NEW YORK.- Neither Here Nor Now: Transformations in Time, Space and Perspective features 16 prominent works by seven emerging New York artists. In this diverse show of painting, drawing, video and site-specific installation each artist explores transition, movement or an alternate reality. Presented by the Ise Cultural Foundation and curated by Heather Christensen, Neither Here Nor Now reflects issues of identity and transformation that are especially relevant to New York lifestyle: Who am I? What will I become?
The weightless human forms in Valerie Magarian’s work convey a sense of universal movement. Her Untitled, 2005 painting questions individuals and their path in the larger community – each driven by some unique force yet also able to interact with others. She explains, “They are collages of thoughts, composites, or multiple vantage points and experiences and come as a response to the fragmented nature of human consciousness and representation.” Her drawings are timeless, precise and anatomically perfect.
Wade Kavanaugh’s 70-foot long site-specific installation literally transforms the exhibition space. Kavanaugh has reconstructed Broadway in textured cobblestone, mirroring the modern street outside but reflecting it as an antiquated avenue. The viewer, standing in the gallery directly below the real Broadway, is able to juxtapose the passage of time and the evolution of space with this large sculpture study.
Diane Tanchak’s charcoal drawings of car wrecks, placed alongside Kavanaugh’s Broadway, pull the viewer into a very human crisis represented by lifeless objects. Each image of destruction and loss emotionally engages the viewer but suspends any sense of context, leaving the viewer to reconstruct what has happened and how. In contrast, Taliah Lambert presents static objects with the promise of motion; she focuses on the bicycle to expose the structural beauty and character in objects we so often associate with movement and utility.
Kieran McGonnell’s diptych of the Empire State Building is a vivid, jazz-colored cityscape that looks at the same skyscraper through two lenses. Nearby, Suzi Matthews’ number-obsessed canvases appear as aerial views of rivers or tight grid systems of dense urban islands, letting the viewer pop through variations of reality.
Aidan Costello has silhouetted the female form, layering images of fashion models on top of one another yet revealing only the outline of the body to render them anonymous. This piece points to a central issue of this exhibition: how modern identity is difficult to grasp when the inexorable influence of the world around us so often shapes the individual rather than the individual defining his or her self from within. It is this external motion, commotion, transportation, destruction, geography and reality that this exhibition illustrates, explores, and then asks: In constant transformation, where do we actually exist?
