ART :: OPENINGS PRESENTS :: FRENZY INTO FOLLY VIRTUAL GALLERY VII :: CHEN, CRUZ, GRAHAM, FARRELL
This marks the second to last time the exceptional OPENINGS collective will be featured in our friday edition, and the last time that you can read up on this work and then go see it, as next Friday’s post will mark the final day of this terrific show.
That being said: Frenzy into Folly closes October 26th. No more procrastinating, art lovers. Hie thyselves hence, to St. Paul the Apostle to see this forward thinking work installed!
Frenzy Into Folly
Church of St. Paul the Apostle
Corner of West 60th & Columbus Ave. (212) 265-3495
New York, New York 10019
[On View Through October 26th. Open Hours: Mon – Fri 7:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., Sat – Sun 8:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.]
This week, we have the pleasure of bringing you artists Wen-Chi Chen, Araceli Cruz, Meg Graham, and Matthew Farrell:
After 12 years of practicing Traditional Oriental Medicine, I have often been stunned by how many of us are totally alienated from our own internal bodies.
One often forgets that there are miracles right inside us.
“This is what my ovaries look like? I have absolutely no idea!” a friend of mine stated with shock after seeing these paintings.
These and other organs are displayed elaborately & majestically like a queen’s headpiece, to be admired, respected, and appreciated. One has no choice but to be face to face with one’s true “inner” self.
We need to appreciate the miraculous inner body that works day and night to keep us alive, to treasure these pieces of art that God has created for us.
To further experience the connection with the divine source of creation, I mixed my own body tissue with the paint to make these portraits. In doing so I became one with the two women subjects. Through unity and harmony with one another, we attain oneness with the universe. As God’s creation, all things are beautiful and perfect!
Araceli Cruz (Astoria, NY)
For the several months that led up to the opening of “Frenzy Into Folly” I used my canvas as a means of personal expression. Rather than journaling, confiding in someone, or sharing my thoughts on Facebook or Twitter, which is what we most typically do today, I wholeheartedly gave myself to this canvas. What you see before you are moments of frustration, sadness, happiness, love, and always my genuine truth. I wanted to know what these words and thoughts would look like in color, what they would feel like in texture, and ultimately what months of experiencing various emotions would result in when combined on canvas.
The backdrop to the canvas piece is a collection of calendars I gathered for several years. These records are more like keepsakes, and a way to always reflect on time that has gone by.
Frenzy and folly are both forms of energy. One is dizzy with excitement and the other is joyous with innocence. The marriage of these two be can hypnotic and lend to trance like within dance or in prayer.
In the series TRANCE STATES I am exploring with light, vibration, color and movement of the spirit. These are inner self-portraits that play with the visualization of their vibrations.
My references are the art of the mystics, shaman and great teachers who have crossed the threshold between the physical and the spiritual world. The works here are two trance dancers in the state of bliss.
website: http://
Matthew Farrell (New York, NY)
This relief sculpture depicts a horse confronting a rattlesnake in a landscape. The form is inspired by Medieval religious reliefs where the desire to describe powerful narrative scenes produced works in which the subjects breached the picture plane and entered the viewers space. These works are often forceful and moving yet may produce a complicated sense of location and space that invites a particular type of contemplation.
Coming from this visual language, the protagonists of this scene are a horse and rattlesnake. Both animals are linked to the mythologies and promises of the American West” as well as to associations of freedom and death. Part of their respective identities lies in their symbiotic/antagonistic roles within those mythologies. For instance, the rattlesnake is native while the horse was introduced specifically in the service of colonizing and wiping out what was native; there is an underlying context of violence from which these two characters emerge. I am interested in where the frenzy of human fear and violence may meet sober consciousness expressed by the possibility of two sentient beings willing to face each other’s death and the inseparability of their lives.
website: http://www.matthew-
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Corner of West 60th & Columbus Ave. (212) 265-3495
New York, New York 10019[On View Through October 26th. Open Hours: Mon – Fri 7:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., Sat – Sun 8:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.]
