Review: 14th Annual Gowanus Art Studios Tour

Art can be anything. Proven, case-in-point, at the 14th Annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour that took place October 2nd. The event lasted from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., showcasing various kinds of art from all different kinds of artists in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, NY.

Twenty-eight studios spread across 19 blocks housing artists and art aficionados; along with the smell of red and white wine, cheese and chocolate loading the hallways.

Of course there were your painters, like Kit Warren, who affirmed with paint that there’s beauty in a virus, Denise Deleray, who showed that there’s beauty in every woman, painting faces of females of all different races, placed together like a puzzle.

Beatrix J. Piesh, showed there is beauty at the bottom of a teacup. No, really…

Art can be anything, and Piesh’s display of a wall filled to the brim with pictures of paper stained with the circles of dried tea that drips to the bottom of your cup after sips. Most hues of the tea were brown, but in the calendar-like portrayal that took place over a year, one could spot green circles from green tea and hues more yellow than brown from honey-lemon tea.

… Not to mention a couple tea-bags here and there.

Graphite and conté crayon artist Karen Schmauk, Brian Petro and Laura Lee-Georgescu were more names that represented the painting posse well.

Lee-Georgescu and Crevice.

Petro, a traveling artist, who’s gone from Brazil to Italy and back, exhibited his 10+ wonders of the world, including sun-dried store market signs (which gave them a 1950’s look); scrunched-up jeans that he painted on, portraits with newspaper and paper currency from all over the globe mixed into his subject’s faces.

“Currency is, all trust, in the world. Its cotton fiber; product. All it is, is trust, just for purchasing. So, your dollar bill is worth really like two cents of product, but mentally, its worth so much globally,” said Petro.

Lee-Georgescu, another traveler, dipped and dabbed in different color experiments, as well as photo-etching and woodblock painting. One piece in particular called Crevice was a wet-on-wet; (wet paint on wet paper), brushed upside down for a dripping effect at the top with a mix of spray paint at the bottom. Rose, pinks, and dark greens in Crevice drew a volcanic eruption in the minds of onlookers, as well as a depiction of Hades, and even the entering of the first circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno.

Luckily, we were still on Earth for now at least, where art was in the form of installation in sound and video, thanks to Michael Clemow and Amy Khoshbin, respectively.

Khoshbin could have gotten an Oscar nod for the representation of her father, who is Iranian, choosing to act as him in his answers to different questions she’d ask him over long phone conversations.

This particular version of The Father Tapes dealt with his response to how he felt about the holidays. Christmas was the topic, and her display included ripped wrapping paper and ornaments on a carpet, next to a huge brown chair that a Christmas stocking laid on top of.

A television was in perfect view from the chair, showing the video of Khoshbin costumed in her father’s big round glasses, short hair-cut and 5 o-clock shadow.

Not to be over-shadowed, photography also played a part in AGAST. Cecilia Schmidt’s exhibit of bird watching looks like anything but bird watching from afar.

Cecilia Schmidt.

Schmidt, a digital media photographer, takes photographs of nature to show its raw beauty. One image in particular was a still-shot from a series of birds that she put in a grid with an addition of pixels to enhance the digital elements while maintaining a brush-stroked appearance.

“They’re very painterly,” said Schmidt of her work. “And I think it’s another thing about visual literacy. There’s so much visual media coming towards us…”

Photographs that look exactly like paintings when stilled. Wings looked like the bodies, some bodies looked like the wings, and Schmidt’s photograph stood out.

Kinetic artist Joseph Morris and steel welder Martha Walker’s showings of sculpting were also eye-catching.

Morris, being a huge fan of motion, created machines that performed simple movements such as turning a wheel, pushing and pulling a nail before it falls; all with the help of a little electricity and a small plank of wood. No hands Ma! Morris also constructed two simple skeletons with pieces made from real dog bones and flexanol, otherwise known as muscle wire. Using a microprocessor to control the movement, sections of wire short electricity to the creature when heated; making it to move.

Martha Walker, is a sculptor who has made her mark in the art world over a 10-year-period by taking steel rods, heats, and bends them into different shapes. Reminiscent of the symbiote from Spider-Man, Walker melts metal into things like octopuses. One of her works called Dance of the Spirits will be on Gossip Girl for four episodes in the upcoming season. Tikkun Olam (Heal The World in Hebrew) is another piece that Walker made, and it’s the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. With a shape similar to Cinderella’s carriage, Tikkun Olam is a piece that Walker hopes to use as an avenue to convey the powerful saying.

Walker sitting inside of Tikkun Olam.

“I named it that so people could sit here, and think about making the world a better place,” said Walker.

There were also other exhibits of ceramics, glass, collage, and works on canvas present at different studios.

The Annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour is an event that comes around every October, confirming that art can truly be anything. Even the author of this article took a picture of some garbage with maps of the tour while touring the studios.

Why?

Because it looked beautiful.

I have artistic creativity too!