The exhibit Off the Wall: Art in Transition opened at the Gold Coast Arts Center, Great Neck, Long Island, featuring six artists who have made the leap from street art into the mainstream of credibility and visibility. It will be on view through September 6.
“In recent decades, aerosol art has made the leap out of the streets and off of subway cars into the upscale art world of museums and galleries,” notes Jude Amsel, Gold Coast Arts Center gallery Director. “Increasingly, street art has gained credibility as the latest major art movement “At the Gold Coast Arts Center Gallery, we are proud to exhibit the works of some of these artists, a few of whom were part of our inaugural exhibit Wall Works in 2014. This exhibit features work by Lenny Achen, Jonathan “Meres One” Cohen, Louis ‘Zimad’ Lamboy, Andrew Tess, Jake Wallace & Victoria Ward, artists who have successfully made that transition into the mainstream.”
The artists were on hand to talk about their work during the opening reception, on Sunday, May 15 at the arts center.
For those who have come to know and love Jonathan “Meres One” Cohen for his bold, brash graffiti art and his work at the now demolished 5 Pointz, his new work is both a wistful look back and a completely new direction for his art.
These are abstract patterns painted in one restrained color (rather than many flashy colors) in acrylic with brush (rather than a spray can). In fact, the patterns have been rebirthed from some of his favorite graffiti murals.
“Each is based on a favorite wall piece,” he tells me at the opening reception. He said he photographed a small portion of the original mural for its pattern, projected it onto a canvas, made the pattern, then took another pattern and did the same thing and then a third time, so there are three patterns overlapping. “But it doesn’t say anything, so then I added elements.” For example, there are five “points” which have been painted a different color – an homage to 5 Pointz, the iconic Long Island City building that became a mural for graffiti artists.
“In the end, I have taken something that was my favorite, rebirthed it to something different – it is fine art but with elements of graffiti.” Indeed, the paintings have “chips” and “drips” evoking graffiti art.
“These are pieces of my heart,” he said. “This gears up for the next show. I am taking this to another level – growing it into something else.”
Cohen’s interest in visual art spans his whole life, but it wasn’t until 1987 that he discovered graffiti art. Meres One began expressing himself through tags in the streets, and by 1990 he graduated to piecing together larger works and created his trademark “The Bright Idea.” His artwork has been purchased and resides in many prominent private and public collections.
Jake Wallace creates graphic, geometric silk screen images of urban landscapes. (Unlike Warhol’s silkscreened paintings), Wallace does all his own original photography, which provided the grainy line images in the midst of the painted color.
“I like urban themes. I grew up in Queens and Brooklyn and shot old industrial architecture that has since been replaced with towering glass structures.
“With Pop Art, the authenticity comes into question. I take pride in the fact I took all the photos myself, I hand-pull all the screens. The textural parts are hand-painted – there are so many things going into it.”
He incorporates texture into the work to create the gritty urban feel.
His latest work is inspired by the Domino Factory and Greenpoint Terminal buildings. He layers various media including photography, screen painting and painting and a collage of new photos, textures and typography to add depth and visual interest.
Wallace’s work combines all of his passions to tell the unique and powerful story of industrial relics. He weaves together his dedication for design and typography, love of painting and screen printing, and his eye photography to amplify his historical interest in the disappearing industrial landscape of New York City.
“It’s amazing to think that when my grandfather first came to Brooklyn in the early 1900s, he looked upon many of the same buildings that we see today and it’s sad to see many of the great ones disappear forever.”
Wallace graduated FIT with a GFA in Graphic Design and is currently Creative Director/Co-Founder of Rebellion Design Co.
Lenny Achan’s work focuses on socioeconomic, political and cultural issues and his art achieves connectivity to wide spectrum audiences by camouflaging self-taught mixed media techniques of street and graffiti art to develop contemporary fine art pieces. In three works presented in this exhibit, he disguises a political point of view in a series of works using 3 prominent figures: Abe Lincoln (“Abe on Fire” 2016), whose portrait is painted on Lincoln pre-1982 pennies (when they were 95% copper, instead of only 5% as they are now). “This is Abe Lincoln looking ahead- how world changed from vision,” Achan says. Ben Franklin (“Money Never Made the Man”) painted with monopoly money and George Washington, painted wearing an astronaut’s helmet over $1 bills, to represent “What US money has become.” If it were up to him, we would all be carrying around gold instead of paper money (he wants a return to the gold standard). He’s working on other presidents: Bush, Obama, Clinton.
Brooklyn-born Achan is an artist, inventor and entrepreneur. His work takes complex relationships between nature, mathematics and our visual sense and translates them into simple messages.
The opening reception was only into its second hour and Luis “Zimad” Lamboy had just sold his “Felix the Cat” off the wall to an art lover who was flying back to Paris that evening ($400). Born in the South Bronx, Lamboy began his career as a graffiti and street artist. He attended Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City where he studied textile surface design. He’s had exhibitions around the world and his clients include brand names including Nike, MTV, Red Bull, LionsGate Films and State Farm. His influences, he says, include Salvador Dali, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jeffrey Koons.
Andrew Tess explores Jewish and LGBT themes in his mixed media and performance art pieces and uses people from the New York City nightlife scene as his muses.
The work featured in this exhibit, “Danceteria in Me,” started with photographing at the celebrity nightclub Danceteria, which closed in 1986, but at one time, had been a gathering spot for Warhol, Madonna, legends of the art world. He says he wanted his piece to “reflect” so you could see yourself in it (it is set behind glass).
“It’s a metaphor for that energy, that freedom and self expression that though the club is gone, still exists.” To Tess, Danceteria represented self-acceptance, exploration, art and compassion. “This work is very emotional,” he says.
At the center of the colorful piece with wild brush strokes and neon colors, is a photographic image of Chris Pierre – who looks like a girl, the way paint is splattered around him like hair, which is intentional.“My work deals with a lot of LGBT context, gender and gender identity, what it means to be a man or woman.”
He used spray paint, acrylic, oil, textures, and for added measure (and yet another layer, which is part of his theme), he added a dab of black paint on the outside of the glass.
“Layers are part of the theme,” he says, and the glass serves as “a reflection of who we are as humans…. We are all Danceteria.”
Victoria Ward’s recent body of work examines and dissects the graffiti left on the walls of an abandoned greenhouse. For the past few years, she has photographed the ever-changing textures and colors on cement walls, printed them on Archer watercolor paper, reworked the images with pastels and colored pencil and transformed them into something new. She says she is not interested in documenting what she finds, but rather in stepping closer into the bold layers of color that have been left behind.
Gold Coast Arts Center is located at 113 Middle Neck Road (entrance through the Maple Avenue Lot behind), Great Neck NY 11021, 516-829-2570, gallery@goldcoastarts.org,goldcoastarts.org.
