Written by Michael Goldstein for THE ARTISTS FORUM MAGAZINE
Edited by Amos White V for THE ARTISTS FORUM, INC
Photos: Michael Goldstein
REVIEWER RATING:
4.5 out of 5 stars
DREAMERS & BEAUTY
NEW YORK, NY (March 21, 2016) At its latest exhibition, Dreamers, taking place as a pop-up gallery installation at Harlem Properties, Art in Flux has struck it rich with its latest art mine showcasing and detailing a variety of different styles that show off the dramatic tensions between harmony and discord.
Artist Roddy Wildeman, for example, showcases and evokes the bursting of star-like energy in his fabulous woodworks Composite Memory Starburst, and Composite Memory Triburst, both constructed from wood salvaged from the streets of Harlem. While the starburst patterns capture your attention, all the imperfections of the wood, thanks to the variety of sources, display that many different memories shared by friends and families.
Sculptors Stan Squirewell and Jordan Baker-Caldwell simultaneously explore the durability and flexibility of man-made materials, bending, swirling, and stacking different materials in order to create unconventional pieces. Baker-Caldwell displays his flair for the amorphous, his impressive sculptures seemingly captured in mid-flow, portraying a wide array of shapes that can’t be necessarily defined by common polygon rules.
Squirewell, meanwhile, takes the abstraction much further and unleashes a riot of stacks and fusions in his pair of sculptured towers, both named Odyssey. Coupled with this name, Squirewell combines and sticks together such things as tubes, Lego bricks, and foam on wood to create towers that looks to emulate a feeling of hardship and struggle reaching to the heavens. Both styles severely oppose each other so strongly that they create flows of energy that ultimately pursue lives of their own.
Meanwhile, at the French restaurant Cheri, the exhibition Beauty and its artists Will Roberson and Michael Delaney, work with completely different materials, each with unique and perspective composition. Michael’s paintings seem to display beauty and the human body with raw emotion. There is no touching up or polishing of any sort. All of the torsos and faces in his exhibition are displayed with nothing but honesty. Will Roberson, on the other hand, goes in a completely different direction, choosing instead to make the common shoe his canvas, doing such things as painting his own patterns or simply plastering old newspapers in specific places. It’s a unusual merger of high fashion and street art but it works effectively.
Killing two birds with one stone is easy, but seeing two exhibitions with one pair of eyes is a greater challenge, especially when both artists put their heart and soul into their incredible works.
For more information about Art in Flux, visit: fluxfair.nyc
