Interviews by Brainard Carey

Portrait of the artist. Photo credit: Jenny Gorman

Elizabeth Hazan is a New York based visual artist. Hazan was awarded a fellowship to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and has twice been a resident of Yaddo. Recent shows include High Noon, at the Duck Creek Art Center in Springs, NY, Heat Wave at Johannes Vogt Gallery, NY, Body to Land at Turn Gallery, NY, Psychedelic Landscape at Eric Firestone Gallery, NY, Sundown at the Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponack, NY and Trodden Path at HESSE FLATOW East.

Her work has been written about in Hyperallergic, Forbes, Two Coats of Paint, Art Critical, The Brooklyn Rail and the Art Newspaper.

She was born and raised in New York City and attended Bryn Mawr College and the New York Studio School. She serves as the director and founder of Platform Project Space in Brooklyn, NY.

Elizabeth Hazan, Floodtide, 2023 Oil on linen 76 x 70 in 193 x 177.8 cm

Elizabeth Hazan, Glade, 2022 Oil on linen 66 x 55 in 167.6 x 139.7 cm

Elizabeth Hazan, Nightshade, 2023 Oil on linen 66 x 55 in 167.6 x 139.7 cm

Asad Raza (born in Buffalo, USA) creates dialogues and rejects disciplinary boundaries in his work, which conceives of art as a metabolic, active experience. Diversion, first shown at Kunsthalle Portikus in 2022, diverted a river through the gallery. Absorption, in which cultivators create artificial soil, was the 34th Kaldor Public Art Project in Sydney (2019), later shown at the Gropius Bau, Berlin (2020) and Ruhrtriennale (2021). In Untitled (plot for dialogue) (2017), visitors played tennis in a sixteenth-century church in Milan. Root sequence. Mother tongue, at the 2017 Whitney Biennial, combines twenty-six trees, caretakers and objects. Schema for a school was an experimental school at the 2015 Ljubljana Graphic Art Biennial. Raza premiered the feature Minor History at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (2019). Other projects take intimate settings: The Bedroom at the 2018 Lahore Biennale; Home Show (2015) at his apartment in New York, where Raza asked artists to intervene in his life; and Life to come (2019) at Metro Pictures, featuring participatory works and Shaker dance. 

With Hans Ulrich Obrist, Raza curates exhibitions inspired by Édouard Glissant, including Mondialité (Villa Empain, Brussels), Trembling Thinking (Americas Society, New York), Where the Oceans Meet (MDC Museum of Art and Design, Miami), and This language which is every stone (IMA, Brisbane). Raza will serve as Artistic Director of the upcoming FRONT 2025: Cleveland Triennial of Contemporary Art. Of Pakistani background, Raza studied literature and filmmaking at Johns Hopkins and NYU.

Still from Ge, Asad Raza, 2020. Commissioned for The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish: The Understory of the Understory, Serpentine Galleries.

Ge, Asad Raza, 2020. Commissioned for The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish: The Understory of the Understory, Serpentine Galleries.

Asad Raza, Untitled (plot for dialogue), 2017, CONVERSO, Milan Photo Credit: Andrea Rossetti

Portrait of the Artist. Courtesy of Uprise Art.

Devon Reina (b. 1996) is a Brooklyn, New York-based artist and designer. Devon’s cross-disciplinary background inspires his curiosity for materiality and process.

His paintings celebrate a range of versatile media, from thick paint impastos, to expressive ink washes and delicate wax pastel line-work. Across his various bodies of work, Devon is interested in how marks of color can interact with each other to suggest the illusion of depth, movement, or direction.

 

Nemeses Year of Work: 2023 Dimensions: 40 in x 40 in x 1.25 in / 101.6 cm x 101.6 cm x 3.18 cm Materials: Pencil and wax pastel on canvas In "Nemeses", I wanted to experiment with placing two parts of the canvas in dialogue with one another, allowing them to agree and disagree in terms of color, surface area, and directionality. Courtesy of Uprise Art.

Snowflake Year of Work: 2023 Dimensions: 48 in x 48 in x 1.5 in / 121.92 cm x 121.92 cm x 3.81 cm Materials: Wax pastel on canvas My work is a product of my curiosity in the development and design of art-making systems carried out by the body. I'm fascinated by the potential of parameters, seeing them as fertile grounds for discovery, creation, and exploration of the unknown. Courtesy of Uprise Art.

Train Leaves the Station Year of Work: 2023 Dimensions: 24 in x 24 in x 1.25 in / 60.96 cm x 60.96 cm x 3.18 cm Materials: Wax pastel on canvas In applying such a procedural approach to the canvas, "Train Leaves the Station" is an attempt at creating a visual language that suggests the passage of time. I like to look at each of the nine interior boxes as little memories, like looking out a train window throughout the journey to capture nine separate views of the horizon. Courtesy of Uprise Art.

Mark Yang’s colorful, incongruous arrays of anonymous limbs entangled together investigate the nuances of human interaction through a critical lens of art history. Morphing and distorting idealized figures into conglomerates of body parts, Yang’s forms exhibit a sculptural quality, the result of the artist’s thoughtful rendering of plane, dimension, and space. Reducing, dismantling, and reassembling their limbs almost to the point of abstraction with a variety of painterly techniques, Yang creates characteristically mysterious compositions that are not immediately forthcoming with their narrative plot.

With a comprehensive set of art historical references, from the Baroque compositions of Peter Paul Rubens to the postwar abstractions of Ellsworth Kelly, Yang’s anatomical abstractions have been praised for their complication of gender norms. Yang’s ambiguous bodily arrangements rarely depict his figures’ faces, prioritizing their bodies over their identities. Resisting homogenizing classifications, Yang calls attention to shifting cultural conceptions of masculinity between South Korea, where Yang was born, and the United States, where he was raised.

Mark Yang, Kelly's Colors for a Larger Wall, 2023 oil on canvas 72 x 60 inches 182.9 x 152.4 cm

Mark Yang, Life (3), 2023 oil on canvas 40 x 50 inches 101.6 x 127 cm

Mark Yang, Seated and Standing Nude, 2023 oil on canvas 66 x 44 inches 167.6 x 111.8 cm

Andrew Edlin

Andrew Edlin, owner of his eponymously named gallery and the Outsider Art Fair talks about the current show at the gallery and the upcoming fair.

Unaccompanied Conversations explores the work of three artists: the now acclaimed Outsider James Castle, Pearl Blauvelt, and John Byam, all of whom were untrained and from modest circumstances, yet developed unique approaches to their art using unconventional materials. And they all devoted their lives to their art in the face of little or no market support.

Besides their exceptional talent, these artists all shared traits of neurodiversity. They did not process information the way most people do, or hold “normal” conversations, even the banal—like commenting on the weather. But viewing the works of Castle, Blauvelt, and Byam can be like overhearing the conversations, often deep, sometimes funny, frequently intense, but always unusual, that have played out in the artists’ minds.

Since people who exhibit a range of divergent characteristics are often deemed intentionally antisocial, the talents of the neurodivergent have often been overlooked. Because of their inability to verbally articulate what they mean, interactions can be strained, leading to fear, misunderstanding, shunning, and pejorative labels.

James Castle (1899 - 1977) Untitled (Cars on sloped track), n.d. Soot, spit, and stick-applied color washes on found wax-coated cardboard 10.25 x 10.75 inches.

John Byam (1929 - 2013) Untitled (camera), n.d. Wood, glue and sawdust 7 x 7 x 2.5 in.

Pearl Blauvelt (1893 - 1987) Untitled (Photographer), c. 1940's Graphite and colored pencil on notebook paper 8.5 x 11 inches.

Tiril Hasselknippe is a sculptor working with steel, concrete, fiberglass, and resin who proposes object-based solutions to evade humanity’s downfall and whose sculptures command authority of physical presence through their sheer volume, scale, and weight. Her sculpture is rooted in material and textual world that balances deeply personal exploration with socio-political underpinnings—at times seeming to participate in parts of a post-apocalyptic storyline. Hasselknippe creates a kind of science fiction of formalism in which the double bonds between the sacred and the primitive, the natural and artificial, and the life-giving and the downfall are all present.

Hasselknippe received her BFA and MFA from Malmö Art Academy in 2011 and 2013 respectively. She also participated in a foreign exchange program at The Cooper Union in New York in 2010. Hasselknippe’s recent solo exhibitions have been held at institutions including Kuntshall Stavanger, NO; NITJA Senter for Samtidskunst, Lillestrøm, NO; Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo, NO; Magenta Plains, New York, NY; Kunstverein Braunschweig, DE; Bianca D’Alessandro, Copenhagen, DK; and DREI, Cologne, DE. Her work has recently been included in group exhibitions at the New Museum, New York, NY; Magenta Plains; Künstlerhaus Palais Thurn & Taxis, Bregenz, AT; A Palazzo Gallery, Brescia, ITL; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, NO; and the Vestfossen Kunstlabratorium, Vestfossen, NO.

Tiril Hasselknippe: Hyperstate at Magenta Plains Gallery on the LES NYC. Photograph by John Muggenborg.http://www.johnmuggenborg.com

Tiril Hasselknippe: Hyperstate at Magenta Plains Gallery on the LES NYC. Photograph by John Muggenborg.http://www.johnmuggenborg.com

DREI: Tiril Hasselknippe, photo marcus schwier

Photo by Yael Malka

Emma Safir (b. 1990 NYC) Safir makes paintings that utilize fabric manipulation, lens–based media, smocking, rasterization, upholstery, and digitization.

Her paintings function as screen simulations, proxies and portals. Safir is interested in hierarchies of labor in relation to gender and digitization.

Safir holds a BFA from RISD in Printmaking and an MFA from Yale in Painting & Printmaking. She has had solo exhibitions at Blade Study, Baxter St at CCNY, SHIN HAUS at Shin Gallery and Bunker Projects; and has participated in group shows at RAINRAIN, Charles Moffett, Jack Barrett, Shulamit Nazarian, Lyles & King, Hesse Flatow, among others. Safir lives and works in New York.

Emma Safir, Girandole III 2023 8" x 8.5” Pewter, reflective thread needlelace.

Emma Safir, Hole Solution I 2023 14" x 11" x ~1.5" Silk, mdf, appliqué, reflective thread, neoprene, house paint, flashe paint, upholstery foam.

Emma Safir, Modern Prometheus III 2023 79” x 37” x ~1.5” Silk, mdf, appliqué, reflective thread, neoprene, house paint, flashe paint, upholstery foam.

The Thing in Front of You, an exhibition of unique photocollages and small-scale wall sculptures by artist Sandi Haber Fifield, will be on view at Yancey Richardson from January 11 through February 17, 2024.

Sandi Haber Fifield was born in Youngstown, Ohio in 1956. She holds an MFA in photography from Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; Oakland Museum; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, FL; and St. Louis Art Museum.

Haber Fifield’s photographs are the subject of four monographs: The Certainty of Nothing, 2021; After the Threshold, Kehrer Verlag, 2013; Between Planting and Picking, Charta, 2011; and Walking through the World, Charta, 2009. Additional publications that feature Haber Fifield’s work include Our Selves, Photographs by Women Artists, MoMA, 2022 and The Photography of Invention by Mary Foresta, MIT Press, among others. Her work is held in numerous major public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; Philadelphia Museum of Art; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Library of Congress, and The Parrish Museum, Water Mill, NY. She lives and works on Shelter Island, New York.

Unique Collaged Archival Pigment print on Canson Paper.

Unique Collaged Archival Pigment Print on Canson Paper.

Unique Photo-based Collaged Object with Plexiglass, Rubber, and Screws.

Oda Jaune Portrait 2024 © Charles Roussel

For her first solo exhibition in the United States, the rare and uncanny Oda Jaune unveils a challenging exhibition in New York. “Miss Understand” offers a series of nearly 25 new oil paintings and dozens of watercolors, on a singular perception of the woman in our time. 

Oda Jaune, Bulgarian in origin and trained in Germany, has for nearly 15 years been among the most intriguing figures on the European art scene with a body of work freed from any pictorial convention. Poetic, sensual, and expansive, her painting ignites conversation and explores, without inhibition, the depth of femininity today. 

ODA JAUNE G like Guerrilla Girl, 2023 Huile sur toile | oil on canvas 120 × 170 cm — 47 1/4 × 67 in. Photo: Laurent Edeline. All photos: © Courtesy the artist and TEMPLON, Paris —Brussels — New York.

ODA JAUNE A like Apple, 2023 Huile sur toile | oil on canvas 170 × 120 cm — 67 × 47 1/4 in. Photo: Laurent Edeline. All photos: © Courtesy the artist and TEMPLON, Paris —Brussels — New York.

Installation view of Oda Jaune's Miss Understand at Templon, NY. Photo: Charles Roussel.

Molly Lowe (b. 1983, Palo Alto, CA) received her MFA from Columbia University and her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).

She has had solo exhibitions and performances at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Lilith Performance Studio, Malmo, Sweden; Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY; Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles CA; Suzanne Geiss Company, New York, NY; SculptureCenter, Long Island City, New York; and Performa 13, New York, NY.

Her films have screened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY and JOAN, Los Angeles, CA. Lowe has participated in residencies at the Shandaken Project, Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY; Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY; Recess Art, New York, NY; and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME. In 2015, she received the New York Foundation for the Arts interdisciplinary artist fellowship award, and she was recently nominated for a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation award. Lowe lives and works in New York.

Molly Lowe, Wrestle in the Grass, 2023, Oil on canvas, 68 x 80 in, 172.7 x 203.2 cm

Molly Lowe, Domestic Embrace, 2023, Oil on canvas. 48 x 56 in, 121.9 x 142.2 cm.

Molly Lowe, 2024, LAP, 83 x 66 in.