In the spring of 2017, my work was part of the exhibition “Tattooed New-York” at The New-York Historical Society. This exhibition traced the history of tattooing in New York starting with the native peoples to our times. It was curated by Cristian Petru Panaite.
My piece, “Hands Fly”, was exhibited with work that expands tattooing from the personal into art.
Tattooing was and is a part of human cultures globally.
Strands of seaweed, horseshoe crabs, shells, broken glass–ocean and human debris–the viscosity of salt water teeming with life–ebb and flow. When animals left the ocean for land, they took the sea with them. Our veins carry the same mixture of sodium, potassium and calcium as sea water. The ocean is our origin.
My hands forage for what the sea gives. I create prints to express its marvels.
A few of my palladium prints that I created from camera-less negatives of these sea fragments are part of an online exhibition https://fayddigital.com/Nature-in-lockdown published by this online magazine which works at the intersection of art, design and the environment.
The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, BWAC, is exhibiting “More Art of Coney Island”, a curated exhibition for the month of August, 2022. This is a juried show selected by Alicia Degener, co-president of BWAC.
Coney Island is considered to be the poor man’s Riviera. The artists in this exhibition have works depicting the multitudes of people who enjoy Coney Island. The artists represent people of all ages. One can almost hear the sounds of people laughing, talking, listening to music, shouting and even screaming when they go on the rides offered on Coney Island. The drawings, paintings, prints, textiles, and photographs show people on the boardwalk, on the beach, in the water, playing games and particularly participating in the annual Mermaid Parade. I think the Mermaid Parade honors the feminine archetype or Venus, who in mythology rose from the sea.
I am pleased to have my palladium prints of people with tattoos exhibited in this immense wooden building, once a warehouse, and now is a place for art and people to mingle.
This November 2024 I have two special, to me, artworks on exhibit in a juried exhibition called “Spectrum of Exposure” at BWAC, Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition in Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY.
These two works reflect my desires that women, children and nature will flourish despite the violence and destruction we are witnessing. I will share my vision for this particular artwork, “Breathe”, which I am featuring in this post.
I have developed this work with layers of photographs of a woman and her baby, branches of an oak tree and the blossoms of this oak tree. The woman with her birthing baby seem to support the branching oak. The blossoms of the oak tree drape around them. I have printed all the negatives using palladium, which I brush onto handmade Japanese gampi paper. Then I painted green and red pearlescent watercolor. The green is for photosynthesis that trees use to convert carbon dioxide into sugars and release oxygen, which we breathe. The red is our blood, the carrier of oxygen in our bodies.
This work of life and breath is my offering to women, children, plants and animals worldwide.