Nina Levy Compels Us With More Creepiness at the Salamatina Gallery

above: Nina Levy, Boy With Eyes, 2011 (cropped)

Artist Nina Levy recently exhibited “Related Forms” at the Salamantina Gallery in New York. Her first exhibition in New York in five years, it featured two new sculptures, a new series of photographs, and a selection of Levy’s work from the last ten years.

This has prompted me to reprise a post I wrote on her work a few years back and share the new pieces with you along with much of her work.


above: Nina Levy, Boy With Fist, 2011

Artist Nina Levy has been living and working in Williamsburg, Brooklyn since 1996. A prolific photographer and sculptor, her work has been widely exhibited across the United States, including The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. where her life-sized portraits of four artists' heads hung as part of the gallery reopening in 2007 (shown below):


above: a view of the installation in the National Portrait Gallery in the Smithsonian, 2007

above: life-sized self-portrait sculpture Spectator, 2002 (also used in the 2007 National Portrait Gallery installation)

An artist who has long worked with body parts made of oil-painted resin, gypsum or clay, fiberglass, cast polyurethane and other materials for over a decade to create large outdoor sculptures, indoor installations, portrait heads, and self-portraits in many forms, created her own series of family portraits or 'family resemblance' from 2006-2008.


above: Woman with huge fist (self-portrait) 2008

She has a very impressive education, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Yale with a B.A. in English and Art in 1989 and she received a Masters in Fine Arts from The University of Chicago in 1993. She's also the mother of two young boys, whom are frequently the subjects of her recent photographs. But these aren't the kind of family photos you're used to seeing embellishing hallways and mantels.


above: family resemblance, 30" x 24" EDITION OF 6 + A.P.

To say that her portraits of herself and her family, consisting largely of her two sons, Archer, now 8 and Ansel, now 4, are bizarre is an understatement. Creepy and disturbing may be more appropriate descriptors for some viewers.


above: Nina's older son Archer with giant prosthetic baby head,2007

above: Nina's youngest son Ansel with giant prosthetic baby head, 2007

What's respectable, and certainly unexpected nowadays, is that there is no digital manipulation involved in her photographs. She actually sculpts the enlarged body parts or prostheses and then juxtaposes them with her subjects, so that the size relationships you see are actual real physical representations.



Babies eating babies, children cradling what look like lifeless bodies and small-framed, vulnerable boys sporting hulk-like hands and steroidal limbs are the subjects of some of her these recent photos. Here's a look at much of her family portraits and family resemblance photographs, 2006-2008:





Nina explains: "I have been interested in using fragmentation and shifts in scale to explore both discomfort with the human body and with other people"








"I started to make photographs, mostly featuring myself interacting with a series of sculptural props and prosthetics that I modeled and fabricated from clay or plaster and cast in resin," she says.



"I am now the mother of two small boys, and the primary subject of my work has become my own dysfunctional parenting and the often overwhelming intensity of small children"






"Ansel, however, boycotted my last photo shoot," says Nina, "and is under-represented... but thanks to the promise of a highly desirable set of action figures, Archer was willing to assist me"







"The photographs were, and still remain, very low tech - there is no digital manipulation," says Nina. "All of the objects and people in the images exist exactly as they appear."



Special thanks to the UK's Telegraph for the quotes from the interview with Nina.

HER PORTRAIT COMMISSIONS:

Her commissioned portrait heads are available cast in resin, ultracal or gypsum painted with oils and in more traditional treatments and materials (bronze, plaster, cement). Please contact Nina Levy for more information.

See her website here.
To check out her work prior to 2002, go here.


SALAMATINA GALLERY
2210 Northern Boulevard
Manhasset, NY 11030
AMERICANA MANHASSET
GALLERY HOURS: Mon - Sat 10-6/Thur 10-7/Sun 12-6
T: 516 439 4471

The Oil Paintings and Pastels of Contemporary Artist Susan Bennerstrom

above: Susan Bennerstrom, Fort Mason, 32" x 36", oil painting

Artist Susan Bennerstrom began working in pastels and then moved to oil paints in 2008, but her exploration with the depiction of light has continued despite the change in mediums as you will see in this collection of her works.


above: Susan Bennerstrom, Expect to Wait, 35" x 42" 2001, oil pastels


above: Susan Bennerstrom, Still Waiting, 2010, 20" x 24", oil paint on panel

With strong plays of light, shadow and reflections, her works seem to imply either anticipation or expectation - and in some cases, absence. Despite the presence of the human figure in her work, the narrative suggests that one is either coming or has been there.

While she continues to paint interiors and objects, recently she added paintings of buildings within landscapes, to her repertoire. Focusing on the structures rather than the environment, she imbues them with the haunting light of dusk or dawn.


above: Susan Bennerstrom, Georgetown, 32" x 36", oil painting

above: Susan Bennerstrom, Stove, 32" x 36", oil painting

Lonely hallways, inviting stairwells, unmade beds, doors ajar, empty chairs and open windows offer a hint of the human presence in many of her works. Below are just a few of my favorites.



















Susan Bennerstrom:


In the artist's own words:
"Since the early 1980’s my main theme has been the exploration and depiction of light. I began with landscape as a foil. Gradually, buildings started to enter the compositions, at first far away and tiny, then closer and larger, until the buildings became the main focus and the landscape shrank. Finally, I concentrated on details of the buildings and the objects within them. Always, however, the structures and objects are stage sets for light with its transformative power and ability to affect emotions. I rarely put figures in my paintings, as I find that they tend to take over; I prefer to let light and shadow imply the narrative and carry the emotional weight. In addition to the dearth of human figures, I also choose to paint quite ordinary scenes, and for the same reason: by focusing on the easily ignorable architectural detail, washbasin, household appliance, piece of furniture, or houseplant, I like to explore how a fall of light can turn a humble item into something poignant and worthy of lasting attention.

I don’t think of myself as a realist painter in the currently accepted sense. I work from photographs, which are themselves abstractions – one step removed from reality. I travel further into abstraction by removing details, shifting things around, changing perspective, exaggerating the quality, color, and direction of light, investing the shadows with greater emotional intensity. The paintings wander far afield of straightforward observations of reality, and instead become my own emotional response to the places and objects depicted.

I have worked for many years in pastels, both chalk and oil. At the beginning of 2008 I laid pastels aside and began working in oil paint. Haven’t looked back. While I continue to love the look and feel of pastels, they presented problems: with chalks it was the dust, with oil pastels it was finding a durable and easy-to-use varnish. Now I’m at home with oil paint, and finally understand why it is the granddaddy of all art mediums."

Susan is presently showing at the Sue Greenwood Fine Art Gallery.
You can see Susan's available works at the Davidson Galleries