Featured Artist Lindsay Hutchinson

Lindsay Hutchinson

Featured Artist of the Month, April 2012

A review by John Sunderland

Exhibition Title:  ‘101 Hipsters’

Lindsay Hutchinson comes over as a quietly modest young woman from what I could tell during the hour or so we spent early this morning as she and her helper faced the monumental task of installing an exhibit of 101 paintings (or so I thought) in the hour prior to opening the café.  In fact there were, 42 or is it 43. No matter; numbers and volume do not really count in this wonderful exhibition.

In essence it appears simple. Some forty small rectangular flat-colored portraits, head and shoulders only, delineated by sinuous black expressive line.  I watched as each came out of the cardboard box and was held up to the wall for positioning. With every new piece it was like being introduced to someone new, and in a way someone you knew, as so many of the faces seemed familiar.

Lindsay’s multiple stylized figurative portraits are taken from her world of Bushwick Hipsterdom; friends and people she knows from the garden and the store, people from her building and the street. The twenty-something, thirty-something burghers of Morganville are here represented, the class of 2011/2012.

Working from observation and photographs Lindsay renders each in a similar process that looks deceptively simple, using line to delineate and provide form and expression and color, often totally unnatural as expressive decoration. Without resorting to caricature, with a sure eye and hand, she manages each time to capture a real sense of the individual.

Labels for groups of people tend to assist in the mental grouping of them all together as a genre. And here to an extent that happens, Hipsters, but only if your eyes aren’t quite open when all the kaleidoscope colors appear like a jar of jelly-beans.  Open more widely and focus and you will find succinct and character-full portrayals you feel you know —  and maybe you do.

You become captivated by the charm of each and the contact with every single person. But then grouped together as they are in blocks of twelve, you really do gain a sense of the quilted community of colorful young souls that make up a large part of the unique Bushwick community.

Deliberately mounted in irregular style, see how the subjects move about and jostle as though in a village of personalities with messages to keep or share.

It is a really wonderful show. We at Life Café hope you enjoy it. Who knows; you might see yourself up there!

Lindsey Hutchinson, originally from Indiana, is a local artist living and working in Bushwick. She says of this exhibition: “I am a Hipster. You are a Hipster. That dude over there is a Hipster.” Never was a truer word said.

Leslie Van Stelten Biography

Originally hailing from Denver,Colorado, Leslie Van Stelten is one of those transplants to the Big Apple who has rooted herself into the cracked pavements and graffiti-covered buildings of Brooklyn like a glorious weed that can’t help but grow and flourish in such a steely environment.

She’s a photographer and photo illustrator of exceptional talents whose work appears regularly on CD packages for bands and musicians, in local publications such as The Village Voice and Go Magazine, and prestigious design and publicity projects.  But her heart and soul explode into action when capturing the denizens of the NYC underground scene like no one else – from the unique subjects to the stunning lighting to the exaggerated reality she portrays, Leslie’s work evokes a visceral feeling in the viewer that’s hard to shake and impossible to forget.

She has exhibited her striking work in galleries all over New York Cityand is pleased to be presenting at Sugarland.  For a look at more of Leslie’s work, please go to www.leslievanstelten.com.

Julia Sinelnikova

Life Café Bushwick, Artist of the Month

December 2011

John Sunderland

I have been fortunate in my life to live in some beautiful places, and then I came to Bushwick; which to my mind has to be one of the ugliest places on the planet, why else would the artists of the street try to paint it out?

And here this month we have someone who sees beauty where, in daylight at least I see only the beast.

I have been in two minds about Julia’s show.  To be honest I think the exhibition on the right hand side of the wall, is truly worthy of comment, but not so the three large paintings on the left, which don’t appear to belong in the company of the rest.

Sunsets and reflected light from natural and unnatural sources transform Bushwick from dusk to dawn; then it becomes a place of mystery, Chirico shadows and possible threat. But high on the rooftops above the streets the greatest show on earth is still playing.

Rather than go for the obvious iconic view of Manhattan set against a flame red sky, Julia looks closer and sees beauty in the momentary passing of light above the shadow blocks of Bushwick, and reminds us that nature gives us a fresh start every morning and wipes the slate clean every night.

It’s not easy to capture fleeting moments, and equally it takes a special skill to capture fleeting moods as the artist does so well with her interiors, where she shows us glimpses of transitory loft-life. We may want to know more but we never shall.

The one piece that really does it for me in this show is, “On the Brink”. This is a painting you could live with, it would always draw you to it; there would always be questions, never a dull moment. It could be a canvas that in the end could drive you mad.

Julia has captured here two people standing together, their naked feet in the moving water. That’s all we know, apart from the delicious fact that this is a moment set to pass and unfold. Quite how- we shall have to wait and see. Time for another glass!

The View from the Bar

Rachel Echanique

By John Sunderland

I always think first impressions count. The first impression I had when seeing this exhibit was; there are five screaming women in the bar that weren’t here yesterday!

It ‘s a bit of a shock actually, like having all your ex-wives show up at brunch and start up on you again!
However relax, once seated at the bar and looking back, you see that the your personal connection has nothing to do with it, these females are not screaming- they are exploding, exploding with energy which is unraveling before your eyes.

The focus of each painting is the mouth. The mouths of the subjects are wide-open and crazy with joy, ecstasy or fear, or all three; it’s up to the viewer. Secondary impressions come, the image of the girl in the strobe-lit disco, a still frame from a riot scene in a magazine; the moment your wife gave birth.
Those images fade along with a catalogue of others; then your brain says, hang on these aren’t faces, they are moments when whiplashes of paint, the flashes of blades of color and line, the un-coiling of springs, conspired momentarily to form faces of women unknown.

Raquel Echanique is the latest artist from the HART950 Gallery; my last review of was about drawing; Echanique is a painter, with a sure-hand mastery over what she wants the brush to do; it is she who blows up on the canvas in these works, and the results are sheer energy in the form of controlled explosions. And after you have taken them in, you realize that the motion has not stopped, the explosion continues to expand.
Somewhere in the artist’s mind the moments before each frozen frame exist, and somewhere beyond, her whiplash brushes conjure up other
moments of joy, ecstasy or fear, as they coil and thrash on into the future.

A Review

UNTITLED 5

By John Sunderland

A pencil is a tool for the brain and drawing is a process of synthesis, a personally based balance of mapping and reactive emotion.  In Nick Greenwald’s hands, drawing instruments become tools of discovery. What we get to share are the graphic results of his searching.

Although the works on the Café wall this week are multi-media in execution – photo prints over-laid by marks, tears, burns, paint, collage, scratched and scorched – they’re all drawings.

For subject matter, if you want to call a person’s attention, use the human face as your muse. Here Nick uses faces like maps that he is both trying to read and explore at the same time. We are sensitive to our faces and read the faces of others all the time, so it’s fascinating when an artist explores the surface, even if, as in these images, the subjects are pretty much devoid of expression. But Nick’s not making portraits; I don’t see him attempting to go deeper into the mind of the subject at all. Rather, the works are about surface and effects and what he can do with them.

What’s to enjoy in this exhibition is a sense of the artist’s undiluted love of drawing. I bet he draws in his sleep, and during the day hangs out in art stores drooling over pencils, pens and markers.  It’s on that level, the enjoyment of drawing as discovery that we share in his journey.

And thank goodness someone is still drawing; all art begins with drawing. This age has largely turned its back on drawing as the most essential medium of expression and communication.  Today we have come to rely more and more on digitized tools to process the making of marks and thereby interrupt the natural human synthesis; from brain, through mind, to hand, to eye, to brain and mind of another.

Nick Greenwald-AUGUSTNOTS

There is nothing digitized here. Here is a man in love with making marks of his own, turning over the leaves of the jungle with his pencil. And, if he doesn’t give up on the search, he’s well on his way to becoming a maestro of his medium.

Come and enjoy another dish of brain-food and another terrific exhibit from the stable of emergent talent that is Hart Gallery 950.

From October 26 – November 3, 2011, at Life Café 983, Bushwick, Brooklyn

Matt Brennan

October 16 through October 23, 2011

THE SHOW

Review by John Sunderland

Matt Brennan’s 9 illustrated pieces, artist #2 in the Gallery950 line-up for October and November at Life Café 983, Bushwick.

My first impression of Matt Brennan’s exhibit was, “Look! Some chap is skate boarding up our wall!”  That’s what you see first, skateboards minus wheels. And if that’s all you see, this show could be a yawn and something you might not investigate further. That would be a shame because Matt’s unique pieces are gems, the product of a fervent concentrated obsessive energy and inward seeking intelligence; well worth giving time to.

Apart from two of the six pieces, “Ghost” and “Lightning bolt,” which are somehow left of stage, the other seven pieces, all hung vertically, require close attention, very close attention.

THE GRIGLEYSMITH

Four of the pieces are on white board and the artwork is linear and incredibly detailed. Each of these has a theme and a suggestive title: “Cog,” “Navigator,” “Old One,” and my personal favorite title, “Astrosludge.” To arrive at the connection with the title, if there is one, is like looking at a tangle of fine string and wondering if it really makes a knot.

NAVIGATOR

The other pieces, executed on boards minus skate wheels are in color and display the same intensity. But these designs are broader with figurative elements as though the boards have been tattooed by an expert accomplished at placing the design exactly where he wants it.

I am not going to attempt to explain the meaning of each piece with titles like “Grigleysmith” and “Possessed Lion.” The interpretation is up to the observer (and I reckon over a couple of beers, you’ll have several).

ASTROSLUDGE

All in all, do take the time, peer over the heads of the diners this weekend and have a closer look. You will be greatly rewarded for your effort.

Marcelo Zissu, has an Italian name, with roots in Romania, born in Brazil and current living in New York. This artist known about town by his gypsy way of life is proud about having only the amount of stuff that fits in his backpack.

His artwork reflects about the paradox between love and hate.  A loose yet lucid line work divides these extremes, punctuated by the black and white scheme he uses for the Rorshach Test Series.  Marcelo’s work shows his fascination and repulsion with the human race’s multifaceted value system.

Marcelo hybridizes the past and future, creating a mysterious world that has to be built every single day from zero. Obsessions, desires, fears, dreams and secrets can became clear through the different layers of perceptions of his images.

by John Sunderland

The collection of fascinating photographs by Xiomaro which make up the September exhibition at Life Cafe, Bushwick, have a special quality. A quality which to my mind is what photography is about, they make you want to see, as though through an intelligent eye. Xio sees fractal patterns in nature and the urban commonplace where others may see just a backdrop; as such his photographs stimulate and refresh our view of the world. In fact, they are images which say “wake up brain, look again!”

950 HART GALLERY

Match One: In the left Corner Antoinette Johnson, in the right Mikki Nylund.
What is the Art Battle? It’s an interesting concept, female and male, one each side of our twenty two foot long wall at Life Café, Bushwick, actually not a wall any more but an arena.

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, so said John Gray in his best selling book. So when I watched this show being put up this morning I wondered what would be the difference visualized; you know soft female fluffy sensitive stuff on one side and aggressive hard-on masculine muscle painting on the other?

Judge for yourselves, because that’s what this is about, an artistic battle of the sexes; a different gender based way of seeing the world? Interesting question, through looking at male and female produced art will we better understand each other and our sexuality and how it effects our vision of our world experience?

Personally, I found that the work displayed was the opposite of what might have been stereoscopically expected. Mikki’s work at first look is full of cats and cuddles,even if the cuddlers are a bit odd, even by Bushwick standards; a Chagall-esque dream world; softly disturbing, but not nightmarish; like dream images you would be happy to remember.

Antoinette’s paintings are she as she sees herself (my words), powerful, unique and fantastic, naked and armored; an Amazonian female capable of tearing herself to bits if required. There she is, tall and strong, like an alien princess come to earth, strutting as proudly as a dandy cock!

As I said, go judge for yourselves; the show is a lot of fun and the work is a summer fizz of delight.

The Art Battle between members of 950 Hart Gallery, continues throughout July atLife Café 983, Bushwick.

By John Sunderland, Artist at the Bar

On Exhibition
May 2011

Troy Houldin is the May artist at Life Café in Bushwick. I met him one early morning at the beginning of May when he came to the café to set up his exhibition of paintings and three-dimensional pieces.

Outside it was grey and miserable but Troy was in tee shirt and flip-flops sporting the deep tan he’d picked up during his winter working in the British Virgin Islands.

Troy strikes you as a young man who enjoys life- a life he appears to be very much in control of;  like his paintings. At first sight they appear to be abstract and random; painted fragments of this and that, repeated letter forms and numbers, clouds and planks of colour, patterns arranged in textural and tonal swaths and slices painted in colors straight out of a toy shop; a ragbag of shapes and forms collected from the the works, painted on board, are each individual and complete yet when viewed
collectively, patterns and rhythms appear. It’s then you discover nothing is random
or abstract here, like looking at a form of pictorial jazz in which dissonance and
dislocation comes round to square the visual circle.  Every mark, every line, every
colour, far from being random or chance comes together in his work as part of an
overall pleasing balance.

When I asked him what he’d been doing in the Caribbean over the winter he said he’d being doing construction, I wasn’t surprised; seemed like he’d been using a paintbrush as well as a hammer.

Troy Houldin’s Paintings and Works are on view throughout May at Life Café, 983Flushing Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn.