”Moments in Time” ーViridian Affiliates
Chelsea NY: Viridian Artists is pleased to present “Moments in Time,” an exhibition of outstanding art by artists who are part of Viridian Artists’ Affiliate program.
Time and timelessness are both constant considerations in our lives as we pass through different phases of living. When we are young, we anxiously awake summer vacation and when we grow older, time speeds along far too quickly. Creative acts as well, are moments that vary in length psychologically, spiritually, and emotionally as well as in actuality. These artists, each in their own creative and aesthetic ways are uniquely dealing with time.
Artist Beatriz Ledesma sees herself as a symbolist artist and is drawn to the spirituality and symbolism of ordinary objects. In our present era, she finds scissors to be particularly relevant and meaningful objects to contemplate, for in her research she discovered that scissors have been believed to possess protective powers, serving as a talisman against witchcraft and malevolent forces. In medieval times, scissors were commonly placed beneath doormats to ward off evil. The artist states that “In light of our current tumultuous and chaotic times, as inhabitants of this earthly realm, it is worth considering what things we would like to eliminate from our daily human existence. Therefore, it is worth considering the idea of keeping scissors under our doormats as a form of protection from unwanted influences.”
Matt Cohen’s mixed media works contain areas of layering paint, wire mesh, etched and painted plexiglass, and sections of drawings secured with thin, dark wires. Cohen’s art concerns the juxtaposition of time and timelessness. There is the sense of history in the making of his work as he incorporates layers to expose earlier decisions. He feels a connection with some Baroque painting and is influenced by the dark recesses and overlaying of painted grids. About the works in this show, he states that “these moments of memory are equally present with thoughts that are continuous in our moments of exchanges, activities, or observations in our physical present; they are not truly of the past – they are one of many thoughts we have throughout our lives and are there in our minds on an equal plane.”
Shawn Marshall is a Kentucky-based artist whose artistic process is significantly shaped by the integration of her multidisciplinary background in architecture and sculpture. She is concerned with consumption and waste and so collects discarded and found materials of paper, cardboard, etc. and then merges the carefully selected mixed media with paint to, as the artist says, “create intricate webs and imprints of our existence.” The artist sees each of her artworks as a dialogue between the present and the past. She goes on to say, that “it is through this rhythm of placement and removal that our intricate relationship with the world unfolds, leaving behind a tapestry of ideas, experiences, and memories that weave together to create new imprints and narratives.”
Sheila Smith’s first camera was a Brownie box camera. In the sixties, as a secretary to the creative director of Columbia Records, Smith was exposed to and inspired by the great photographers of that era. She went on to study advertising and design at SVA, ultimately becoming an Art Director and continuing to work with top photographers, including Richard Avedon. She studied photography at the New School while at the same time taking drawing and painting classes at the Art Students League. Painting for many years, she never abandoned photography and has continued to take pictures since 1997. Now, her photographs have become paintings as she alters and reconstructs them in photoshop. About her work Smith says, “I enjoy photographing a multitude of subjects which categorizes me as a “generalist."
Charles Hildebrandt lives and works in Winston-Salem, NC. His early artistic beginnings were in photography, but his creative work has grown to include mixed media collage and acrylic landscapes. Many of his mixed media pieces still involve his photographic work, but also include acrylic, sheet metal, and other materials. About his paintings, the artist says that “the majority of landscape paintings come from a memory, or an extension of an image from a photograph taken. However, few of them are literal translations of either; they are combinations of life experiences, observations, photographs, and interpretations.” Moments.
Irene Christensen manages to divide her time producing her work not only in her studios in New York City as well as in Oslo, Norway, but also for one month each year in Costa Rica. She has exhibited in both Europe and the United States since 1983. She participated in the Personal Structures exhibition organized by the Global Art Affairs Foundation and hosted by the European Cultural Center in the context of the Venice Art Biennale of 2017. Her work is represented in many museums and personal collections in Europe and USA. About the work in this exhibit, “Tomorrow We Meet The Alligator,” the artist states that “The alligators are predators but part of life on this earth. In my series of streamers I use 7”x5” hand dyed and drawn/painted paper, pasted on either old fax paper or muslin cloth or rice paper."
Montreal-based artist Marie-Ange Hoda Ackad sees the contradictions between what things look like or appear to be and what they actually are. Particularly in this time of fake reality and ‘alternative facts’ when almost anything can be falsified, she asks us to focus not on what we see but on the meaning that lies within. In the United States she has shown at the ISEA International Symposium of Experimental Arists, the Brownsville Museum in Texas, Center for Contemporary Art in Bedford, New Jersey and Viridian Artists in Chelsea NYC. Her work appeared on a billboard in central Los Angeles as part of the Billboard Creatives 2016 Exhibition. She participated in the Help Hope Nepal Mural project during Art Basel Miami 2015 and her portrait of Gradimir Pankov, former artistic director of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, won the Bronze Award in painting in the Art Forward international competition in 2016 and was featured in a film tribute to Pankov’s achievements.
Vernita N”Cognita, aka Vernita Nemec has been dealing with the environment through her art-making for the past 20 years, first with her Endless Junkmail Scroll and now with sculpture created from upcycled plastic food containers and other plastic detritus. She uses the aesthetics of Wabi-Sabi by focusing on the beauty of the discarded plastic’s physicality and uselessness and then creating art from it, saving it from enlarging the plastic gyres growing in the oceans, killing the coral and sea creatures who think it is food. These plastic objects from everyday life coalesce into compositions that speak to the chaotic interplay between our lives and the pervasiveness of plastic detritus that continues to grow with time. Nemec has been active as an artist, a curator, environmentalist and a feminist, organizing one of the first all-female art exhibits, “X-12”, in 1970. She was a part of Soho 20, a feminist cooperative gallery, in the 70’s & has presented more than 30 solo exhibits and performances in the US, Europe and Asia. More about the artist can be found on Wikipedia.
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 12–6pm
For further information please contact: Vernita Nemec, Gallery Director
or Jenny Belin, Assistant Director at viridianartistsinc@gmail.com
visit us on Instagram @viridianartistsinc and see us on Facebook & YouTube at Viridian Artists Gallery
Time and timelessness are both constant considerations in our lives as we pass through different phases of living. When we are young, we anxiously awake summer vacation and when we grow older, time speeds along far too quickly. Creative acts as well, are moments that vary in length psychologically, spiritually, and emotionally as well as in actuality. These artists, each in their own creative and aesthetic ways are uniquely dealing with time.
Artist Beatriz Ledesma sees herself as a symbolist artist and is drawn to the spirituality and symbolism of ordinary objects. In our present era, she finds scissors to be particularly relevant and meaningful objects to contemplate, for in her research she discovered that scissors have been believed to possess protective powers, serving as a talisman against witchcraft and malevolent forces. In medieval times, scissors were commonly placed beneath doormats to ward off evil. The artist states that “In light of our current tumultuous and chaotic times, as inhabitants of this earthly realm, it is worth considering what things we would like to eliminate from our daily human existence. Therefore, it is worth considering the idea of keeping scissors under our doormats as a form of protection from unwanted influences.”
Matt Cohen’s mixed media works contain areas of layering paint, wire mesh, etched and painted plexiglass, and sections of drawings secured with thin, dark wires. Cohen’s art concerns the juxtaposition of time and timelessness. There is the sense of history in the making of his work as he incorporates layers to expose earlier decisions. He feels a connection with some Baroque painting and is influenced by the dark recesses and overlaying of painted grids. About the works in this show, he states that “these moments of memory are equally present with thoughts that are continuous in our moments of exchanges, activities, or observations in our physical present; they are not truly of the past – they are one of many thoughts we have throughout our lives and are there in our minds on an equal plane.”
Shawn Marshall is a Kentucky-based artist whose artistic process is significantly shaped by the integration of her multidisciplinary background in architecture and sculpture. She is concerned with consumption and waste and so collects discarded and found materials of paper, cardboard, etc. and then merges the carefully selected mixed media with paint to, as the artist says, “create intricate webs and imprints of our existence.” The artist sees each of her artworks as a dialogue between the present and the past. She goes on to say, that “it is through this rhythm of placement and removal that our intricate relationship with the world unfolds, leaving behind a tapestry of ideas, experiences, and memories that weave together to create new imprints and narratives.”
Sheila Smith’s first camera was a Brownie box camera. In the sixties, as a secretary to the creative director of Columbia Records, Smith was exposed to and inspired by the great photographers of that era. She went on to study advertising and design at SVA, ultimately becoming an Art Director and continuing to work with top photographers, including Richard Avedon. She studied photography at the New School while at the same time taking drawing and painting classes at the Art Students League. Painting for many years, she never abandoned photography and has continued to take pictures since 1997. Now, her photographs have become paintings as she alters and reconstructs them in photoshop. About her work Smith says, “I enjoy photographing a multitude of subjects which categorizes me as a “generalist."
Charles Hildebrandt lives and works in Winston-Salem, NC. His early artistic beginnings were in photography, but his creative work has grown to include mixed media collage and acrylic landscapes. Many of his mixed media pieces still involve his photographic work, but also include acrylic, sheet metal, and other materials. About his paintings, the artist says that “the majority of landscape paintings come from a memory, or an extension of an image from a photograph taken. However, few of them are literal translations of either; they are combinations of life experiences, observations, photographs, and interpretations.” Moments.
Irene Christensen manages to divide her time producing her work not only in her studios in New York City as well as in Oslo, Norway, but also for one month each year in Costa Rica. She has exhibited in both Europe and the United States since 1983. She participated in the Personal Structures exhibition organized by the Global Art Affairs Foundation and hosted by the European Cultural Center in the context of the Venice Art Biennale of 2017. Her work is represented in many museums and personal collections in Europe and USA. About the work in this exhibit, “Tomorrow We Meet The Alligator,” the artist states that “The alligators are predators but part of life on this earth. In my series of streamers I use 7”x5” hand dyed and drawn/painted paper, pasted on either old fax paper or muslin cloth or rice paper."
Montreal-based artist Marie-Ange Hoda Ackad sees the contradictions between what things look like or appear to be and what they actually are. Particularly in this time of fake reality and ‘alternative facts’ when almost anything can be falsified, she asks us to focus not on what we see but on the meaning that lies within. In the United States she has shown at the ISEA International Symposium of Experimental Arists, the Brownsville Museum in Texas, Center for Contemporary Art in Bedford, New Jersey and Viridian Artists in Chelsea NYC. Her work appeared on a billboard in central Los Angeles as part of the Billboard Creatives 2016 Exhibition. She participated in the Help Hope Nepal Mural project during Art Basel Miami 2015 and her portrait of Gradimir Pankov, former artistic director of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, won the Bronze Award in painting in the Art Forward international competition in 2016 and was featured in a film tribute to Pankov’s achievements.
Vernita N”Cognita, aka Vernita Nemec has been dealing with the environment through her art-making for the past 20 years, first with her Endless Junkmail Scroll and now with sculpture created from upcycled plastic food containers and other plastic detritus. She uses the aesthetics of Wabi-Sabi by focusing on the beauty of the discarded plastic’s physicality and uselessness and then creating art from it, saving it from enlarging the plastic gyres growing in the oceans, killing the coral and sea creatures who think it is food. These plastic objects from everyday life coalesce into compositions that speak to the chaotic interplay between our lives and the pervasiveness of plastic detritus that continues to grow with time. Nemec has been active as an artist, a curator, environmentalist and a feminist, organizing one of the first all-female art exhibits, “X-12”, in 1970. She was a part of Soho 20, a feminist cooperative gallery, in the 70’s & has presented more than 30 solo exhibits and performances in the US, Europe and Asia. More about the artist can be found on Wikipedia.
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 12–6pm
For further information please contact: Vernita Nemec, Gallery Director
or Jenny Belin, Assistant Director at viridianartistsinc@gmail.com
visit us on Instagram @viridianartistsinc and see us on Facebook & YouTube at Viridian Artists Gallery
