“Maureen Renahan-Krinsley’s panoramic abstract mixed media paintings similarly engage with nature, albeit in a more ethereal format that gets at the heart of moods or energies that arise and the emotional effects they leave upon / within us.”
Maureen Renahan-Krinsley, Beyond Here, 2022, oil paint, cold wax paint, graphite, handmade papers, oil sticks, plastic particles on canvas. 72 x 24 in.
Artist and President of NYSWA Lori Horowitz’s hanging mixed media sculpture Growing Up (2024) responds to the deleterious effects of extreme deforestation and land redevelopment in Upstate New York. The warped, distressed, and contorted form of the work is intended to recall a segment of woodland comprising an aged tree, fungi, and other flora as represented here with sculpted photos from the site, wood fungus, and encaustic wax. Pamela Casper, too, deals with the environment through her heroicized depictions of fungi and the role they wield in the natural cycle through a mystically idealized nocturnal landscape situated under a magnificent Aurora Borealis.
Lauren Gohara’s mostly abstract painting of a massively tilted golden yellow square over a white backdrop alongside a realistic leaf seems to have brought the aesthetics of Russian Suprematism to the climate change discourse as this work alludes to the 2023 Canadian wildfires and their impact on the New York air quality. Maureen Renahan-Krinsley’s panoramic abstract mixed media paintings similarly engage with nature, albeit in a more ethereal format that gets at the heart of moods or energies that arise and the emotional effects they leave upon / within us.
The celebration of female anatomy as metaphor for the inherent strength of womanhood is further explored by Italian-born Bruna d’Alessandro’s sculptural Breast Book, a representation of a book with a woman’s breast on its cover as a statement on the beauty, power, and symbolism ascribed to its existence. Sarah Katz’s Woman Screaming in the Shower delves more into the private sphere, as noted in its literal title, an artistic commiseration to the personal, professional, and social pressures foisted onto women and the subsequent need to vent as self-care.
The centenary of NYSWA inspired certain artists to consider their own landmark creative moments. Take veteran sculptor Leah Poller’s Bedlam(b), the 100th iteration of her long-running bed sculpture series in which she materializes a concept into a bed-centric subject infused with art historical iconography and clever wordplay, such as her riff on the rhyming connection of bedlam / lamb.
88-year old Barbara Arum’s freestanding An Accord View is an older work from 2005 that was physically delivered to the gallery by the artist on the basis of her prolonged engagement with addressing both the sanctity of nature and reproductive rights. A different kind of bodily autonomy was addressed in Siena Gilliann Porta’s Ambiguous Selfie, Buddhist Nun, Chemo Patient …. that displays an upfront portrait of a woman without hair which leaves some room for interpretation as to why she appears this way while also alluding to the artist’s experience of living with cancer; this work came as a surprise as I seldom see a work so explicitly deal with cancer, a subject all too familiar following the passing of my mother in 2023.
The visual representation of subjects historically excluded from the fine arts space was another crucial theme, from Kelynn Z. Alder’s portraits of a Mexican mother & daughter who were forcibly separated by border control security or Lindsay Blanchard’s Lemuelthat serves as a “genuine portrait” in honoring the everyman subject.
It is tempting for me to go on and on about each and every artist in this exhibition as the narratives conveyed, stories documented, and ideas expressed forth are timely, thought-provoking, and pertinent. Though the show may have ended, NYSWA’s activities persist, which is why one need stay in touch with the organization and its members’ forthcoming projects!
Below is the whole article from White Hot Magazine
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/lvwxgyioh99tat08qow81/7160.url?rlkey=hbg5tt1oil3mho06d4l7qpju0&st=xs1g6lth&dl=0