Brooklyn’s BWAC Red Hook and Carroll Gardens open
studios June 9-10, 2007 created a garden of art and dialogue through out
the borough. I down loaded a great self guided tour map, which included
32 destinations and headed back to my hometown. Artists of all calibers
and disciplines are leaving their marks as Brooklyn’s Open studios
weekend made evident, they have found fertile ground in the borough to
create innovative and interesting work.
On foot I navigated through myriads of studio buildings, galleries and artists project spaces. In a large warehouse building at 98 4th street in Carroll Gardens, I visited artist Chris Coffins studio, which he shares with fellow artist and curator Jennifer Burbank.
Coffins intense personal connection to water and his urban environment
are evident in his triptych photographic works, which seek a deeper
understanding of the connection within the two “places”. They are
contemplative images finding their own dialogue in which to converse.
Abandoned buildings and underwater shots of jellyfish, which he shoots
looking up from under the water find, and connect within reflective
abstract space and color. Jennifer Burbanks large black and white wall
drawing solicits conversation through line and form. A large black
circle collaged to the wall seems to be in the process of moving out of
the space and off the wall, grounded to it’s environment by thin elegant
lines leading back through the work. Vince Contarino
also in the 4th street building presented works on paper, which he may
use for larger paintings. Contarino painstakingly collages tiny bits of
colored and patterned paper into highly controlled lines, which are
released into organic flowing gestures reminiscent of plant life, or a
diagram of some strange unknown organism.
These artists capture
your attention with a quiet ease, simply giving over something of
yourself in order to sit with them for more time then you realize,
suddenly hours go by... and your wishing you had more time.
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