Current Exhibition
The Unbearable Lightness of the Fantastical and Unwearable Art Show, 9/21/23 - 11/11/23
Lucy Rovetto: For the Love of the Body, 9/21/23 - 11/11/23
Drawing Rooms ARTIST Talks: Sat 11/11/23, 2-5p
Doors open 2p for viewing, wine and refreshments
Panel Discussion at 3p Featuring Artists:
Bayard, Christy O’Connor, , gwen charles, Margery Amdur, Miki Katagiri
Lucy Rovetto: For the Love of the Body, 9/21/23 - 11/11/23
Drawing Rooms ARTIST Talks: Sat 11/11/23, 2-5p
Doors open 2p for viewing, wine and refreshments
Panel Discussion at 3p Featuring Artists:
Bayard, Christy O’Connor, , gwen charles, Margery Amdur, Miki Katagiri
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Gallery Hours begin Thursday, Sept. 21: Thurs/Fri, 4-7p; Sat/Sun, 2-6p Drawing Rooms 926 Newark Ave. #T101 Jersey City, NJ, 07306 Free Parking Lot. Entrance to DR is on Newark Ave. |
Visit Drawing Rooms on Artsy to see our online exhibits and art-collecting opportunities
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The Unbearable Lightness of the Fantastical and Unwearable Art Show at The Terrarium Gallery at Drawing Rooms, 9/21/23 - 11/11/23
Lucy Rovetto: For the Love of the Body, at The Alcove Gallery at Drawing Rooms, 9/21/23 - 11/11/23
ARTIST RECEPTION: Sat, 9/30/23, 6-8p
JCAST WKND: Fri 10/13/23, 6-9p, Sat/Sun 10/14/23 & 10/15/23, 12-6p
PANEL DISCUSSION: Sat 11/11/23, 2-5p (2-3p wine and viewing, 3-5p discussion)
Lucy Rovetto: For the Love of the Body, at The Alcove Gallery at Drawing Rooms, 9/21/23 - 11/11/23
ARTIST RECEPTION: Sat, 9/30/23, 6-8p
JCAST WKND: Fri 10/13/23, 6-9p, Sat/Sun 10/14/23 & 10/15/23, 12-6p
PANEL DISCUSSION: Sat 11/11/23, 2-5p (2-3p wine and viewing, 3-5p discussion)
The Unbearable Lightness of the Fantastical and Unwearable Art Show
An exhibition extravaganza featuring 10 over-the-top, humorous, playful and imaginative artists working in drawing, installation, photography, video, performance and sculpture, who spin clothing and adornment from everyday matter. Works by Bayard, Christy O’Connor, Donna Conklin King, gwen charles, Kate Dodd, Margery Amdur, Miki Katagiri, Nina Katchadourian, Poramit Thantapalit.
Lucy Rovetto, For the Love of the Body
Lucy Rovetto makes autobiographical figurative drawings, photographs and mixed-media works from dreams, memories and observations which are often odd, misformed, distorted caricatures of herself. As she works, questions arise within her about power, fear and control. The other figures in her works are those who thought they had power but were powerless.
An exhibition extravaganza featuring 10 over-the-top, humorous, playful and imaginative artists working in drawing, installation, photography, video, performance and sculpture, who spin clothing and adornment from everyday matter. Works by Bayard, Christy O’Connor, Donna Conklin King, gwen charles, Kate Dodd, Margery Amdur, Miki Katagiri, Nina Katchadourian, Poramit Thantapalit.
Lucy Rovetto, For the Love of the Body
Lucy Rovetto makes autobiographical figurative drawings, photographs and mixed-media works from dreams, memories and observations which are often odd, misformed, distorted caricatures of herself. As she works, questions arise within her about power, fear and control. The other figures in her works are those who thought they had power but were powerless.
Nina Katchadourian: Lavatory Self-Portrait in the Flemish Style #10, photo, 10 x 10, 2011
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Kate Dodd: Caput, repurposed reference materials, brads, 48 x 36 x 12, 2023
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Curator’s Statement
Welcome to our extravaganza exhibition, “The Unbearable Lightness of the Fantastical and Unwearable Art Show” (thank you Kundera for the title inspiration) in The Terrarium Gallery at Drawing Rooms. Promising to be an exciting, colorful and highly textured experience, the exhibition features 9 over-the-top, humorous, playful and imaginative artists, some creating alternate personas, others inviting viewers into a fantasy–to have an experience, imagine themselves in a new way or consider familiar objects differently if not downright sort of kooky. Working in drawing, installation, photography, video, performance and sculpture, these artists spin clothing and adornment from everyday matter. The companion show, “Lucy Rovetto: For the Love of the Body”, in The Alcove Gallery at Drawing Rooms, is Lucy’s solo show with works spanning 30 years. Although the work is a bit more serious, personal and introspective, you’ll find some spirited impishness and mirth there too. As unwearable clothing is meant to be worn on the body, the two shows are like bookends, connecting in a compelling way.
Welcome to our extravaganza exhibition, “The Unbearable Lightness of the Fantastical and Unwearable Art Show” (thank you Kundera for the title inspiration) in The Terrarium Gallery at Drawing Rooms. Promising to be an exciting, colorful and highly textured experience, the exhibition features 9 over-the-top, humorous, playful and imaginative artists, some creating alternate personas, others inviting viewers into a fantasy–to have an experience, imagine themselves in a new way or consider familiar objects differently if not downright sort of kooky. Working in drawing, installation, photography, video, performance and sculpture, these artists spin clothing and adornment from everyday matter. The companion show, “Lucy Rovetto: For the Love of the Body”, in The Alcove Gallery at Drawing Rooms, is Lucy’s solo show with works spanning 30 years. Although the work is a bit more serious, personal and introspective, you’ll find some spirited impishness and mirth there too. As unwearable clothing is meant to be worn on the body, the two shows are like bookends, connecting in a compelling way.
Christy E. O'Connor: Diamonds Are A Queens Best Friend, Installation, 2023
At more than six by nine feet, Bayard’s multi-colored and highly textured rag rug changing room is activated by your physical presence when you step onto it. So, don’t be shy. Go for it and change into whatever you’d like. It’s the perfect opportunity to take a selfie, record the moment and see what you’ve become. Christy O'Connor’s sparkling silver and tulle dressing room for Marie Antoinette is a maximalist experience. With more mirrors than one imagines Marie might ever be able to use encased in what looks like a frosting substance, and nearly as many pretend candles, Christy has created a palace fit for a queen, where Marie can fuss and fret over her appearance and get ready for her day. But no need to imagine this happening, as Christy will be performing as Marie at the Artists Reception on 9/30/23, and the Artist Talk on 11/11/23. Her focus on “how women have been perceived and portrayed throughout history, literature, and modern forms of media through the lens of the male gaze” is what drives the work. Donna Conklin King’s large “Dress Print Drawings” incorporate both drawing and printmaking. Using a thrift store bride’s maid or prom dress from the 1970’s she rolls the dress up with charcoal-based ink and prints the image to create a monotype, and then she works charcoal, eraser, graphite, pastel and collage and gold or silver leaf into the monotype, infusing the imagery with autobiographical symbols of life. gwen charles is a multimedia artist whose work includes video, photography, sculpture and performance art. gwen’s videos, “sMother”, where she is wrapped in a plastic tube gasping for air, and “softhood”, where she wears a hair dryer attachment as a hat, provide a bit of soft comedy along with a plea for help. “Lightheaded, Lampara”, a photograph of her wearing a lampshade, shows us an alternative way we can consider an item that we may have thought only had a singular use. “Occular Shields” offer protection as evil eye amulets. “Vermeer in Kids Clothes”, a photograph of the artist wearing kids shorts around her neck as if she were in a Vermeer painting, is an interesting counterpart to Nina Katchadourian’s “Lavatory Self-Portraits”. Kate Dodd’s thorny crown and shield are part of her “Outwear” protective gear series which are composed of mostly paper constructions that she began working on before the pandemic began. The pieces are meant as imaginary and futile protective gear, protection from both the mistakes of the past and the revenge of the future. Both “Protection from Self Reflection” and “Caput” look specifically at money as armor against physical and psychological situations. Margery Amdur uses a sewing machine to make garment-like forms from accumulated materials that “radiate past cataclysms while simultaneously expanding beyond them”. Beginning her process by having her own highly detailed and abstract patterns printed onto Tyvek, she uses a sewing machine to draw with thread. Increasing and decreasing the machine's tensions, the threads react to become glitches. After creating numerous pieces, she attaches the layers to one another in a seemingly random yet intuitive way to become a new dress form each time she creates it––full of life, yet attached to a wall. Miki Katagiri ’s playful and animated hats are worlds unto themselves. Each hat is composed of elegant details, which include flora, fauna, bees, fishing line and plastic ducks. Through the use of humor, Nina Katchadourian creates art using materials that are on hand at any given time. The underlying concept of her work is often marked by an intrinsic sense of playfulness, characterized by an intelligent, ironic and systemic reordering of natural processes. Her “Seat Assignments" series, which her "Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style" are part of and is the work she is best known for, was made in airplane bathrooms using toilet paper to turn herself into a character from a Flemish painting. Poramit Thantapalit uses recyclable materials and trash to create splendid dress forms. Creating artworks from small parts uniquely assembled like a puzzle, his “Flora Frock” is made of hundreds of plastic bottles, yogurt cuts, milk jogs and plastic containers glued together to create a life size hydrangea-like dress, while his “Starlette Paper Dress” is made from discarded cardboard boxes and brown paper bags cut into triangles and stapled together into a dress with expansive wings.
Miki Katigiri: Floor of the sea becomes the land the coral reefs turn to the trees, 17 x 18 x 16, felt coral artificial toys, wire, veil, 2023
Poramit Thantapalit: Flora Frock, plastic, 72 x 72 x 96, 2020
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Margery Amdur: Underpinning #8, 75 x 40 x 12, hand painted, digitally printed, assorted textiles, machine sewn and constructed, magnets, zippers, pins, 2022
Donna Conklin King: PERSEVERE, Dress Monotype, Charcoal, Pastel, 30 x 22, 2013
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Bayard: Changing Rooms or 42 People Somehow Missing The Point 3, 4 X 4 X 2ft, 2023
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gwen charles: SMother, video, 2021
Lucy Rovetto: Moth, photo 2020
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Literally spilling one’s guts in the “Girls Got Guts” hanging assemblage, squishy toes pressed against a clear hard surface in in various configurations in multiple close-up photographs, and pink legs submerged underwater in a bathtub for likely way too long in a large color print–these are some of the images that appear in Lucy Rovetto’s “For the Love of the Body”, autobiographical figurative drawings, photographs and mixed-media works composed of charcoal, ink, magazine cut-outs, found material and paint. The imagery comes from dreams, memories and observations, and are often odd, misformed, distorted caricatures of herself. According to Lucy, the work is not meant to be taken literally. Described as introspective, expressive and provocative, she hopes her personal stories and memories will invite viewers to remember their own.
Let go of reality for these shows and jump in with both feet. Even the stubborn will want to.
Anne Trauben
9/28/23
Let go of reality for these shows and jump in with both feet. Even the stubborn will want to.
Anne Trauben
9/28/23
