Serena Depero
Born in Rome, Italy, in 1974, and moved to New York City in 1988. Studied figure drawing at the Art Students League of New York, and then attended Brown University in Providence, RI, from where she graduated in 1995 with a BA in Visual Arts and Italian Studies.
From 1995 to 1999, she returned to the Art Students League where she assisted Charles Hinman’s mixed media class for two years, and won a Merit Scholarship, which allowed her to study full time with Bruce Dorfman. Under Hinman and Dorfman’s guidance she moved away from painting, and experimented with various materials such as paper, wood, plaster and plastic. Her work became gradually more tactile and abstract. The work of artists such as Eva Hasse and Antoine Tapies offered constant inspiration.
She then attended Hunter College, where she continued to experiment with different materials and created installations out of her three-dimensional objects. Towards the end of her study, she started painting on canvas again with a newfound fascination for the innate qualities of paint and a fresh perspective informed by her exploration of three-dimensional materials. Fragments of her objects and installations made their way back into her canvases. She graduated in 200 with an MFA in Painting.
Depero continues to paint on canvas and to create objects made from found materials. A fascination wih the materials themselves has been a driving force in her work. She constructs paintings using layers of color, which are applied based on a series of formal and intuitive choices. She often works and reworks a piece unil each shape falls into place. Similarly, in her three-dimensional work, she final result. Nature and personal memories are a recurrent theme in her work.
Depero lives, works and maintains studios in New York City and in Kingston, NY. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions in the United States and abroad. She is part of a group of international artists called Across the Bridge, and a member of the Kingston Arts Society.
Juan Merchan
Juan Merchan es un actor, director y diseñador de iluminación teatral. Desarrolló su trabajo como diseñador, principalmente en el Teatro La Mama de Nueva York durante 18 años. Fue Co-fundador, y Co-curador del Festival Internacional de Butoh de Nueva York.
Hizo el diseño de iluminación para varias compañias, como el Zendora Dance Company, Great Jones Repertory, Pioneers Go East Collective, Sonia Olla Flamenco Company, Brooklyn United Ensemble, la compañía Filipina Kinding Sindaw Company, entre otras. También diseñó la iluminación y escenografía para varias producciones del Phoenix Theatre Ensemble de Nueva York.
Recientemente trabajo en nueva York en la iluminación para A Meal, una producción de gran formato de la compañía LEIMAY.
Seiji Nakane
Artist Statement
There are two different ways to approach the creation of art photographs. One approach begins with having some kind of image visualized in the mind. The artist then turns that visualized image into reality. When completing this process, I search for the object that will fit into my visualized image and consider the ways I can manipulate the lighting, so that the finished full frame will be precisely what I want. This is the process I work from when I know before shooting the pictures what and how I want to show.
The other approach is to shoot at random whatever catches my eye. I often have no preconceived idea of how I want to show these images. Occasionally, I am not even sure if I will print those images and am unsure of why I am actively photographing those images. This process is similar to picking up a book at random to begin to read. I haven’t been told about the book; I don’t know the storyline; I haven’t read the author. Maybe I start reading it just because the book cover was beautiful. If I come across a character in the story who intrigues me, I’ll think about that character. And perhaps, I’ll try to some of them. I may think like them, look at the world as the way they do. Over time, some will become my own, and others will simply be forgotten.
I began photographing animal corpses on the highway in the summer of 2000, while traveling through the western states with a friend. If I lived in the countryside, I could have shot all these images in one week–Highways are full of corpses. I still can’t recall what first compelled me to photograph them. At first, I naturally ignored them. I had no desire to look at them. But one day, as if they would no longer be ignored, these corpses caught my eyes with strong power. After this, I became unable to ignore their presence. I stopped my car and started photographing them. This morbid curiosity began to take its toll. I found that if I shot just three of these images in one day, I felt as though I was a terrible person. After this I had to stop shooting for few days. Even now, I still do not understand what I could possibly want with those pictures. Although I have created them, they yield no definitive answer.
-Seiji Nakane
Rodney Dickson
Born in Northern Ireland in 1956, he was a resident of Liverpool, England before he moved to New York City in 1997. His work has been seen throughout Europe and the Unoted States. He is represented by M.Y. Art Prospects, a gallery on 135 West 29th Street, Manhattan.
E. Lynn Hassan
Visual artist who has exhibited in California, New York, and Eastern Europe. Exhibitions at international art festivals include multiple mixed media installations for Periferic, Iasi, Romania and the Carbon Art 2004 Memory Project in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. Recent exhibitions include Pratt Institute, When Brooklyn Artists Speak, Art Listens. and Brooklyn College Gallery, Painters, Musicians, Sculptors. Her work is featured in several publications including, Downtown Brooklyn, the literary journal for Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus, Thirteenth Moon, SUNY, Albany, NY, Beasts in Their Wisdom by Eugene Garber and the forthcoming collaborative hypermedia work, Eroica
Dorothy Cowfield
Dorothy Cowfield sings a more jazz-inspired blend of hillbilly. Her debut album, I’m a Cowgirl, is a less alternative take on country music than what is currently popular. Instead of going the rockabilly or pop route, Dorothy has chosen to stay closer to the roots. In a genre she likes to call “cowgirl jazz,” the songs are heavy on vocals and the music provides a hauntingly sweet backdrop.
Kenta Nagai
Kenta Nagai is a fretless guitar player and composer based in New York City. His technique extends and enhances the expressive range of guitar. From 1999 until 2002 he was a composer in residence at The Cave Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Kenta Furusho
Kenta was born in Kumamoto Japan and his work is included in the permanent research archive at the Asian American Arts Center in New York city.
Evren Celimli
Born in New York City in 1971. He grew up in Boston and attended the New England Conservatory extension division where he began studying music theory at age 11. His first serious piece, composed as a sophomore in high school, was accepted into Boston University’s High School Composers Workshop. As a senior in high school he received First Prize in the Harvard Musical Association’s achievement awards.
After high school Mr. Celimli continued his studies at Brandeis University where he studied with Eric Chasalow and Allen Anderson. The Lydian String Quartet (in residence at Brandeis) performed his String Quartet and he was awarded the Reiner Prize for best undergraduate composition two years in a row. Mr. Celimli went on for a Master’s degree in composition in England at the University of Sussex where he studied with Michael Finnissy and was awarded the Stockhausen Prize.
In 1995, on his return from abroad, Mr. Celimli began to participate in new music festivals. Celimli’s scores were presented at the May in Miami and June in Buffalo festivals and at the Music Breaks Free festival back in England. In 1996 Mr. Celimli moved to New York City and began working with modern dance and avant-garde theater companies. Since 1996 Mr. Celimli’s music has been heard throughout the US and Europe in conjunction with numerous dance and theater projects.
Mr. Celimli has worked with many New York City based choreographers including Doug Elkins, Se疣 Curran, Ben Munisteri, Murray Spalding, Tanya Kane-Parry and Jeanette Stoner. Evren Celimli has composed music and designed sound for over 25 dance and theater productions over the past 12 years. He has also composed music for commercials and produced recordings for several independent record labels.
Heimo Lattner
Born in 22. 7. 1968 in Eisenstadt, 1995 Go to New York, 2001 Go to Berlin, 1991-1995 Study at Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste, Wien, 2000-2001 Studied at Whitney Museum of American Art, Independent Study Program, New York
Miyuki Tsugami
Born in Osaka in 1973. MA of Kyoto University of Art and Design.
Artist Statement ; The main theme of her work is “scenery” but she does not mean drawing the real scenery. Instead, she tries to re-establish time and space within a given scenery in a most defined way. By looking at her drawing, one will be able to experience the emotion that the drawing projects. Also, she uses many materials for her works and this is because she applies specific material for specific work. She is one of the most hopeful young artists in Japan.
Andrea Cote
Andrea Cote is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and dancer living in New York. She has presented solo and collaborative installations and performances in Seattle, Miami, and New York, including Henry Street Settlement’s Abrons Arts Center and Jack the Pelican Presents (New York,) the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, as well as The Dorsch Gallery (Miami) and 911 Media Arts Center (Seattle). She received her MFA in Sculpture from SUNY Purchase in 2003 and performs with PURE (Public Urban Ritual Experiment.) In her work she questions the boundaries that have traditionally divided artistic disciplines, taking on multiple roles by using her own body as subject, object, and medium. For many years she worked as an artists’ model. These experiences informed her current work, in which she mediates the space between the world inside an artwork and the one in our bodies.
Hiromi Iuchi
Born in Shikoku Island in Japan, 1981, Hiromi started drawing and painting when she was 4. The subject of Hiromi’s paintings is always an imaginary girl with a textile-like pattern on her face. However, the main subject matter is the extreme emotion hidden behind the face.
Naoki Iwakawa
Naoki Iwakawa was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1967. Growing up, he became interested the New York art world after reading about it in magazines. He graduated from Osaka University of the Arts, where he also taught briefly as an assistant professor of Graphic Design.
At the age of 24 he moved to New York City, where he began showing art at OK Harris and Noho Gallery in Manhattan. In 1996, he co-founded the CAVE, an experimental art space that fostered an eclectic group of musicians, artists, and performers. At the CAVE, he further developed his interest in live performance painting as well as the artistic use of fire, a practice that would later garner him the title of Village Voice’s Best Pyrotechnic Action Painter (2008). He learned to produce paintings instinctively, with an emphasis on acceptance of the natural world and the present moment. The idea of the moment, as sought by Zen Buddhists, has been the prominent theme of his work and life.
Naoki is also drawn to the relationship between music and visual art. He collaborated for many years with Tim Wright, of the band DNA. One of his latest projects is Sense of Noise, a performance series featuring artists and musicians improvising together over a single yet constantly transforming idea.