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José Manuel Ciria’s Beautiful Day with a Small Storm

by Steve Rockwell

The exhibition A Beautiful Day with a Small Storm at the Christopher Cutts Gallery is a unique one. A month before its opening in June, the paintings by Madrid artist José Manuel Ciria were a mere glimmer in the artist’s eye. The works were in fact created in a studio directly above the exhibition space. In that sense, what is on display has descended from above, their generation a touch miraculous in the speed of their execution.  

José Manuel Ciria in studio at Christopher Cutts Gallery, 2019

Ciria exudes the personable confidence of someone who is at ease in his own skin. This is a way of saying that Ciria inhabits his work, and that the life and breath of his canvases are closely woven into the artist’s own persona. Continue reading “José Manuel Ciria’s Beautiful Day with a Small Storm”

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Jung Ho Lee: Entropy’s Painter

by Siba Kumar Das

Jung Ho Lee, Self Portrait, 2018, acrylic on linen, 76" x 51"
Jung Ho Lee, Self Portrait, 2018, acrylic on linen, 76″ x 51″

New York City is constantly pushing the world of art to reboot itself. To see how a young Korean-American artist is contributing to this ceaseless reinvention in a promising way, go to 69 Eldridge Street in Lower Manhattan and there, in a popup display space exemplifying cultural entrepreneurship, you will encounter sixteen paintings that will give you a memorable viewing experience. 

Nurtured by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and then by Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, Jung Ho Lee is an artist drawn to multiple genres – sculpture, painting, collage, and photography. Continue reading “Jung Ho Lee: Entropy’s Painter”

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Three New Exhibitions at the Hammond Museum & Japanese Stroll Garden

by D. Dominick Lombardi

Sam Bartman, Majestic Waters (2001)
Sam Bartman, Majestic Waters (2001), mixed media on reflective plastic sheet, 17 x 17 inches

With three exhibitions opening at the Hammond Museum, the big surprise is the work of Sam Bartman. Born in Brooklyn, NY in 1922, Bartman has spent the last 60 years of his life creating stirring paintings that combine some of the most the incompatible materials. In experimenting with what he calls his “special sauce”, Bartman has somehow tamed a mix of resins, varnishes, motor oil, glitter and automotive paints with oils and acrylics that results in everything from endlessly crackling surfaces and minute swirling storms of color. There are even the occasional brushstrokes that push the variously drying materials around leaving fossil like impressions of battered brush hairs sorrowfully spent in a furious wake of swished paint. Continue reading “Three New Exhibitions at the Hammond Museum & Japanese Stroll Garden”

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Photo-A-GoGo

Don Doe, Fille Sans Dot, Fille Avec Dot (2017)
Don Doe, Fille Sans Dot, Fille Avec Dot (2017), giclee, 22 x 15 inches

by Dominick Lombardi

Photo-A-GoGo presents art that has photography as an element, whether it is predominant or used as a minor accent, to show how the creative process now parallels or responds to the ubiquitous social digital/exchange mentality. We have the MIME, Instagram, Snapchat, all the ways we express or project our ideas or self-image – so the photograph, instead of being “worth a thousand words” is now as common as a mosquito in July. However, that does not mean that art or the intention behind it or the imagery utilized is, in the end, benign. Continue reading “Photo-A-GoGo”

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Where to Draw the Line at OneWay Gallery

by D. Dominick Lombardi

Stephen Cook, My Disease My Infection (2017)
Stephen Cook, My Disease My Infection (2017), charcoal, oil stick and aluminum paint on paper, 77 ¾ x 61 ½ inches

It was one year ago that I first became acquainted with the work of Stephen Cook and OneWay Gallery. Being in Narragansett, I was not expecting to see much beyond the stereotypical sails and sunsets in any ‘art gallery’, so I was completely taken aback by Cook’s versatility and vigor as a contemporary painter.
Continue reading “Where to Draw the Line at OneWay Gallery”

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Editorial Contributors

D. Dominick Lombardi

D. Dominick Lombardi is represented by Kim Foster Gallery in New York, NY and Prince Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark. Since 1978, Lombardi has curated over 100 exhibitions in a variety of museums and galleries. Titles include: Water Over the Bridge, Tondo, Tondo, Tondo, Duchamp’s Plumbing, Shaky Ground, reVision, Through the Veil of the Soul,  HEAD, Eye on the Storm, In Their Own World, Monkey Spoon, Anonymous, Bóm: How art can disrupt, reorient or destroy, Fear is a Four Letter Word, Speaking in Strings: Ken Butler and Kurt Coble, Critics Select I & II, Over the Top – Under the Rug, FUNKADELICIDE, The Impact of War, The Waking Dream, The Tradition  of  Icons and Champions of Modernism: Non-Objective Art of the 1930s & 40s and Its Legacy. For past 21 years, Lombardi’s 400 plus features, interviews and art reviews have appeared in such publications as as The New York Times (1998-2005), The Huffington Post (2012-present), ARTslant (2012-14), Art in Asia (S. Korea) (2007-09), Public Art and Ecology (China) (2011-12), Sculpture (1999-present), dART (2005-present), Art Papers (2004), ARTnews (1997), ARTlies (2004-09), Juxtapoz (2002), New Art Examiner (1997-98), Night (1996-97), Art New England (1997-99), NYARTS magazine (2004-09) and culturecatch.com (2006-present) among others.

Dominique Nahas

Dominique Nahas is an independent curator and critic based in Manhattan. He teaches critical studies at Pratt institute. He is currently writing books on the work of artists Allison Stewart and Amer Kobaslija.

Christopher Hart Chambers

Christopher Hart Chambers is an artist based in NYC. He also writes about art for several periodicals and occasio-nally curates exhibitions. Last year the Nassau County Museum of Art’s Contemporary Gallery featured a solo exhibition of his work. Also last year he co-curated with Al Diaz the Graffiti Street Art exhibition at the Bishop Gallery in Bedstuy, NY. www.christopherchambers.com

 

Emese Krunák-Hajagos

Emese Krunák-Hajagos is an art writer with publications in dArt International magazine (Toronto/Montreal/New York/San Antonio), NY Arts (New York), Artes Magazine (Connecticut), Huma 3 (Madrid/Venice), Balkon (Budapest), Interpress Graphic (London/Prague/Budapest). She writes in English and Hungarian and a few of her articles are translated into Spanish. She is member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). Emese is co-founder and co-publisher of artoronto.ca, an online art magazine covering the visual art scene in Toronto. Her holistic approach brings together the history, philosophy and cultural atmosphere of the times, providing a more complex understanding of the art. She lives in Toronto.

Siba Kumar Das

Siba Kumar Das is a former Indian diplomat and a United Nations official who writes about art – an interesting thing to do when a global art is coming into being. Serving the United Nations Development Program in New York and several developing countries, he addressed global development challenges at international and local levels, concentrating on poverty eradication and the reduction of inequalities and exclusion. He now lives in the United States as a citizen, splitting his time between New York City and upstate New York. He has published articles on artists living in the Upper Delaware Valley, and is presently focusing on art in a more global context. His experience in development and interest in art has brought home to him that artistic creation and development success are born in similar crucibles.

Gae Savannah

Gae Savannah is a sculptor/writer based in New York City. She works
in new materials including plastics. Savannah also writes for Sculpture magazine. She teaches Contemporary Art, Film, and Writing in the MFA program at School of Visual Arts.

Julie Garisto

A Largo High and USF grad who’s currently enrolled in University of Tampa’s Creative Writing MFA program, Julie Garisto is an assistant editor/contributor at the central Florida nonprofit arts agency Creative Pinellas, where she covers arts and music events. Julie also contributes to the Tampa Bay Times as well as other publications. She served as arts and entertainment editor for Creative Loafing (2010-2015).