Painting of the week: “Osage chiasm”

This week’s featured painting is an odd one I created way back in 2009.  “Osage chiasm” (that’s chiasm not chasm) is 20″H by 16″W, and is acrylic on canvas.  The piece is essentially a stylized portrait of one of my favorite trees: a very old Osage orange that lives on the Nethermead in Prospect Park, Brooklyn.  This painting has been in my living room for the past several years, and I look at it every day.  The photo doesn’t quite do it justice: the colors are weird and don’t reproduce well.  In the real life the blues of the sky are considerably more vivid.

“Osage chiasm” acrylic on canvas, 20×16″, 2009.

See my work during Art Slope!

I’m pleased to announce that my work is appearing at The Ploughman in Park Slope, Brooklyn as a part of Art Slope, a week-long arts festival in Park Slope, Brooklyn.  The Ploughman offers Artisanal Cheese / Charcuterie / Craft Beer and Beer on Tap.  It’s located at 438 7th Avenue, Brooklyn, between 14th and 15th Streets.

Featured at The Ploughman are four paintings from my Lifeworld series.  The paintings will be on display through October 28th.

Clockwise from upper left: Lifeworld 12, Lifeworld 27, Lifeworld 10 and Lifeworld 29.
Clockwise from upper left: Lifeworld 12, Lifeworld 27, Lifeworld 10 and Lifeworld 29.

Art Slope started September 17 and runs through September 25.  Read more about the event here.

In other news:

Are you a video or performance artist? Do you know someone who is?  Gowanus Swim Society has an open call for video and performance art.  The work will be displayed during this year’s Gowanus Open Studios (October 14-16).  But hurry! The deadline for submissions is this Thursday, September 22! Click here for the open call.

Breaking News: De-Natured, at the Old Stone House

Sorry for the last-minute announcement, but this all came together very quickly: I’m pleased to let you know that I will have work included in a show at the Old Stone House in Park Slope, Brooklyn.  The show opens TONIGHT (October 15), 6-8pm.

About the show:

Nature is often bent to man’s needs and wants. The Gowanus Canal was once a marshland and now has been channeled and distorted into the managed and controlled canal that it is today. Once messy and natural, it is now contained.

Similarly, the paintings, collages, and photographs in this exhibit all begin with nature-based subject matter. Through the art-making process, that subject or motif is interpreted, distorted, and adapted to become something else entirely. In some, the original image is completely hidden, sometimes it is still clear.

All of these artworks grapple with the role of nature in our man-made world.

Curated by Abby Subak, Director of Arts Gowanus.

The Old Stone House is at 336 3rd Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215.

Lifeworld 21, oil on canvas, 20x20", 2014.
Lifeworld 21, oil on canvas, 20×20″, 2014, by John Azelvandre
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