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JOSÉ ARENAS
AHA Fine Art 2024
Opening Reception:
Thursday, May 16, 2024 | 6pm-8pm
On View:
May 16 - June 9, 2024
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 6pm & selected Sundays: 12-5pm
501 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10011
www.ahafineart.com | @ahafineart | info@ahafineart.com
AHA Underground is pleased to present KNOCKOUT: an exhibition featuring recent works including paintings, collage, sculpture and mixed media works by Jose Arenas, Nancy Bruno, Vincent Dion, Rosanne Ebner, Akwasi Gyambibi, Denae Howard, Mary Tooley Parker, Susu Pianchupattana, Jeffrey Allen Price, Margaret Roleke, Nola Romano, Jesse Scaturro and Floyd Strickland. The exhibition will be on view from May 16 through June 9, with an opening reception on Thursday, May 16 from 6-8pm at AHA Underground (lower level at Jim Kempner Fine Art) located at 501 West 23rd Street in Manhattan, New York City at the Northeast corner of 23rd Street and Tenth Avenue.
KNOCKOUT packs a punch while poignantly reflecting on lamentation, loss, serenity and solitude. Evoking multiple meanings, these artworks bring to bear a range of emotions which play with the visitor’s visual perception while speaking to their psyche and emotional states. Formal qualities and tenuous emotional forces depicted in these two- and three-dimensional artworks balance each other out, finding an equilibrium like a fighter in the ring, speaking to athletic prowess as much as to our everyday ability to
navigate life’s tumultuous, everyday transitions, realities and imaginings. The tactile quality of clay and its mushing, squishing, shaping, smoothing and firing processes are physically present in Nancy Bruno’s, which stands with her head high, unabashed and fearless, embracing her anatomy which is imbued with the imagination fired by ancient archaeological site digs. The smoothness of the fired clay contrasts with the spiked yet floating tutu adorning the figure, creating a delightfully timeless figure. Named after Degas’ La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans (The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer) and originally sculpted in wax, Bruno is referencing her own experiences as a woman through ceramic sculpture and vessels, transforming the female figure, and integrating material and form to express complexity, conflicts, and emotion. Bruno’s evident passion for clay evolved from exploring the vast history of ceramics as well as her studies at the Pottery Workshop Jingdezhen and various multicultural archaeological digs.
Birds swoop, navigating their way throughout the golden yellow tones in Arenas’ Repose Bee. The composition is sprinkled with floating varied symbols referencing family photos, vintage Mexican postcards, and textile patterns sourced from family quilts. Arenas employs silhouetted floral and plant motifs, giving Repose Bee its enigmatic state of hovering between ecstasy and stasis. The lone bee can be seen as “caught in a state of in-between, where the transition between sleep and consciousness is just beginning to happen, in a place where things are still dream-like and ethereal, and where images, thoughts, and ideas float about in a suggestive and non-linear manner,” reflects Arenas. Simultaneously offering a window into the artist’s transnational and bi-cultural life growing up in San Jose, California and Guadalajara, the artist notes, “My paintings explore a personal and globally shared immigrant experience through collage-like compositions that incorporate and combine familiar forms that speak to common journeys and a yearning for sense of place and belonging.” Both Bruno and Arenas seek to establish a tactility and physicality of presence that bring nostalgia, memory and emotional depth to the exhibition. By bringing a sense of the continued histories, legacies and the multi-generational challenges of navigating life’s complexities, artists on view in KNOCKOUT bring a kick of vigor and vitality to contemporary art for the audience to enjoy. For more information and visuals, please contact Francesca Arcilesi, Norma Homberg and the AHA team at info@ahafineart.com.
Thursday, May 16, 2024 | 6pm-8pm
On View:
May 16 - June 9, 2024
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 6pm & selected Sundays: 12-5pm
501 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10011
www.ahafineart.com | @ahafineart | info@ahafineart.com
AHA Underground is pleased to present KNOCKOUT: an exhibition featuring recent works including paintings, collage, sculpture and mixed media works by Jose Arenas, Nancy Bruno, Vincent Dion, Rosanne Ebner, Akwasi Gyambibi, Denae Howard, Mary Tooley Parker, Susu Pianchupattana, Jeffrey Allen Price, Margaret Roleke, Nola Romano, Jesse Scaturro and Floyd Strickland. The exhibition will be on view from May 16 through June 9, with an opening reception on Thursday, May 16 from 6-8pm at AHA Underground (lower level at Jim Kempner Fine Art) located at 501 West 23rd Street in Manhattan, New York City at the Northeast corner of 23rd Street and Tenth Avenue.
KNOCKOUT packs a punch while poignantly reflecting on lamentation, loss, serenity and solitude. Evoking multiple meanings, these artworks bring to bear a range of emotions which play with the visitor’s visual perception while speaking to their psyche and emotional states. Formal qualities and tenuous emotional forces depicted in these two- and three-dimensional artworks balance each other out, finding an equilibrium like a fighter in the ring, speaking to athletic prowess as much as to our everyday ability to
navigate life’s tumultuous, everyday transitions, realities and imaginings. The tactile quality of clay and its mushing, squishing, shaping, smoothing and firing processes are physically present in Nancy Bruno’s, which stands with her head high, unabashed and fearless, embracing her anatomy which is imbued with the imagination fired by ancient archaeological site digs. The smoothness of the fired clay contrasts with the spiked yet floating tutu adorning the figure, creating a delightfully timeless figure. Named after Degas’ La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans (The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer) and originally sculpted in wax, Bruno is referencing her own experiences as a woman through ceramic sculpture and vessels, transforming the female figure, and integrating material and form to express complexity, conflicts, and emotion. Bruno’s evident passion for clay evolved from exploring the vast history of ceramics as well as her studies at the Pottery Workshop Jingdezhen and various multicultural archaeological digs.
Birds swoop, navigating their way throughout the golden yellow tones in Arenas’ Repose Bee. The composition is sprinkled with floating varied symbols referencing family photos, vintage Mexican postcards, and textile patterns sourced from family quilts. Arenas employs silhouetted floral and plant motifs, giving Repose Bee its enigmatic state of hovering between ecstasy and stasis. The lone bee can be seen as “caught in a state of in-between, where the transition between sleep and consciousness is just beginning to happen, in a place where things are still dream-like and ethereal, and where images, thoughts, and ideas float about in a suggestive and non-linear manner,” reflects Arenas. Simultaneously offering a window into the artist’s transnational and bi-cultural life growing up in San Jose, California and Guadalajara, the artist notes, “My paintings explore a personal and globally shared immigrant experience through collage-like compositions that incorporate and combine familiar forms that speak to common journeys and a yearning for sense of place and belonging.” Both Bruno and Arenas seek to establish a tactility and physicality of presence that bring nostalgia, memory and emotional depth to the exhibition. By bringing a sense of the continued histories, legacies and the multi-generational challenges of navigating life’s complexities, artists on view in KNOCKOUT bring a kick of vigor and vitality to contemporary art for the audience to enjoy. For more information and visuals, please contact Francesca Arcilesi, Norma Homberg and the AHA team at info@ahafineart.com.
AHA Fine Art 2023
Nomadic Treasures
RECEPTION:
Thursday, August 3 6-8pm 2023
ON VIEW:
August 3rd - August 26th, 2023
AHA Fine Art
175 10th Avenue
New York, NY 10011
AHA Fine Art is pleased to present Nomadic Treasures: an exhibition featuring new and recent paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints, collages, textiles, film animation, and mixed media works by select artists.
Meet the artists on Thursday, August 31st from 6-8pm at the gallery.
The artists in Nomadic Treasures explore personal themes of identity such as religion, spirituality and culture and their connections to larger forces, such as the natural world, by exploring how they are inherently connected to pre- and post- colonial abuses of power, warfare, community, and environment. Depicting portraits, figures, temples, mythic treasures and objects/relics, landscapes, and fantastical animals, these artists realize - and personalize journeys - relating to migrant, immigrant and intrinsically ancestral experiences.
Jose Arenas intersperses fragmented body parts throughout his compositions. Pieces of figures - floating halves of torsos connected to lovingly intertwined arms and hands, typography, landscape, and ornate patterns - hint at the fragments of our identities and allow the viewer to complete how we compartmentalize, or unify, disparate aspects of who we are. Dual identities and the feeling of displacements, “from growing up in two countries [California and Guadalajara, Mexico],” reflects Arenas, “are explored in this work.” By adopting collage elements present from Mexican neighborhoods and street signs, Arenas invites the viewer to explore displacement as he and others familiar with immigration assimilate themselves into different inhabitants and cultures.
Through their visual language, these artists bridge universal imagination with personal investigations of memory, cultural identity and folklore. By exploring how the ancient past still has a hold on our present, while exploring how abuses of power, man-made and natural disasters continue to create a chaotic present, artists invite the viewer to build/recount their stories and testimonials that move from the past to the present in Nomadic Treasures.
RECEPTION:
Thursday, August 3 6-8pm 2023
ON VIEW:
August 3rd - August 26th, 2023
AHA Fine Art
175 10th Avenue
New York, NY 10011
AHA Fine Art is pleased to present Nomadic Treasures: an exhibition featuring new and recent paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints, collages, textiles, film animation, and mixed media works by select artists.
Meet the artists on Thursday, August 31st from 6-8pm at the gallery.
The artists in Nomadic Treasures explore personal themes of identity such as religion, spirituality and culture and their connections to larger forces, such as the natural world, by exploring how they are inherently connected to pre- and post- colonial abuses of power, warfare, community, and environment. Depicting portraits, figures, temples, mythic treasures and objects/relics, landscapes, and fantastical animals, these artists realize - and personalize journeys - relating to migrant, immigrant and intrinsically ancestral experiences.
Jose Arenas intersperses fragmented body parts throughout his compositions. Pieces of figures - floating halves of torsos connected to lovingly intertwined arms and hands, typography, landscape, and ornate patterns - hint at the fragments of our identities and allow the viewer to complete how we compartmentalize, or unify, disparate aspects of who we are. Dual identities and the feeling of displacements, “from growing up in two countries [California and Guadalajara, Mexico],” reflects Arenas, “are explored in this work.” By adopting collage elements present from Mexican neighborhoods and street signs, Arenas invites the viewer to explore displacement as he and others familiar with immigration assimilate themselves into different inhabitants and cultures.
Through their visual language, these artists bridge universal imagination with personal investigations of memory, cultural identity and folklore. By exploring how the ancient past still has a hold on our present, while exploring how abuses of power, man-made and natural disasters continue to create a chaotic present, artists invite the viewer to build/recount their stories and testimonials that move from the past to the present in Nomadic Treasures.
Art Ark Gallery 2022
Pathways: An exhibition about mapping, navigation, wanderlust and borders
Exhibition Dates
March 4–April 1, 2022
Receptions
March 4 and April 1, 6–9 pm
www.southfirstfridays.com
Gallery Talks (performance*)
March 5: José Arenas, Caroline Landau, Melissa West, Carolina Cuevas*
March 12: Casey Jay Gardner, Kent Manske
March 19: Afatasi the Artist, Carolina Cuevas*, Neil Murphy
March 26: Minoosh Zomorodinia, Nanette Wylde
Venue
Art Ark Gallery 1035 South 6th Street, San Jose, California www.artarkgallery.com
Curated by Nanette Wylde
Artists: Afatasi The Artist, José Arenas, Carolina Cuevas, Casey Jay Gardner, Caroline Landau, Kent Manske, Neil Murphy, Melissa West, Minoosh Zomorodinia
Nine Bay Area artists will be exhibiting in an interdisciplinary, themed exhibition at Art Ark Gallery in San Jose. The exhibition is curated by Nanette Wylde. It includes a wide range of media including artist books, conceptual works, glass, mixed media, painting, performance, printmaking, sculpture, sound, video, and installations. A collaborative, site specific vinyl installation for the gallery’s west facing windows is by José Arenas and Kent Manske.
The artists in Pathways are storytellers mapping a multitude of existential trajectories—creating, following and navigating pathways real and imagined. Their works reflect on human wanderlust surviving in a paradigm of accelerated cultural and technological development. They demonstrate a heightened awareness of the social, physical, and temporal borders that separate and unite us.
These artists are thinkers. They consider their connections to others and are reflective of the nuances of human memory and our relationships to specific locations. They are researchers exploring cosmic and human histories, present times, and the possibilities of the future. They are interested in science and the whys of our existence. Each one is deeply serious, yet they play with imagination and the absurd. As creators of contemporary culture they are allowing us to glimpse into their own interior spaces. Their works are actions reaching out to connect and find meaning in our shared human journey. They ask us to be curious, to embark upon wandering inquisitive adventures, and ultimately to question the worlds we live in.
About the artists
Afatasi The Artist (San Francisco) is showing a mixed media project in the tradition of Afrofuturism. José Arenas (born San Jose, lives Davis) exhibits new paintings on wood and a site specific vinyl installation in collaboration with Kent Manske. Currently a MFA candidate at CCA, Carolina Cuevas (Mountain View) presents in sound and video, and will be performing a new work in the gallery. Casey Jay Gardner (Berkeley) creates handmade, letterpress printed artist books in small editions. Caroline Landau (San Francisco) is exhibiting a painting paired with blown glass influenced by time in residency in Arctic regions. In addition to the collaboration with José Arenas, Kent Manske (Redwood City) is showing paper-based works in the form of sculpture, artist books, and a 13 foot wide screen printed and collaged wall installation. Neil Murphy (Burlingame) exhibits mixed media, otherworldly landscapes which focus on aspects of mental health. Melissa West (Watsonville) is a printmaker showing relief prints based on her pilgrimage to the Camino de Santiago. Conceptual artist Minoosh Zomorodinia (Richmond) is exhibiting drawings and sculptural objects based on her walks in various locations.
Catalog Available:
publishing.hungerbutton.org
For further information:
preneo.org/pathways
Exhibition Dates
March 4–April 1, 2022
Receptions
March 4 and April 1, 6–9 pm
www.southfirstfridays.com
Gallery Talks (performance*)
March 5: José Arenas, Caroline Landau, Melissa West, Carolina Cuevas*
March 12: Casey Jay Gardner, Kent Manske
March 19: Afatasi the Artist, Carolina Cuevas*, Neil Murphy
March 26: Minoosh Zomorodinia, Nanette Wylde
Venue
Art Ark Gallery 1035 South 6th Street, San Jose, California www.artarkgallery.com
Curated by Nanette Wylde
Artists: Afatasi The Artist, José Arenas, Carolina Cuevas, Casey Jay Gardner, Caroline Landau, Kent Manske, Neil Murphy, Melissa West, Minoosh Zomorodinia
Nine Bay Area artists will be exhibiting in an interdisciplinary, themed exhibition at Art Ark Gallery in San Jose. The exhibition is curated by Nanette Wylde. It includes a wide range of media including artist books, conceptual works, glass, mixed media, painting, performance, printmaking, sculpture, sound, video, and installations. A collaborative, site specific vinyl installation for the gallery’s west facing windows is by José Arenas and Kent Manske.
The artists in Pathways are storytellers mapping a multitude of existential trajectories—creating, following and navigating pathways real and imagined. Their works reflect on human wanderlust surviving in a paradigm of accelerated cultural and technological development. They demonstrate a heightened awareness of the social, physical, and temporal borders that separate and unite us.
These artists are thinkers. They consider their connections to others and are reflective of the nuances of human memory and our relationships to specific locations. They are researchers exploring cosmic and human histories, present times, and the possibilities of the future. They are interested in science and the whys of our existence. Each one is deeply serious, yet they play with imagination and the absurd. As creators of contemporary culture they are allowing us to glimpse into their own interior spaces. Their works are actions reaching out to connect and find meaning in our shared human journey. They ask us to be curious, to embark upon wandering inquisitive adventures, and ultimately to question the worlds we live in.
About the artists
Afatasi The Artist (San Francisco) is showing a mixed media project in the tradition of Afrofuturism. José Arenas (born San Jose, lives Davis) exhibits new paintings on wood and a site specific vinyl installation in collaboration with Kent Manske. Currently a MFA candidate at CCA, Carolina Cuevas (Mountain View) presents in sound and video, and will be performing a new work in the gallery. Casey Jay Gardner (Berkeley) creates handmade, letterpress printed artist books in small editions. Caroline Landau (San Francisco) is exhibiting a painting paired with blown glass influenced by time in residency in Arctic regions. In addition to the collaboration with José Arenas, Kent Manske (Redwood City) is showing paper-based works in the form of sculpture, artist books, and a 13 foot wide screen printed and collaged wall installation. Neil Murphy (Burlingame) exhibits mixed media, otherworldly landscapes which focus on aspects of mental health. Melissa West (Watsonville) is a printmaker showing relief prints based on her pilgrimage to the Camino de Santiago. Conceptual artist Minoosh Zomorodinia (Richmond) is exhibiting drawings and sculptural objects based on her walks in various locations.
Catalog Available:
publishing.hungerbutton.org
For further information:
preneo.org/pathways
Pence Gallery 2019
PENCE GALLERY www.pencegallery.org
212 D street, Davis, CA
Jose Arenas: A Place in Mind
Oct. I-Dec. 6, 2019 | Reception: Oct. 11, 6-9 PM
In his new paintings, Jose Arenas explores dual identities, personal ritual, migration, and the displaced feeling that occurs from growing up in two countries. Born in San Jose, California, Arenas spent much of his childhood traveling between California and Guadalajara, Mexico. By combining decorative patterns, cultural symbols, and familiar abstract forms, he creates an emotionally resonant narrative that remains open to interpretation.
Artist Talk & Screen-printing Demonstration
Sunday, Oct. 13, 2-3 PM (FREE)
Join us for a demonstration of the silkscreen process with Jose Arenas, Associate Director and Chief Curator of TANA / Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer, a community centered silkscreen program and extension of the UC Davis Chicana/o Studies Silkscreen program. The demonstration will cover image and layout development, as well as print methods and techniques.
212 D street, Davis, CA
Jose Arenas: A Place in Mind
Oct. I-Dec. 6, 2019 | Reception: Oct. 11, 6-9 PM
In his new paintings, Jose Arenas explores dual identities, personal ritual, migration, and the displaced feeling that occurs from growing up in two countries. Born in San Jose, California, Arenas spent much of his childhood traveling between California and Guadalajara, Mexico. By combining decorative patterns, cultural symbols, and familiar abstract forms, he creates an emotionally resonant narrative that remains open to interpretation.
Artist Talk & Screen-printing Demonstration
Sunday, Oct. 13, 2-3 PM (FREE)
Join us for a demonstration of the silkscreen process with Jose Arenas, Associate Director and Chief Curator of TANA / Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer, a community centered silkscreen program and extension of the UC Davis Chicana/o Studies Silkscreen program. The demonstration will cover image and layout development, as well as print methods and techniques.
Luna Rienne Gallery 2014
Parts & Labor
Luna Rienne Gallery
Parts & Labor emphasizes the working process of art-making – similar to a mechanic, an artist combines craft and skill with the use of materials to create a desired product. The finished piece is a marvel on its own, yet many hours were invested in the building of it. The three artists participating in Parts & Labor make their living in both the commercial and fine art realms.
Jose Arenas
Reuben Rude
Bill Zindel
October 25 - December 2, 2014
Opening Reception: Saturday October 25, 2014
Luna Rienne / Fabric 8
3318 22nd Street @ Valencia, San Francisco,
CA 94110
Luna Rienne Gallery
Parts & Labor emphasizes the working process of art-making – similar to a mechanic, an artist combines craft and skill with the use of materials to create a desired product. The finished piece is a marvel on its own, yet many hours were invested in the building of it. The three artists participating in Parts & Labor make their living in both the commercial and fine art realms.
Jose Arenas
Reuben Rude
Bill Zindel
October 25 - December 2, 2014
Opening Reception: Saturday October 25, 2014
Luna Rienne / Fabric 8
3318 22nd Street @ Valencia, San Francisco,
CA 94110
Parlor Gallery 2017
"Pleased to Meet You"
Parlor Gallery
Opening - Saturday, August 5th from 7-11pm.
On view from August 5th until September 11th, 2017
Parlor Gallery
717 Cookman Avenue
Asbury Park, NJ 07712
+ 1732 869 0606
Parlor Gallery's summer exhibition featuring works by artists new to the gallery as well as returning favorites.
Parlor Gallery
Opening - Saturday, August 5th from 7-11pm.
On view from August 5th until September 11th, 2017
Parlor Gallery
717 Cookman Avenue
Asbury Park, NJ 07712
+ 1732 869 0606
Parlor Gallery's summer exhibition featuring works by artists new to the gallery as well as returning favorites.
Peninsula Museum of Art 2014
Peninsula Museum of Art
RECEPTION:
Sunday, March 30, 1-4PM
From March 26- March 29th the San Francisco Bay Area will be hosting the 2014 Southern Graphics Council (SGC) International Conference: Bridges. This is the first West Coast conference in the organization’s history.
San Francisco has long been know for its activism, innovation, technology and social justice.
Printmaking has historically been celebrated as a hybrid medium that embraces diverse working methodologies. Tradition joins with creativity; the familiar is married to the unknown. The print is a means for dissemination of ideas and a catalyst for social change.
Undercurrents
A themed portfolio of original prints by fifteen San Francisco Bay Area artists
The San Francisco Bay Area is shaped by water—the bay, the estuaries, the ocean, tidal marshes, rivers, creeks and deltas—all of which have currents, some of which have undercurrents. These currents and undercurrents bring diversity as well as (often hidden) dangers to the Bay Area ecosystem and residents. The Bay Area is also shaped by the activities of its occupants, and is recognized on a global scale for innovation, activism, and collaboration. It is an incubator that has currents and undercurrents--many of which grapple with complex, multi-dimensional issues engaging our local/global networked culture. Artists who live or work in the Bay Area navigate between or "bridge" place, thought, action, and creation. This portfolio of artists investigates themes beneath the surface of mainstream awareness.
Artists:
- José Arenas
- Servane Briand
- Julia Bradshaw
- Mike Day
- Don Drake
- Ema Harris-Sintamarian
- Ianne Kjorlie
- Eric Kneeland
- Kent Manske
- Robin McCloskey
- Doug Minkler
- Susan O'Malley
- Fanny Retsek
- Karen Rush
- Nanette Wylde
RECEPTION:
Sunday, March 30, 1-4PM
From March 26- March 29th the San Francisco Bay Area will be hosting the 2014 Southern Graphics Council (SGC) International Conference: Bridges. This is the first West Coast conference in the organization’s history.
San Francisco has long been know for its activism, innovation, technology and social justice.
Printmaking has historically been celebrated as a hybrid medium that embraces diverse working methodologies. Tradition joins with creativity; the familiar is married to the unknown. The print is a means for dissemination of ideas and a catalyst for social change.
Undercurrents
A themed portfolio of original prints by fifteen San Francisco Bay Area artists
The San Francisco Bay Area is shaped by water—the bay, the estuaries, the ocean, tidal marshes, rivers, creeks and deltas—all of which have currents, some of which have undercurrents. These currents and undercurrents bring diversity as well as (often hidden) dangers to the Bay Area ecosystem and residents. The Bay Area is also shaped by the activities of its occupants, and is recognized on a global scale for innovation, activism, and collaboration. It is an incubator that has currents and undercurrents--many of which grapple with complex, multi-dimensional issues engaging our local/global networked culture. Artists who live or work in the Bay Area navigate between or "bridge" place, thought, action, and creation. This portfolio of artists investigates themes beneath the surface of mainstream awareness.
Artists:
- José Arenas
- Servane Briand
- Julia Bradshaw
- Mike Day
- Don Drake
- Ema Harris-Sintamarian
- Ianne Kjorlie
- Eric Kneeland
- Kent Manske
- Robin McCloskey
- Doug Minkler
- Susan O'Malley
- Fanny Retsek
- Karen Rush
- Nanette Wylde
California Dreamin’ 2014
OPENING:
June 5, 2014. 6-8PM
On June 5, Cindy Rucker Gallery will open a new group show curated by Ginger Shulick, Founder of Big Deal Arts. This four-person painting show will highlight artists who either currently or have lived in California.
Featuring the work of Jose Arenas, Patrick Dintino, Amir H. Fallah, and Don Porcella, this exhibition will explore the impact of color, design, symbols and contemporary figuration on these artists, whom often incorporate religious or culture-specific iconography into their surrealist works that draw on a rich history of painting and collage from California.
The work of Arenas explores the immigrant experience through collage-style vignettes. Metaphorical images like birds, navigational symbols, maps, compasses, ships, and other elements have been used to allude to place, direction, and the feeling of living in a state of in-between.
Dintino’s junk mail and wrapping paper collages are color translations of the everyday consumer experience. By combining a plethora of sales imagery into an illusionistic pattern, the original message is de-powered, and instead an abstract code with its own strange and chaotic beauty emerges.
Fallah’s work is heavily based in field research. He enters people’s homes and assembles “evidence” of their stories and identities, gravitating toward mundane objects that seem loaded with sentimental meaning: a worn afghan, an idiosyncratic plant, a figurine, a doll, running shoes. He depicts his subjects in dramatically Neoclassical poses, layering his canvases with paper and working back and forth between collage and painting, creating work that reflects his own cultural alliances: references to Persian miniatures may appear in the form of careful borders along the edge of a canvas, and blankets may start to resemble the long veils associated with Eastern cultures.
Porcella, inspired by African masks and outsider art, creates portraits of imagined people, floating faces and characters on a minimalist background. His art celebrates craft and the hand-made as he creates his own wax and pours the material onto the surfaces of his works in an intuitive, spontaneous process of art-making, elevating his lowbrow materials to a high art context. The works’ humorous titles point the viewer to a mysterious world of strange inhabitants and possibilities.
June 5, 2014. 6-8PM
On June 5, Cindy Rucker Gallery will open a new group show curated by Ginger Shulick, Founder of Big Deal Arts. This four-person painting show will highlight artists who either currently or have lived in California.
Featuring the work of Jose Arenas, Patrick Dintino, Amir H. Fallah, and Don Porcella, this exhibition will explore the impact of color, design, symbols and contemporary figuration on these artists, whom often incorporate religious or culture-specific iconography into their surrealist works that draw on a rich history of painting and collage from California.
The work of Arenas explores the immigrant experience through collage-style vignettes. Metaphorical images like birds, navigational symbols, maps, compasses, ships, and other elements have been used to allude to place, direction, and the feeling of living in a state of in-between.
Dintino’s junk mail and wrapping paper collages are color translations of the everyday consumer experience. By combining a plethora of sales imagery into an illusionistic pattern, the original message is de-powered, and instead an abstract code with its own strange and chaotic beauty emerges.
Fallah’s work is heavily based in field research. He enters people’s homes and assembles “evidence” of their stories and identities, gravitating toward mundane objects that seem loaded with sentimental meaning: a worn afghan, an idiosyncratic plant, a figurine, a doll, running shoes. He depicts his subjects in dramatically Neoclassical poses, layering his canvases with paper and working back and forth between collage and painting, creating work that reflects his own cultural alliances: references to Persian miniatures may appear in the form of careful borders along the edge of a canvas, and blankets may start to resemble the long veils associated with Eastern cultures.
Porcella, inspired by African masks and outsider art, creates portraits of imagined people, floating faces and characters on a minimalist background. His art celebrates craft and the hand-made as he creates his own wax and pours the material onto the surfaces of his works in an intuitive, spontaneous process of art-making, elevating his lowbrow materials to a high art context. The works’ humorous titles point the viewer to a mysterious world of strange inhabitants and possibilities.
Cindy Rucker Gallery 2014
Cindy Rucker Gallery
OPENING:
May 9 – May 11, 2014D
Cindy Rucker Gallery, in partnership with Culturehall, is pleased to present TEN, a three-day event celebrating the work of one hundred artists. With a title recursively sourced from the methodology de ning the exhibition, TEN creates a dense physical manifestation of networks by bringing together ten curators who each present ten artworks.
Beyond the systematic rigor of math – TEN traces and distills one of the ever-expanding means of encountering art, the fair. As a platform for art, the format of the fair is an outlier. Each event reverses the traditional relationship of the audience and gallery by bringing art to the viewer en masse. These amalgamated circumstances create a viewing dynamic like no other, building a density which feeds the contemporary desire for ever-quickening efficiency and providing an almost punishing excess through a bounty greater than what can be reasonably consumed.
TEN considers these excesses in art viewing by engaging the tradition of salon-style presentation.
Featuring:
John Ahearn, Joe Amrhein, Justin Amrhein, Keith Anderson, Jose Arenas, Silvina Arismendi, Hackworth Ashley, Daniel Bejar, Jon Bocksel, Chris Bogia, Michael Paul Britto, Suzanne Broughel, Emma Cameron, Crystal Z Campbell, Jes Cannon, Gabriel Chazan, Andrea Chung, Danny Coeyman, Yanira Collado, Thedra Cullar-Ludford, Boyce Cummings, Nuno de Campos, Christopher Daniels, TM Davy, Jenn Dierdorf, Sara Dittrich, Robert Dupree, Oasa Duverney, Raimundo Edwards, Steven Evans, Amir H. Fallah, Kate Fauvell, Amy Finkbeiner, Alan And Michael Fleming, Cacy Forgenie, Brian Galderisi, Micah Ganske, Rory Golden and Enrique Ortiz, Hannah Gottlieb-Graham, Jeremy August Haik, Christopher K. Ho, Cynthia Hsieh, Changha Hwang, Ketta Ioannidou, Clarence Johns, Xara Jucanya, Sophie Kahn, Emmeline Kaser, Jayson Keeling, Jena H. Kim, Charlotte Kinberger, Gereon Krebber, Solene Le Borgne, Zaun Lee, Antoine Lefebvre, Michelle Leftheris, Elliott Lloyd, Tony Luib, Jesse Martin, Rita MacDonald, Ruth Marten, Tom McGrath, Leeza Meksin, Troy Michie, Jason Middlebrook, Edward Mohamed, Jesse Moretti, John Mullen, Laura Murray, Mike Nemire, Keri Oldham, Don Porcella, Alexandra Pucciarelli, Pablo Ravazanni, Kara Rooney, Gary Rough, Jean Pierre Roy, Carlos Sandoval, Nika Sarabi, Amy Sarkisian, David Schoerner, Martin Schwenk, Onajide Shabaka, Nancy Streeter, Jeremiah Teipen, Trish Tillman, Ken Tisa, Jared Vadera, Clement Valla, Conrad Ventur, Robyn Voshardt/Sven Humphrey, Frederick Weston
OPENING:
May 9 – May 11, 2014D
Cindy Rucker Gallery, in partnership with Culturehall, is pleased to present TEN, a three-day event celebrating the work of one hundred artists. With a title recursively sourced from the methodology de ning the exhibition, TEN creates a dense physical manifestation of networks by bringing together ten curators who each present ten artworks.
Beyond the systematic rigor of math – TEN traces and distills one of the ever-expanding means of encountering art, the fair. As a platform for art, the format of the fair is an outlier. Each event reverses the traditional relationship of the audience and gallery by bringing art to the viewer en masse. These amalgamated circumstances create a viewing dynamic like no other, building a density which feeds the contemporary desire for ever-quickening efficiency and providing an almost punishing excess through a bounty greater than what can be reasonably consumed.
TEN considers these excesses in art viewing by engaging the tradition of salon-style presentation.
Featuring:
John Ahearn, Joe Amrhein, Justin Amrhein, Keith Anderson, Jose Arenas, Silvina Arismendi, Hackworth Ashley, Daniel Bejar, Jon Bocksel, Chris Bogia, Michael Paul Britto, Suzanne Broughel, Emma Cameron, Crystal Z Campbell, Jes Cannon, Gabriel Chazan, Andrea Chung, Danny Coeyman, Yanira Collado, Thedra Cullar-Ludford, Boyce Cummings, Nuno de Campos, Christopher Daniels, TM Davy, Jenn Dierdorf, Sara Dittrich, Robert Dupree, Oasa Duverney, Raimundo Edwards, Steven Evans, Amir H. Fallah, Kate Fauvell, Amy Finkbeiner, Alan And Michael Fleming, Cacy Forgenie, Brian Galderisi, Micah Ganske, Rory Golden and Enrique Ortiz, Hannah Gottlieb-Graham, Jeremy August Haik, Christopher K. Ho, Cynthia Hsieh, Changha Hwang, Ketta Ioannidou, Clarence Johns, Xara Jucanya, Sophie Kahn, Emmeline Kaser, Jayson Keeling, Jena H. Kim, Charlotte Kinberger, Gereon Krebber, Solene Le Borgne, Zaun Lee, Antoine Lefebvre, Michelle Leftheris, Elliott Lloyd, Tony Luib, Jesse Martin, Rita MacDonald, Ruth Marten, Tom McGrath, Leeza Meksin, Troy Michie, Jason Middlebrook, Edward Mohamed, Jesse Moretti, John Mullen, Laura Murray, Mike Nemire, Keri Oldham, Don Porcella, Alexandra Pucciarelli, Pablo Ravazanni, Kara Rooney, Gary Rough, Jean Pierre Roy, Carlos Sandoval, Nika Sarabi, Amy Sarkisian, David Schoerner, Martin Schwenk, Onajide Shabaka, Nancy Streeter, Jeremiah Teipen, Trish Tillman, Ken Tisa, Jared Vadera, Clement Valla, Conrad Ventur, Robyn Voshardt/Sven Humphrey, Frederick Weston
Ground Floor Gallery 2014
"Staycation" at Ground Floor Gallery
Opening Reception + Salon:
July 10, 2014, 6-8:30pm
On view: July 10 – August 17, 2014
Ground Floor Gallery is pleased to present our summer exhibition, “Staycation.” Escape to your local getaway with six talented, emerging artists from near and far: The Great NYC Mapping Project (Martin McCormack), Jose Arenas, Tai Hwa Goh, Raylene Gorum, Greg Slick, and Lindsey Warren.
Opening Reception + Salon:
July 10, 2014, 6-8:30pm
On view: July 10 – August 17, 2014
Ground Floor Gallery is pleased to present our summer exhibition, “Staycation.” Escape to your local getaway with six talented, emerging artists from near and far: The Great NYC Mapping Project (Martin McCormack), Jose Arenas, Tai Hwa Goh, Raylene Gorum, Greg Slick, and Lindsey Warren.
AHA Fine Art 2014
Fountain Fair NYC / AHA Fine Art
March 7-9, 2014
Where: 69th Regimen Armory
(Lexington Ave & 26th) Manhattan
Booth # C-106
New paintings displayed at Fountain Fair New York with Arcilesi Homberg Fine Art.
March 7-9, 2014
Where: 69th Regimen Armory
(Lexington Ave & 26th) Manhattan
Booth # C-106
New paintings displayed at Fountain Fair New York with Arcilesi Homberg Fine Art.
NARS Foundation 2013
Open Studios & Exhibition: NARS Foundation
Opening Party: Friday, May 30th from 6-9pm
Open Studios continue to May 31st from 1-6pm
The NARS Foundation invites you down to Sunset Park to experience artists in their natural habitat: the studio. The NARS Open Studios offer a platform to foster the invaluable exchange between artist and community. Artists open their doors to expose an otherwise private workspace, gaining feedback and broader exposure that might lead to other opportunities.
Opening Party: Friday, May 30th from 6-9pm
Open Studios continue to May 31st from 1-6pm
The NARS Foundation invites you down to Sunset Park to experience artists in their natural habitat: the studio. The NARS Open Studios offer a platform to foster the invaluable exchange between artist and community. Artists open their doors to expose an otherwise private workspace, gaining feedback and broader exposure that might lead to other opportunities.
Yace Gallery 2012
OPENING:
Sep 27, 6 to 8 PM 2012
Yace Gallery
170 E 87th St
New York, NY 10128
yace@yacegallery.com
www.yacegallery.com
Yace Gallery is pleased to announce Memory Laden, a solo exhibition of recent works of Jose Arenas. The show will open with a reception on Thursday, Sep 27th, 2012, from 6 to 8 PM. Jose is a New York based artist who spent many years of his youth in two countries, Northern California in the United States and Guadalajara, Mexico. His experiences navigating between the two cultures has informed his work on a variety of levels. Jose’s playful, decorative, and beautifully haunting visual symbols reflect his personal narrative of the past and present. In this show, he explores the themes of place, ritual and dislocation, based on his early memories and identity shaped by the two distinct cultures.
Arenas’ collage-like process involves collecting, organizing, and spontaneously juxtaposing found imagery. Each visual element in his paintings is carefully selected for its specific and emotionally charged personal meaning. Common visual motifs include birds, navigational symbols, such as maps, compasses, ships, and other symbolic elements that suggest migration, direction and the feeling of living in a state of in-between. His unique combination of these representational symbols form a rich, vibrant, and abstract visual landscape that is both cohesive and defined.
Adando, 2011
Oil on canvas
46 x 40 inches
When looking at his work, viewers get a glimpse into the artist’s poetic subconscious. Arenas’ playful yet surreal paintings are not meant to be deciphered using logic but understood and meditated upon at a deeper and much more emotional level. Constantly navigating and exploring the realms of his dual identities, Arenas tells his personal story through his work. But founded on universal human themes, his paintings also grant his viewers to tap into their own memories and emotionally connect to both the work and the artist himself.
Arenas' work has been exhibited throughout the United States: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and New York City. Arenas received a BFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1995, and MFA from UC Davis, 2000. An accomplished educator, he also served as department chair and Associate Professor of Art at Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, CA, from 2000-11. He now teaches foundation drawing at Parsons School of Design.
Sep 27, 6 to 8 PM 2012
Yace Gallery
170 E 87th St
New York, NY 10128
yace@yacegallery.com
www.yacegallery.com
Yace Gallery is pleased to announce Memory Laden, a solo exhibition of recent works of Jose Arenas. The show will open with a reception on Thursday, Sep 27th, 2012, from 6 to 8 PM. Jose is a New York based artist who spent many years of his youth in two countries, Northern California in the United States and Guadalajara, Mexico. His experiences navigating between the two cultures has informed his work on a variety of levels. Jose’s playful, decorative, and beautifully haunting visual symbols reflect his personal narrative of the past and present. In this show, he explores the themes of place, ritual and dislocation, based on his early memories and identity shaped by the two distinct cultures.
Arenas’ collage-like process involves collecting, organizing, and spontaneously juxtaposing found imagery. Each visual element in his paintings is carefully selected for its specific and emotionally charged personal meaning. Common visual motifs include birds, navigational symbols, such as maps, compasses, ships, and other symbolic elements that suggest migration, direction and the feeling of living in a state of in-between. His unique combination of these representational symbols form a rich, vibrant, and abstract visual landscape that is both cohesive and defined.
Adando, 2011
Oil on canvas
46 x 40 inches
When looking at his work, viewers get a glimpse into the artist’s poetic subconscious. Arenas’ playful yet surreal paintings are not meant to be deciphered using logic but understood and meditated upon at a deeper and much more emotional level. Constantly navigating and exploring the realms of his dual identities, Arenas tells his personal story through his work. But founded on universal human themes, his paintings also grant his viewers to tap into their own memories and emotionally connect to both the work and the artist himself.
Arenas' work has been exhibited throughout the United States: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and New York City. Arenas received a BFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1995, and MFA from UC Davis, 2000. An accomplished educator, he also served as department chair and Associate Professor of Art at Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, CA, from 2000-11. He now teaches foundation drawing at Parsons School of Design.
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