Category Archives: Exhibitions

Tim Okamura’s “Women in White/Bushwick Walls”

If you’re in the Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) area, make sure you drop by Adjunct Faculty member Tim Okamura’s show of work:

TIM OKAMURA
“WOMEN IN WHITE / BUSHWICK WALLS”
Up through Saturday, July 19th, 2008

The Women in White/Bushwick Walls series was inspired by a desire to investigate the symbolism of the color of white in several different contexts, while at the same time creating a connection to the “urban collage” that has manifested itself on the walls of the buildings in my neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn.

While focusing on the walls that were at one time white, “blank canvases”, I observed a fasinating build-up of signage, new and torn posters, random felt marker “tags”, stenciled street art, and more refined graffiti pieces that together formed a complex motif of cultural iconography.  Tempered by peeling paint, rust stains, and decay, this motif served as the basis for my approach to creating “backgrounds” that interact with the subjects of the paintings in a very direct way, the fragments of political and pop culture references interwoven with warning signs, and spray-painted stencils.  Graffiti-lettered words contain moral precepts which effuse hopefulness or cynicism – sometimes both – while in some cases bringing attention to the psycological relationships between the women themselves.

All of the women in these paintings are clad in white, or mostly white, with the intention of examining popular connotations of this color such as purity, innocence, virginity, and virtue – qualities often traditionally ascribe to women as being positive attributes – as well as the lesser known meanings such as while as s symbol of mourning (particularily in Asian cultures).  This in turn led to a scrutiny of many “white” phrases including “white wash”, “white wedding”, and “white lie”, many of which ending up becoming words on “signs” that were collaged onto canvas and eventually covered with layers of paint.

As the significance of “Women in White” changed in context with each subject and contemplation continued of the implications of attributing specific meaning to color, I considered on important argument of basic color theory: white itself in techinically not a color, but a reflection of all colors.

Douglas Udell Gallery
10332 – 124 STREET
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
T5N 1R2
780.488.4445

Congrats, Tim!

Call for entries: Green Light VSA Arts competition

Contemporary art challenges us…it broadens our horizons.
It asks us to think beyond the limits of conventional wisdom.”

– Eli Broad

A National Juried Exhibition
for Young Artists with Disabilities,
Ages 16-25 

Deadline: Friday, July 11, 2008, midnight (MST)

Grand Prize: $20,000
First Award: $10,000
Second Award: $6,000
12 Awards of Excellence: $2,000

Sponsored by VSA arts with generous assistance from Volkswagen of America, Inc.

A green light signals “GO!” and permission to proceed. What revs you up as an artist and moves you to create? What signals the spark of creativity? Imagine that you receive a signal to drive your own future. Describe the experience and how you will direct your route – both artistically and personally. How does art give you permission to be who you are? Consider the infinite possibilities that art (or creativity) provides.

We are interested in both representational and abstract work. Artwork may illustrate actual aspects of what signals your creative motivations such as the physical world or personal discoveries. Abstract work that relates to feelings or emotions is also encouraged. Work might also reflect your experience of living with a disability and its role in shaping or transforming your work.

VSA arts is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1974 by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith to create a society where all people with disabilities learn through, participate in and enjoy the arts. VSA arts provides educators, parents, and artists with resources and the tools to support arts programming in schools and communities. VSA arts showcases the accomplishments of artists with disabilities and promotes increased access to the arts for people with disabilities. Each year millions of people participate in VSA arts programs through a nationwide network of affiliates and in more than 60 countries around the world. VSA arts is an affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Visit the competition’s website for details about how to enter, the theme, eligibility, and more.  Good luck!

Call for Entries: Wallpaper design for Sheila Johnson Design Center

Please take this opportunity to review the following exhibition opportunity, which is perfect for any student in our department and only requires you to submit images of your best work that you have already completed and a short written piece.  (details below:)

In Spring 2008 a group of Parsons faculty, staff and students were selected by the Dean’s Office and Student Senate to form a committee in charge of curating the student wallpaper spaces in the Sheila Johnson Design Center.  These three locations are currently covered with student work that will be rotated for Fall 2008.  Below is the  interim process to receive and select new work for consideration for the NorthEast corner location.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Due July 10th to FalerG01@newschool.edu

We are looking for submissions from students or recent graduates that:

1. Were completed in any class at Parsons (individual or group-based) through Summer 2008

2. Consider the core values as stated in the paragraphs included below.

3. Consider how the wallpaper in these highly visible public spaces can reflect our community.

4. Consider the scale of the architecture.

5. Engage with a social or critical thematic.

Each student can submit up to three images and statements.  Please email your low resolution jpeg or pdf to George Falero at FalerG01@newschool.edu as well as a 100-word statement describing each submission and how it reflects Parsons’ mission statement below.

MISSION STATEMENT: WHY PARSONS THE NEW SCHOOL FOR DESIGN?
A forerunner in art and design education for over a century

Parsons prepares students to be independent thinkers who creatively and critically address the complex human conditions of 21st century culture. We are committed to creating a diverse learning environment for developing self-reflective practices through studio-based research and critical scholarship in order to make meaningful and sustainable contributions to contemporary global societies. Situated within The New School, Parsons builds on the University’s legacy of progressive ideals, scholarship, and educational methods.  Our faculty challenges convention through a setting and philosophy that encourages formal experimentation, nurtures alternative world-views, and cultivates forward-thinking leaders and creative professionals across multiple fields in a world increasingly influenced by art and design.

PARSONS CORE VALUES
A shared commitment to:

*the urban – understanding New York City and other urban areas as sites where, through engaged research and creative practices, we can work with inhabitants to co-create and co-design, reflecting the urgent needs and possibilities of 21st Century art and design and beyond;

*sustainability – addressing the need to work for both human and environmental sustainability through understanding and designing systems that allow for or produce longevity and renewal;

*diversity – being an institutional leader by working to recruit and retain individuals and communities who have been historically under-represented in art and design schools and the professional fields they help to create. We also recognize our responsibility to consider how all people are impacted by and interact with the goods, systems, and spaces we design;

*the global – nurturing a more nuanced understanding of political and social economies, global dynamics of exchange and production, and historical specificities in order to prepare students to work creatively and ethically in a changing world;

*art/design as an agent for social change – challenging all members of the Parsons community to understand our work in relationship to its social and political possibilities, embodying the legacy of The New School.

The committee will meet to review all submissions and make selections according to the criteria listed above.  Decisions will be announced by August 1st.

Good luck!

Eddie del Rosario work in “Tenderly” show at Sunday

TENDERLY

Featuring: Aaron Baker, Erik Bluhm, Martha Colburn, Carl D’Alvia, Edward del Rosario, Echo Eggebrecht, Brent Green, Kirk Hayes, Asuka Ohsawa, Ruby Osorio, Hills Snyder, Rachell Sumpter & others.

Through July 3, 2008

SUNDAY L.E.S.
237 Eldridge Street, South Storefront
New York, NY USA 10002 

The gallery is pleased to announce the group exhibition Tenderly, which assembles paintings, sculptures, films, and works on paper by twelve artists who use dark humor, animation, simplified forms, and characters to soften some of life’s more dramatic, and often tragic, moments.

Eddie del Rosario’s (Brooklyn, NY) paintings often feature miniature people engaged in full-size power struggles and highlight the absurd games people are willing to play to obtain and preserve power within cultural clashes. Meticulously rendered with almost Renaissance-like glazes, his most recent series of contretemps depict unforeseen disruptive events, for example, a handsome young man pissing on the spring flowers while a fashionable young lady looks on.

ArtCal picked “Tenderly” as a top show and it’s only up for a few more days, so get out there and see it.

Congrats to Eddie!

MoCCA Comic Art Festival this weekend!

The program for this year’s MoCCA Art Festival features a rich mix of animators, cartoonists, graphic artists, and writers. Our special guests include Jessica Abel, Rebecca Donner, David Hajdu, David Heatley, Chip Kidd, Alex Robinson, Frank Santoro, and Brian Wood. Saturday’s program opens with author Blake Bell talking about his new Steve Ditko biography, and closes with Dan Nadel in conversation with Chris Forgues (“CF”), whose comics, according to one critic, “exude the ease of someone just now putting all the pieces together to make for consistent great work.” Sunday’s program opens with an illustrated history of radical cartooning, by social movement cartoonist Nick Thorkelson, and closes with a screening of new animated shorts from Scandinavia.

Parsons Illustration associates will be out in force–Tara McPherson, Neil Swaab, Bob Sikoryak, Jillian Tamaki, Brian Wood, and Peter de Seve–so make sure you stop by and see their work!

The MoCCA Art Festival, now in its seventh year, is an annual fundraiser for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA). Each year the MoCCA Art Festival Award is presented to a creative figure whose work has elevated the cartoon arts. The Award was presented to Jules Feiffer in 2002, and in subsequent years to Art Spiegelman (2003), Roz Chast (2004), Neal Adams (2005), Gahan Wilson (2006), and Alison Bechdel (2007).

This year’s Award recipient, Bill Plympton, is an internationally renowned cartoonist, illustrator, and animator. His cartoons have appeared in major newspapers and magazines, from the Village Voice and the New York Times, to Vogue, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair. He is the author and/or illustrator of numerous books and graphic novels, including Hair High, Mutant Aliens, Tube Strips, and The Sleazy Cartoons of Bill Plympton. He is probably best known for his short and full-length animated films, which include The Tune, I Married a Strange Person, Guard Dog, and Idiots and Angels, which premiered earlier this year. Bill Plympton will be introduced by the animator Signe Baumane.

The 2008 program is being held in tandem with an event at NYU that will take place the day before the Festival officially opens, on Friday, June 6. Sponsored by the New York Institute for the Humanities and MoCCA, “Post-Bang: Comics Ten Minutes After the Big Bang!” features roundtables and presentations on “key trends and debates facing comics in this new, ‘post-bang’ environment.” For more information about this, click here

MoCCA Comic Art Festival
Saturday, June 7th & Sunday, June 8th, 2008
Hours: 11:00am – 6:00pm
Admission is $10 each day / $15 weekend pass (weekend pass only $10 for MoCCA members)
The Puck Building, 293 Lafayette, New York, NY

Programming Schedule
Exhibitor List (Parsons Illustration will be sharing a table with Cat Lauigan at B45!)
Map of Exhibitors
Featured Artist Sketch Table Schedule (featuring Illustration Alum & Faculty Bob Sikoryak on Sunday!)

[MoCCA Art Festival poster art by Parsons Illustration Faculty Tara McPherson and DKC]

West Coast Alert: Witnessed from Afar at Carmichael Gallery

Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art presents Witnessed From Afar, a showcase of artwork by Andrew Pommier, Irina Troitskaya, Karen Preston, Ken Garduno, Mel Kadel, Michael Hsiung, and Parskid. In an atmosphere of effervescent quietude, gorgeous misfits and delicate animals float across paper, cardboard, and wood – lost and lonely, but swelling with emotion and extraordinary grace. Evoking forgotten pains and philosophical yearnings, the artists contemplate the oddities of life and death with warmth and sincerity, yet always maintain their distance. Witnessed From Afar will be on view April 26 through May 18, 2008.

Get more info about the artists involved here!

Carmichael Gallery Presents:
Witnessed From Afar

Featuring Andrew Pommier, Irina Troitskaya, Karen Preston,
Ken Garduno, Mel Kadel, Michael Hsiung, and Parskid
Exhibition Dates: April 26 – May 18, 2008
1257 N. La Brea Ave
West Hollywood, CA 90038

[Thanks to Nora Krug for the tip!]

Quick Hit: “Street Language” at Woodward Gallery

An interesting show opens up at Woodward Gallery this weekend. Here’s a snippet from the official press release:

Woodward Gallery is proud to open the Spring season by introducing Artists Matt Siren and Darkcloud. “Street Language” will transpose two respected street artists with a select group of their peers to a gallery setting for the first time. Representing a true renaissance in urban art, these emerging artists surface from a subculture ruled by self-directed codes and complicated by its delight in youthful mayhem. They tag with their icons consuming the urban landscape with colorful enthusiasm; reveling in an ability to seep into and subvert the hyperkinetic visual surroundings most passersby take for granted.

Utilizing their individualized lexicons, Matt Siren and Darkcloud bring their recognizable icons indoors with edition prints on paper and original paintings on metal signs or wood. Born of media saturation, these icons speak of cartoons, video games, toys, and a generation aware of the potency of a powerfully branded image – and its repetition.

Connected through the rapid waves of text messaging, blogs, and websites these urban artists are now able to connect internationally with their peers creating a shifting social network. Their organized approach to a self-guided movement, so prominent in user-generated wiki-culture, is mirrored in each artist’s unique attempt to edit the urban landscape. Commenting on today, their optic, codified language is finally united to speak on the exhibition walls of Woodward.

Head over on Saturday, May 10th, 6-8pm, for the opening reception of this exciting cultural debut!

Matt Siren & Darkcloud: Street Language May 10 – Jun 28, 2008
133 Eldridge Street (Between Broome and Delancey) New York, NY 10002

[images t-b: darkcloud, matt siren]

Don’t Paint with Your Teeth featuring a TON of Illustration students

Move 16: Don’t Paint With Your Teeth
A Group Show of blue ballpoint pen, pencil and Sharpie drawings
Curated by Rich Jacobs
May 9th – June 8th 2008
Opening Reception Friday May 9th 2008 7 – 10pm

Move 16: Don’t Paint Your Teeth, marks the 2nd group drawing show at Cinders curated by artist Rich Jacobs. The guidelines for this one: Make a drawing using either ballpoint pen, pencil, or sharpie on an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of white paper. This show brings art back to its most basic and raw form of drawing and with materials that everyone has access to. This DIY creative spirit runs throughout the show, which includes a diverse array of artists that spans several generations from around the globe. There will be a limited edition zine catalogue made to go along with the show in the very near future!

Featuring work by Mark Gonzales, Matt Leines, Chris Shary, Caroline Hwang, Rachel Sumpter, Rich Jacobs, Chris Mendoza, Neckface, Eric White, Suzanne Sattler, Erika Borboa, Brian Chippendale, Diane Barcelowsky, Maya Hayuk, David Ellis, Jeff Ladouceur, Theo Ellsworth, Hisham Bharoocha, Travis Millard, Mel Kadel, Logan MacDonald, Allyson Mellberg, Justin Williams, Garry Davis, Irene Cho, Davd Aron, James Kirkpatrick, Jojo Li, Jordin Isip, Melinda Beck,Tim Kerr,Taylor Mckimens, Daniel Higgs, Ryan and Casey Gallagher, John Orth, Sto, Daniel Davidson, Pam Morris-Gallagher, Phil Franklin, Christine Shields, Andrew Scott, Pat Delaney, Mike Boul, Moses, Dennis and Loreto Remsing, Kelie Bowman, Kate Hurowitz, Carl Dunn, Oliver Rosenberg, Oliver Harkness, Rodger Bridges, Tod Swank, Olivia Shoa, Bill and Christopher Sprague, Kostas Seremetis, Zachary Rossman, Matthew Thurber, Rebecca Bird, Eric Shaw, Morgan Goodwin Acheson, WoonHyae Bae, Lindsey Balbierz, Noel Chanyungco, Arlette Espaillat, Nicholas Gannon, Florence Gidez, Rich Guzman, Seulki Kim, Sae-am Lee, Shanna Mahan, Yulia Makarova, Elizabeth Meluch, Ray Ray Mitrano, Cassie Ramone, Liz Riccardi, Jeremy Schlangen, Peter Sriployrung, Nicholas Sultana, Emmanuel Tavares, Franklin Valdez, Misaki Kawai, James Gallagher.

(fancy color code = Illustration Faculty, Illustration Alum, Current Illustration Students)

Cinders Gallery
103 Havemeyer st.
Btwn Hope and Grand St.
Williamsburg Brooklyn
718-388-2311
http://www.cindersgallery.com

[images l-r: Shanna Mahan, Lindsey Balbierz, Florence Gidez]

Mark Your Calendar: Recent Works at Tres Gallery featuring Ronnie Lawlor

Illustration Alum and Adjunct Faculty Ronnie Lawlor, in conjunction with Margaret Hurst and Eddie Pena (both are also Parsons alums and faculty members), is mounting a show at Tres Gallery. Recent works by all three artists will be on view. Make sure to drop by!