Opening Reception : “Animism and the Colonial Imagination” at Studio Walsh (St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands)

Opening Reception: Friday, June 15, 5-8pm
Location: Studio Walsh, Peter’s Rest, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands

Animism and the Colonial Imagination

Please join us for the opening reception of “Animism and the Colonial Imagination: From Senegal to St Croix” from 5-8 pm on June 15 at Studio Walsh in Peters Rest, St. Croix.

Animism: the worldview that non-human entities (animals, plants and inanimate objects or phenomena) possess a spiritual essence.

Exhibiting artists include Lauren Baccus, La Vaughn Belle, David Berg, Janet Cook-Rutnik, Edgar Endress, Christina Gasperi, Luca Gasperi, Sara Lee Hayes, John Jaffurs, Kharis Kennedy, Gerville Larsen, William Stelzer, Sigi Torinus, and Niarus Walker.

“Animism and the Colonial Imagination” will be on view through June 23rd. The exhibition was organized by Janet Cook-Rutnik, Edgar Endress, and William Stelzer and was funded in part by a grant from the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts and in conjunction with sponsorship by Gri Gri Projects and Studio Walsh.

To inquire about artworks, pricing, exhibition catalog, or for further information contact Janet Cook-Rutnik by email at cookrutnik@gmail.com.  To schedule a private viewing contact Mike Walsh at 340.332.2682.

Exhibition : “Amulets Ethereal” at Barney Savage Gallery (NYC)

Opening Reception: Saturday, May 5, 6-9pm
Location: Barney Savage Gallery, 87 Franklin St, Fl # 2, NYC
Exhibition Dates: May 5 – June 3, 2018
Gallery Hours: Wed.- Sat. 11-6pm, Sun. 12-6pm

Amulets Ethereal
Featuring works by: Kharis Kennedy, Adam Krueger/Tableaux Vivants, Julian Goldman/Victoria Manganiello, Qinza Najm, Cheryl R. Riley, Ashley Zelinskie

Curated by Jenny Mushkin Goldman

Woman with Goat and Surgical Mask

 

Barney Savage Gallery is pleased to present Amulets Ethereal, a group exhibition curated by Jenny Mushkin Goldman, featuring works by Kharis Kennedy, Adam Krueger & Tableaux Vivants, Victoria Manganiello & Julian Goldman, Qinza Najm, Cheryl R. Riley, and Ashley Zelinskie.

Amulets Ethereal contemplates humankind’s capacity for resilience and self-preservation through the presentation of individualistic artworks united by the shared motif of protective coverings. By being presented together, the artworks are recontextualized as mystical objects with the power to shield the viewer from the most tenuous of perceived dangers. Concurrently, interwoven throughout the exhibition is imagery that conveys technology’s indifference to these human fears and its potential to allay or precipitate them.

Woman with Goat and Surgical Mask by Kharis Kennedy depicts an imposing, draped figure whose face is mostly hidden that brings to mind Madonna and Child, as well as iconography associated with purity and disease. Kennedy paints in contrasting light and dark colors to encourage the viewer to contemplate on what we instinctively reveal, or in the case of this painting, conceals.

The artist Adam Krueger and fashion designer Tableaux Vivants have teamed up to create wearable works of art. Their mask Take Out. Stay In. Lock Down explores the most intimate covering we all have – our skin – to investigate the physical and psychic barriers one creates to hide the vulnerable true self from the outside world. The mask was created from sewn together pieces of silicone tattooed with take-out menu imagery evocative of the comfort and security of staying in at night. The mask’s eye-slits that are opened and closed with zippers, bring to mind tools of sensory deprivation.

The installation Computer1, Untitled 1 & 2 by Victoria Manganiello & Julian Goldman elegantly embodies the history of the computer, from the automated loom through the use of the traditional skill of weaving, to today’s sophisticated technology as seen in the computer programmed dye patterns moving across the fabric through the clear tubes. Like the Luddites of the 19th century who destroyed the automated loom in fear that it would replace them, the concerns that automation and computerisation will render jobs obsolete persists today. This work examines how computers have also become analogous with textile’s universal symbolic intimacy and protection. Manganiello opines “we are born into a swaddle and we die with a burial shroud.”

For her painting Xenia, Qinza Najm uses a Persian-style rug as her canvas to represent traditional domestic life throughout the Middle East. Painted in acrylic upon this backdrop is an elongated woman who appears to be stretching against the gossamer fabric that envelops her, exemplifying women’s struggle to attain empowerment and to participate in contemporary life and simultaneously fulfilling ingrained cultural expectations. The diaphanous veil itself is reminiscent of the hijab, the traditional head covering worn by some Islamic women, and an Arabic word that can be literally translated as ‘veil’ or ‘barrier.”

Cheryl R. Riley’s works Transcendence Preserved: Shovel I and Transcendence Preserved: Singer Sewing Machine I explore ideas of identity and the impulse of preservation through these antique yet once quotidian objects reminiscent of her family history, which she encases in custom vinyl slipcovers. Her works are nostalgic in part because of familiar object inside yet also because of its covering that conjure memories of inhospitable living rooms furnished with plastic covered couches and objects not meant to be touched. Conversely, Riley’s applies gold paint where human hands would have touched the objects in their original use as functional tools, elevating the ordinary objects to sacred status.

This exhibition presents three printed sculptures by Ashley Zelinskie. These unique artworks titled: Android 3, Android 4 and AI Skull were created through 3D printing, with the binary code of the shape or DNA sequence of the subject being the very surface of the work in order to create objects that both humans and computers can understand. Although Zelinskie’s work contemplates the possibility of singularity with reverence and fascination the disquieting memento mori-like skull and cyborg imagery hint at the prospects for humans that the future may hold.

To inquire about artworks and pricing, further information, or to schedule a private viewing, contact Julian Lorber (Director), at 1518-225-6429 or by email at info@barneysavage.com.

Above Image: Kharis Kennedy, Woman with Goat and Surgical Mask, 2018, Oil and glue on Linen, 40 x 40 in.

Solo Performance, May 3rd, 7-9pm : “Kill It and Be Free” at Pen + Brush gallery (NYC)

Please save the date for my solo performance “Kill It and Be Free” : Thurs, May 3, 7-9pm

Kill It and Be Free Take 5

 

Performance, “Kill It and Be Free,” May 3rd, 7-9pm
Location: Pen + Brush, 29 E. 22nd St., NYC

RSVP: rsvp@sparkplug-pr.com

In Kill It and Be Free Kharis Kennedy approaches the body as a site of knowledge, a repository of awareness that can be resourced in the service of personal discovery. To this end she straps herself to a polygraph machine to access her inner, subconscious truth. Used predominantly for crime investigations, where suspects are asked a series of general and specific questions, a polygraph measures physiological reactions—breathing, blood pressure, and perspiration—to determine if the individual in question is lying or being truthful.

Informed by personal, ongoing moments in her life as a woman, mother, and wife, Kennedy asks herself questions to challenge the comforts of her previously perceived equilibrium and control. But it is ultimately the body, her physiological reactions, and the ritual of “coming to the table” which reveal much more than the questions asked.

For more information on this duration performance: Kill It and Be Free. Kennedy’s work is concurrently on view at Pen + Brush through May 5th in Angst and Contempt: New Painting.

Image: Kharis Kennedy, “Kill It and Be Free,” Caribbean Museum Center, St. Croix. Photo credit: Wyatt Gallery. Courtesy of Alaina Simone Inc. and Take Five in St Croix.

art talks. April 18, 7-9pm : The artists on view in “Angst and Contempt: New Painting” in conversation with Rahsaan Gandy at Pen + Brush gallery (NYC)

art talks. The artists on view in Angst and Contempt: New Painting in conversation with Rahsaan Gandy.

Art Talks Kharis Kennedy Rahsaan Gandy

art talks. Angst and Contempt: New Painting

Wednesday, April 18th , 7-9pm

Location: Pen + Brush, 29 E. 22nd, St. NYC

RSVP: rsvp@sparkplug-pr.com

Join us as three artists – Kharis Kennedy, Stacy Leigh, and Sarah Sagarin – with work currently on view in Angst and Contempt: New Painting discuss their work with Rahsaan Gandy.

About the panelists:

Rahsaan Gandy has been leaving his indelible mark on artists, brands, and celebrities with whom he has worked. As multi-talented as he is, Mr. Gandy is best known for his ability to conceive, develop, and guide his audience through the world of multidisciplinary creatives. The artists in Angst and Contempt are all navigating the grim realities of today’s world through the context of contemporary painting and Rahsaan will take a page from his podcast, Mister Welfare to further explore their work and process.

Kharis Kennedy approaches the body and subsequent objects as sites of knowledge and repositories of awareness that can be resourced in the service of personal discovery. Kennedy describes her process as “using metaphysics and intuition to build images and reveal inner truths.” Themes found in her paintings are broad but interlaced: the depiction of animals who reflect the spirit of their owners; a satiric presentation of fashion’s role in informing individual and social identities; the turbulence of her inner world; and, in recent years, the portrayal of psychic and social relations in all the complexity of contemporary life.

Stacy Leigh paints portraits of women suspended in both time and space. The multidisciplinary artist describes these scenes as “women in thought.” She uses memories and her daily surroundings as influences to bring imagined and life-inspired portraits to fruition. Self-taught, Leigh builds up layers of paint working from darkness to light, not dissimilar to the renaissance style of glazing, which allows her to achieve a unique appearance.

Sarah Sagarin is a formalist painter who combines classical modes of painting in various ways, ultimately developing her own authentic style. With a painterly and at times gestural stroke, the artist lets her canvas speak for itself as viewers can often find graphite underdrawings as well as fingerprints still active on the finished surface of her work. Sagarin’s paintings are informed by influences ranging from Surrealism, German Expressionism, and American Regionalism to Baroque.