Galleries

Everyday Redefined

Visual art exhibit, on display March 13^th  – April 17^th at Corridor Gallery features artists: Olaniyi Akindiya, Jackie Branson, Pia Coronel, Niki Lederer, Valerie Piraino, and Margot Spindelman. Curated by Rachel Rath.

Brooklyn, NY– Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation is pleased to present Everyday Redefined, an eye opening art exhibition illustrating the multifunctional uses of everyday items – March 13^th through April 17^th at Corridor Gallery (334 Grand Ave, Brooklyn, NY). Niki Lederer, Valerie Piraino, Pia Coronel, Jackie Branson, Olaniyi Rasheed Akindiya (Akirash), and Margot Spindelman each manage to create a unique comment on everyday life by using common objects in a new way – either as a raw material to work with, or as an inspiration to create.  The artwork on display creates a reflection of our lives, both alone and as connected to one another.

Niki Lederer, a MFA graduate from Hunter College, finds inspiration in discarded plastic bottles.  Gathered from curbside recycling all over the north side of Williamsburg, her sculptures make a powerful statement about the mass consumption and mass waste created in contemporary life.  The bottles take on a life of their own, either as large-scale behemoths, lightweight aerial pieces, or as flattened grids that resemble large format textiles.  The variety in usage only serves to highlight the commonality of the base materials.  Stripped of their labels, many of these bottles are almost immediately identifiable due to the high levels of advertising and branding surrounding their bottles, humorously brought to attention in the play on words in Westcoast Red Tide, 2015.

Pia Coronel, a conceptual artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, goes on meditative forest walks to find her artistic building blocks.  She uses materials such as found wood, stones, shells, and soil to create her pieces.  The natural materials are carefully selected, serving to highlight our connections (or lack of) to nature.  There is an element of searching to her work, of an individual trying to find their place of origin.  The wood, stones, shells, and soil become elevated from their everyday status.

Valerie Piraino, has obtained an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art.  She grew up between Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States. Inspired by her own transnational identity, the African Diaspora, economy and natural resources, Piraino sculpts fruit such as papaya and coconut that can either be viewed as common or exotic, depending on one’s perspective.  By coating them in black and gold paint, she references the long history of mining on the African continent.  Covered in organic debris, these objects could be seen as being dredged up from the earth.  Using materials like sawdust, natural grasses, and resin, the surface takes on skin-like qualities.  This “skin” – pocked, diseased, bruised, and adorned – reminds us of those who harvest these resources.  Piraino hopes to elucidate contemporary African life by connecting large-scale issues to everyday lives.  Her sculptures give form to the experiences of powerful institutions destroying people’s access to their own countries’ resources.

Jackie Branson, holds a BFA from the University of New Hampshire and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. She uses both her Armenian heritage and her daily life in the 21^st century to reinvent the average carpet. These Karpets are not the soft, woven pieces one might imagine.  Yes, they include textiles, but are also built with heavy, hard, sharp materials such as saw blades and electronic parts, everyday materials in Branson’s life.  The resultant sculptures are a paradox – a traditionally soft, welcoming item rendered with aggressive materials.

Olaniyi Rasheed Akindiya, also known as Akirash, has studied at the University of Agriculture and the Institute of Textile Technology Arts and Design. Akirash focuses his work on moments in time.  He is concerned with the accelerated pace of development and social infrastructure that differentiate rural and urban life.  He is also concerned with the overriding power systems that govern our everyday existence.  This is reflected in his usage of a multitude of materials.   “Omo Laso” is a mixed media tapestry painting, woven from found objects, threads, and acrylic paint.  It offers a quiet, inner truth, inspired by rhythm, harmony and repetition.

Margot Spindelman, has obtained an MFA from San Francisco art Institute and has graduated Magna cum laude, with a BFA from the University of Michigan. Her series “Roofs, Berths and Currents” gives voice to the tenuous places, landscapes that shift planes before solidity (and security) coalesce. There are references to rain and water, roofs and windows, decay and distress. Elements emerge, submerge, and disappear. The drawings are made on small, irregular pieces of paper, taped down and coated in gesso.  The resultant surface does not resemble any traditional drawing surface. The rhythm of these pieces is created by the play of marks, the tough or elegiac line of a fountain pen meeting an incursion of color, creating found shards of a story.

Meet the artists at the Opening Reception on March 13^TH from 4-6pm at Corridor Gallery, 334 Grand Ave, Brooklyn, NY. There will be an Artist Talk Sunday April 10^th 4-6pm.

For press inquiries please contact: info@rushphilanthropic.org