CURATED
A salon style exhibition space
in a Harlem brownstone
Currently on view
through May 15, 2021
Artists: Elan Cadiz, Giannina Gutierrez, Leah Poller
Curated by Connie Lee
Previews Monday February 15, 2021
Opens Tuesday February 16, 2021 through May 15, 2021
By appointment only
The exhibition At Home, installed salon style in a Harlem brownstone, explores how we live at home, as a family, as neighbors, as friends and as lovers. The artists take us back to dad’s favorite chair growing up, waking up in our own bed, working from home in this moment in time and the emotions connected to the people and places that home is.
Click to see viewing room
Elan Cadiz
Multi-media artist
Lives and works in Harlem, NY
Six of the artist’s fabric paintings from the series An American Family Album are the impetus for the exhibition theme. Each mixed media portrait, executed in textiles and using various fiber techniques, depicts the chair that was a family members’ favorite spot.
From Vogue Magazine:
“An American Family Album is a non-traditional interpretation of family portraiture. I used chairs as stand-ins for my subjects which lead me to engage family members in abstract conversations about representation and identity.”
An American Family Album was featured in New American Paintings magazine, issue #146 juried by Jerry Saltz.
Eight of the artists collages from the Home, Series III are reflective of the sameness that you might find in a suburban housing development. Each home is identical in shape but depicts the variations of identity that exist within. The series also references conflicts that can arise when dealing with ‘home as place’, such as eviction, privacy and power distribution.
20 of Cadiz’ HOME, Series III were on view at El Museo del Barrio in uptown: Nasty Women /Bad Hombre
Giannina Gutierrez
Painter
Lives and works in East Harlem
The artist’s abstract paintings are personal in their emotional context, yet the emotions expressed in the artworks are recognizable to each of us.
Pleasure Dome, a large-scale painting rendered in shades of red with explosive white marks, is literally a sensual artwork.
Enter the Unknown began as a warm and harmonious piece, transitioning to reflect the looming uncertainty that we all experienced as Covid19 became our day to day reality.
Stormy Weather, following a turbulent period in the artist’s personal life, is an aggressive work that reflects how we feel when others disappoint us.
Breathe Deep, offers an abstract portrait where a ghost of a figure expresses the flow of air, a sigh as if waiting to exhale.
The exhibition also includes seven works on paper, graphite drawings and mixed media works rendered with pastels, ink and watercolor. Within all of these artworks, one easily sees that the artist loves the act of painting and drawing. The message is left to the viewer to take ownership of and to interpret as their own.
Leah Poller
Sculptor
Lives and works in Harlem, N. Y.
Following a studio accident, Poller’s extended bed rest kick-started the series Bed, a study of our relationship with the bed where we ultimately spend about a third of our lives. Poller uses the bed as a metaphor to capture a full range of ideas, humor,
whimsy, sarcasm, tragedy and passion, offering tangible evidence of our shared humanity in table top size sculptures.
The exhibition also includes select pieces from Poller’s ongoing series of work, Zoomers, inspired from yet another dinner alone during Covid, and the plethora of zoom meetings she attended during this period. Two sculptures from the Denim series “Morning Joe…” , a rotary phone and a place setting are installed exactly where you would expect to find them: At Home, where the Living with Art Salon takes place.
CL Curated 2020