Safe-T-Gallery

How Women Look

© Saki Kishimoto
© Saki Kishimoto

How Women Look June 21 2007

 

   Safe-T-Gallery is pleased to announce the June 21st summer solstice, and with it, our summer group show “How Women Look.” Nine contemporary artists will be exploring one of summertime’s most absorbing intellectual and artistic questions,  “How Women Look.”  Taking an almost balanced mix of men and women artists, working in a wide range of media, the show is intended to spotlight a unity of affection for this most engaging, yet enigmatic, of artistic subjects.


  Three photographers approach the topic with three very different approaches. Keliy Anderson-Staley uses the 19th century ambrotype, wet-plate process, along with the requisite long exposure times, to produce portraits of 21st century women. The portraits have a distinct Victorian feel, while being entirely contemporary. H. Lisa Solon also uses a historic photographic method, cyanotype, but the imagery is hardly 19th century. Her highly abstract images often only barely hint at the subject matter, and indeed their is a distinct (slightly naughty) thrill when the abstract shapes coalesce. Meanwhile Ed Barnas uses completely modern methods to photograph the radical performance artists of the Brooklyn “New Burlesque” scene.
Four painters will be in the show. The urgent pink and black paintings of Saki Kishimoto present the faces or torsos of young women, erotically charged, and with a hint of unspecified danger. The figure studies of Alex Stein carry an equal (but perhaps opposite) charge. Painted on found magazine and newspaper pages, these women exist in a shadowy space somewhere between irony and obsession. The largest painting in the show will be by Ukrainian born artist Lucien Dulfan. From a series of circular paintings (which range in size from 7 inches to 7 feet in diameter) called “Big Bang / Last Straw” a pictorial history of the universe, we will be presenting “Africa.” Lastly, woman as allegory and woman as media vehicle are addressed by the wickedly subversive images of James Cole.
A very specific aspect of women, their braided hair, is the subject of work by Paul Shore. We will be presenting his drawings of braids (in charcoal and blood) and his sweet-smelling, beeswax and hair, braided reliefs. And then ultimately we have Aimee Hertog, whose deliciously over the top sculptures incorporate just about every known item of ‘household’ merchandise ever sold in a 99¢ store.
Join the artists for a reception on June 21st from 6 to 8. We will also be hosting a special concert by Ensemble Pamplemousse on June 22 and 23, at 8 PM and a CLWN WR poetry reading July 19th at 7 PM.
©Keily Anderson-Staley

Keliy Anderson-Staley

Ed Barnas

 

© James Cole

James Cole

Lucien Dulfan

 

© Lucien Dulfan

© Aimee Hertog

Aimee Hertog

Saki Kishimoto

© Saki Kishimoto

© H. Lisa Solon

H. Lisa Solon

Paul Shore

© Paul Shore

© Alex Stein

Alex Stein


 
Safe-T-Gallery