Tag: Visual Arts

Blind Navigator

Crosstown Arts is pleased to present “Blind Navigator,” an exhibition of new individual and collaborative works by New York-based artist Clare Torina and Memphis-based artist Alex Paulus.

Clare Torina’s recent paintings and objects refer to one another in sequence, symbolism, and mimicry. She pulls from a personal set of fascinations – her dog (Lolita), the Illuminati, basketball, patriarchal painting history, ancient art – and subjugates their representations to a multitude of transitions using color models and plays on style.

Alex Paulus’s pieces address broken things that must be repeatedly fixed or altered to allow them to continue to function. The subject matter ranges from common objects to human emotions to animals nearing extinction. He presents these damaged subjects, which can be overlooked and ignored, that ultimately need to be recognized and reconciled.

At the heart of this exhibition is an acknowledgement of the bewilderment and reformation during creative process. Together, the artists volley to find a metaphor for the act of seeing and being seen while in the throes of malfunction. The blind navigator is the artist, the viewer, and the work itself feeling its way through shadows.

Clare Torina is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in New York. After undergraduate study at the University of Memphis, she received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was a resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Memphis, and abroad. Additional information and images of her work can be found at claretorina.com.

Alex Paulus is originally from southeast Missouri, but has been a resident of Memphis, TN since 2007. He received his MFA in 2009 from the Memphis College of Art and has been teaching ever since. Paulus’s work has been shown in numerous galleries in Memphis, Nashville, Dallas, St. Louis, and many others. His work has also been published in Studio Visit magazine and Beautiful/Decay. Additional information and images of his work can be seen at alexanderpaulus.blogspot.com.

Exhibition Press: Memphis Flyer | Commercial Appeal

Lance Turner Studio Residency Exhibition

Crosstown Studio Residency Flyer Revised

Two-gallery installation by Crosstown Arts’ inaugural resident artist, Lance Turner.

 

Keiko Gonzales: KRONOS

Exhibition organized by Mary Jo Karimnia

Join us for KRONOS, a snap-shot Bolivian/American artist Keiko Gonzalez’s  prolific and ever evolving practice. Keiko has been honing his craft and showing his work throughout South America, Europe and North America for over 30 years. His continual painting and scraping leaves rich surfaces that both obstruct and reveal the history of the work, inviting the viewer into a wondrous process.

Mexicanísimo

 

 

 

 

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Friday, November 13: Reception 6-8 pm, with live performance at 7 pm
Saturday, November 14: Paintings on view 11 am-5 pm, with artists talk at 2 pm

Organized by Yancy Villa Calvo and the artists

Mexico and Memphis will come together for a multimedia fusion exhibit where Aztec rhythm and classical arts will intersect through expressionism abstract paint and video.

“Mexicanísimo” is a new exhibit by four Mexican-born, Memphis resident artists that sets the stage for the intersection of pre-colombian Aztec rhythm and the classical arts. Memphis is the home of opera singer Bethania Baray, Aztec dancer Agustín Díaz, ballet dancer Alberto Gaspar and visual artist Yancy Villa-Calvo.

“We come together to portray the beauty of our roots and what we bring to the Memphis community as Mexican immigrants,” says Villa-Calvo who has lived in Memphis for 20 years. Gaspar, a company member of Ballet Memphis adds, “Our work is not restricted or limited to folklore. We like to be identified first and foremost as artists.” However, in this show they are focusing on their heritage, hence the title of the exhibition. “We are showcasing the contributions that Mexican artists bring to the Mid-South, which is seldom talked about,” says Baray.

The exhibit features artwork by Villa-Calvo, which includes canvases that have been painted by Gaspar’s and Díaz’s feet while dancing classical ballet and moving to Aztec rhythms. Villa-Calvo then interjected painting strokes to capture the musical variations of Baray’s opera singing, which helped bring all four art forms (opera, ballet, painting, and Aztec dance) together. In addition, an installation by Brazilian videomaker André Silveira will feature the creative inspiration provided by the interaction of the artists.

According to Díaz, this is a modern representation of the Ollin, an Aztec glyph that represents “the search of unity and balance – the movement of a universal understanding among the opposites.” At a time when Mexican immigrants are perceived by some as “liabilities” and fitted often into stereotypes, the artists invite the Memphis community to be amazed and discover the unexpected.

Families are welcome
Free Admission

 

ArtsAccelerator Grant Writing Workshop

This workshop will be facilitated by Maysey Craddock and Mary Jo Karimnia, members of the ArtsMemphis Artist Advisory Council, and 2015 grant recipient, Johnathan Payne. The session will focus on grant requirements and what makes a strong proposal, with Q&A and conversation.

Application deadline is January 5, 2016.

ArtsMemphis’ ArtsAcclerator Grant program consists of five $5,000 incentive grants awarded to visual artists working in any media living in Shelby County.

Learn more about the grant

Image: Stephanie Cosby in her studio

Another Life

OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 6-9 pm

Featuring work by Andrea Morales, Yasmine Omari, Louis “Ziggy” Tucker,  Stephanie Wexler, and a collaboration by Carla Worth & Andrew Gafford.

“Life and death are mirrors. To talk about one is to talk about the other, despite the distance in the language between them: life with its fragility, versus death and its finality.

We choose to remember because we want to feel who we loved that came and passed before us. It’s for our own benefit to do so. We keep the dead alive in our dreams and photographs. We see them where we used to live, we see them where they were last seen. We see them as we last saw them. Our circles grow closer, tighter and are sometimes preserved and strengthened by death.

Why we come to life, how we leave at death, how we are remembered: our questions shape the narrative of the ultimate. We turn the questions into rituals. Chief among them is our memory.

It’s a comfort that the world does not empty of people. We welcome the ghosts as evidence of life. This show collects works that examine that memory through photography, video and mixed media by a group of local artists.” – Andrea Morales

Co-curated by Andrea Morales in collaboration with Crosstown Arts

Image:
INDIANOLA, MS – May 29, 2015: at the public viewing for B.B. King at the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center on Friday morning.
Credit: Andrea Morales for The New York Times