A world renowned tap dancer and multitalented artist, Brenda Bufalino has taught the art of tap to generations of dancers.

WESTBETH GALLERY TO FEATURE
WESTBETH ABSTRACT PAINTERS GROUP – WAPG

7 ABSTRACT PAINTERS.
September 7 – 29, 2019

West Village, New York City. Westbeth Gallery is pleased to announce its first exhibition of work by the artists of the recently formed Westbeth Abstract Painters Group (WAPG), curated by Parviz Mohassel. This exhibition includes WAPG members’ early and recent paintings.

Artists:
Anne Brody, Tony Candido, Patricia Hacker, Robert Ludwig, Parviz Mohassel, Jean Promutico, and Ellen Rosen.

While WAPG members demonstrate ties to abstract expressionism and constructivism,they have clearly developed their own individual sensibilities and voices. The work exhibited encompasses a range of approaches, from Candido’s abstract brush strokes; Brody and Hacker’s natural, more linear color movement; Mohassel’s bold, gestural
compositions; Ludwig’s geometric compositions to Promutico and Rosen’s layered, contemplative paintings.

WHAT: 7 Abstract Painters.
WHO: Anne Brody, Tony Candido, Patricia Hacker, Robert Ludwig,
Parviz Mohassel, Jean Promutico, Ellen Rosen.

WHEN: Opening ReceptionSaturday September 7, 2019 from 5 to 7pm

Exhibition Continues through Sunday September 29, 2019

Gallery Hours
Open Daily, 1pm to 6pm
WHERE: Westbeth Gallery

57 Bethune Street, New York, NY 10014
CONTACT: Parviz Mohassel RA Ph.D., curator
Mohasselstudio@gmail.com, 212.206.9722

ARTISTS:

Parviz Mohassel, RA Ph.D., curator

My paintings are NOT about empty blank canvases which lack objective representations. They are about full compositional structures and forms. They leave open a pivotal connectivity to a compelling range of unpredictability on the canvas itself, and the fast paced of the City life. This openness is created without thematization, with black and white and gestural color brush strokes—in the shifting spontaneous planes of the canvas.

I do not believe in organizational re-positioning of elements. But to provide spatial structural compositions activating spatial variations and by reorienting of canvas, I often employ to change my focal point and thus to search for what is hidden in-between the unseen and seen and the broad brush strokes.

In the dichotomy of open, close, accessible, and hidden, in using broad and lighter brush strokes there is a beginning which is put first–something that is not pre-determent, pre-meditated and figurative. This beginning is with the importance of starting fresh from a clean slate, both in mind and on the canvas. This is prior to anything else, and perhaps with the smallest forward looking insight, I speak to the events of present time: like painting in abstraction, one must start fresh from the start.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a catalogue of Mohassel’s work will be available and will include essays by Edward Casey, Mary Rawlinson, James Dodd, David Kleinberg-Levin and other philosophers on the phenomenology of aesthetics, responding to the question, “What is abstract painting? ”

Anne Brody
For as long as I can remember, I have been involved with the study, the observation, and the creation of art. As a young person I lived in Japan, where I learned to appreciate the Asian aesthetic. Studying color and drawing with Josef Albers was inspirational. It gave me my first opportunity to discover my special sensitivity to color and also to create my first original artwork. I fell in love with paint—the purity of the color, the texture, and the pleasure of applying the paint to the canvas until the final stroke.

For the past several years I have spent most of my summers in a country setting. For the first time I truly discovered the changing seasons, the mystery of a garden, the beauty of a small river. The variety of colors and textures were overwhelming and so I decided to simplify my work. Now I used a pencil to describe what I was seeing. Initially, I drew from nature, but found that to be a totally frustrating experience. When I began to experiment in my studio with my pencil and discovered the variety of tone and texture, I felt more satisfied. Each drawing is an experiment in form and space. I have found much satisfaction in my pencil and hope this is conveyed to the viewer.

Nature is the inspiration. I am the catalyst. The drawings are the end result. The act of drawing the repetitive forms is a meditation. The final works are a combination of tone and texture, which reflect my perception of the natural world. The paintings are inner landscapes.

Tony Candido
I would consider my first mature or important paintings the Night Paintings, and the twelve or so paintings that preceded them. These paintings, completed between 1954 and 1956, have always been important to me. In them I am dealing with the human image—the concrete substantive image of man. But when one sees the paintings very abstractly, they are a plastic realization of a human image and that human image is not relegated to the world we live in. That’s a very complicated statement, somewhat paradoxical. But I can’t help it; I can’t say it any other way.

For me the brush stroke is the concrete formative element, which in a direct hand-to-mind action plastically activates the space of the painting, through which a reality far greater than the apparent is realized. The technique of brush and ink suits my sensibility. I can, in effect, carve out large spaces with one sweeping stroke. A combination of grace and strength are available within the range. I see a profound meaning and mystery in the stroke. For me, looking into the stroke and seizing its action promotes an alertness and a clearness of mind which is unexplainable, and herein lies the way to unimaginable leaps and transformations.

When painting either abstractions or heads, the scale and quality of the space is a plastic component of the paintings—it bears content. The stroke is space as well as the track of the images in space. Figuratively, one might well imagine the stroke as being the historical-universal path of the image in time—hence the true expression both ancient and now, the now always moving ahead.

Patricia Hacker
“I create a sensation of movement and depth…My paintings suggest forms colliding and flying apart, yet frozen in time and held together by an innate sense of balance.” (NYArt Beat Interview) My primary and preferred painting mediums are oil, watercolor and acrylic.

Bob Ludwig
Although most of my work is abstract, I was never an abstract expressionist; nor, indeed, have I ever identified with a specific artistic movement. My work was never minimal, but I always strive for clarity and simplicity. In most of my recent work I make simple horizontal and vertical divisions. Using various media — charcoal, paint, pastels, graphite — I fill the resultant rectangles with color that is often muted. The efficacy of the painting derives from the precision of the tonal – spatial relationships. The various degrees of texture and tone establish ambiguities between flatness and the appearance of depth, and stasis and the illusion of incipient motion. I aim to create an optical ambiguity between open and closed spaces and to engage the viewer in this delicate balance.

Jean Promutico
With a regard for the materiality of the flat painting surface whether paper, canvas or panel — is where I begin.
And this begins the process that describes my personal vision which is realized essentially through my eyes, gestures and color. The brain kicks in through these elements which are not predetermined. My immediate approach is reckless in its gestures/brushmarks and color. Ultimately however I want a manifestation of a beauty, sometimes gritty, that is evocative of atmosphere/nature not coming from the mind but of the spirit and heart – thus a need to refine what is.
I wish the final statement to be transcendent/contemplative.

Ellen Rosen
My paintings are wordless visual statements that exist between silence and space. Wishing to set a visual presence I create an atmosphere to which viewers can bring their feelings and experiences. Essentially gestural, the smaller brush strokes, which are my personal mark, combine to create large, rectangular form. When confronting a blank canvas I look at it until I discover the forms are buried between the edges and begin to bring them out. The process of painting becomes constructive and destructive, at once additive and reductive, continually changing, continually creating something different, the rectangles moving forward and back until the tension is resolved and the painting works. My paintings are about color, space, formal tension and balance. They reflect my personal history and the path I have been traveling. I experience this process, which always begins with struggle, as both cathartic and liberating. My work is essentially meaningless. It tells no story. If there is content, it is only about the work itself.

WAPG Statement (Founded on November 2016)
Westbeth Abstract Painters Group was formed to promote abstract experimentation and encourage open dialogue between artists. WAPG considers abstract art and painting as a discipline, complete, non-symbolic, with compositional and gestural embodiments–free from representing object directly or indirectly. As such, abstract painting is not a suggestion of mere lines, color fields, forms and a simple organization of distinct elements. Rather, WAPG acknowledges multiplicity, change, intuitiveness and the formal variations in composition, by avoiding direct copying from nature.

In addition to gallery exhibitions WAPG hosts talks on abstract painting contribution to the understanding of abstract art and practice.

Westbeth Gallery
57 Bethune Street, New York, NY 10014
Open Daily 1PM – 6PM

Contact
Parviz Mohassel mohasselstudio@gmail.com
212.206.9722

Westbeth Gallery will present a solo-exhibition by Jenna Lash this October 12th – 26th, with an inspired opening event on the 12th, 3-7PM.

The upcoming opening reception of “Get Rich Quick” will host guests in an early-evening presentation of three main spaces, displaying Lash’s latest investigations on currency. Guests will be met with never before seen work, treats, and the musical impressions by hand pan musician Jordan Auber (@colorofrhythm).

In “Get Rich Quick II,” Jenna Lash harnesses a pointillist technique to represent her impressions on how diverse cultures represent themselves symbolically in their financial systems. In the artist’s words, “I call myself a Neo-pointillist cultural currency artist because I am a visual artist who comments on cultural identity by reinterpreting the images of domestic and international currency. By enhancing the iconography of money to inspire my art, I use the familiar to inform the abstract.”

Familiar and relatable, the iconographies are the platform for the impetus on a discussion of current and past cultural mores and their influence on currency. Many of the large paintings range from 48″ to 160″ in dimension and convey their message through a meticulous application of build-up dotted color, as did Georges Seurat, and Paul Signac.

Lash has been written up by Ralph Gardner of “The Wall Street Journal,” and “Bloomberg News.” “The National Art Museum and Gallery Guide,” and “The Art Now/New York Gallery Guide,” have both displayed illustrations of her work in their magazines.

visit Jenna Lash at jennalast.com

OPEN HOUSE New York
October 19 and 20, 2019 Saturday and Sunday
Noon-4PM

Guided tours by residents
First tour begins at noon
Last tour begins at 4 pm
Tours begins every 30 minutes

Register for tour at the Bank Street courtyard at 155 Bank Street
between West and Washington Sts.
Manhattan

Once again Westbeth opens its doors to guided tours which detail the history and structure of the oldest and largest live work artist community in the United States. Westbeth has been landmarked by the New York City Landmarks Commission.

Westbeth was created by the J M Kaplan Foundation in 1970 with funding by the National Endowment for the Arts. The original building was built in 1895 and was for many years the site of Bell Telephone Labs, until it was renovated for artist housing by the architect Richard Meier.

It is a complex of buildings including 383 apartments for artists and their families, studio spaces, and commercial spaces that include the New School for Drama, Martha Graham Dance, School for Poetic Computation, and more.

More info at OHNY

WESTBETH OPEN STUDIOS
October 19 and 20, 2019 Saturday and Sunday
Noon – 4PM

Self-Guided Tours

Studio roster is available at the Bank St Courtyard 155 Bank St
between West and Washington Its.
Manhattan

Explore dozens of Westbeth artists’s studios including the communal studios and speak to the artists themselves. Artists will be selling their work. The Westbeth Flea Market in the basement will be open to sell original, affordable art donated by families of deceased artists.

When: Thursday,October 17, 2019 at 7 PM

Where: Westbeth Community Room
155 Bank St between Washington and West Sts. Enter through courtyard,

Preview screening of Minor Accident of War a new, short animated film based on the poem “World War II” by Edward Field.

Westbeth poet Edward Field will introduce the film with comments about life as an airman. Q&A with Field and the film’s producer Diane Fredel-Weis will follow the screening.

FREE

Edward Field

Field, an awarded author and poet, is regarded as a significant voice in LGBT literature and the literary world in general. He is also the writer of the Academy Award-winning short documentary, “To Be Alive.” A tribute film celebrating the work of Field can be found under the rubric Westbeth Icons on Westbeth.org.

Last year, with the sponsorship of State Senator Brad Hoylman, Field was inducted into the NY Veterans Hall of Fame and recognized by SAGE, the country’s largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBT older adults.

When: Thursday Oct 24, 20129 at 7PM
Where: Westbeth Community Room
155 Bank St NYC
FREE

The Westbeth Icon evening features a filmed interview with Black-Eyed Susan, tributes by colleagues, and remarks by Black-Eyed Susan herself.

This legendary actor, celebrated as La Dame aux Ridiculous has worked primarily in Off-Off-Broadway theater with artists including Charles Ludlam, Ethyl Eichelberger, Mabou Mines, John Jesurun, Jim Neu, Lola Pashalinski, and Taylor Mac. In 2014, she received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.

The Westbeth Artists Residents Council designed the Icons Project to honor Westbeth artists who continue to work in the arts and are an inspiration to others.

More info on other Westbeth Icons HERE

When: Friday November 1, 2019 at 8PM
Where: Westbeth Community Room
155 Bank Street NY NY

FREE and Open to the Public.

A play with music about a girl coming of age in a society coming to rage.
Final dress rehearsal of this showcase production.

Lisa Bonner.
Writer and Composer: Lisa Bonner
Directed by Erin Quinn PurcellSheryl Boltze