Beez And Honey

Lawrence B. Benenson is dedicated to several charitable and educational institutions that are working to increase truth, fairness, creativity and logic in New York City and everywhere. Mr. Benenson is currently a member of the Board of the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center in the Bronx, The Lincoln Center Real Estate and Construction Council, Inner-City Scholarship Fund, Center for Arts Education, American Folk Art Museum, ART / OMI International Arts Center, The Realty Foundation of New York, New York Junior Tennis and Learning, Al Hirschfeld Foundation, Ad Reinhardt Foundation and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Lawrence Benenson gives money to organizations focusing on reducing hunger, increasing reproductive rights, safeguarding the environment, enhancing arts education, housing the homeless and kindness.

Marcin Dudek (b. 1979, Poland) lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

Art as a strategy for living; Marcin Dudek’s practice builds from autobiographical experience and expands to explore the broader phenomenon that shaped it. These include the rituals of subculture, DIY economy and crowd dynamics – how one gets pulled into many and what control is lost as a mass gains momentum. Often working with found, salvaged or repurposed materials, Dudek constructs objects, installations, painting and performance, touching upon questions of power and aggression in the context of sport and cultural spectacle. His paintings offer insight into his overall approach, which incorporates a rather obsessive work ethic, meticulously slicing and manipulating medical tape, rubbing images into the cloth and building up a painting through collage. The level of detail and craft is manic and neurotic, meditative and thoughtful, as violence becomes an energetic aesthetic reflecting a lived experience. After leaving Poland aged 21, he studied at the University Mozarteum, Salzburg and at Central Saint Martins, London, graduating in 2005 and 2007 respectively. His work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Salzburger Kunstverein (AT), the Arad Art Museum (RO), Bunkier Sztuki Gallery in Krakow (PL), the Goethe-Institut Ukraine, and The Warehouse Dallas (US). His installation "The Cathedral of Human Labor" (2013) is on permanent view at the Verbeke Foundation in Belgium. In 2018, he presented a large installation at Manifesta 12 Palermo, which was followed by a solo exhibition at the Wrocław Contemporary Museum. Current and upcoming exhibitions include the "Psychic Wounds" at The Warehouse Dallas (US) curated by Gavin Delahunty and a group exhibition at 180 The Strand/ Vinyl Factory, curated by OOF, London (UK).

Beija Flor means hummingbird in Brazilian Portuguese and it is said to be the means by which our prayers are taken from Earth to the Spirit World. Oséias Castro dos Santos is an Artisan of Light and works with plant medicine, creating sacred objects for ritual use. Here he speaks about his life experiences and his work.

A k u z u r u is an Avant Garde artist who produces through a TransDisciplinary praxis straddling multiple approaches . Her thought provoking works invokes the unseen , where the material and the immaterial are as connectedly interspersed as the immanent and transcendent . Primarily environmental using vast spaces in the natural world and connected into the spatial appropriations of interiors of building spaces , her other- worldly forms in her installations or 'spatial works ' and expansive Performative AkTivations inoculates into the viewer deeply indelible emotive experiences .

A k u z u r u has established a multi-faceted lexicon of performative works which include her Ak-tionisms, Spontaneous Art, Spatial Works, Gesture Works, Experiential Art, whether live or on film. With the natural world and metaphysics being central to her process, her immersive complex presentations are expansive , often multi-locational , involving a multitude of persons whom she calls her co-performers, as well as deeply engaging solo expressions.

Having lived, studied and practiced in Trinidad, the UK and Nigeria for many years, her Total Art experiences are conceptually and physically intense - integral - often interak-tive, multi-genre constructions, emphasizing performance art's radical axis as a dynamic and powerful art form.

This Environmental-Transdisciplinary artist has become known for her multi-genre works and her many performances including her iconic healing chambers and large sculptural-installations consistently presented worldwide at prestigious institutions and powerful natural environments including the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States.

A pioneer in the radical presence-ing of performance art in Trinidad and the Caribbean, her evolvement as an artist during a thirty year practice, has exhibited a steady embrace of performance art as her primary focus in her TransDisciplinary visions, a metaphysically dynamic intersection of the human and natural world; encapsulating the science of space, light, sound, silence , movement, gesture and nuance .

The artist has been the recipient of numerous International awards from the Prince Claus Fund- Netherlands , the City of Munich- Germany and the Commonwealth Foundation- UK .

Significant solo presentations at important institutions include the National Museum of Trinidad & Tobago, PAMM - Perez Art Museum Miami in the US and the Buchheim Museum - Germany.

A k u z u r u was also Art Lecturer for experimental practice at the University of the West Indies during fifteen years.

Her project -Earthology- is an epic ongoing global opus.

© A k u z u r u 2021

Artist Tinko Czetwertynski has traveled the world capturing people from all continents. Recently his work has centered around Nature (of which we are a part) but listen to him discuss the full body of his oeuvre and be inspired.

Timur York is a New York based multidisciplinary artist. He was born in Uzbekistan, and immigrated as a teenager to New York City, where he was accepted into Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts, majoring in Fine Art. Upon graduation, he attended School of Visual Arts, with focus on Graphic Arts. The experience of fusing Fine Art principles and Graphic Design aesthetics had formulated a unique way in which he approaches his subject matter. His artistic area of interest is centered around the concepts of Time, Place and History. He depicts issues facing contemporary society through the use of graphic iconography, photography, painting, sculpture and mixed media. Timur’s work is on permanent outdoor display at Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, D.C., as well as museum and private collections.

@timuryorkart | www.timuryork.com

McFarlane’s art is in collections nationally and internationally. Born in Moore Town Portland, Jamaica, Bryan studied at The Edna Manly College of Art in Kingston, Jamaica and completed his MFA Degree at Massachusetts College of Arts and Design. Professor McFarlane has exhibited and lectured as visiting artist at numerous universities and museums throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean: The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Boston; The National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston and The Museum of The National Center of African American Artists.

In The East: Hunan Normal University in Changsha, China; the University of Architecture and Technology in Xi’an China and Northeastern University in Shenyang, China. He has lectured and presented major works at The China Art Museum in Shanghai; Sunshine International Museum, Beijing with solo exhibitions entitled “Circular Journey”. Other Institutions include: World Art Monument Museum in Beijing; “Around Café” at the Guangdong Museum, M99 Art Center of Shanghai University, Promo- Arte Gallery in Tokyo, Japan and The Ferry Arts International Center in Beijing.

In The West: Rose Art Museum, the Museum of the National Center of African American Artists, Du Sable Museum, Chicago; Harvard University, Cambridge, Lamont Library; The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Rhode Island School of Design; The Federal University of Bahia, Brazil; The Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art, France, and City Hall, Paris- France; The Edna Manly College, Jamaica; The Nebraska Art Museum; The Loma Linda Medical School, California; Museum of the Americas, Washington DC; The Commonwealth Institute, London; The Free University of Berlin, Germany; The University of Kumasi, Ghana; The Painting Center New York City, NY; The National Gallery of Jamaica; Canzares Gallery, Brazil; the Museum of The National Center of African American Artists, Boston; The Dusable’ Museum, Chicago; The George Adams gallery, New York City; The Commonwealth Institute, London and The College of The Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts.

Professor McFarlane is currently a member of the African American Master Artists in Residency Program at North Eastern University, Boston and is represented by Gallery Naga in Boston.

McFarlane has received numerous awards, including the prestigious: “Silver Musgrave Medal” in the Arts, with a Citation from The Institute of Jamaica. He has received two Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason Foundation Awards for 2011 and 2005 in New York City; a Gold medal from the Chinese Government for entry in the “Olympic Fine Arts Exhibition 2008” in Beijing; nominee for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award in 2004 and 2005; The Louis Comfort and Tiffany Foundation in 1992. He received a 1997 Purchase Award from the National Gallery of Jamaica. In 1986 and 1987, McFarlane was commissioned by Miller Brewing Company/Phillip Morris in New York City to paint portraits of 12 leading African-American Journalists, which were reproduced in the Gallery of Greats calendar and is now in the permanent collection of the DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago, Illinois.

Hart Halper aka New York Romantic is an artist primarily known for his chalk graffiti hearts, over 100,000 in downtown NYC.

Hash started drawing hearts dotting the i in the “ Bialy” on his morning delivery bags at a Lower East Side bakery. He noticed that it gave him an uplifting feeling, so he shared the powerful symbol with downtown.

Halper has drawn tens of thousands of chalk hearts on New York sidewalks because he feels New York is losing its romance, with people looking at phones instead of looking at each other.

The artist hopes that chalking hearts (and words like “unity,” “peace” and ”love”) around the city might positively influence New Yorkers’ behavior and decisions.

“Blueberry Herring” is Halper’s first solo exhibition. It is a romantic landscape with interactive chalk landscapes and paintings. The exhibition is open at the gallery Art of Our Century (137 w14th #3) until the 28th of February. https://artofourcentury.com/

Sunny Setton De Poortere is the most stable Gypsy you’re likely to meet in NYC. A mother, jewelry designer, wife and friend, she’s always ready with a smile and bright twinkle in her eyes, reflective of the expansive generous spirit that gave rise to Gazza Ladra jewelry.

The shiver of camel bells, the temples of Phoenicia, the mountains of cappadocia, the scent of jasmine trailing a desert caravan, the unblinking eye of Horus casting it's benevolent gaze from Luxor over the Nile valley, cool lapis, warm coral...

These are some of the Gazza Ladra's inspirations.

A magpie attracted to shiny objects, Sunny designs with a migratory spirit and a sense of endless gratitude for the cultures on this breathtaking planet.

Middle Women are the midwives who give birth to ideas, support artists, inspire people in the art world, forge deals and introduce people to each other to help them advance in the world. An example of this is one African American artist, after receiving help from an advisor to get a residency etc, no longer bothered to answer her calls or emails once he started selling well. This episode is about my experience. This episode is personal.