Gallery hours: Tues-Sat 1-7 pm
Sun 1-5 pm and by appointment
Gallery Onetwentyeight is pleased to announce a group exhibition “Past, Present, Present” featuring work by Niamul Bari, Kotatsu Iwata, Hiromitsu Kuroo, Carmelo Midili, and Brian Ormond, five New York based Artists from four different countries Bangladesh, Ireland, Italy and Japan. The exhibition brings together a creative group of artists whose paintings and sculptures use shape and color to transport the viewer into a space of contemplation.
Niamul Bari (Bangladesh) His artistic practice is an interactive emotion as well as a spiritual level of unconscious and subconscious. The level of subconscious energy comes with body language and a continuous unconscious level might become. Working constantly and spontaneously with bold lines, strokes, and by using objects; experience and present time come together. The darkness of painting is the burning of meditation.
Kotatsu Iwata (Japan) He marries an excellent control of composition and use of color with a striking approach reminiscent of Pop Art. That approach is distinct in part for it’s provocative deadpan wit carefully balanced with earnest sentiment. The Pop Art quality is lent through the incorporation of graphic art elements consisting of several structural layers and rendered with rich painterly effects. Those elements are often appropriated images from popular culture embedded within an artistic context and accented with decorative motifs and text elements.
Hiromitsu Kuroo (Japan) is a mixed media painter working in the manner of the Origami tradition. The canvas serves as the paper, and the gentle manipulation of its surface is how the artist conveys intricate textural landscapes. Interested in the juxtaposition and vitality of collaged pieces of canvas, Kuroo uses them to accentuate other emerging shapes in the compositions.
Carmelo Midili (Italy) His works are three dimensional pieces made from discarded paintings on canvas panel that he has rummaged from art school dumpsters in New York City. He creates the supporting structure of the sculptures from wood and gives the pieces their ultimate form by cutting and shaping the canvas panels and glueing them together which results in a collage effect. The practice of recycling artwork stems from the artist's reflections on the concept of failure: It is essential to fail not only to grow as an artist, but also to grow as a human being. Midili celebrates this act of failing by reviving these abandoned paintings and paying homage to the artists' failures.
Brian Ormond (Ireland) is a self taught artist who works with oil and acrylic on panel. The subject of his work is very personal. The initial layers are emotionally charged. Many of the expressions are from his youth, his past. He works both consciously and subconsciously marking the panel in unique forms, exploring detours and deviations through erasing and minimalism. The elimination and over-painting is a push/pull scenario resulting in a layered and detailed piece that is full of depth and vibrancy. His work is an expression about who he is and where he has come from. It is about grounding him here, now, in this history, in this moment. Yuko Takasu - bean sprout photographs
