dialogues
in Abstraction: East and West
December 1st - 23rd, 2003
The goal this exhibition is to illustrate
the cross-pollination between east and west as seen in current art. The
show includes paintings, constructions, and assemblages that address the
issue of this exchange. Included are three artists from Asia (Kim, Rim,
Kikuchi) and an equal amount from the West (Brugnola, Manouselis, Smith).
Below are excerpts from the accompanying catalogue essay written by the
show’s curator Thalia Vrachopoulos.
The images in this show can be seen as embodiments of the cross-fertilization
exemplified by Clifford Smith in his mandalas. As a self-taught multi-media
artist, Smith uses colored broken eggshells with which to fabricate his
Hindu inspired works. His mandalas while painted, are nevertheless done
in a painstaking process with fragmented eggshells set into a previously
drawn design and are in their use of analysis and synthesis within the
same work, indebted to Byzantine mosaics. The resulting textures although
accomplished through a different medium, evince his familiarity with Tibetan
sand paintings. In the 1990s, Smith basically taught himself the complexities
of color and abstract composition, transforming an unrecognized medium,
the egg-shell mosaic, to the level of fine art.
Orlanda Brugnola received her Masters in Fine Arts at City College
in 1998, has traveled widely to Asia and teaches eastern religious philosophy
at John Jay College. Her abstract canvases are meditative in their almost
monochromatic coloring and repetitive brushwork, even though in this latter
quality they access process-oriented abstract expressionism. Through thick
impastos Brugnola creates passages of opaque color that conceals the support
against areas read as voids, which results in a complex dialogue both
inside the pictorial plane and with the viewer. Brugnola’s involvement
with Eastern philosophy is evident in Amarnath Vision , 2000 (70"x64"
acrylic on canvas), which according to its author concerns meditation
upon a pilgrimage. The colors, while not those used traditionally to represent
Shiva, are the glacier blue of the ice column itself, and purple, which
reflects the passionate heart of the faithful devotee.
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Orlanda Brugnola, Amaranth Vision (detail), acrylic on canvas, 70"x
64", 2002
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Masashi Kikuchi paints on silk, a traditional medium in Asian art
but unusual for the west where the use of a silk support associates the
work to the decorative arts. However, rather than being traditional or
decorative, Kikuchi re-defines his painted idiom into unique fields of
multi-layered forms, such as lotus leaves, that seem to breathe life through
their energy. Untitled, 2003 (13'10"x 2'11.5") mixed media on
silk) contains a delicate overlapping of reds, blues, and brown/yellows
with white used both as positive form and negative space, which results
in Kikuchi’s multi-dimensional works. By painting directly on the
silk, Kikuchi reverses the relationship of the traditional Kakemono (hanging
scroll) format first appearing in the Heian era, which is done on paper
and then backed by silk.
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Masashi Kikuchi, Mistletoe (detail), mixed media on silk, 54"x74",
2002.
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Grace Jungwook Rim’s themes like Mahayana Buddhism engender
and express an ethic of universal compassion and concern. Rim’s
paintings and drawings are based on the process known in Buddhist philosophy
as emptying the mind. She paints small circles in repeated meditative
patterns through which she’s seeking peace and harmony in her life
and art. Rim says that the process of creating the circles involves their
being made with much thought, without thought, and to lose thought because
her intent is to flow with time. The circles represent moments in time,
and simultaneously symbolize her wishes for human salvation. Rim’s
media vary depending on her goal; consequently she is conversant with
many materials including acrylic, oil, charcoal, pen, pencil, and wood
panel, paper or canvas. In Entrance to the River, 2003 (66"x49",
acrylic and oil on canvas) a composition with yellow and plum elements,
we encounter a multitude of smaller circles within a larger circular opening
of light. And, like the perfect tranquility at the heart of all things,
Rim’s circles speak of absolute eternal bliss reached through wisdom.
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Grace Jungwook Rim, Entrance
to a River (detail), acrylic, oil on canvas, 66"x 49",
2003 |
Jinsoo Kim’s Entering/Exiting, 2003
is a paper and thread assemblage whose value actually lies in the
work-intensive process of creation and in Kim’s use of ephemeral
yet humble materials that he elevates to an almost sacred state.
The kernel of this concept is implicit in tribal sand paintings
with symbolic associations that are temporary as well as in masks,
food decorations or fireworks. Kim's transitoriness refers to existence
without minimizing its meaning. By acknowledging life’s delicate
balance and ephemeral aspects, we can be more responsible in accepting
its potentialities, of actualizing or condemning them to non-manifestation.
These imprints will remain as the testaments of existence. Kim’s
Entering/Exiting by engaging in the aspect of perishability, can
be related to Japanese aesthetics that not only embrace fragility
but that actually require it as a necessary ingredient to beauty.
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Grace Jungwook Rim, Entrance
to a River (detail), acrylic, oil on canvas, 66"x 49",
2003 |
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Ostensibly a western abstraction, Demetrius Manouselis’ Composition,
2002 (24"x48.5", acrylic on paper) in its monochromatic and
linear foci recalls Chinese landscape and bamboo paintings. Composition’s
muted tones like the ink washes of Chinese landscape create echoes that
maintain eye movement equally on the painting’s four quadrants resulting
in compositional balance. Its underlying grid sustains structural integrity
while simultaneously bending in a diagonal arc at the midpoint to transmute
its rectilinear motifs into organic shapes. Composition can be considered
within the abstract surrealism that marks the return of this style in
today’s art market but Manouselis has been refining his style in
this direction for the past ten years. As such, it is informed by a multitude
of concerns including architectural structures but also his vast theoretical
and conceptual awareness.
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Demetrius Manouselis, Composition
2002, acrylic on paper, 24"x 48", 2002 |
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