POLYCENTRIC, DIALOGICAL AND RELATIONAL: ART BY JOHN JAY FACULTY
CURATED BY THALIA VRACHOPOULOS
“The title and concept of this exhibit were inspired by the tenor and variety of artworks by John Jay art studio faculty. I chose a phrase from Ella Shohat and Robert Stam’s Narrativizing Visual Culture as segue and foil to John Jay art faculty’s diverse and multitudinous artistic languages. Their productions represent diverse yet unique cultural experiences as well as points of view, that relate to the multicultural context of New York City. The art world of New York in its additive approach is a polycentric, multivalent and inclusive climate that incorporates in its art cannon international and local productions while maintaining a dialogic interaction with its many communities and ethnicities. In this respect, the faculty of John Jay’s studio arts is a microcosm of a larger picture or macrocosm found in the New York and global art worlds. ”
MARINA BERIO
““Family matter” is a series of gum bichromate prints made with blood as the main ingredient of their chemical formula.... I have an almost alchemical belief in the meaning that is contained in physical materials, and when this peculiar form of power is introduced into the illusionistic realm of the photographic image, another level of signification is made possible. ”
“Family matter” is a series of gum bichromate prints made with blood as the main ingredient of their chemical formula. I am not interested in the anachronism of making images with a 19th century process long superseded by sharper, faster methods, but gum bichromate allows for a high degree of flexibility. I have an almost alchemical belief in the meaning that is contained in physical materials, and when this peculiar form of power is introduced into the illusionistic realm of the photographic image, another level of signification is made possible. Father and son reading with limbs intertwined, or picnicking by the side of a stream, start to tease each other and then play fight and roughhouse until one or both get hurt. The inevitability of this progression from playfulness to real anger both frustrates and fascinates me: testing, aggression and love are confused, inseparable. As mother, maker, one point of the family triangle, I use my own blood to denote the fact that I am bound to these males and implicated in their routine, though their behaviors feel profoundly foreign tome. As photographer and observer, I have an invisible role in the scene being played out; I am present but beyond the frame. The veracity of these family snapshots is amplified by the presence of my blood in their making, although the bond that exists between people who love each other cannot actually be photographed.
Family Matter 3, 2008/13 - Family Matter 4, 2008/13 - Family Matter7, 2008/13 - Family Matter 13, 2014 - Family Matter 15, 2014 - Family Matter 16, 2014 - Family Matter 17, 2014 - All the prints are 10¼x 10¼ inches - Gum bichromate print with blood
Marina Berio is a visual artist who works with drawing and photography to convey aspects of visual experience that are intimate and visceral. She has made family pictures out of her own blood and rendered photographic negatives of spaces, objects and landscapes as large-scale charcoal drawings. Her current project, shot on the walls of her studio, explores the interrelationship between physical space, the mental dimensions of creative process and the internal topography of the body. Berio has been awarded grants by the Guggenheim and the Pollock/Krasner Foundations, and visited various residencies including the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and Millay. Her most recent shows have been at Galerie Miranda in Paris, France; OFF Triennale in Hamburg; and Shiro Oni Studio in Japan.
Michael Bilsborough
Occx, 2020, Color pencil, ink, cut paper on Arches paper, 16x20” — Occx, 2020 (detail), Color pencil, ink, cut paper on Arches paper, 16x20” — Sieve, 2020 (detail), Color pencil, ink, acrylic, gouache on Arches paper, 16x20” — Screen, 2020, Color pencil, ink, gouache on Arches paper, 16x20” — Screen, 2020 (detail), Color pencil, ink, gouache on Arches paper, 16x20” — Wave, 2020, Acrylic on gessoed paper board, 16x20” — Wave, 2020 (detail), Acrylic on gessoed paper board, 16x20” — Zynn, 2020, Color pencil, ink on Arches paper, 16x20” — Zynn, 2020 (detail), Color pencil, ink on Arches paper, 16x20” — Sygh, 2020, Acrylic on gessoed paper board, 16x20” — Sygh, 2020 (detail), Acrylic on gessoed paper board, 16x20”
Michael Bilsborough is a visual artist living and working in New York City. An alumnus of Columbia University and the School of Visual Arts, he currently produces abstract drawings about perception and visual experience. He has exhibited his work at galleries and museums in the United States and abroad, currently is a studio resident at NADA House/ Governors Island, and teaches drawing and painting at the City University of New York, John Jay College.
Corinne Botz
“Lactation rooms embody deeply felt, subjective experiences of motherhood. Symbolically and materially, expressed milk simulates physical and emotional intimacy when mother and child are separated. These little-known and commonly unseen interiors offer insight into women’s personal experiences, the maternal body’s status in the workplace, and fundamental socio-political issues pertaining to the family. ”
This series originated as a personal record of my early experience as a mother after I gave birth to my daughter and took a photograph of the oddly sparse room I pumped in at the College where I teach. A few years later, realizing the relationship of this image to my other work as an exploration of space, I decided to expand the project to create an unconventional portrait of motherhood. Lactation rooms embody deeply felt, subjective experiences of motherhood. Symbolically and materially, expressed milk simulates physical and emotional intimacy when mother and child are separated. These little-known and commonly unseen interiors offer insight into women’s personal experiences, the maternal body’s status in the workplace, and fundamental socio-political issues pertaining to the family.
Any investigation of lactation rooms must acknowledge the absence of policy for mandated paid maternity leave in America. Through my images I endeavor to help normalize pumping, create a public discourse concerning the politics of care, and highlight the importance of women’s voices/visibility. The photographs are named for the diverse professions of the pumping women. The solitary pumping rooms take on collective power through the accumulation of photographs.
1. Building Manager, 40 x 50 inches, 2019. 2. Business Group Director, 24 x 30 inches, 2018. 3. Cosmetic Nurse Injector, 40 x 30 inches, 2019. 4. Private School Teacher, 16 x 20 inches, 2019. 5. Creative Director (Domino), 40 x 50 inches, 2019. 6. Adjunct Professor, 40 x 50 inches, 2014. All images are Archival Pigment Prints from the series Milk Factory.
Corinne Botz is a photographic artist, filmmaker, and educator. A sustained focus on space, gender and the body, particularly relating to women’s experiences, is central to her practice. Her published books combining photography and writing include the bestselling book The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death (Monacelli Press, 2004) and Haunted Houses (Monacelli Press, 2010). Botz’s photographs have been internationally exhibited at such institutions as the Brooklyn Museum; Museum of Contemporary Photography; De Appel; Turner Contemporary; Wellcome Collection; and Benrubi Gallery. Her work has been reviewed in numerous publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Foam Magazine, Hyperallergic and Bookforum. She has held residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; Atlantic Center for the Arts; Akademie Schloss Solitude; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Mana Contemporary. She earned her BFA from Maryland Institute, College of Art and her MFA from Milton Avery School of the Arts, Bard College.
steve Erickson
Ceramics, 24 X 18 X 18 inches.
frank gimpaya
In a career that spans over forty years, Frank Gimpaya continues to explore the creative possibilities of capturing the human experience with a camera. He has travelled extensively throughout North America and Europe, and his body of work reflects a continuing interest in revealing the mystery and uniqueness of people and places around the world.
Gimpaya holds a BFA from Hunter College (1965). Currently, he teaches painting and drawing at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and photography at Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City. In addition, he is responsible for the original design of Nueva Luz, a noteworthy photographic journal published by En Foco—an organization supporting photographers of diverse cultures where he serves on the Board of Directors.
However, it is as a fine arts photographer that Gimpaya has gained recognition as an artist who “paints with light.” Throughout his career, he has had exhibitions in the United States, Mexico, Cuba, and Europe, and his work has been reviewed in numerous prestigious publications, including The New York Times and The Village Voice. His photographs are in the collection of Museet For Fotokunst in Odense, Denmark; and awards have included a New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship (2002), the Pace/Promise Awards for Contributions in Arts Education (1992), and the CAPS Award from the New York State Council on the Arts (1977). Gimpaya's series entitled Mask was exhibited at SMP Graphics in 2009, the Look Art Gallery in 2012 and exhibited at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in 2016.
stephanie hightower
“For Her Love, a series of laser prints and oil on panel made in 1998-99, in the decade of Identity Politics, were meant to be narratives of lesbian fiction told through borrowed imagery. ”
For Her Love, a series of laser prints and oil on panel made in 1998-99, in the decade of Identity Politics, were meant to be narratives of lesbian fiction told through borrowed imagery. Portuguese tiles become women literally joined at the hip, butterflies and insects, “lowly creatures”, transform into decorous but submerged beauty, thriving flowers are set beneath an empty church’s foundation, and magpies, the gossipy birds, are taken from a palace ceiling painting, in honor of illicit affairs. A mother and daughter ona bridge in Tokyo ignore each other, feed the birds, trying not to see each other’s unique form, are trapped motionless on a bridge underwater with a stranded bicycle.
“For Her Love” series and exhibition with Cheryl McGinnis Gallery, New York - Eight works, oil and collage on wood panel, each 18 x 18 inches, 1999 — For Her Love - Glass House - My Queen - Queens of Wisdom - The Missing Flower - Mate For Life - Wanting - Subculture
Originally from Oklahoma, Stephanie Hightower lives and works in New York’s lower east side and Berlin. She received a BFA from the University of Dallas and an MFA from Pratt Institute. She is Associate Professor for painting and drawing at John Jay College, and has been recognized by numerous research/studio residencies and grants by the City University of NewYork, The Edna St. Vincent Millay Colony, The Vermont Studio Center, the Bronx Council for the Arts, Nurture Art for Excellence in Teaching, and was awarded the Potawatomi Tribal Scholarship for graduate study. Her work has been exhibited in Berlin at Technische Universität and Galerie Mommsenstrasse, and in New York with John Jay College, The New York Public Library, The Flatiron Art Space, Five Myles Gallery, The Rotunda Gallery, Wuersch & Gering, The Cooper Union, and the Bronx Museum of Art, among others. She has guest lectured for Guggenheim Museum, Technische Universität of Berlin, Fordham University, and the University of Connecticut. Hightower catalogues include More Questions, 2009, and URBAN ARCADIA, 2015.
CARY LANE
"First Love" (A live forensic drawing installation for Rivane Neuenshcwander's New Museum of Contemporary Art exhibit, "A Day Like Any Other") - Multiple one-hour forensic sketches of museum visitors' first loves - Graphite on Bristol Paper - 14” x 11” - 2010, New Museum of Contemporary Art
Cary Lane, Ph.D.is an associate professor of English at Queensborough Community College, CUNY and also teaches forensic drawing at JohnJay College of Criminal Justice,CUNY. He has an MFA in painting and drawing from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in postsecondary and adult education from Capella University.
jerry lim
“The family’s loss became the entry point of a circuitous journey filled with the narratives and cataclysms of nations and the past inhabiting the present.”
Eat Well to Keep Fit, Missing You and Forget Me Not
This project began as an exploration of the fishing industry in Japan through the experiences of one multigenerational fishing family living in Nagahama, Japan in northwestern Shikoku. When I arrived in Japan I learned that the family had stopped fishing, ending over four generations of a way of life. The patriarch of the family explained that every fishing season yielded less and less fish. Practices by large corporations had destroyed the local fish population, and in general the industry was changing. The family's loss became the entry point of a circuitous journey filled with the narratives and cataclysms of nations and the past inhabiting the present.
Among the images in this project is a photograph of a preserved carp, made at one of the last remaining Korean Schools in Japan, located on the island of Shikoku. The school teaches exclusively ethnic Koreans and is sponsored by The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, an organization for ethnic Koreans living in Japan. The Association also serves as the country™s de facto North Korean embassy. At the end of the Japanese colonial rule, WWII and the division of Korea, ethnic Koreans in Japan were given a choice to register as South Koreans or retain their original nationality as Joseon, the name of the undivided nation before Japanese occupation. Those that chose Joseon became de facto North Korean citizens. Those Joseon Koreans lost their country and identity only to gain it back divided, traumatized, pathological and ultimately twice lost.
Just north of Shikoku, there exists another anomaly of colonial Korean history, a small village in Kyoto that has been occupied by conscripted ethnic Koreans laborers and their descendants since WWII. After being forcibly brought over to work on the construction of a military air base, the project was scrapped and the laborers were stranded with no means to return to their homes. The village only in the last few years has received running water and is under the continual threat of being razed. The village appears abandoned, but on occasion one resident will peer out of a window, a reminder that someone lives there, and that this village, though pieced together by the stranded has been made a home none the less.
1. Untitled (from the series Eat Well to Keep Fit, Missing You and Forget Me Not) - Inkjet on paper Triptych, 32” x 47” (each photograph) - 2017 - 2. Pachinko Webs (from the series Eat Well to Keep Fit, Missing You and Forget Me Not) - Inkjet on paper - Diptych, 44” x 65” (each photograph) - 2017
Jerry Lim (b. 1975) is an artist that works with photography, text, sound and video. He is a recent recipient of the Lightwork Grant in Photography 2018 and is a 2019 En Foco Fellowship awardee. Lim is also a guitarist and improviser having performed at venues such as Rou-lette, The Stone and Carnegie Hall. He has played with legendary saxophonist JoeMcPhee, kayagum master Sang-Won Park, sound artist Sean Meehan, Martha Colburn, among others. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.
cyriaco lopes
“Saints & Martyrs is a photo series on feverishly erotic ecstasies. Each image is staged with painted sculptures that are destroyed after shot. The work is genre fluid, intermedia - queer in content and form. ”
I. Saints & Martyrs is a photo series on feverishly erotic ecstasies. Each image is staged with painted sculptures that are destroyed after shot. The work is genre fluid, intermedia - queer in content and form. II. photography is a drawer of dead-loved leftovers. but we throw away the keys. here photography is an arena. things happen on it, at it, for it. This is not documentation but construction. III. Art History is a collection of photographs (in books, PowerPoints, online). Photographs engaged as transparent windows and also as placeholders for the ‘real experience.’ Like porn to sex. They are anonymous works, invisible in their profusion, blamed by the degradation of the aura of the originals. And yet it is often through them that we fall in love with works of art in painting and sculpture. IV. Those are languid men. they are odalisques and nymphs and goddesses, ready for the taking. they are saints who give their body and life to the beloved, big brother and father. those men are in control in erotic abandon. here is my body, it is yours, take it, do with it what you will, please (me).
Saints & Martyrs #270, 2019 / #189, 2018 / #271, 2020 / #272, 2020 / #277, 2020/ #205, 2019 - 7 X 7 in, Archival Pigment Print
Since 2017 ‘Saints & Martyrs’ has been selected into exhibitions at the Houston Center for Photography by Yasufumi Nakamori (now, chief curator of photography at Tate Modern), and the L.A. Center for Digital Art by Bryan Barcena (MoCA, L.A.), and Nicholas Barlow (LACMA). It has also been selected for residencies at Helycon, Turkey (2018), MassMoca (2019), and the MacDowell Colony (where Lopes was chosen as a 2019 Marian O. Naumburg Photography fellow). ——- NYC-based Brazilian artist Cyriaco Lopes has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio, the Museum of Art of São Paulo, El Museo del Barrio in NYC, the Centre Wallonie Bruxelles in Paris, Casa Degli Artisti in Milan. His work has been curated by artists such as Lygia Pape, Janine Antoni, and Luciano Fabro. He is the winner of the NYC World Studio Foundation Award, the Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis Award, the São Paulo Phillips Prize of trip to Europe. He received grants to attend the London Project residency and Skowhegan. ——- His performances with poet Terri Witek have been seen in Lisbon, Portugal, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the Salford Museum, in Manchester, England, the Centre del Cultura Contemporanea, in Valencia, Spain etc.
stella nicolaou
Blue Tones / Blue Pink Tones / Green Tones / Purple Blue Tones - Computer-Photo-Etchings Monoprint Series - Paper Frame image is embedded in is 15 ¼ x 20 inches - Image within Frame is 10 x 7 inches
Stella Nicolaou is a NYC painter working experientially through abstract and representational formats influenced by the Cezanne. concept of painterly spatial synthesis. She works experientially in both Abstract and Representational styles.
She received her formal art training at Cooper Union earning a BFA followed by The Art Institute of Chicago where she earned an MFA. Among her mentors at Cooper union, in painting she was influenced by the Painter Jake Berthot studying with him for several years.
Her work has been exhibited in venues such as the Consulate General of the Republic of Cyprus, Art Institute Museum-Chicago, Elaine Benson Gallery-Bridgehampton, Lincoln Center, CUNY galleries, Stedman and University Galleries of Rutgers University, Parsons, School of Design, Womanart Gallery, National Arts Club, Three Arts Club of Chicago, and the Houghton Gallery- Cooper Union.
sana musasama
Sana Musasama received her BA from City College of New York in 1973 and her MFA from Alfred University, New York in 1988. Sana received the 2018 Achievement Award from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts for her years of teaching and her humanitarian work with victims of sex trafficking in Cambodia. Sana is the coordinator of the Apron Project, a sustainable entrepreneurial project for girls and young women reintegrated back into society after being forced into sex trafficking. In 2016, she was a guest speaker on “Activism through Art” at ROCA. A recently published article by Cliff Hocker, “If I can Help Somebody: Sana Musasama’s Art of Healing” appears in the International Review of African American Art. In 2015, the Museum of Art and Design in New York selected four works from The Unspeakable Series for their private collection; Sana was awarded the ACLU of Michigan Art Prize 7 and Art Prize 8. In 2002, she was awarded Anonymous Was a Women and in 2001, Sana was featured in the 2001 Florence Biennial. Her work is in multiple collections such as The Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina; The Museum of Art and Design in New York, New York; the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, New York; the Hood Museum of Art in Hanover, New Hampshire; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York; Bluffton University in Bluffton, Ohio; and in numerous private collections. Sana lives and works in New York.
bill pangburn
Hudon Beiseite 5-4 - 2020 - watercolor and gouach on handmade paper - 15.25" x 11" / Hudon Beiseite 5-6 - 2020 - watercolor and gouach on handmade paper - 15.25" x 11" / Hudon Beiseite 5-7 - 2020 - watercolor and gouach on handmade paper - 15.25" x 11" / Meander 2 - 2020 - acrylic on handmade paper - 79" x 98"
Born in Amarillo, Texas, Bill Pangburn studied fine arts at the Phillips-Universitaet, Marburg an der Lahn, Germany; Tulane University(BA), New Orleans, LA; and Pratt Institute (MFA), Brooklyn, NY. A professional artist who works in painting, printmaking, and installations, he is also an arts administrator, curator, and educator. Currently he is the director of the Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, John Jay College, and in fall 2017 was a visiting professor of fine arts at Haverford College, Haverford, PA. He has also taught at John Jay College and the Fashion Institute of Technology. His professional activities include solo exhibitions at the San Angelo Museum of Art, San Angelo,TX; University College Art Gallery, Farleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ; Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, TX; Art Mora Gallery, NY, NY; BCBArt, Hudson, NY; among others. Group exhibitions include the Sofia International Paper Biennial 2015, Sofia,Bulgaria; Art-Area China 2015, Hebei Normal University Museum, Hebei, China; Dishman Art Museum, Beaumont, TX; Nikolaou Gallery, Salonika, Greece; and the 22nd Seoul International Art Festival, Chosunibo Museum, Seoul, South Korea. His work is held in the public collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, TX; and the Henan Museum, Zhengzhou, China; among others.
carol Pereira
Untitled#1, Untitled#2, 19 x 13 inches, digital photograph printed on drawing paper with color pencil, 2019
Carol Pereira is a performance and visual artist, originally trained as a painter, with an MFA from Yale University and a BFA from Cooper Union. Painting and drawing are only a departure point for Pereira’s large-scale mixed-media installations. Pereira merges traditional painting, drawing, photography and digital editing techniques to deconstruct, isolate, abstract, recreate and resituate familiar images; and, through this exploratory layering of processes, she ground her work within the realm of painting. Amongst her accolades, Pereira is a U.S. Fulbright Grant recipient, a Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting Alumnae, and a recent recipient of CUNY’s PSC Faculty Research Grant. Pereira’s notable exhibitions and residencies include the Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, Rush Arts Gallery, Miami Art Basel, Elizabeth Harris Gallery, Exit Art and Gallery SKE (India), Aomori Art Center (Japan), Yaddo(NY), The Atlantic Center for the Arts (FL), Art Omi International (NY), The MacDowell Colony (NH), and FACETS (India). Her film exhibitions span from San Francisco to South Africa, Korea and London. Carol Pereira lives and works in Long Island City, Queens.
milena popov
Sparkles, Video, color, sound, 2:27min, 2019 - Metropolis, Video, color, sound, 3:53min, 2019
“Tied in the structures of the media and surveillance technologies, humans have become “info-grazing cows” as Wilém Flusser suggests, or cyborgs, that deny or ignore ecological and other social crises, as well as panopticon. ”
Tied in the structures of the media and surveillance technologies, humans have become “info-grazing cows” as Wilém Flusser suggests, or cyborgs, that deny or ignore ecological and other social crises, as well as panopticon. Will we decide to stay in digital heterotopia of our glittering techno world? Or, will we make a shift and tune in to the more natural rhythm, and dare to be those water droplets that will manage to spark in the ocean of life, in spite of constantly present pollution that tries to obliterate this rhythm?
Milena Popov is a Yugoslavian-born, New York City-based interdisciplinary artist and scholar. She holds a PhD in Art and Media Theory, as well as an MFA and a BFA in Painting and Art Education. Popov teaches art, and interdisciplinary sustainability and environmental justice courses at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York. She has written and published numerous texts on art, media, culture, and environmental sustainability. Popov is a member of International Eco Art Network, founder and organizer of Intellectual Salon, and co-founder of the art group Aufwiedersehen. She has exhibited her artworks at 26 solo and over 70 group shows worldwide. Some of her artworks have entered public collections, such as collection of the Museum of the Contemporary Art of Vojvodina.
mary ting
“Half a million people have died from COVID-19.
Locust clouds mob the skies. Siberia is 100 degrees.
Our hive is sick.”
The night is not silent. All is not calm. Sirens wail, helicopters circle.
2019 ended with a continent on fire – one billion animals incinerated alive.
2020 began with a new deadly virus leaping across species and oceans.
People hide in their homes. Airplanes stay on the ground.
Half a million people have died from COVID-19.
Locust clouds mob the skies. Siberia is 100 degrees.
Our hive is sick.
1. BornStill/Terror Nights, 2019, 16”x16”x5” - altar with two drawings: ink, gold painted paper, Masonite, ginseng, valerian root - 2. Botanical Human Puppet trio; She Drake, 2019 / Arboris Radices, 2019 16”x7”x4” / Arboris Agricola, 2019. 14”x8”x4” 3. CAW,CAW, Humans, Pandemics, Plagues, 2020, 8 drawings each, Wax crayon, cut paper, soot on handmade paper - 4. Bitter Melon Road, 1999, 11”x8” ink, bw copies, wax, letter paper - 5. ExVotos, 1999, 11”x9” (set of 4, #1-4), Exvoto1 – Desperations & Devotions, Exvoto2 – The Event, Exvoto3- The Omen, Exvoto4- The Aftermath, ink drawings mounted on handmade paper - 6. Unsent Letters, 1999, 11”x8”, ink, pen, wax, incense burn holes on letter paper.
Mary Ting uses visual art, community projects, research and lectures as a means to reflect and comment on cultural history, trauma and the loss of nature. Solo exhibitions include Lambent Foundation, Dean Project, metaphor contemporary art, and Kentler Drawing Space and a 2020 exhibition, Our Hive is Sick at the Univ. of MA at Amherst. Ting has received grants and residencies from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Gottlieb Foundation, Pollack Krasner Foundation, Joan Mitchell Center, and the \MacDowell Colony among others. Her research on wild life demand and modern history has been presented at the Jane Goodall Institute, Nepal; UC Davis; The Explorer’s Club, NY and on a 2019 South African conservation lecture tour speaking and in upcoming publications. Mary teaches in both the art department and the environmental justice program at John Jay College, New York City.
victor torres
"Ma," 2013 Oil ink on paper print. 50”x50" / "Al," 2015 Lost cast solid Bronze. Computer interface, high resistance current. Participants are compelled to touch the sculptures in order to trigger videos and sounds. 6”x3"x10" / "On," 2015 Lost cast bronze. Computer interface, high resistance current. Participants are compelled to touch the sculptures in order to trigger videos and sounds. 10”x9"x17"
Victor F. M. Torres is an intermedia artist born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, currently living in Brooklyn, NY. Torres holds an MFA in Intermedia and Digital Arts and a BA in Socio-Cultural Anthropology, both from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is an Adjunct Faculty at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. Torres has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Stevenson University, George Mason University, and UMBC. He is the author of Language Writes Myth Writes Reality: Or How Does the Acculturated Body Take the Role of Culture Maker?. Torres’ sculptural work snapshots the relationship between information retention, capacitive touch, and bronze age aesthetics, thinning the threshold between primitivism and futurism. His work has been shown globally including the Whitney Museum of American Art, MOCA LA, MCA Chicago, Museum of Modern Art, Baltimore Museum of Art,Monmouth Museum, MIX NYC, Maryland Art Place, and Grace Exhibition Space, among others.
roberto visani
Rainbow Assembly, 2019 laser cut acrylic. dimensions variable. Each figure 28"- 42" high / Assembly, 2020 cardboard and hot glue, dimensions variable. Each figure 5'9" to 7'6" tall
Roberto Visani is a multi-media artist residing in Brooklyn, New York. He has exhibited at such institutions as the New Museum of Contemporary Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Bronx Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Barbican Galleries, London. Visani has been awarded residencies from Art Omi, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Chelsea College of Art, London.He is a NYFA Fellow in Sculpture and was a Fulbright Fellow to Ghana where he began his iconic gun series of sculptures. His work has been reviewed by the New York Times, Art Forum, Art News, and Frieze among others. Since 2004 he has taught at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City of New York where he is an associate professor of art.