From Gemstones to Diamond Dust
A Rainy Afternoon at Art on Paper
By: Catherine Gerdes
This work from Elise Ferguson is titled Two Bridge. It is designed using linen, ink, acrylic, pencil and plywood. Ferguson is known for her work with repetition, color and pattern with paintings that convey movement through shifting colors and repeated patterns. This site-specific work is an installation that merges sculpture and print.
This is the work of PichiAvo. Since 2007, the Spanish duo have created murals, paintings and street art that is infused with their passion for Greek mythology. Various characters appear throughout their works and the intertwining of classical figures and modern techniques are a notable signature of their creations. Their colorful renderings provide the sensation of passing a graffiti-covered statue in a piazza or a skillfully tagged wall along the Bowery. As a result of their subject choices, viewers may sense this time-traveling element within each work or liken them to public art.
Nathaniel Aric Galka’s works have a fairytale quality to them, and each communicate the wildness of nature through renderings of specific animals and plants. According to Galka, his “paintings are fables created to communicate moral lessons about how we treat the world in which we exist.” Utilizing a broad color palette and concentrating on the natural world, he manages to convey something both universal and otherworldly.
Repurposing original magazine covers spanning from Architectural Digest, Luxe, Wallpaper, and more, Dan Life uses crystals and clay to alter these covers and incorporate playful jest into his works. He frequently transposes characters from The Simpsons into his pieces.
Valerie Hammond is a multimedia artist based in New York. She incorporates both the physical and spiritual as a common theme in her work, as evidenced in this celestial piece. Drawing inspiration from the natural world, the subjects in her works oscillate between nature and humans. Whether in the forms of owls, hands, leaves, lungs, flowers or the silhouette, these are commonly found in her works. In her own words, she says that she has “always been drawn to places and objects that are full of mystery.”
Roz Chast began her cartooning career in the 1970’s and continues accumulating awards and honors. These have included multiple honorary doctorate degrees and induction into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. Here, in her notable style from The New Yorker, she presents the ink on paper drawings, “Hope You’ve Got on Clean Underwear,” Real Estate Personals,” “Diner Dilemma” and “The Tunnel of Endurance.”