Artist Profiles

LUKE POWELL
Rider in Red, Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan - 2002
injet print on canvas
32 x 48 inches (81.28 x 121.92 cm)

		Luke Powell
		When the new year 2002 began, Luke Powell was still on horseback riding in the dark, with an Irishman and 
		an Afghan, a day beyond the nearest four-wheel track, in the mountains of central Afghanistan, in a remote 
		area never captured by the Taliban.  Photographs of that journey as well as scenes of men and horses 
		playing buskashi on dusty fields outside Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif are included in this new exhibit. Powell 
		has been making photographs in Afghanistan since the early 1970s, and his exhibitions of dye transfer prints 
		have been shown in well over a hundred museums and galleries in this country and abroad.

		Luke Powell, 2002

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ANDREW PIEDILATO
Untitled (Water) - 2002
oil on canvas
78 x 72 inches (198.12 x 182.88 cm)

		Andrew Piedilato
“Ideally, the act of painting is an extension of the act of seeing. It is a physical enactment of the dialogue between recognition and uncertainty. Andrew Piedilato’s aggressively worked, heavily impastoed paintings enact this dialogue. They are both sensual in their physicality and cerebral in their deliberate unwillingness to submit to a rational reading. Though he often builds upon recognizable images or simple objects with definite associations, he constructs visual conundrums that resist interpretation while retaining an intense viscerality.” - Kit White, 2002
		Andrew Piedilato

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ELAINE SPATZ-RABINOWITZ
Incursions - 2000
oil on pigmented, plasticized Hydrocal, steel
72 x 74 x 3 inches (182.88 x 187.96 x 7.62 cm)

		Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz
		I begin my work with a sculptural casting process involving precise engineering on the one hand and absolute 
		abandonment to the laws of physics and to chance on the other.  I end up with a piece whose existence I 
		neither could have imagined or predicted before it came to be.  I let the plaster dry, and rebuild it to make it 
		strong. That is the beginning.

In searching for the right image I look for synergism. The image chosen gives content and purpose to the plaster support, and the plaster support in turn makes clear the meaning of the image. They could not exist without one another, bound together by both esthetic logic and content. As I paint, I regain the control I lost in the casting process.
		Looking at the work, one’s eye moves between the painted illusion of something real and the realness of the 
		physical object; from verisimilitude to pure paint to sculpted substance. In passages where the paint falls 
		away--exposing itself as matter--the materiality of the object takes over. No matter how deep the water looks, 
		the insistent visibility of the plaster substructure denies access to it. This puts the image in a vulnerable 
		position, suggesting the fragility and abuse of the subjects that I choose to paint--traditionally "beautiful" 
		landscapes and poolsides--and hints at larger socio/political issues.
		By exposing my means of representation--illusionistic painting--I question it; the resulting breakdown of 
		illusionism unmasks what William James called "that pit of insecurity which lies beneath the surface of life," 
		providing a metaphor for breakdown in the world.
		Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz, 2003

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SUSAN RANEY
Visitor - 2002
lambda print (ed. of 10)
12 x 16 inches (30.48 x 40.64 cm)

		Susan Raney
My work seems to me a natural progression from my many years as a set decorator and designer for film, where I was able to study the subtle effects of light color and composition to create a mood, to tell a story.
		The three-inch tall characters, that I photograph, are the starting point of my compositions. With these tiny 
		"actors", I am able to be not only set designer and builder, but lighting designer, stage manager and director. 
		From a cast of about 100, I choose a few who might suggest the scene. While I work out blocks of light and 
		color, I let the figures, their postures, and expressions guide me to the finished photograph. Perhaps this 
		process is akin to that of the playwright whose characters collaborate in the unfolding plot. The smallness of 
		the sets and the stillness of the figures lend a distance and a satisfying control which would be impossible 
		for me in human scale.
		Susan Raney, 2002

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BART ELSBACH
Afternoon Light - 2001
ink on paper
8 x 10 inches (20.32 x 24.4 cm)

		Bart Elsbach
This series of drawings was begun in a studio offered to me by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council on the 91st floor of Tower 1 of the World Trade Center. I used the studio from January to April of 2001. It provided a dramatic viewpoint on a city that was my home for 25 years. I now experience the city as familiar, across the divide of 15 years of partial separation.
		Hanging 1000 feet above lower Manhattan, the studio faced north over the island past the Empire State 
		Building, looked over the Hudson River to New Jersey and the George Washington Bridge, over the East 
		River to Brooklyn and Prospect Park out to the Bay, and over the marshes to the airports. Helicopters 
		passed at or below eye level. Often accused of having my head in the clouds, at the studio clouds often 
		wisped by the windows, at times producing a complete white-out.
		The enormity of the structures poised over the mesmerizing complexity of the city was often overwhelming. 
		I tried to focus my view and energy into an area that welcomed a measure of intimacy. In the aftermath of the 
		overwhelming events, I find myself again drawn to the solace of details and careful attention. I sense a 
		familiar lesson, paying attention to that in my life that affords an opportunity for intimacy. I feel a strong 
		reminder that the immense structures that overwhelm with their immutable permanence can vanish and 
		leave us alone with only the permanence of our own vision and memory.
		Bart Elsbach, 2003
 

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