PARTICIPANTS (in alphabetical order)
The participants listed include artists who have submitted work at any time to Now: Here: This.
Claire Adas
I'm a mother and sometime writer and filmmaker.
filmography:
1995 Road Movie (feature)
1998 Persistence of Vision (feature)
2000 Dream of a Lifetime (featurette)
Joel Adas (joeladas@earthlink.net)
I am a painter living in Brooklyn. I went to art school in painting at Rutgers and then at Purchase, so I have had the whole academic side of art. I see myself now stripping away some of the truths that I learned in school and going back to a more basic approach. My art is more about my immediate life; people and places that strike me as visually arresting. There is the importance of being present at the moment when a drawing or a photograph is called for. The paintings happen later, over time, in my studio.
Jacie Lee Almira (jacielee@aol.com)
My installation work explores personal and emotional issues and seeks answers through inquiry using mixed media sculptures, drawing, painting, and digital photography. Employing pseudo-experimental methods like collecting data, repetitive testing, and taxonomy, I analyze and document anxieties, curiosities, memories, fears, and frustrations. The objects I create are details of my body and mind, and I use methods that refer to the body itself and to objects that are tangential to it. I expose my weaknesses, reconcile my choices, and highlight my intimate dramas in an attempt to discover their mechanism or meaning, but the objects wait for results in vain, in a place where there are no clear conclusions.
Stephen Beveridge
Stephen Beveridge is a constant artist. Many topics, much media, varied results.
Peter Ferko (peterferko@artistsunite-ny.org)
Peter is President of Artists Unite and an artist in several media. He is a graphic designer with a practice supporting non-profit organizations in the cultural, social, and environmental fields. He works primarily in photography examining issues of perception. The work looks for the sublime moments that emerge from experiencing the ordinary in a particular way. He has shown work in Washington and New York. He writes and plays music in his band The SoLow Bass Show. Peter participated for three years in an online art project/discourse at www.fivethings.com.
Mike Fitelson (www.mikefitelson.com)
I tend to think in terms of narrative. My photographs are stronger when allowed to talk to one another rather than hanging in isolation; they emphasize the symphony over the soloist. Therefore, my work is devoted to thematic statements rather than individual images. Past projects includes NY me , an ongoing essay about sharing New York City with 8 million others.
Olga & Alexander Florensky
OLGA FLORENSKAYA (born: 1960) and ALEXANDER FLORENSKY
(born: 1960) graduated from the Mukhina College of Art and Design (Leningrad)
in 1982. The founders of MITKI artist group (1985). In 1990 were trained
at the INSTITUT DES HAUTES ETUDES EN ARTS PLASTIQUES (director: Pontus
Hulten). Are the authors of 3 animated films: “MITKIMAYER”
(A. Florensky, 1992) and “MIRACLE OF MIRACLES” (O. Florenskaya,
1994), “TROPHY FILMS” (O&A Florensky, 2003). Have taken
part in a large number of film festivals both in Russia and abroad (1993-2004).
Set up the publishing house MITKILIBRIS (1994).
A. Florensky is a founder of the art gallery MITKI - VKHUTEMAS (established
1997, St Petersburg). Works by O. and A. Florensky are in the collections
of the following museums: the State Russian Museum (St Petersburg),
the State Tretyakov Picture Gallery (Moscow), the Pushkin Fine Art Museum
(Moscow), many art museums in Russia (Yaroslavl, Tver, Omsk, Arkhangelsk,
Novosibirsk, Kaliningrad, Ivanovo, Saratov, Sochi, Kursk etc).,and also
in KIASMA (Helsinki), Helsinki City Art Museum, and Victoiria &
Albert Museum (London). The Florenskys are married since 1981. They
have been working together on joint projects since 1995. Artists live
and work in St Petersburg.
I’ve had over 40 solo shows, and have participated in at least as many group shows. I’m in lots of important collections. I’ve spent an average of 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 30 years of my life doing art – many more hours writing. I also do art projects. My website is my most comprehensive project thus far.
Anthony Gonzalez
Most recent exhibit was a one man show at the Herbert H. Lehman Suite and Papers at Columbia University School of International affairs here in NYC. Anthony Gonzalez is a former recipient of an Edward G. McDowell Travel Grant. The only person in the long history of the award to receive it based on a portfolio submission consisting exclusively of drawings. His political editorial illustrations have appeared in such journals as The New York Times, The New York Daily News, and The Nation.
Karen Greene (phototherapy2020@aol.com)
I have been a psychologist and an enthusiastic photographer for most of my life. Many of my photographs have been influenced by artists such as Georgia O’Keefe and M.C. Escher. Like them, I have found art and beauty in unexpected places. I love the interplay of shadow, light and water, and the many levels of reality which may be revealed in a fountain spray or a puddle.
Carole Wagner Greenwood
One of my earliest memories is that of the first art I ever made. I was four or five years old, and had decided to re-create my beloved grandfather’s stuffed cabbage. I went out to the backyard-gathered white pebbles for the rice, red clay for the tomato-seasoned ground veal and curled brown leaves for the cabbage. For what seemed like hours, I toiled in my playroom re-constructing the perfectly rolled packages my grandfather lovingly made every Sunday. And somehow I knew that mine were delicious, too.
What I understand now is that I was not simply copying - rather I was imbuing these sacred objects with memory – the sounds and smells of the kitchen, my grandfather’s proud smile as I savored each bite, the first sense of deep family connections felt around my grandmother’s dining room table.
So, as I did then, I do now.
The memories are now of other memories, many times removed, but with
a physical form – and they are of people, places and experiences
yet to be imagined by the small child. But still, I approach it as deliberately
as that first time.
Carole is a sculptor and the chef/owner of Buck's Fishing and Camping in Washington, D.C. She trained in Paris at Le Cordon Bleu, Lenotre and La Varenne. Carole's most recent exhibition was a solo show at Strand on Volta in Washington, D.C. in 2003.
Jason Gubbiotti
Jason lives and works in Washington, D.C., but is about to move to France. He is a 1998 graduate of the Corcoran College of Art and Design. He had his first solo exhibition at Fusebox in July 2002. His recent group exhibitions include Kiang Gallery in Atlanta, Artpoint, in conjunction with Art Basel Miami Beach; Situation Room at St. Mary’s College, St. Mary’s, MD; and Strictly Painting III, at the McLean Project for the Arts, McLean, VA. He is the recipient of a Vermont Studio Center Artist Grant. He will have his second solo exhibition at Fusebox in February 2004.
James Huckenpahler
James works primarily in electronic media; he is currently engaged in growing digital images of skin, both human and inhuman. He is a former faculty member of the Corcoran College of Art and Design, and a former member of the Washington Project for the Arts\Corcoran Advisory Board. He is represented in DC by FUSEBOX, and in Atlanta by Kiang Gallery.
Karey Kessler
Education: MFA, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, May 2001; BA University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, May 1996. Additional coursework at: The Slade School of Fine Arts and Central Saint Martins, London, England, 1997. Represented in Pierogi Gallery flat files, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2003-present. Represented in Drawing Center slide files, Soho, New York, 2002-present. Gallery Manager, District of Columbia Arts Center.
My paintings, like maps, present a reality that exceeds vision; they are both visual and conceptual. I create cities that are at once mystical and mundane. They are cities of memory, depicting real and imaginary, known and magical spaces. These spaces include the earth, its celestial surroundings, and the realm of fantasy and myth. Like a meandering walk through a city, my drifting automatic line drawings evoke emotions, moods and places. I map the spirit which is the driving force of my cities.
My paintings, like poems, are fragments of ideas, thoughts, and memories. In a poem a word can become a metaphor and suggest more than one thing. In my paintings, a building can represent all possible cities, or collective memory embedded within architectural forms, or the city as an artificial landscape. A dotted line can be traces of passing time, or wings of light, or the tangible essence of a spiritual ?place? that flows between the more familiar structures of the visible world. Empty spaces can be things barely glimpsed, the realm of angels, or nothing but silence. My images are constructed to depict the underlying "structure" of the city that has been unchanged since the beginning of time.
Daniel Lai (danielart@danielart.com)
Art making is the way I channel out my emotions. Therapy, some might call it. Effective? I'm not sure. But I'm sure I'll never stop. My photography and paintings have been on exhibit in many places. I'm currently a student pursuing a master degree in Art History.
Todd Le Blanc (www.DigitalSafari.com)
Todd studied photography at LIU / Southampton Campus under Yoshi Higa
- a simple man with a love for life and photography. He assisted Yoshi
for two summer "Master of Photography" workshops in 89' and
90' combining everything from 8x10 large format with
Platinum / Palladium printing, nude studies with some industry greats,
and months of working in the darkroom. When the campus introduced computer
graphic courses, Todd was lost for hours on one single image - and still
is to this day; meandering down the endless tunnels of possibility available
to us today.
"To me, photography is simply allowing things to 'paint' themselves. I am just a witness. Mirroring back what already exists, at most enhancing subtler realities within the essence of what I witness. The more I 'witness', the more I 'awaken'." - Todd Le Blanc
Dominik Lejman (www.lejman.art.pl)
Dominik Lejman was born in Gdansk and lives in Gdynia, Poland. In his work, Dominik explores time-based painting in relation to his practice of using video projection layers that are optically merged with the physical painted image. More recently, Dominik has used video documentary footage and statistical data to create his "crowd mural" projections as a way of presenting an ornament of social accumulation and crowd tension. Currently he is creating painting/ video projection murals where each brushstroke/ pixel is constituted by live video feeds (live webcams in reall time and live streams) taken directly from the Internet.
Dominik has exhibited at the Prague Biennial, the Balkan Biennial, the Contemporary Art Center in Warsaw, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and the Hamburger Banhoff in Berlin.
Mark Masyga
I'm a painter living in Brooklyn. My work is informed by architecture and spatial relationships. The contrasts between wide-open spaces and tight, congested areas interests me, and often times people comment that my tiny paintings have agorophobic qualities.
Jayme McLellan
Jayme is a photographer and co-founder/director of the nonprofit gallery, Transformer, in Washington D.C. She is the former Development Director of the DCAC alternative arts space in Washington, DC. Jayme received her BA in English and Photography from St. Mary's College, Maryland.
Rosa Naparstek (RNaparstek@aol.com)
I work with found objects, family photographs and text (original nursery rhymes). I explore both the "ordering of things"--how we attach meaning to "random" juxtaposition of objects--and "the order of things"--looking at our inner landscapes for the emotional roots of the world we create personally and politically. Much of what I do centers around childhood memories and experiences and is concerned with questions of cruelty and its source within us.
I have come to believe that the primary source of evil
lies in our
ability to deny our own pain, fear, and vulnerability. In our mistaken
belief that we can protect ourselves from life as it is, we inflict
the worst horrors onto others and ourselves.
Wendy Newton
Wendy lives in New York City with her husband and son, and her life and work usually defy attempts at traditional categorization. She is an aspiring yogi, diligent poet, and makes art in various media, mostly involving natural materials, found objects, words, and some photography. She graduated from Oberlin College in Art History and studied filmaking at the All Union State Institute for Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow and at USC Film School. She is Senior Program Associate at the Trust for Mutual Understanding, a foundation supporting exchanges in the visual and performing arts between the United States, Russia, and Eastern and Central Europe.
Sky Pape (sky@skypape.com, http://skypape.com)
Sky Pape has exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Europe,
Canada, and Japan. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern
Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the
National Museum of Women in the Arts, and other public and private collections.
Her various awards and honors include significant grants from the Pollock-Krasner
Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts. Sky Pape's artwork is
represented by June Kelly Gallery. She lives and works in New York City’s
Inwood neighborhood.
Scott J. Plunkett
I was born in Wisconsin, moved to New York in 1983. My artistic practice is located between photography and painting. I work with the idea of Surface/Reflection/Reality, focusing on themes of social interaction and power. My own suburban background was an experience of shallow surface beauty covering a much starker reality. By focusing on ignored or derided media constructs, I explore this cultural disconnect through my work.
PP (www.patpower.us)
Originally from Maryland, I've lived in New York since 1979. For a living I design for print and the web, build sites, and do some photography. For fun and love I make collages. I was called a "mail artist" before the computer- collaging envelopes and postcards; now I utilize the computer for my expressive networking tendencies. My inspiration is found-materials [the older the better]. I often Photoshop enhance them, tho wish I didn't love that because there is no tangible original, but I can't forgo the delicious Photoshop opacity option. I'm not so good at the other side of the brain, the business-end of freelancing, so looking for a full-time job if you kindly know of a lead; I have a financial background.
Piero Ribelli
Piero Ribelli is an Italian photographer based in New York since 1987 working for variety of magazines and publications around the world, including Ladies Home Journal, Esquire Japan and Repubblica. He has published two photographic books: Jah Pickney, Children of Jamaica in 1996 and Zoo York, an Animal Lover's View of Manhattan, in 2002. Exhibitions of his work have been staged in Italy, Jamaica and New York City, including an exhibit at the United Nations hosted by the Jamaican Mission to the U.N. and U.N.I.C.E.F. He has appeared on CBS Television in New York, on television and radio shows in Jamaica and in Italy, as well as on RAI International.
Isabel Rivera
Synesthete and musician, Isabel seeks harmony of sound and sight. She's studied painting at a couple of schools, including FIT, but is mostly self-taught.
Bridget Shields
My photographs are an ever-evolving diaristic index and collection of observations. They are a collision of the sensory, tactlie and ephemeral within the realm of the familiar: a sensual banality that pauses to observe spaces, places and their stillness. I am drawn to the quietness of corners, the meeting of surfaces, the found textures of walls, floors, ceilings, as well as, intimate scapes of the sky, sea and land mingled with the occassional portrait or gesture. Using the camera as a tool to excavate, map, and collect daily events and travels, the result is a cultivated visual record that asks and attempts to answer questions about the subtleties if being and existence.
Bridget Shields is a photographer, certified yoga instructor and reflexologist. Her background is in fine arts management and collections. She received her MFA from Bard College and has been exhibited and published in the midwest and NYC. please visit for more info: http://bridgetshields.com
Petr Shvetsov (baranisup@yandex.ru)
I paint, draw, and make prints. I studied in the architecture
department at the art school attached to the Academy of Arts in St.
Petersburg. I was born in St. Petersburg and live there now.
I have also lived and worked in Great Britain and New York. I
have a wife and young daughter, who I love very much as well as
many friends in different countries of the world.
Anya Szykitka
My life until about age 35 was spent primarily in the visual arts. Building on a facility for drawing, I received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1985 from the University of Wisconsin at River Falls with studio emphasis in printmaking. While in school I discovered a love for hand lithography. Immediately after graduating, I interned and was employed at a fine art print workshop in Minneapolis, Land Mark Editions. While there, I decided to pursue a career as a collaborating printer and was accepted into Tamarind Institute's printer training program. I lived in Albuquerque for about two years before receiving a Tamarind Master Printer certificate in 1989. I was then hired as a printer by the Rutgers Center for Innovative Printmaking in New Jersey, where I worked with a variety of locally- and nationally-known artists, assisted undergraduate and graduate students in the print studio, and taught printmaking workshops until 1994, when I resigned my position. Ready to make a change, my husband Joel and I moved to the Bronx, and I took time to pursue some other lifelong interests, attending SUNY-Purchase, where I received a BA in Philosophy. While there, I also taught printmaking workshops in the art department. Joel and I now live in Brooklyn, where we have been for about seven years. I am currently in the midst of a rather long transition from making primarily visual work to writing. Although I have stopped drawing and making prints, I still take photographs, and find that they fulfill my continuing need to interact with the world in a direct, intuitive way.
Renee Tamara Watabe (SunnyGables@aol.com)
Renee studied briefly at School of Visual Arts in NYC in the early eighties, and is currently working on a degree in art therapy. Mother of three, and practicing massage therapist, she enjoys climbing trees with Tim.