Collective

February 5 - 26, 2008

Reception: Thursday, February 07, 2008, 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Gallery Location: 530 West 25th St, Chelsea, New York
Gallery Hours: Tues - Sat, 11am - 6pm

Pierre Fava  Jasnica Klara Matić  Tim Stensland  Carlos Torres  Nic Vincent  Jia Ming Wang  Elie Bou Zeidan
K L Campbell  Efrain Cruz  Thierry Fazian  Patrice Goubeau  Timo Hanley Smith  Taras Borovyk  Sophie Hieronimy
Lee Hutton  Daniela Vasileva

Enigmatic Visions

With potent abstractions, Enigmatic Visions explores the possibilities beyond our ordinary perception, keying into personal insights, metaphysical concepts, and timeless mysteries. Such unique forms of visual communication requires that viewers interact with the artwork to discover its message, while the breadth of ideas and personalities assures an exciting foray into the contemporary art scene.

Pierre Fava

Artist Page

Self-taught, French artist Pierre Fava explores the dialectic of materiality and immateriality in his bold paintings. Neither entirely abstract nor fully conceptual, Fava’s work draws inspiration from both art historical traditions. His paintings have formal affinities with those of European Informel artists such as Pierre Soulages and American Abstract Expressionists like Franz Kline; and have their ancestry in the kind of work made famous by Jean-Paul Riopelle.

Fava’s compellingly powerful paintings focus on the material of paint itself and the light that reflects off the surface of the canvas. Although some of the artist’s works are seemingly devoid of content, others reference both the gesture of the artist’s hand and the iconography of death and disease. Many paintings, even those that incorporate color, center on the color black with all its attendant symbolic meanings and metaphorical connotations. Born to Corsican parents in 1979 in Toulon, France, Fava left his family to follow his own path, eventually leading him to his current residence in Marseille.

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"Virus 3"

"Dead Line"

Jasnica Klara Matić

Artist Page

Jasnica Klara Matić creates sensitive woodblock prints that are at once primitive and modern, disarming the viewer through a worldview that focuses on the simple pleasures including dance, love and nature. Matić’s sense of texture plays a central role in her creative process, incorporating unusual media into the imagery including salt, spices, incense and wax, a number of which are connected to traditional healing properties. Many of her protagonists and accompanying natural features are rendered in a gauzy approach, remaining anonymous and allowing viewers to place themselves within the context of her fascinating world.

Born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Matić’s history is at a cultural crossroads. She studied spiritual healing techniques and skills, and traveled a great deal throughout Egypt, the Sinai, South Korea and Tunisia. This expansive worldview is readily apparent in her work, with obvious influences of prehistoric art melded with a distinctive contemporary aesthetic. There is a natural feel to Matić’s work as her inspiring tableaux seem to flow effortlessly, reminding her audience of the bounty of life’s joy.

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"In front of the Door"

"The Adriatic Sea People"

Tim Stensland

Artist Page

Tim Stensland does not limit himself to one specific medium or style when he creates his art. He feels the piece itself chooses its medium, whether it's a work of social commentary or expressionistic explorations of the creative process. The basis for Tim's highly personal art lies in autobiographical experiences, revelations and insights. His work sheds light on social injustice as well as man's influence, for better or worse, on the world of nature. His powerful portraits of post-Katrina New Orleans are done in a stunningly visceral folk style which speaks to the pathos of human suffering made worse by bureaucratic ineptitude.

He creates his abstract expressionist figurative oil paints by placing black and white paint directly onto the canvas and sculpting it with his fingers. Avoiding brushes, tools, or models when creating these works, gives him an intimate connection with the work and the figure that emerges from the canvas. It is this profound depth and purpose of the creative experience that is revealed in all of Tim Stensland's art.

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"In the Perish"

"MV Katrina"

Carlos Torres

Artist Page

Venezuelan painter Carlos Torres' large works are generally dominated by one or two colors that fade into each other, conveying a kind of organic balance. His titles refer to broad human emotions and states of being that can scarcely be defined, but might be evoked through painting. Inspected more closely, however, many of his artworks reveal themselves to be fragmented by ridges, gouges and cracks in their acrylic surfaces.

Initially, Torres' paintings pretend to capture the essence of emotions through abstract composition. However, he points out the impossibility of defining, categorizing and containing human emotions within an artwork by undermining the unity of his canvases with creases and fractures. This expresses the elusiveness of human subjectivity: the irrational elements of our behavior that dwell just out of sight in the cracks and fissures of consciousness. Torres reveals his intelligence and maturity by teasing our desire to define human psychology with his calm compositions, then revealing our disjointed psyches through the valleys and folds that crisscross his canvases.

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"Founded"

"Forgiveness"

Nic Vincent

Artist Page

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Jia Ming Wang

Artist Page

Chinese painter, Jia Ming Wang, uses a dramatic sense of color and dynamic, fantastical shapes to create an imaginary landscape characteristic of Surrealism. In his oil paintings, Wang seeks to translate the endless power of dreams and the human imagination to the canvas with his well-conceived and carefully balanced shapes and colors. His works both delight and mystify the senses with their combination of simple formal arrangement and complexly hued gestural shapes.

After experimenting with painting a number of subjects in a variety of styles, including naturalistic wildlife, landscapes, and cityscapes, Jia Ming Wang found his mature creative style in Surrealist-influenced painting. Wang is a past winner of the Asia Modern Art competition and has completed commissions for the United Nations. He has exhibited his work at numerous international fine art shows and galleries in the US and Asia. Although born in Dailan, China and educated in Japan, Jia Ming Wang currently lives and works in Queens, NY.

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"Escape"

"Couple"

The Allegory of Form

The Allegory of Form is a vibrant collection of artists who defy convenient classification. Through intuition and personal expression these artists have developed unique voices with which to speak to and about the world at large. Audiences will be delighted as they dive into the imaginative paintings created by this selection of visionary artists.

Elie Bou Zeidan

Artist Page

Elie Bou Zeidan renders striking naturalistic paintings, capturing simple moments and sensual revelations in every stroke. A classical painter throughout, his works ignite the deepest visceral longing for aesthetic release. He meditates on the human lust for beauty in pictures which capture the light and effortlessness of allure and attraction. As Kahlil Gibran astutely observed, "Art arises when the secret vision of the artist and the manifestation of nature agree to find new shapes." Indeed Bou Zeidan uses deft technical facility to conjure the textures and luminance of naturalistic subjects in each of his varied works. The classicism of his works suggests a strong influence from classical French art, as his meticulous renderings reveal a "unique ability to blend European style with the ambiance of the Orient." Working in alternatively lively and muted color palettes, Bou Zeidan vacillates mediums from oil on linen canvas, to oil on wood, to pastels or even Chinese ink. In his paintings he confirms the timeless aphorism, "art completes what nature cannot bring to a finish."

A master of still-lives, landscapes, and nudes, Bou Zeidan descends from Ablah, Lebanon, where he began painting at a very early age. After he fled Lebanon to escape the turmoil of civil war, he moved to France, and currently lives and works in Paris. His work is widely collected in Europe and the United States.

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"Winter at Home"

"Maple Days"

K L Campbell

Artist Page

With tremendous energy and remarkable vision, K L Campbell paints stunning voyages into the imagination. Her work presents unexpected combinations—lines, images, colors—that startle the reader and breathe new life into familiar images. As she states, “I work towards redefining the meaning of ‘beauty’, which is quite narrowed and skewed in this country. I believe that many of our experiences and what we see and how we feel on an everyday basis is ‘beautiful,’ so it’s a shift in awareness, perception and interpretation that I seek to accomplish with the work.” Campbell indeed challenges the viewer’s preconceived notions about the Beautiful—and yet, she never strays so far as to fail to engage her viewer’s mind and emotion. Her flair for texture and juxtaposition is evident in all her works, as is her feeling for stilled energy and suppressed emotion.

K L Campbell has exhibited her work internationally and has been commissioned by several private collectors. Originally from New York, she currently resides in Brooklyn.

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"Attachment"

"Renacimiento"

Efrain Cruz

Artist Page

Applying wild colors with fervent brushwork, Efrain Cruz paints with an intensity well beyond the norm. Soaked with spirituality, deep-rooted history and self-exploration, Cruz pours all of himself into each piece, while remaining a modest and soft-spoken individual. “I paint of my people and from my people, my family, my friends, and God because He is special and they believe in me,” says Cruz. “My life in Mexico gave a brilliant stimulation to a life of painting.”

He works from a procession of journal entries that capture his memories and inventive imagery as they flow from within. Fantastic characters of joyous couples, religious iconography and guitar players dwell in this imaginative world. Cruz’s influences have been his hometown of Veracruz, Mexico and his mother. She has been a powerful force in his art, the memory of her gracious and warm nature urging him to experience each moment completely. Cruz currently lives and works in Valdosta, Georgia.

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"Maria"

"Pedro Navaja"

Thierry Fazian

Artist Page

Thierry Fazian's dramatic paintings affect the viewer on multiple levels: they are striking not only in their metaphorical power but also due to their delicate and sensitive brushwork. Like intriguing puzzles, the worlds Thierry creates for us are both alien and familiar. He presents human figures as transformed into crystal, glass or water or as hybrids with objects such as flesh-colored trees. These paintings offer an existential interrogation of the human body and the symbolic language we can use to articulate aesthetic possibilities and philosophical conjecture.

Existentialism and vivid symbolism are combined in these paintings to articulate Thierry's philosophical concerns, a seriousness counterbalanced by the visual lightness of these landscapes, and the obvious love of theatrical, almost ritualistic, gestures with which his meaning is displayed. Thierry achieves that rare balance of presenting fantastical images without losing their philosophical and aesthetic gravity. These vibrant paintings appeal on both an intellectual and sensory level. Thierry Fazian speaks to our subconscious with a highly original visual language.

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"Circles of Visible and Invisible"

"Gaïa's Twins"

Patrice Goubeau

Artist Page

The divinely individualistic paintings of Patrice Goubeau entice the eye and excite the mind. His works, which usually feature an inquisitive protagonist, are ripe with symbolic imagery, vivid colors, and a surrealist mode of composition. His investigations of meditation, time, mortality, and transcendence have contributed to the mystical nature of Patrice’s work.

"I like to share my perceptions of the world," he states, "resulting of the close interactions existing between the past, the present and the future." Each painting serves as point of departure for Patrice’s audience, a philosophical marker to engender contemplation on the human condition. Patrice began exhibiting his work around France in 1986, gaining momentum in salons, galleries, and private collections in Italy, Canada, and recently, New York. He has been awarded the Grand Prize award from the Salon des Artistes Français and recognized for his achievements at the Brancusi Cultural Center in Montreal. Patrice lives and works in Canada.

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"The Secret"

"The Star"

Timo Hanley Smith

Artist Page

Timo Hanley's paintings emerge out of a conflux of influences as varied as classical art, cutting-edge film, revolutionary street art and legendary samurai. This incredible range makes his paintings just as accessible as the genres that mark their roots. The works expose an artist who strives to create works that are socio-politically relevant, even as they raise the bar for anti-establishment messaging. They bear the marks of conflicting subcultures, even as they maintain an urban cool/street chic that is now increasingly part of popular culture. In fact, they tell the story of how and why street art has made its way into the fine art realm.

Brazen with street smarts and colored by urban hip, Hanley's art melts the aesthetic cultures of Skateboarding, Punk Rock, Hip Hop and Reggae into a new visual language. In bridging together "high" and "low" art, Hanley "embraces conceptual studies of composition, shapes, color, metaphors, the human condition, pop symbols and icons. These elements are all intertwined to engage the viewer in a manner, which evokes a reflective contemplation." Timo Hanley has studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and holds a BFA from the Syracuse School of Visual and Performing Arts. He has also studied Buddhist Art at the Chicago Art Institute

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"Hamster Wheel Halo"

"Inward Ruse at Sunset"

Vivid Beauty

Vivid Beauty is a full bloom of painterly invention. Each artist in this talented group has discovered an artistic channel to explore their dreams and recollections, street scenes and vibrant landscapes. The exciting visual play is highly individualistic; around each corner is a new way of perceiving the world that will electrify fans of contemporary art.

Taras Borovyk

Artist Page

There is an exuberance and sincerity in the works of Taras Borovyk that has become a rare find in some contemporary painting. His richly saturated oils are at once decorative, representational and highly personal. One can feel the pull of the artist’s native Ukraine in his bright renderings of cityscapes and still lifes, reminiscent of stained glass or mosaic panels. The Impressionistic treatment of light in conjunction with the decorative modeling of form through outline creates paintings that recapture the pure joy of early modernism, the joy of painting that is both a representation of life and the method of perceiving it.

For Borovyk, art is “not only what you create but how you see everything around you.” He developed this philosophy in his early work as a muralist and it is apparent in his work today; his paintings are meant to communicate, they are meant to make visible the world around us with “the insight of a poet… pausing to celebrate the subtle and profound.”

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"Vase with Tulips"

"The Pond in the Park"

Sophie Hieronimy

Artist Page

With a very particular perspective, French painter Sophie Hieronimy re-examines the world. Inspired by Monet’s La Pie, Hieronimy fleshes out what you’ve been missing, the meaning that is wound within what you think you see. A chameleon of sorts, the story lies in the style in which she portrays each subject; her work is sometimes soft and cool, other times the composition is slashed with tension. Her brush stroke can be obvious and playful, infusing an unexpected but obvious vulnerability where you least expect it, and yet in another piece she can be slick and precise, lending it a much starker narrative.

Hieronimy grew up in the suburbs of Paris and began exhibiting her work in 1998. She says she paints to tell stories and that difficult times in her life only increase her desire to make art. She has studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Art(Cergy), and at the University of Paris I: Panthéon-Sorbonne. Her work has been exhibited in France and South Korea.

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"Un Sac de Sacs"

"L'été à Séoul - 2"

Lee Hutton

Artist Page

Shapes shift, sliding alongside one another, slotting together as a new object arises from their meeting, a single entity far greater than any of the many colored parts that comprise its form.
Lee Hutton's pieces have won acclaim due to his skill and uncanny ability to impart movement and emotion to the static nature of the geometric. Some of his works are ordered and precise, shapes and colors slotting neatly together to form a single abstract. Others are less neat, more challenging images, daring the viewer to find order in the melting of the lines and colors.

Unafraid to introduce the surreal to his works, Lee Hutton's geometric patterns are often complimented by strange intrusions which serve to highlight the contrast between order imposed by the mathematic science of geometry, and the ecstatic flow of life. View Lee's works and discover a new geometry where lines are no longer limits, and rigid borders melt with joy.

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"Inaccurate Geometry #5"

"Inaccurate Geometry #3"

Daniela Vasileva

Artist Page

Bulgarian-born Daniela Vasileva incorporates principles from the graphic arts into her symbolist works in such a way that, especially in her pencil and pastel canvases, subjects simultaneously seem hyper-realistic and stylized. Vasileva thereby offers highly subjective renderings of her models, but also a kind of universal meaning identifiable in each artwork. Her ability to interpret her subjects in a manner that suggests broad emotional states and experiences gives an incredible depth to her rounded and sensual shapes.

This tendency to evoke mythic character traits and provoke emotions is most evident in Vasileva’s compositions featuring supernatural figures. Using expressive colors and a sort of stylized realism in these works, she announces the mythic nature of their content. However, much of her art applies this same aesthetic to apparently mundane subjects. In these works, her aesthetic elevates a relatively commonplace image to something universal. By doing so, Vasileva wields the ability to transform the everyday into the mythic through artistic representation. Her work has appeared in exhibitions in Europe, China and the United States. She currently lives and works in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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"Yellow Dog"

"Painted Finch 1"