Brooklyn Art Project

Singer by Teetering Bulb
Earned a Silver Award from Spectrum Fantastic Art Annual

I met the fantastic duo that makes up Teetering Bulb (illustrators Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon), several years ago after they’d been living in New York for about a year. We bonded instantly on our common love for the obscure and odd found objects or curio. Both Zelda and I have a crazy habit of nailing oddities onto our wall that we’ve found randomly on the street and we’re all big fans of Observatory.

I’ve been privy to watching the steadily growing success of the Bulb. Kurt and Zelda’s work is fantastically rendered, but also instantly mesmerizing. The concepts and composition elevate the quality of their work to levels higher than most illustrators that proliferate the market today, IMO. Maybe I’m biased because of their charm. You should make your own opinion!

I am excited to announce that tor.com has taken a strong interest in their work and has published two of their short graphic stories onto the web. I would like to invite you to enjoy their latest creations, The Tempest Awakens and King of an Endless Sky.

To keep up with Teetering Bulb, you can visit them on their website.

Thanks for coming back to the BAP blog. Did you know you could subscribe free to our daily curation of our most popular member paintings, illustrations, films, photography and design? ART FEED.

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Teardrop sculpture (detail) by Susan Benarcik

Green Spaces New York, a wonderful organization that helps green entrepreneurs thrive by offering inexpensive office space and other services, just launched its Manhattan office. As part of the celebration, they asked New York artist, Susan Benarcik, to curate an exhibit in their space consisting of artwork that tackles environmental issues.

Susan’s own work is nature-based using recycled materials to create large-scale sculptures that she can barely fit through her studio door. Susan is a recipient of a Pollak-Krasner grant and has shown her work at the Brooklyn Botantical Gardens as well as many other galleries and spaces in the United States. From her website: “Deeply rooted in horticulture and design, her concern for the environment is made evident in her 3-dimensional sculptural installations, and surface designs. Her compositions provoke the viewer to observe and reflect on human experiences including individual, social, and environmental.”

Susan chose three artists to show with her at Green Spaces: Julie Anne Mann, Liz Burow and Samantha Levin. The work that these four artists put on view truly compliments the space well and attracted a lot of attention. Each of them explored environmental issues in very unique ways by utilizing recycled objects, exploring the human attitude towards the earth and how we treat it and exploring our love for nature and its beauty. You can visit Green Spaces to check out the artwork until mid-December when Susan will change it out for another exhibit. If you are starting your own green business, you can also stop by to check out their services.

There is a short article here about the launch party where you can see pics and get more info. You can also read up on Green Spaces here and here.

Read up on Susan’s work here and here.

If you or someone you know is an artist whose work tackles issues about the environment, please contact Samantha through Anagnorisis’ Brooklyn Art Project profile.

Flyer artwork by Dan Estabrook

Anagnorisis Fine Arts and Shadow’s Space are pleased to announce an exhibition featuring works that explore the visceral and intellectual foundations behind the well-known French term, ?La Petit Mort? or ?The Little Death?. Dramatically referring to orgasmic fainting spells or spiritual release, the term evokes the darker, and perhaps more realistic aspects of lust and love. One could possibly say that, through its association with death, it could also hint at the adverse emotions associated with intimacy.

Exploring various interpretations of The Little Deaths are artworks created by a wide range of outstanding artists, from some who are just beginning to show their work to those whose names are recognized internationally. The collection is eclectic, yet the artists, many of whom have created new works exclusively for the exhibit, were carefully chosen for the sensual elements inherent in their artistic styles.

You can view a growing online preview of the exhibit by clicking here. We are adding new work as the artists send us images.

Show Highlights:
Seasoned artists such as Roger Ballen, Christopher Conte, Christian Rex van Minnen and Carrie Ann Baade will punctuate the show with their highly developed signature styles. Ballen?s uncomfortable and real compositions, Baade?s wonderfully allegorical oil paintings, Conte?s bio-mechanical sculpture and van Minnen?s lush and visceral oil paintings have captured the attention of many collectors around the world. The sensual works of the relatively unknown artists, Alex Passapera and Caitlin Hackett, explore themes of animal instinct in human nature. Both artists are very new to exhibiting their work, yet show strong potential for success. Passapera?s detailed ink or pigmented figures are often humans depicted with or mutating into animal forms in sweeping lines and grotesque forms. Hackett?s grotesque animals drawn with ball-point pen and other mediums are exquisitely detailed and delicate, reminiscent of age-old Japanese prints.

Participating artists: Christian Rex van Minnen, Anastasia Alexandrin, Carrie Ann Baade, Roger Ballen, Eduardo Benedetto, Molly Bosley, Dana Bunker, Christopher Conte, Clayton Cubitt, Jonathan Davies, Cam de Leon, Dan Estabrook, Danielle Ezzo, Lori Field, Heather Gargon, Chambliss Giobbi, Celicia Granata, Caitlin Hackett, Scott Holloway, Tina Imel, John Kolbek, Craig LaRotonda, Samantha Levin, Julie Anne Mann, Nia Mora, Dan Ouellette, Alex Passapera, Jeanette Rodrigez, Erin Colleen Williams

?The Little Deaths? runs from December 4th, 2009 through January 29th, 2010, at Shadow?s Space located at 1248 N Front St (@ Thompson St., Girard stop on the Market Frankford Line) Philadelphia, PA. The opening reception, on Friday December 4th from 6 to 9 pm, is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Anagnorisis at 646.712.2820 or art@artanagnorisis.com - or Shadow?s Space through email (contact@shadowsspace.com) or by telephone at 215.425.1275.

Molly Bosley
In Which She Revealed Her Characteristic Energy
scherenschnitte cut paper in wooden diorama
8×8x7

At first glance, the shapes in Molly’s paper-cut works of art remind me of the illustrations in the story books my Grandmother used to keep for me on her pastel bookshelves. Yet the thought-provoking titles catch me off-guard by hinting at much deeper and adult themes than the simple childhood stories in those old books ever could. Each form or layer in Molly’s works visually plays with the next, creating an odd sense of time. Surrealistic and allegorical, it’s easy to get lost in their tender drama.

The stories Molly’s works tell are heavily punctuated by her wonderfully intricate paper cutting or German scherenschnitte (shear-n-SNIT- a), which means “scissor cuts” in German. “[Scherenschnitte] often has symmetry within the design, and common forms include silhouettes, valentines, and love letters”. In some of these works she has added a touch of red string which provides a wonderful distraction for the eye.

Molly’s Dioramas and two-dimensional papercut works will be on display in her solo show, Remember Sebastian at the White Rabbit for the month of November. You can meet the artist and have a drink at the opening reception on Friday November 6th from 7-9pm. The White Rabbit is located at 145 East Houston Street (btw. Eldridge St. and Forsyth) in New York City.

Chele Dentatus
Triggerfish skull, fountain grass, 9 x 7 x 2 inches, 2009

Little by little, Brooklyn artist Julie Anne Mann has been discovering a new set of species in Brooklyn, NY. Dubbed Mortifera (Latin for dead or deadly animals), these creamy-colored skeletal creatures are adorned with a wide variety of spikes, fur and wings seemingly borrowed from nature’s more well-known animals and plants. Dandelion seeds, porcupine quills, butterfly wings and crustacean shells seem to have found their way onto the bodies of the Mortifera critters. From Ms. Mann’s website:

These works are the reconfiguration of common animals into mutant or hybrid creatures. Some are purely animal, using a Frankensteinian approach of multiple parts from different donors, while others are the possible results of genetically engineered or natural crossbreeds between animal/flora.

While they are traditionally scientific in their immediate appeal (each specimen is titled in Latin reflecting it’s attributes, and are reminiscent of Darwinian evolutionary samples) it is difficult to discern whether they are extinct animals undiscovered from the past or the future of animals to come. Familiar and alien at the same time, they resemble insects/animals from a dead world while still retaining the elegance and symmetry found in our immensely diverse eco-structure.

The creatures of Mortifera exist in a netherworld of what is possible or possibly lost. Constructed from remnants of the dead, they have the power to present a somber view of a failing planet and remind us of the transient, ephemeral quality of nature but also it’s beauty and wonder. Either singularly or as group they create a portrait that glorifies man’s historic accomplishments in natural science while acknowledging the difficult road ahead.

Another work of Ms. Mann’s, Deer Garden, was recently on view outdoors in the Hoyt Street Garden located on the corners of Hoyt Street and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn. In this installation, three beautiful white deer pleasantly gazed at passers by, thus gently grasping their curiosity. The deer have since left, but you can see them, the Mortifera and more of Julie’s artwork on her website at julieannemann.com.