Exhibitions > 2011 continued

Sandra Stephens
skin hides
2x2 Collective: Ben Altman, Christine Heller, Maria Driscoll McMahon, Sandra Stephens
Main Gallery and New Media Room

March 10 - April 14, 2012
Opening Reception March 10, 7-10 PM

From nameless nudes to portraits of monarchs, the figure in art has served to codify power. So have art objects, splitting viewer from viewed. Our figures have agency. Our work empowers viewers as complicit participants, as centers of process and experience. We complicate and push against dichotomies and hierarchies: self/other, rural/urban, black/white, perpetrator/victim, family/stranger, performer/observer. We are four artists who met through NYFA’s MARK program. We quickly found common ground in our disparate uses of the figure at intersections of the social/political/personal.

Our collaboration will create environments, inside Gallery Aferro and spilling out of the white box – into the surrounding neighborhood and over the internet. The show will evolve as the viewer becomes art-maker.

Christine Heller of Cooperstown, NY is a painter and installation artist. Her anti-war installations, suspended shroud-like figures of cut, twisted, and knotted muslin and wire were shown at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, John Davis Gallery in Hudson, NY and Sanctuary for Independent Media, in Troy, NY.

Maria Driscoll McMahon of Lockwood, NY explores rural stereotypes in her small town with wearable sculpture – body-suits of aggressive burdock burrs – video, and drawings. Venues: Brooklyn, Berlin, Binghamton.

Sandra Stephens of Utica, NY uses videos and video installations to explore internal and external constructions of identity. Her work has been exhibited in various locations including Utica, NY, the Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY, Madrid, Barcelona and Berlin.

Ben Altman of Ithaca, NY works with photographs, video, found materials, constructed objects, and viewer participations. His self-portraits explore political issues in the contexts of home, masculinity, vulnerability, and complicity. Originally English, he has recently become a citizen after many years in the US - providing new perspectives. He has shown his work in the Ithaca area and will be part of The Other New York: 2012 biennial in Syracuse, NY.



The Other Ken Weathersby
Project Room

March 10 - April 14, 2012
Opening Reception March 10, 7-10 PM

Ken Weathersby’s exhibition includes easel-sized, patterned abstract paintings, photographic works, and several wall-mounted boxes containing tiny, crafted objects resembling miniature paintings.

The works in the show shuffle the traditional given stuff of pictures and picture-making. The paintings are subtly pulled apart, or have pieces cut out and removed, or their painted faces refuse to be seen. The wall-mounted boxes may be mere models for groupings of larger works, or may be works in themselves. This intentional ambiguity extends to photographs included in the show, paired portraits, where false resemblance and mistaken identity might seriously undermine what a profile picture is supposed to do 

Ken Weathersby's paintings were seen in 2011 in Time Is the Diamond, at Some Walls in Oakland, California, and a 2010 solo exhibition, Perfect Mismatch, at Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn. Group shows that exhibited his works in 2011 took place at the art galleries of the University of Maryland, Kent State University, University of Delaware, University of Dayton, and the College of St. Elizabeth. His paintings were shown in the National Academy of Art Museum’s 183rd Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of
Contemporary American Art in New York, and in the exhibition Continuing Color Abstraction at The Painting Center in New York. He is the recipient of a Mid-Atlantic Arts / New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship in Painting and a Gallery Aferro Studio Residency.

Weathersby received an MFA in Painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art and has lived in or near New York City since 1990.



Ann LePore
Mapping for Empathy (The Landscape is Deadly)
Liminal Space

March 10 - April 14, 2012
Opening Reception March 10, 7-10 PM

Social activism, American history, and a love of technology and science collide in the exhibit Mapping For Empathy (The Landscape Is Deadly). I used to think that landscape images were innocuous, boring even, until I was 16 and had re- occurring nightmares about being trapped inside a Wyeth painting. Now during my research trips to historical societies, environmental research centers and
even aboard the research vessel SeaWolf, I keep one eye on the landscape, looking for correlations between my findings and their immediate natural surroundings.

I have been conducting historical research for the past few years at WWII POW sites in New York and New Jersey. At these locations I have examined photographs, recorded statements, and diaries or other ephemera from the prisoners at these camps and from residents of the communities that these camps were in. One of the highlights of this research is a piece of historical fiction from author Natalie Kinsey-Warnock about a camp where the prisoners and the townspeople worked together to save a flock of Scarlet Tanagers from a spring ice storm.

There are often subtle indicators in our landscape which can be interpreted to reveal what divides or unifies us. In the series Due North, I reflect on my time as an artist in residence at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin home in Wisconsin. While there I found myself a part of two communities at odds with each other: the utopian Fellowship made of up Mr. Wright’s apprentices and their architecture
school, and the nearby town of Spring Green, whose elders could still recall in great detail the unpaid debts and bad behavior Mr. Wright left in his wake. I couldn’t help but be influenced by this divide in the maps I created this past year which were made from interviews with Fellowship members and other videos I created during my stay.

With the Mapping Toxins series, a work in progress, I'm especially interested in how the landfills that are being closed impact the immediate surrounding area of the Meadowlands Environmental Center. In this project I use environmental data collected by MERI scientists and other researchers to create unusual maps. In some cases, the color keys or lack thereof obscure actual sensitive data,
which is still hinted at through the maps' titles and color associations.

Ann LePore (b.1974) was raised in the garage under her father's car and continued tinkering with analog video and kinetics in Western New York and later with computer- driven electronics and animation in New York City.

A New Leonardo artist (2003) and Geraldine R Dodge Foundation grant recipient, (2002) Ann has exhibited at events such as Digital Salon, the Free Biennial, and La Superette, in New York City and Internationally. She has completed residencies at Engine 27 Sound Space (2003), the Taliesin Artist Residency Program (2006, 2007) and was awarded a year-long studio residency at Gallery Aferro in Newark (2010-2011).

Recent projects include Metanoia, a three-story time-lapse projection of chrysalis hatching on the outside of the Museo de las Casas Reales in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Water Projector, an electronic device built project water on the outside of the Pequannock Gate in Newark, NJ, Expanding Animation, an exhibition of animation and interactive work curated for the Pascal Gallery at Ramapo College, and Due North, a large-scale projected video in partnership with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation at Taliesin in Wisconsin.

The images and installations she creates as a result of her tinkering are heavily influenced by her experiences not just as an artist, but as a member of several communities that are defined by the physical assertions and limitations of a very specific environment.

Ann received her BFA from Alfred University and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts. She is currently Assistant Professor of 3D Design and Animation at Ramapo College of New Jersey.




Identity Blueprint at Camera Club of New York
December 16, 2011 - January 7, 2012
Opening Reception December 16, 6 - 8 PM

Student Artists: Khalida Alexander, Yasmine E. Bacon, Zhana Renee Caldwell, Cheryse D. Damon, Claudia Phillips, Nicole Reynoso, Hilda Saladin, Katerin Salguero, Zafirah Wilson

Teaching Artists: Evonne M. Davis, Lisa Elmaleh, Ann LePore, Emma Wilcox

Guest Artists: Aileen Bassis, Florine Demosthene

In collaboration with the Camera Club of New York, Gallery Aferro presents the last of three exhibitions in 2011 highlighting artwork created by high school- age young women from Newark, NJ in the Identity Blueprint program.

Young women from public schools across Newark’s wards- Malcolm X. Shabazz, Arts, East Side, Technology, University, West Side and Barringer High Schools- came together as a group for 3 months of free Saturday workshops in cyanotype photography, digital animation, and sculptural carpentry, taught by working artists Evonne M. Davis, Lisa Elmaleh, Ann Lepore and Emma Wilcox. The goal of the program is to enable each student's sense of a competent, expressive self, by supporting experimentation, skill acquisition and peer-to-peer leadership.

Polaroids, cyanotypes on paper and cloth and experimental animation imagery created in the spring of 2011 by the students, as well as photographs, video and installations created by teaching artists and other working female artists, will be on display.

One of New York’s oldest not-for-profit arts organizations, the Camera Club of New York (CCNY) is a workspace for photographers and a hub for the photo community, offering exhibitions, lectures, workshops, an online newsletter and Guest Blog, and a year-round Darkroom Residency Program. Today, CCNY is a thriving base for a diverse community interested in both traditional and experimental directions in photography.

 





Katerin Salguero

Identity Blueprint at Pierro Gallery
October 27 - December 3, 2011
Opening Reception and Panel October 27 2011, 6 - 9 PM
Panel at 8. Speakers: Ann LePore, Ramapo College, Ted Lind, Newark Museum, Gary Schneider, Montclair Art Museum,
Claudia Phillips, 2011 Identity Blueprint student

Student Artists: Khalida Alexander, Yasmine E. Bacon, Zhana Renee Caldwell, Cheryse D. Damon, Claudia Phillips, Nicole Reynoso, Hilda Saladin, Katerin Salguero, Zafirah Wilson

Teaching Artists: Evonne M. Davis, Lisa Elmaleh, Ann LePore, Emma Wilcox

Guest Artists: Aileen Bassis, Florine Demosthene

In collaboration with Pierro Gallery, Gallery Aferro presents the second of three exhibitions in 2011 highlighting artwork created by high school- age young women from Newark, NJ in the Identity Blueprint program.

Young women from public schools across Newark’s wards- Malcolm X. Shabazz, Arts, East Side, Technology, University, West Side and Barringer High Schools- came together as a group for 3 months of free Saturday workshops in cyanotype photography, digital animation, and sculptural carpentry, taught by working artists Evonne M. Davis, Lisa Elmaleh, Ann Lepore and Emma Wilcox. The goal of the program is to enable each student's sense of a competent, expressive self, by supporting experimentation, skill acquisition and peer-to-peer leadership.

Polaroids, cyanotypes on paper and cloth and experimental animation imagery created in the spring of 2011 by the students, as well as photographs, video and installations created by teaching artists and other working female artists, will be on display before traveling to the Camera Club of New York, NY, NY.






Relexification
November 12 - December 17, 2011
Opening Reception November 12, 7-10 PM
Closing Reception/Annual Holiday Party/Potluck/Sale December 17, 5-9 PM
Main Gallery and New Media Room

Artists: Katrina Bello, Matt Broach and Deena Selenow, Marcy Chevali, Suzanne Laura Kammin, Anki King, Ann LePore, Visakh Menon, Roni Mocan, Jim Prez, Sam Sebren

Relexification describes language changes that keep grammar intact but replace lexicon with the vocabulary of another language. Primarily used to discuss creoles, the concept is debated by linguists studying the formation of languages. Regardless of validity, the concept is reminscient of lost wax casting, and evokes the necessary substitutions, transfers and textual raiding of much current artmaking. What gets lost, or added, in the process of replicating an idea?



Two Moons
Elizabeth Gilfilen
November 12 - December 17, 2011
Opening Reception November 12, 7-10 PM
Closing Reception/Annual Holiday Party/Potluck/Sale December 17, 5-9 PM
Liminal Space

These visceral paintings embrace the magnetic tie between maker and object. Beth Gilfilen is interested in how the frequent, rhythmic approach to painting creates a physical and psychological bond with the object. For Beth, painting is a collision of two entities, which are engaged in an alternating power struggle. The title of this exhibit, Two Moons, refers to recent evidence that the earth once had two orbiting masses that became unstable and merged into one. Like the gravitational pull of two bodies in an awkward negotiation, this series of large-scale works capture a compression of time and energy. Through an aggressive search and discovery, multiple approaches to the painting cast a truce between temporal structure and corporeal desire.

Beth Gilfilen earned a BFA from the University of Cincinnati, and a MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has exhibited her works on paper and paintings widely. Her work has been discussed in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Newark Star-Ledger, and published in New American Paintings. She has participated in the Artist-in-the-Marketplace Program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Emerge 9 at Aljira Center for Contemporary Art. Beth was a 2010 Gallery Aferro resident and she recently completed a yearlong residency at the The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation’s Space Program.

According to Gilfilen: "The blank canvas is an urgent lure. I begin with an improvisational, fluid line, instigating a conversation between the material and a seismic mapping of thought. Each approach to the painting is loosely connected through a visual echo that ties together layers of time. A unique, temporal structure emerges. I am interested in the spatial complexity that comes from intense engagement.

Deviation and distraction are as important as order; and an invented, corporeal form can dominate. It is more than an extension of myself, or an appendage. It is it’s own entity, a force that is put into motion with visceral paint. The painting tethers me to physical concerns as the unfolding of the work propels me deep into the space of the mind. Ultimately, I seek that moment when the form, previously unknown, speaks, and I recognize in that shape something that is tangible, yet un-nameable."




Vital Signs
Eve + Bowie
November 12 - December 17, 2011
Opening Reception November 12, 7-10 PM
Closing Reception/Annual Holiday Party/Potluck/Sale December 17, 5-9 PM
Project Room

As a collaborative team, Bowie + Eve create relational, community-oriented, participatory projects.  Their combined experiences with hospitals, cancer, and the medical industry have profoundly shaped their collaboration.  Together, they tackle health
related and emotional issues for a greater collective understanding of our society’s experience of sickness and health.

Through conversation and private thought Bowie + Eve engage viewers to question and expand their perceptions with the firm belief that challenging the way people think can bring about social awareness and change.

The interactive projects on display include Temporary Vitals: Thyroid, a project about the thyroid gland, a vital organ. The photographs presented are of people without thyroid glands wearing temporary replacements in the form of a temporary tattoo. Viewers are invited to participate and become more aware of their own thyroids (or lack of) by applying and wearing a temporary tattoo of a thyroid gland.

The thyroid, located at the base of the neck, is one of the largest endocrine glands in the body. It regulates the body's energy use,
metabolism, protein production, and hormone sensitivity. The experience of wearing a Temporary Vital enhances one's bodily
awareness and offers an opportunity for discussion and education.