Ellen Bradshaw: Making an Artistic Journey Upstate By Way of Chelsea

For most adults, taking a mental step backwards to revisit childhood memories can often seem like a luxury, especially in these busy and trying times. Thank God for art! Art affords, both its creator and its admirers the opportunity to reflect upon a lifetime of experiences. In my opinion, everyone should allow themselves the time to delve into the past to spend some precious moments there. Nothing is more rejuvenating than to honor the places that we have known--the ones that we remember with great fondness. Products of our own specific environments, the “where” impacts us the most and make us who we are. It is the thing that makes each of us special, and, in many cases, helps us find common ground with one another.

Who hasn’t been touched by the facades and the innocent perfection of a “Main Street” somewhere? My mind’s eye frequently flashes to memories of lonely, winding, foliage-lined roads that lead out of town. Artist Ellen Bradshaw’s latest show, Heading Home, Keuka Lake, at Pleiades Gallery in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, takes the spectator on a journey through just such places.

Known mostly for her distinctive cityscapes inspired by the Ashcan School, Bradshaw, a Rochester native, departs from the urban jungle and heads Upstate to the openness of New York’s Finger Lakes region and all the beauty of Keuka Lake and the villages of Hammondsport, Penn Yan and Branchport. Artistically, this was a logical progression for Bradshaw, since these are the places where she has spent so much time getting to know the land, its sweeping vineyards, and the moodiness of the lake itself.

In Heading Home, Keuka Lake, Bradshaw has compiled a wonderful mix of works that easily transition from the varying blended greens and azures of brilliant summer scenes, to stark, solitary brown, cobalt blue and gray depictions of fall landscapes, to peaceful winter holiday scenes that are shaded with melancholy.

Bradshaw’s paintings could easily persuade one to quietly slip out from underneath the pretense of the city and head for the uncomplicated, single-layered lifestyle of small town America, where “overscheduled” refers to long, spontaneous walks in the woods (leaving the timepiece on the bureau) or lazy afternoons with a pole and awaiting fish, not to mention fall country drives in the shadow of trees bedecked with orange, red and brown leaves.

While the works in this exhibition evoke intense emotions for the spectator, even if they’ve never had the opportunity to know the subjects that inspired them firsthand, Heading Home, Keuka Lake is clearly a communion with the past for Bradshaw. Her artist statement says that the development of this series was tantamount to reclaiming part of her soul. Keuka, known as the “Lady of Lakes” because of its exquisite beauty, has always beckoned Bradshaw lakeside. What is most special about this show at the Pleiades is that the artist openly and lovingly shares her artistic journey, and gallery goers will be equally drawn to the landscapes that she knows so intimately.

Heading Home, Keuka Lake runs through November 22 at the Pleiades Gallery located at 530 West 25th Street, 4th Floor in Manhattan. Visit www.pleiadesgallery.com for gallery hours and more information.

Walkin' in Chelsea

There's nothing like New York City on a crisp, cool fall day, and I was fortunate to be able to meet up with my lovely friend Lisa, an advertising account manager, for a walk through the city's Chelsea neighborhood this past Saturday. As we made our way through the streets that have gone from warehouse to wonderful in the last few years, we kept asking each other why we weren't the people who decided that Chelsea should be THE place for fabulous art in New York City. Not to say that you won't find great art on New York's East Side or elsewhere, but Chelsea showcases all types of art from Warhol to Picasso, as well as contemporary Chinese and Korean Art.

While strolling through the neighborhood, we came upon a couple of intriguing art installations that, just maybe, could be our favorites for the day. Take a look for yourself. GOTCHA! Pretty funny, huh? They did appear to have been strategically placed though, so I insisted that they pose for pictures.

The afternoon started with a visit to Jim Kempner Fine Art on 23rd Street. It has been my desire for years now to check out this gallery. Architectually, the building is so cool. In addition to the Keith Haring in the sculpture garden in the front courtyard, the gallery is home to one of the most amazing and lifelike pieces of modern art that I have ever seen. Carole A. Feuerman gets the Uncle Paulie Award for new favorite artist this month for her 1981 sculpture entitled "The Shower" made of oil on resin.

Later on, we hit Chinese Contemporary Gallery, which never fails to please with exceptional art by top Chinese contemporary artists like these whimsical and slightly disturbing pieces by Zhang Shuang. They are part of the gallery's Cartoon II show that runs through November 20. I like Chinese Contemporary because every piece in this small space is food for thought and a feast for the eyes.


I especially enjoyed the larger works by Wang Ke. The combination of colorful and social commentary of asian pop art always intrigues me.

Time's running out to check out Composed Cities, the phenomenal work of Simon Nicholas at Gallery Henoch. His paintings depict crowded environments that seem to hint at the overpopulation that one feels in a city like New York. Nicholas's paintings filled me with exhiliaration because of their unnatural vastness. They also caused me to relive the social phobia I feel everytime I'm in similar situations--VERY exciting work. This piece reminded me of my high school graduation from Plano Senior High School in Texas. My graduating class was comprised of 1,432 students and the scene actually looked like this! Composed Cities is on exhibition through November 1.

Our evening gallery walk ended with a visit to the Max Lang Gallery, which features a wonderful menagerie of Asian contemporary art upstairs. Upon entering the upper gallery, we suddenly heard what we thought was the air conditioner starting up. The noise turned out to be Pink Pink (1985) by Choi Jeong Hwa. This is a remarkable three-dimensional flowerlike sculpture that inflates and deflates at various intervals. It is one of those things that makes me happy just looking at it.

Art Exploration in Chelsea

(Yi Whan-Kwon sculpture)

On and off, for almost twelve years, I’ve lived in New York City, and I’m now just starting to figure out why this town can be one of the most exciting places on Earth. In spite of the crazy and frenetic proclivities of its residents, who, more often than not, feel the constraints of being enclosed in cramped quarters on an island only 13 miles long and a couple of miles wide, there can often be moments of sheer calmness, where the human experience totally makes sense and people commune to understand one another.

It’s rather ironic, no? All this craziness and calm, together in a place that rarely makes sense? But sometimes, in the dullness of life (yes, even New York City can seem dull sometimes!), great things come out the city’s extremes, including its art.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I had a full Saturday set aside to explore the gallery district in Chelsea and made some marvelous finds that were all both inspiring and exciting to the senses.

Unfortunately, now over, the Chinese Contemporary gallery’s (535 W. 24th Street) solo showing of the work of Xue Song entitled “New Life” was a delicious feast for the eyes. For fans of mixed media, Song meticulously creates collages, many of which find their inspiration in the Chinese Political Pop School of the 1990s. His works, however, go beyond the typical usage of Mao’s image in bright colors. He presents the iconic leader with a certain “playfulness” all the while the “elements of the collages recall his personality, his preferences and his deeds.” A resident of Shanghai, Song has witnessed first-hand all the poltical and social changes that China has experienced since the 60s, and he ties those elements into his work. His skill lies in reconciling the past to the present in a remarkable way.

(Xue Song)

A seeming departure from the avant garde for Song, one of my favorite pieces was a set of 3 panels depicting traditional Chinese scenes, each available for purchase for a mere $45,000. Most engaging of his works was a piece that incorporated 10 rectangular panels with numbers that all have significance in the Chinese culture. Various events and ideas were conveyed through graphics incorporated with the numbers, including one panel, which depicted the burning of his studio in 1980. All the panels were collages that included torn paper—some untouched and other pieces burned along the edges—from moderate to blackened ash, inspired by the catharsis he experienced as he made art from the remnants of objects and possessions after his studio burned down. Song’s solo show closed on June 28. www.chinesecontemporary.com.

(Xue Song)

We made the trek from contemporary Chinese art to Korean by just turning a corner. Since I live in “Little Korea” and personally know how lively, vibrant and cutting edge this burgeoning culture can be, I was excited to stumble upon Gana Art located at 568 W. 25th Street. Most compelling were the 3D sculptures by Yi Whan-Kwon in Gana Art’s current show entitled “Real Illusions: Young Korean Artists,” which runs through July 26. The space is open and airy and Whan-Kwon’s stretched and elongated sculptures provide an optical illusion as you enter the gallery. I felt a tad disoriented as I looked at the sculptures, which, by their placement, are impossible to avoid looking at first. Whan-Kwon’s sculptures are “modeled after digitally altered photographs that portray distorted figures as they would appear on a wide-screen TV,” and are unlike anything you are likely to experience. This is why Gana Art is such an exciting gallery space.

In addition to Whan-Kwon, the show features seven other artists, including Lee Dong-Jae, Back Seung-Woo, Kim Nam-Pyo, Do Sung-Wook and Park Ji-Hyun, What-Kwon and Ahn Sung-Ha, whose colorful oil paintings of “everyday indulgences” such as candy and cigarettes brings Korean pop art to life in pieces that explore the dualism of good and bad. In derision of “the rushed production of art during market booms”of pop art in Korea, Ahn uses a technique of careful layering and blurring. Visit www.ganaart.com.

(Alison Elizabeth Taylor
Wonder Valley, 2007-8)


Finally, our art-filled adventure ended with an exploration into the American mainstream and “its fascination with large vehicles, sex, guns, video games, religion, hunting and the military,” through the new works by Alison Elizabeth Taylor at the James Cohan Gallery. Taylor takes the exquisite art of wood inlay to another level that is unlike anything I have seen before.

At the heart of the exhibit is an architectural installation called “Room.” Reminiscent of the large wood inlay projects that were commissioned by wealthy patrons, during the Italian Renaissance, to showcase their wealth and power by depicting their possessions and not themselves as subjects, so too does this free-standing piece by Taylor. In this case, “Room” is “a trove of objects, both fascinating and mundane,” according to the exhibit’s curator. From a US Army helmet, along with a hand gun displayed together prominently in a case, to a menagerie of stuffed animals, the environs hint that its occupant is living on the edge of society, as do the other panels in Taylor’s show.

Particularly sexy and stimulating is Taylor’s provocative piece “Slab City (2007)” that depicts “society’s dropouts” who headed West in “refuge of an alternative lifestyle.” A couple of the pieces incorporate the same character, which has the spectator asking the question “why?” Taylor’s work leaves many questions unanswered and interpretations up to the individual, which is the kind of art that gets my blood pumping and my heart racing. This show closed on June 21. www.jamescohan.com.