The recent exhibit “Dreams & Reflections 2015,” curated by Chevalier Daniel C. Boyer and Lady Silvia Soares Boyer at the West Side Arts Coalition, was a mixed media festival for the eyes.
Beginning with Marie Robison’s collages. Robison presents us with two sides of her artistic personality; one is with “Passages,” a hard edge image of purple watercolor strips implying a portal to the piece layered beneath it. This is a contemplative group of paper shards, lined up in Zen-like order and behind lies a pentimento of texture and color, like a small paradise waiting to be discovered.
Nate Ladson knows about color which he demonstrates in his works, “Streak of Blue” and “Transformer of Color–which he is. Both works show a dexterity with the use of texture as well as a subtlety in the blending of his deft, painterly works as yellow, orange and blue sing and create heat on the canvas.
In a complete turn of the brush and approach, Marguerite Borchardt shares her love of the landscape and the natural world in “Berkshire Pond” and takes us to a place of tranquility in this painting. She combines varieties of green we see in nature and paints with a delicate touch that manifests a reverence for her subject matter with each stroke. The pond hints of dark water, vinetangled, primal and mysterious.
The delight of this exhibit is the diversity of each artist’s work that demonstrates their styles just like their individual fingerprints. Daniel C. Boyer jumps right into the great ”art pond” in his three works. I not only admired his art, but also his witty, quirky titles such as, ”Dad Needs A New Suit” Before The World Is Flooded with Dots and Thai Tea We Present the Baron to the Skeletal Baboons. We may also have a poet on our hands, since Boyer is both nimble with language and paintbrush. The blues and greens in this abstract piece combine an excellent compositional sense in his marks, thus allowing the viewer to jump right into that same art pond.
Amy Rosenfeld’s “Rebirth In Spring” deals with a subject matter often ignored in art; the joy and wonder of birth. She presents her work simply and in straight-forward way with a fulsome human figure in orange and yellow against a dark ground. She writes words inside the mother figure, all the ways in
which our world births itself. There is power in that naming which makes her approach unique.
Peter Schepper shows in several pieces his connection to pop culture and has his hand on the pulse of what is current. The piece that illuminates is “Fight Breast Cancer”. It is framed in a soft, boa material as if held together by a red cloud, rendering the fragility of the human body. In the center circle is the message of a woman free and healthy flying on Pegasus to a place called planet wonder. This work illustrates hope, respect and love of women and is impressive.
If you believe in magic, or the great mysteries of our universe, you’ll admire Silvia Soares Boyer’s “On The Science of Pentagram III,” based on the power of the number five and its multiple sources, such as the five wounds of Christ on the cross, and the five fingers and toes of the human body. It is also reflective in Pythagoras’ interest in the pentagram and the Golden Ratio, or correct ordering of the world. Boyer’s bold, and beautifully arranged piece elucidates balance and harmony in a group of stars, with a dominant center, all with precise intersecting gold lines on black. It is an elegant work in its
design.
As New Yorkers, we all have memories of visiting the Russian Tea Room, or are familiar with its lore. Adrienne Cosner exemplifies charm with her naïve style in the piece called, “Russian Tea Room”. The composition in this work is pleasing and feels like a bold, abstract painting with a loose, grid layout
and blocks of color. The upper left corner insinuates the nighttime blues and a melancholy entrenched in the streets. Wedged next to this, black blocks with small squares show a lone light burning. At the right side is a light pink building that depicts the tea room with its memorable red awning. This part of the painting is in daylight, in contrast to the cryptic portrayal of the ineffable New York nights.
Dammika D. Ranasinghe loves pattern and color which is presented in two of her works, “North American Beetles” and “Spring Arrives in 2015”. In the beetle piece there are orange, yellow, and blue splashes that create a felicitous design, in a vibrant and playful spirit. In the Spring piece she creates a more specific pattern with a folk style tulip and green icon in a celebration of warm tones.
Pattern and repetition abound in Dimuthu Ranasinghe’s art, yet in his own style and color choice using muted blues, purples and dusty pinks. The mood in this work is mercurial, from serious to light hearted. The most engaging piece is “Spring Sparks” as if it were breaking open the color spectrum in blues, greens, oranges and a light purple background.
We end with BA Djibril Ngawa’s animated paintings. There’s an elan and passion in his paint strokes especially in “Mixed Crowd” that combines a washy mixture with confident line work alluding to the human figure. There is an indication of sorrow, yet it is surrounded by a border of yellow redolent of the idea that light surrounds us in our world if we look for it.
