In her solo exhibition Super East-West Woman: Forty Pillars, Aphrodite Désirée Navab performs as a pillar, marking each of her forty years of life. Like the sculpted female figures, the Caryatids, of the Acropolis’ Erechtheion in Athens (421-407 BC), Super East-West Woman is both the literal column and the metaphorical support, carrying the weight of her Greek and Iranian heritage on her head: a history of both war and peace. The installation invites a third space for re-imagining our conceptions of passive and active, past and present, real and unreal, life and art, presentation and re-presentation, personal and public history, and relations between Iran and the USA.
New works on paper by Cathleen Cohen features abstract watercolor and mixed media on paper as well as poetry and handmade books by the artist. Cohen’s art practice is in a constant state of flux between verbal and non-verbal communication. The influence of poetry in Cohen’s work is clear as the paintings are composed of multiple unknown symbols whose placement, weight, and form create and direct the meaning and mood.
Experiences of visit, return, and discovery connect the work of these three artists, all of whom studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. For each artist, the significance of memory and place, the brevity of time, and the rewards or import of revisiting, whether by destiny or chance, suffuses their imagery. Celia Abrams’ plein air paintings are inspired by places of sublime beauty. Tilda Mann's oil and mixed media paintings investigate how we become who we are. Jeff Thomsen’s oil paintings are the product of many returns to locations that retain some unfathomable meaning for him.
New York City, NY; NYC