Born in Ecuador, Lucía Falconí, who studied and lived for years in Germany, embodies the global concerns of many contemporary artists while retaining a very specific and sensitive connection to her own heritage. Rainforest imagery—huge leaves, exotic plants, and birds—becomes a metaphor for a changing physical and social environment.
April 2014
Steel Fluency: A Conversation with John Clement
John Clement is a mid-career sculptor whose studio is now located in Long Island City, Queens; until recently, he had been working at an outdoor studio in Bushwick. The new space is across the street from Mark di Suvero’s workshop, where Clement learned the basics of welding metal sculpture some two decades ago.
“Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa”
Washington, D.C. National Museum of African Art With dagger raised, a nail-studded, 19th-century nkisi nkondi by an unknown Yombe artist stood guard, while beyond, the evil boss in William Kentridge’s 1991 animated film Mine raged over his desk.
Ursula von Rydingsvard: Post-Emerging
Ursula von Rydingsvard was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center in 2014. For a full list of Lifetime Achievement Award recipients, click here. Ursula von Rydingsvard is “just getting over not being called an emerging artist.”
Tanya Aguiñiga
Laguna Beach, California Laguna Art Museum Tanya Aguiñiga, who works at the intersection of furniture design, craft, and fine art, recently created a powerful installation that reveals her extensive knowledge of the sea. Based on the complexity and specificity of this temporary work, it is fair to say that this MFA graduate from the Rhode
Jan Maarten Voskuil
Laguna Beach, California The Peter Blake Gallery Jan Maarten Voskuil’s work probes the nature of dimensionality with an expanded vision that liberates aesthetic solutions from what was thought possible. Consequently, his sculpted paintings or painted sculptures are hybrid forms.
Material Splendor: A Conversation with Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva
Finding rats in the gallery is not usually cause for celebration at an art opening, but such was the case for Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva’s installation Silentio Pathologia (2013) at the Macedonian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. Hadzi-Vasileva has been pushing the boundaries of unusual art “materials” for some time, using salmon and chicken skins, silk worm
Thought Before Matter: A Conversation with Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas
Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas sees heads as metaphors for the spaces they inhabit and the abstract ideas they generate. Using the joined last names of her mother, Margaret Strong, and her father, George Cuevas, she studied at the Art Students’ League in the 1960s with John Hovannes, who taught her to carve wood and stone.
