Resurgence September 25 - October 23, 2021
Curated by Thomas Legaspi, the exhibit features a cross section of representational artists from the NY Metropolitan area, including Long Island, and PA and a few artists whose ties to NY continue to be strong even after their art careers have relocated them after their amazing NY educational experiences.
The artists have had to evolve and react to the changes happening in this pandemic society. From cancelled brick and mortar exhibitions, closing of cultural institutions, concerns about the future to zoom teaching, virtual exhibitions and more. For some, working alone has sharpened their creative focus…for others, the absence of physical human connection has forced them to seek new sources of inspiration. We are thrilled to celebrate the strength of Realism as an art form and provide a forum for our public audiences to experience the moving and original ways artists depict the world around them.
“At any point in history, representational imagery is undeniably relevant for it conveys an immediate and instant connection with the viewer often requiring minimal context. Part of the beauty of art is that a multitude of tastes and disciplines can exist and be appreciated simultaneously. Contemporary Realism challenges its practitioners to define what realism means today. Perhaps it harkens back to a keen observation of nature, or a determined social commentary, or it looks to express the ever-changing state of humanity. With a hopeful gaze, this show, "Resurgence", aims to highlight what these Contemporary Realist Artists are creating in this return to creative activity. Thomas Legaspi, curator.
Thomas Legaspi has juried shows for Dacia Gallery and an Art Collective New York Realism. He is a New York based, contemporary realist artist with an MFA from The New York Academy of Art 2001. For the past 2o years he has exhibited nationally and internationally. In that time he has also worked as an Adjunct Professor of Art for St. John's University and City College of Technology as well as in the historic Educational Alliance Art School in the Lower East Side.
Participating Artists: Susan Cottle Alberto, Steven Assael, Ross Barbera, James Xavier Barbour, Charis J. Carmichael Braun, Julia Chen, Jon deMartin, Stephanie Deshpande, Elizabeth Diaz, William A. Dodge, Christian Fagerlund, Mojca Fatur, Kelly Foss, Kyle Keith, Sara Keith, Scott Lawson, Lisa Lebofsky, Peter Leeds, Cliff Miller, Kseniya Ostrovska, Ivan Pazlamatchev, Ravindra Rana, William Dunham Reed, Doug Reina, Zimou Tan
Susan Cottle Alberto is a painter who received her M.F.A. cum laude from The New York Academy of Art Graduate School of Figurative Art, and her B.F.A. from Montserrat College of Art. Currently Part-time Assistant Professor of Art at New School University and Parsons School of Design, Susan he has taught at The New York Academy of Art, St. John's University and various institutions in Italy, including Montserrat College of Art, Viterbo, St. John's University, Rome and Studio Art Centers International in Florence. “I am endlessly attracted to the mysteries of light and atmosphere, where light and shadow are nature’s selection and editing tools. Nature’s paintings are an interactive, real-time canvas of shifting values, colors, edges, shapes, and I feel compelled to record and arrange bits and pieces of what I see.” http://www.susancottlestudio.com/ susan@susancottle.com
Born in New York City, Steven Assael graduated from Pratt Institute and has served for decades as faculty at the School of Visual Arts and as a senior critic at the New York Academy of Art. The Artist’s prodigious technique, his use of light and shadow, sensitive line and detail are deployed in the interest of the implication of narrative; the psychological import of the scene, the relationship and the character of the sitter. Steven Assael’s classical talents are as rare as they are essential to the diverse art world of the late Twentieth Century.
He is the recipient of an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, the Charles Roman Award and an ED Foundation Grant. His work has been exhibited throughout the US, including solo exhibitions at the Naples Museum of Art, the Frye Art Museum (Seattle) and the University of Tennessee, and group shows at the Flint Institute of Art (Michigan), the Kemper Museum (Kansas City), the Yale University Art Gallery, the Queens Museum of Art, and the New York State Museum at Albany. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hunter Museum of Art (Chattanooga), the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art & Design (Kansas City), and the Columbus Museum of Art. He is represented by the Forum Gallery in New York.
Ross Barbera is well known for his representational acrylic paintings on canvas and watercolors on paper. He received his MFA in painting from Pratt Institute and exhibited extensively in NYC galleries. Ross was on the faculty of St. John’s University in the Department of Art and Design, serving as Department Chair for four years. “The dominant theme throughout most of my work is the natural landscape environment, and my paintings range from close-up views of water surfaces, trees, forest floors, leaves and flowers to more encompassing views. Created in acrylic on canvas and watercolor on paper I strive to create images that communicate a sense of beauty, painterly integrity, and capture specific places in terms of time, light, space and texture.” https://www.rossbarbera.com/
James Xavier Barbour is an American fine art painter and sculptor of Spanish/Portuguese/Irish heritages. His primary vehicle for expressing contemporary narrative or metaphor is the human figure. He is also the Founder and Principal Instructor of The Decorus Atelier of Figurative Art located in New York City. A school dedicated to classical art training, with a strong focus advancing the areas of technique, construction, composition, color, exploring narrative, and figurative anatomy. He has taught for over 21 years as an instructor at various institutions such as Academy of Art University, Stanford University, School of Visual Arts and conducts regular art workshops and seminars
His work explores the eternal or universal truths that bind us as human beings as well our differences. It contains a psychological narrative, which dances on the edge of both reality and the surreal, fearlessly capturing those moments of life that appear like an illusion, but remain anchored in possibility or reality.
https://www.jamesxavierbarbour.com/ JamesXavierBarbour@gmail.comhttps://www.instagram.com/jamesxavierbarbour/?hl=en
Charis J. Carmichael Braun grew up in New Ulm, MN and earned her MFA from the New York Academy of Art. She was chosen as a Sing For Hope Piano Artist (2016) She has been published in PoetsArtists, The Huffington Post, LINEA: The Artist's Voice and Artists on Art. Charis currently works and lives on Asharoken, New York. . In 2020, she received a grant from the Huntington Arts Council for her Beekeeper Portrait Project. The two portraits included in "Resurgence" are selections from her recent Beekeeper Portrait Project series. Spirited color and active brushwork intersect each other to illustrate dynamic relationships between people and pollinators. https://www.charisjcarmichaelbraun.com/
https://www.instagram.com/charisjcarmichaelbraun/?hl=en
Julia Chen was born in Taipei, Taiwan. Her family immigrated to the United States when she was thirteen. Both eastern and western cultures influence her works. She studied Chinese calligraphy for seven years under Dr. Leon Long-Yien Chang, a scholar and master in Chinese calligraphy. She developed appreciation for the subtlety and nuance of drawn lines and its expressiveness. In 2006, she began to explore oil paint. She earned her Master of Fine Art in painting from New York Academy of Art in 2010. She is currently living in Stamford, Connecticut.
The two paintings showing in Resurgence were from a collection of plein air paintings that I did for five months this past winter and spring. Initially, I was painting scenes, then the focus changed to forms and composition. I started drawing grids on the canvas to guide the placement of elements for centering and balance. I noticed that I would start the paintings with a tree trunk in the middle on the top edge as an anchor and then built everything else towards this pinnacle. I also observed that I was greatly influenced by Chinese landscape painting. I tend to draw lines with oil paint more than spread the paint around, leave unpainted surfaces for the toned ground to show through and use dry brush techniques for rocks etc.
http://juliachenstudio.yolasite.com
https://www.instagram.com/juliachen.art/
Jon deMartin is among the leading figurative artists working today and has taught life drawing and painting for more than twenty-years at the most prestigious academies and ateliers in the country. Jon’s work has been reproduced in publications such as ‘The Classicist’, Classical Drawing Atelier’, ‘Lessons in Classical Drawing’, Watson-Guptil Publications. ‘Star Wars Art: Visions’, (Abrams Publication), and the ‘Classical Life Studio: Lessons & Teachings in the Art of Figure Drawing’, Sterling Publications. He has written and illustrated over twenty-five articles on classical figure drawing technique for ‘Drawing Magazine’. In his paintings, Jon concentrates on the figure placed in outdoor and interior situations, as well as portraits and industrial landscapes.
https://www.jondemartin.com/ jdemartinart@gmail.com www.instagram.com/jondemartin/
Stephanie Deshpande is a representational painter who is best known for her psychological portraits and narrative paintings. Deshpande graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a BFA in Painting and continued her studies at the New York Academy of Art earning her MFA. She was awarded the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship to attend the Yale Summer School of Music and Art and has received recognition for her paintings by the Portrait Society of America, RayMar Art, Artist’s Magazine, the Art Renewal Center, Allied Artists of America, and Oil Painters of America. Her paintings have appeared in several issues of Poets Artists Magazine and in the book 21st Century Figurative Art: The Resurrection of Art by Jan Esmann. In 2014, the New Britain Museum of American Art acquired her painting “Assembling the Pieces” for their Post Contemporary collection. She is represented by Haynes Galleries in the U.S. and by Arundel Contemporary in West Sussex, England. https://www.stephaniedeshpande.com/
Elizabeth Diaz: I have been passionate about art, especially painting my whole life. Growing up in New York City, near Central Park instilled in me a strong appreciation for the beauty of landscapes. My intent through my work is to share a visual and emotional experience with others. I began painting with oils and with pastels since 2016. I exhibited a pastel painting with the Audubon Artists at the Salmagundi Club in 2019.
I participated in art programs at: Pratt institute, the School of Visual Arts and the Art Student League. I attended the New York Phoenix School of Design for formal training and have taken courses in architecture and landscape architecture. I joined the New York City Urban Sketchers for Plein air sketching and from May to November paint in Wagner Park at battery Park City. Meeting once a week for the past 16 years, I am part of a wonderful group of artists called the Kindred Spirits Art Group. Suffice to add, I will continue my painting journey.
William A. Dodge is an award-winning artist classically trained in the tradition of the old masters. He studied at the Stevenson Academy of Traditional Painting before beginning a career in illustration. He has created more than six hundred book covers for most of the major publishers in New York, as well as a wide variety of private commissions ranging from murals to portraits. He continues to paint and has been a faculty member of the Visual Communications Department at SUNY Farmingdale for more than twenty years. Accomplished in oils, watercolors, pastels, acrylics and digital media, Bill is dedicated to passing on the time honored traditional methods of drawing and painting to a new generation. http://www.wadodge.com/about.html
Christian Fagerlund is interested in the subtleties that rise when things settle, whether in a landscape, an interior, a human body or face, or the inert objects around him. “A great deal happens in these moments of stillness where time seemingly expands. I capture the subtleties of light, color, form, expression, and mood that are born out of this settling. In my figurative work, I am first and foremost attracted to form—the ways in which light interacts with, enhances, and plays against it. Light is an equal participant: a clear and assertive entity. A love for this relationship between light and form, a strong sense of design/composition, and an understanding of the power of color, are at the core of my process.
Regardless of my subject matter or approach, I purge the frivolous in order to create a distilled and refined interpretation of my subject: one that is honest, subtle, and considered. http://www.christianfagerlund.com/
Mojca Fatur was born in Ljubljana. She went to Art school to study Fashion Design and later attended Art Pedagogy University. “I've always had a passion for drawing and painting portraits. Four years ago, I decided to become a full time artist. Since then I paint and draw portraits using graphite and watercolors. I mix photo-realism with abstract backgrounds and other elements.
I always draw/paint women's portraits because I love feminine energy and I think that women need to be "seen" more. I would describe my art as urban art, a mixture of street art and realism. I also paint/make Murals. In the past, I have been part of many exhibitions, especially during my education.”
Kelly Foss is a classically trained artist, author and Fine Art instructor living and working in New York City. She writes ARTicles detailing “how-tos” as well as delving into the philosophy of art and the artists’ life, contributing to art websites and magazines.
“Throughout my life, I have moved around the USA (Georgia, New Mexico, Vermont, Texas, Hawaii, and New York) and art has always been my constant. I grew up in the best kind of art world, thanks to my mother being an artist. I am drawn to all things creative and kind. I went through 4+ years of academic training from some of my favorite contemporary realism artists such as Scott Waddell and Tony Curanaj. I love painting faces, flesh, and fabric. It gives me a thrill when I can make a painting or drawing truly feel tangible. I enjoy sharing what I know to students who share my love for realistic art.”
www.kellyfoss.com kellyfossart@gmail.com instagram.com/kellyfossart facebook.com/kellyfossart
Kyle Keith's love of painting began in the fields and backroads of Ohio. As a young teen, he first studied under the instruction of Leland McCLelland, a regional watercolor artist. Keith later earned his M.F.A. from the New York Academy of Art in 2001 and studied under the painter Everett Raymond Kinstler and Brooklyn artist and teacher Andrew Reiss.
An award-winning artist, Keith's work is held in important public and private collections including the United States Court of International Trade, The United States Federal Court for the Eastern District of New York, The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, Boston College of Law and the Players Club in New York City. Moreover, his work has been exhibited across the United States- including shows in Chicago and New York City. Kyle is represented nationally and internationally by Portraits, Inc., Lori Polson Portrait Specialists, and Portrait Associates & Jean Daniel Portraiture.
Sara Keith is Florida native now living and working in rural Ohio. She earned a BFA from the University of North Florida and completed her MFA in drawing at the New York Academy of Art Graduate School of Figurative Art. As a classically trained artist, she initially focused on teaching drawing at the University of North Florida and in private lessons, but she currently divides her artistic focus between iconic barns and five children.
My works for Resurgence are a part of a collection I have done since relocating to the beautiful farmlands of the Kokosing valley in Ohio. I naturally relate to rural surroundings, but the northern landscape offers new varieties of color and intensity of light and shadow that interests me. The stark shapes of bare trees and isolated barns provide contrast and silhouettes which I find lend a stoic beauty.
By only painting from direct observation, Scott Lawson commits to truly study and reveal his subjects. This commitment results in works of sensitive realism in which the subjects’ physical weight, interaction with light and shadow, and skillfully rendered expressions have a powerful presence.
"I paint only from live subjects. I strive to maintain a painterly quality without sacrificing structure or detail."
My influences include Rembrandt,Velasquez,Repin,Sargent,Andrew Wyeth. I am fascinated by the way light and shadow describe the human form.
www.lawsonpaints.wixsite.com/scottlawsonart lawsonpaints@yahoo.com www.instagram.com/lawsonpaintsstudio
www.facebook.com/Scott-LawsonPortrait-Figure-painter-347650315345252/
Lisa Lebofsky is a nomadic plein air painter, collaborating with nature and people. She paints the susceptibility of nature, correlating its restlessness with our own human vulnerabilities. Her direct participation with the landscape is vital to imbue a painting with the energy of a specific place, so that viewers can connect viscerally: to move, excite and engage them. The paintings are on surfaces that remain visible through various layers of paint, permeating the entire image. The push and pull of lights and darks, opacity and transparency, abstract and real, enhances the variability of these transient scenes. By painting in this dichotomous manner, nature becomes a metaphor for our emotional struggles and encounters.
Lebofsky finds inspiration by traveling extensively, often to remote parts of the world, in order to immerse herself in different environments and cultures. She seeks out areas around the globe that are particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change, and meets with local residents to discuss how their community is impacted. To a great extent, these personal interactions inform what areas and what subject matter is ultimately painted. Recent regions visited include Antarctica, Newfoundland and Labrador, Greenland, and The Maldives.
Education: MFA Painting, New York Academy of Art, New York, NY
https://www.lisalebofsky.com/ https://www.instagram.com/lisa_lebofsky/
Peter Leeds - My images, my world. Simply stated, my work is about the possibility of recreating real experience in physical terms. I create something more than a photograph can do. Technical mastery is an important factor in my world. The ideas contained in the pictures are what matters most. I have a traditional background but I do not have a set concept of how I work. I use oil paint, watercolors, acrylic paint and sometimes a simple pencil to stir the viewers imagination. I have a deep understanding of material in order to solve the problem.
I use a wide range of subjects from Old Masters’ techniques and theories to philosophy, literature, and nature. My work has been a range of murals, still life, landscape, pencil drawing, and sculpture with a foundation of realism. Over the years, I have had work sold throughout the country.
Graduating from New York Academy of Art and SUNY Cortland College, I am mostly known for my mural work in New York City. I keep a personal romantic connection to my work. My images are a visual journal of a time in our life that is sometimes long gone. https://www.peterleedsart.com/ pete_m_leeds@yahoo.com https://www.instagram.com/peter_leeds_studio/
Cliff Miller is an internationally recognized, award-winning artist whose career spans over forty years of experience. His oeuvre demonstrates his formal training as a traditional realist combined with a lighthearted spirit that captures the essence of everyday life.
His oil paintings possess an aura of nostalgia and wit. He combines this with his sophisticated technical skills to create naturalistic illustrations that are timeless. His work can be seen on book covers for best-selling authors such as Dean Koontz, Jack Higgins, and Sue Grafton. He has worked for every major publisher in New York from McGraw Hill to Doubleday and beyond. His illustrations can be seen in almost every genre ranging from romance to murder mystery to young adult. He as designed over 43 book covers for the popular Nancy Drew series. Miller’s commercial clientele is equally impressive, as he has worked for Warner Brothers, Nintendo, Readers Digest and Henson Associates, Inc. and Lucas Films Ltd. among many others.
Miller studied at New York Phoenix School of Design, Parsons School of Design, The School of Visual Arts and The Stevenson Academy of Traditional Painting under Harold Ransom Stevenson personal student of Norman Rockwell. https://www.instagram.com/cliffmillerart/?hl=en
Kseniya Ostrovska is drawn to the complexity of plants, their similarity to human beings in terms of physical structure and needs, and the ongoing impact that plants and people have on each other. “I love how the process of making relief prints leads me to look at driftwood and dead trees in a new light. Studying the form, notches and textures of the trees, many of which are over a hundred years old, reveals the individual struggles and stories of beings that exist on a time scale beyond human life. The neuron-like appearance of roots and the bone-like forms of knotted branches evoke a human presence and remind me that we all depend on the purity and accessibility of soil, sun and water in order to live.”
My art practice is a way of focusing on the bioregional diversity around me and building a stronger connection with the natural world. While growing up and living in cities, I frequently found myself without a sense of belonging to a place: melancholic and restless. After the opportunity to live in rural upstate New York, surrounded by acres of living forest and cultivating a garden, I realized how a connection with the earth gives me a sense of place and contentment. My work offers viewers the experience of careful attention, respect, and micro-level fascination that I bring to my interactions with the plant kingdom. The goal of my practice is to strengthen our desire to maintain the intricate systems of the natural world so that future generations will have access to outdoor places full of rich diversity and interdependence. Kseniyaostrovskaart@gmail.com https://www.kseniyaostrovska.com/
Instagram @kseniya_ostrovska_art
Ivan Pazlamatchev is a Bulgarian-American painter rooted in figurative tradition. His paintings delve into allegorical narratives and compositional tensions, with contemporary interpretation backed by classical training received at the prestigious School for Fine Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. With over 30 years of experience working as a fine artist, Ivan has exhibited in galleries and museums in Europe and throughout the East coast of United States. Notably, in 2008, Pazlamatchev’s paintings were included in the Societe Nationale Des Beaux-Arts Salon at Carrousel du Louvre in Paris. In 2018 he had a comprehensive retrospective exhibit at the Art Gallery Georges Papazov in Bulgaria. In 1997, his solo exhibition at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia represented the Painting portion in the Salon of the Arts ‘97. In 2021 his work was selected in the Crocker-Kingsley National Competition and in the exhibition “Figuratively Speaking” at Salmagundi Club, NYC. He has received awards, grants, and invitations, including to the Art Fusion Festival in Berlin, Germany, and has work residing in public and private collections, including the S. C. Rockefeller,Jr. collection.
www.ivanpazlamatchev.comipazlamatchev@yahoo.comInstagram: @ivan_pazlamatchevMember of International Guild of Realism
Ravindra Rana, a painter and draftsman, was born orn in Madison Wisconsin, Ravindra completed a bachelor of fine arts and went on to obtain a Master of Fine Arts (Painting) at the New York Academy of Art.. Ravindra taught figure drawing at the Kubert School of Art from 1999 to 2005. Ravindra has worked as a commercial illustrator with clients including Marvel Comics and WIzards of the Coast and numerous collectible cards and role playing game companies. Ravindra has been in fine art exhibits at the Dahesh Museum and Dacia Gallery.
“I am seeking to combine and understand western and eastern art. Having a traditional education in academic art,I wish to combine it with my Indian heritage to see if I can combine the illusion of three dimensional representational art with traditional two dimensional indian motifs.” tnfomega@gmail.com
William Dunham Reed “I look to my heart for expression. Dreams for vision, the beauty of nature for inspiration. In pursuit of my own world. Having grown up consumed by imagination, I pursue images that spring from the depths of the psyche and emotional wells. Conjuring moments steeped in the vibrance of society, our connections with nature - the mysteries of the unknown.”
Doug Reina is a two-time Pollock-Krasner grant recipient whose studio is in Setauket, New York. He is a full-time artist who creates work both on location, as well as in his studio of the landscapes and people that are part of his life. Also a cartoonist, his work has appeared in the New Yorker magazine as well as with King Features Syndicate. Reina's artwork has been exhibited in galleries, museums and public and private collections on Long Island, with some exposure in New York City, Connecticut and Florida as well.
“I make art that is about the strange, wonderful, uncommon, poetic, tender, funny, beautiful things that I come across in my life, that are just too special for me to ignore - that I must paint and put out into the world for people who love the same, wonderful, uncommon things that I do; for like-minded people who are often surprised and delighted to find these elements in my work.”
Zimou Tan was born and raised in Canton, China and apprenticed to Chinese Master Artist Le, YiFeng at age 12. At age 14 he immigrated to America with his family. Mr. Tan graduated from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco in 2000. There he earned degrees in both Traditional Illustration and Fine Arts. He was named “Chinese Master Artist” in 2007 by the Chinese government's Art and Culture department and was selected as one of "The 50 Artists Who Impacted China".
Zimou’s paintings have been presented in the New York Portrait Society Gallery in New York City, American Artists Professional League- 73rd Grand National Exhibition in New York City, de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, the Asia Society of Arts of America, San Francisco, CA, among others. He has also been selected as a finalist in the Art Renewal Center's 2014, 2015, and 2016 Salon Competitions.
His student, “what is the difference between photography and painting”, once asked Zimou Tan? His answer: photography is meant to capture a moment, and painting is meant to create a moment. They are different, but yet have the same purpose. The desire to create a moment drives the most passionate of artists. There are many types of artwork, each allowing different ranges and flexibility to truly create. Zimou Tan decided to specialize in portraiture not because it is the most popular or the most lucrative of artistic fields, but because it is the most difficult, yet it is the most interesting, because each new portrait represents its own unique set of challenges, which can only be met by the most masterful and patient of artists.
Among these challenges, the most difficult aspect of portraiture is capturing the soul of the subject. If a photograph captures the superficial appearance of the subject in a given state, the portrait must go much deeper and reveal something that a mere photograph cannot. In the way that a building must rise in stages, from foundation, to frame, to finishing, a portrait arises in the same way. The artist must ideally meet the subject, speak to the subject, and if the artist has a relationship and an understanding of the subject’s personality, then this can be felt through the portrait.
https://www.artrenewal.org/artists/zimou-tan/7580 http://www.zimoutanart.com/
