Art in America Guide

Seven Sisters
2022-03-15 08:00 - 2022-11-30 17:00 (America/Halifax) | Virtual
A 3-D virtual exhibition of seven unique, mature women artists with a review by Eleanor Heartney.
Visit this virtual galley here: https://bit.ly/36hmWqR
“Despite obvious differences in style, medium and subject, the seven artists in this exhibition share a worldview. They are all mature women artists whose work has been shaped by our turbulent era and who maintain a reverence for art history, a dedication to craft and a profound sense of beauty.”
–Eleanor Heartney
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Alvin Roy
2022-06-23 08:00 - 2023-01-08 17:00 | Cross Contemporary Art Projects, 34 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY, 12498, United States
Alvin Roy is a mid-career painter and sculptor who lives and works in Houston, Texas. Roy has exhibited extensively notably as part of the national tour “Southern Journeys: African American Artists of the South” (2012). Alvin Roy’s abstract paintings from torn painted paper are inspired by the quilting tradition passed down by the women in his family and his wall sculptures are deep spiritual icons embodying the power of Egyptian myth and ancient archetypes. Alvin Roy’s abstract artworks will be on view in Bridgehampton, NY from August 11 – 14, 2022 and in New York City during the Art on Paper Fair Sept. 8 – 11, 2022 at Pier 36. This virtual exhibition is a response to the difficulties that artists have faced getting their work viewed during the Pandemic.
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Matt Siren Thriller
2022-09-15 - 2022-10-31 | Woodward Gallery, 132A Eldridge Street, New York City, NY, 10002, United States
Matt Siren
Thriller
September – October 2022
at Woodward Gallery, NYC
For well over a decade, Matt Siren brought piercing, high-contrast artwork from the streets of New York City to the walls of Woodward Gallery. This Fall, the Artist’s first solo exhibition at Woodward Gallery, Matt Siren: Thriller, explores his artistic evolution. Matt Siren’s collection of characters is widely-recognized and respected from the American East and West Coasts to European cities, such as London and Paris. By fusing thick-lined graphic content, sharp comic book illustrations, and playful storytelling into his art, Matt Siren’s work thrills. This exhibition highlights the Artist’s most iconic characters, who stir up imagination, and seduce. Vintage screenprints on metal signs and current hand-painted wood-block assemblages are featured together in a two-part exhibition at Woodward Gallery. Prepare for a wild ride of past, present, and future storytelling —unique to Matt Siren— transcending street and fine art.
Since 2008, the beautiful face of Matt Siren’s Ghost Girl has appeared on urban walls, became a set of vinyl toy collectibles, decorated reality television beach homes, was discussed on CBS News, was worn by the fashion world, and was even transformed into a 7.6-acre corn maze. This hard-edge, female icon with dark hair pulled to the side by a flower, harkens back to Matt Siren’s youthful love of gaming— particularly, his nostalgia for the arcade game, Ms. Pac-Man. Ghost Girl stares directly at her voyeur’s eyes, hypnotizing the viewer to follow her. The powerful silhouette of Ghost Girl is set in a variety of colors as a representation of diversity and feminism; she could represent anyone, no matter their background, size, sexual orientation, race, or ethnicity. Her universal image has become Matt Siren’s signature symbol. All women are intended to be represented in Ghost Girl’s robust and striking spirit.
Matt Siren’s Death Face is one face of a character called a Quintesson from the 1980s cartoon, The Transformers. The fictional robo-alien race of Quintesson have 5 faces. As fans of The Transformers franchise know, the specific season where the Quintesson characters appear is filled with dark psychological undertones. Their graphic design style and deep meaning inspires Siren’s own creative twist on these characters.
Siren’s vintage Pin-ups represent the Artist’s respect for the female form and its vigor. Through his deep appreciation for women, their physical strength, and ability to be resilient in the face of pain and conflict, Matt Siren’s Pin-ups are not intended to objectify women through the problematic lens of the male gaze, but rather, to alter it to focus on feminist power through sexuality. The erotic Burlesque in the Living Room series teases the viewer to engage with mock advertisements. Specifically, Siren inverts the commercial dialogue so the female characters may utilize their femininity to regain control of the male gaze that fails to define them.
Metaphorically and symbolically, Matt Siren’s Skull represents a wartime spirit of going into battle with a vengeance. The Skull represents a sense of condemnation and a warning of impending death. However, death, as a metaphor, can also signify the end of an era— or a new beginning. Matt Siren’s Skulls are presented, not as figures of existential doom, but rather, as comical or ironic manifestations of serious caution.
Pulling from our archives, Ghost Girl and Burlesque in the Living Room limited edition prints will be made available at Woodward Gallery, on a first-come-first-serve basis, for the duration of the exhibition. Woodward Gallery invites all to the exciting realm of Matt Siren: Thriller. A full-color, digital catalog is available on our website (WoodwardGallery.net). This exhibition is presented at Woodward Gallery in our street-level windows 24/7, by private appointment, and as an online exhibition and Viewing Room on Artsy.net. Come one, come all!
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Linden Frederick | Alan Magee: The Maine Idea
2022-09-22 - 2022-11-05 | Forum Gallery, 475 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10022, United States
New York, NY – From September 22 through November 5, 2022, Forum Gallery, New York, will present The Maine Idea, an exhibition of works by Linden Frederick and Alan Magee whose distinct approaches capture the mystery, majesty and history of the place that’s fascinated artists for more than two centuries.
Thomas Cole, Winslow Homer, George Bellows, John Marin, Marsden Hartley, and Andrew Wyeth are just a handful of the many glorious painters who have found and explored the landscape, the people, the feeling of this unique State that is truly like none other. Today, Linden Frederick and Alan Magee, both born elsewhere, have lived and worked in and been inspired by Maine for decades.
Linden Frederick grew up in upstate New York, moving to Belfast, Maine in 1989. “Maine’s culture reflects a small-town American way of life – and that feeds into what I know, and what my paintings often depict,” he observes. “Maine embraces its past and well as its present, and there is a deep respect for tradition and heritage…Maine is unpretentious…Living here, I’m closer to the human experience I often hint at in my work.”
The twelve new paintings by Linden Frederick on view in the exhibition each capture in rich, enigmatic visions the elements of life that drew the Artist to Maine. Whether a single mysterious lit window in paintings like Night Owl (55 x 55 inches), illuminated shop windows in Recruit (30 x 42 inches), or the nocturnal view of a pond lit by man-made lamppost in Skating (16 x 16 inches), Frederick’s use of light hints at human life in an era not long past but not of today that lies beneath the surface. Neither landscapes nor cityscapes, these are storyscapes in which a human presence is only implicit. Linden Frederick notes: “Maine can feel removed from the reality of modern life – somewhat like a stage set would be – and my paintings often reflect that same sensibility.”
Alan Magee was born in Pennsylvania. In elementary school, the Artist found himself attracted to Maine on the multi-colored pull-down map of the US in his classroom, “the state at the upper right…bordering the blue Atlantic,” he recalls. His imagination captured for life, in 1976 Magee and his wife moved to Camden where early on he discovered the stone beach at Pemaquid Point that would prove to be a turning point in his life and work. The grandest in scale of ten works by Magee in the exhibition, Voyage (acrylic on canvas, 60 x 96 inches) is at once an other-wordly embodiment of the Pemaquid stones and a metaphor for the travel that Magee notes has served to deepen his relationship with the state: “Departing and returning – the cycle of time away and home, of discovery and contemplation – this time-honored rhythm characterizes my relationship to Maine.”

Quotidian objects – a salvaged chain, an artist’s paintbrush, and rusty nails discovered on the shores of the Island of Matinicus – are the subject of the paintings Chain (58 x 84 inches), Paragon (30 x 24 inches), and This Half Century: Matinicus (10 x 8 inches). Depicted in amplified scale, Magee sees in these objects an opportunity to contemplate the history of human life. “A constellation of private pilgrimage sites…a vast cabinet of curiosities housing thousands of old but still useful tools…intriguing, abandoned objects…all of these things are rich in metaphorical possibilities, and marvels for the eye,” says Magee.
You are invited to explore our Online Viewing Room for The Maine Idea here:
https://viewingroom.forumgallery.com/viewing-room/linden-frederick-alan-magee-the-maine-idea

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Ted Kincaid: Hudson Valley Clouds
2022-10-08 08:00 - 2022-12-31 17:00 | Artsy
Manneken Press presents an exhibition of photographically based works by Ted Kincaid from the “Hudson Valley Cloud” series. The exhibition runs through December 31, 2022 and can be viewed exclusively on Artsy.
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