NYAB Event - "The Human Spirit" Exhibition

"The Human Spirit" Exhibition

Elisa Contemporary Art

This event has ended.

We honor the ability to make sense out of chaos. To dream big and reimagine our world and our potential. We honor the everlasting presence of our loved ones. And the importance of appreciating the simple pleasures of life.
We honor a day, September 11 2011, that has forever changed our lives, and our perspectives.
A portion of all gallery sales is donated to charities helping underserved children heal through art. We currently support Free
Arts NYC, Creative Arts Workshops for Kids and Arts to Grow.

Our exhibition artists share their 9/11 stories
Several of our exhibit artists shared their personal stories:

From Austin Artist, Ray Donley
For Ray Donley, September 11th, 2001 was 11 days before he was scheduled to open his first New York solo show. He had planned and painted for the exhibit for more than one year. As he and his wife flew into New York on September 20th, the Twin Towers were still billowing smoke.

According to Ray “I was devastated by the attack first and foremost because of my great love for New York and the many friends who lived here. My solo show proceeded as planned opening on September 22nd, mainly due to the urging of then
Mayor Giuliani for everyone to get "back to business." However, it was a disaster. There was so much grief and sadness that permeated the city.”

His art then, as it is now, was poignant and reflective, and captures a very psychological element. He has never had a solo show in New York since and continues to feel almost superstitious about it.

For Hawaii Abstractionist, Connie Firestone:
“We got a call from our daughter at 5AM saying simply "turn on the television". There is something so ominous about that. I sat for hours, wrapped in a blanket, although it was quite warm, watching with our entire nation in broken-hearted shock; then I went to my studio and painted until the light was gone.

As soon as I had enough light the next morning, I was back working on three large canvases at once, crying and painting for 10 solid hours. I think I was trying to create guardians for the world.”

You can see a painting from the Guardian series in our exhibit.

For Emerging artist, Krysztof Pastuszka:
He was living and attending High School in Michigan. He remembers everyone crowding into a closet where there was a TV to see what was happening. He remembers the solemn state that came over his school as everyone was trying to understand what was happening… and why.

For Connecticut Figurative artist, Daryl Zang:
She was 5 months pregnant with her oldest son, Fritz, and was absolutely miserable. According to Daryl “I was nauseous and dizzy and had a severely pinched nerve in my hip from how he was positioned. My husband Tom had left early that morning for the airport for a business trip. We had recently hired someone, who spoke very little English, to help me around the house. I ended up spending the day and long into the night on the couch sitting with her, first trying to mime out what was happening and then just watching the news together.

The day definitely made me realize how precious family is. I know being pregnant at the time influenced my decision to be home with my son. Several years later, when I picked up my brushes again, my early paintings were solely focused on him.”

Fritz continues to be the focus of much of Daryl’s work and is featured in one the exhibit paintings.

About the Artists:
Michael Barletta
Michael is an emerging artist at the vortex of a thriving underground art community in Syracuse, New York. Though self-taught, with no formal art education, Michael has been an avid student of the arts since childhood -- absorbing and transforming the energy, chaos and emotion of the streets, the media and of his immediate environment drawings and paintings that pulse with raw emotion and energy.
Michael’s artwork has been exhibited in a public art exhibit in 2010 in New York at the Atrium (formerly Citicorp center), the 2008 Everson Museum of Art Biennial, Syracuse, NY, the Warehouse Projects Gallery, Syracuse, NY and the NYU Kimmel Windows Gallery in New York, NY, as well as several international art fairs in New York and Miami.
The featured painting “Cubic” is a passionate interpretation of emotional loss, chaos, frustration, helplessness and dispair.

Ray Donley
For Ray Donley, the classical ideals of the Baroque and Renaissance period are where he pulls much of his inspiration and style. It is from these classical techniques that create the timeless quality in his work. But Ray’s work, especially this series “Los Bien Perdidos”, The Lost Ones, delves much deeper into the psychological essence of his characters.

According to Ray, “ I'm wanting very passionately to say something about the human condition, and I think that's what great art does. It jolts us into taking a refined look at our situation and the kind of world we inherited, maybe to promote change, I don't know. These individuals that I create – 99 percent of them through my imagination – are on a journey, some sojourn:
getting lost, getting found, setting out. Perhaps suggesting that we're all lost in some emotional, spiritual, psychological, cosmological way. That's been the burden of my art since I announced to the world that I was an artist.”
Ray is a contemporary portrait artist that currently lives in Austin, Texas. He has been exhibiting since 1981 in galleries, museums and universities throughout the United States, Europe and Mexico. Ray will be featured in the upcoming book “Contemporary Painters” published by Schiffer Publishing and due out in Spring 2012

Connie Firestone
Connie is a mid-career artist who currently lives in Hawaii. Her series, Guardians, are layered paintings of translucent acrylic paints and metallic paints over a black painted canvas. Figures appear as Connie creates her work.
Connie’s work is in private collections throughout the US.

Krzysztof Pastuszka
Kris Pastuszka is a dynamic, emerging artist and recent graduate (2008) of School of Visual Arts. He currently lives in Brooklyn.
His work starts with an idea, a "curiosity", a word. He then turns them into definitions, and maps out the process. Through books, old magazines, image searches, journalizing ideas he research topics and his images and compositions begin to take shape. He is part mad scientist, inventor, astronaut and all artist.

According to Kris:
" For me, art is a way of life, an adventure of those moments when something happens, connections are made and everything seems to make sense. My art revolves around the highs and lows of discovery, adventure, and chance. I am inspired by the ridiculous, the whimsical world of invention, nonsense, and complex machines in a playful atmosphere - to create an adventure of the unknown."
Kris has exhibited throughout New York.

Daryl Zang:
Daryl Zang’s paintings reflects some of the simple pleasures of childhood, family and home.

According to Daryl, “The images I create reflect my own experiences and I often describe my work as autobiographical. At home as a new mother I painted about pregnancy and the early stages of motherhood, focusing on all the ambivalence,
isolation, and exhaustion as well as the tenderness. When it was rest I needed most, my work became about private, restful moments and quiet relaxation. As my children grew, I found endless inspiration in them. By letting them guide me, I shifted my priorities and let myself get lost in their world.”
Daryl’s work has been exhibited at Michele & Donald D'Amour Museum of Fine Art in Springfield, Massachusetts, the 57th Annual National Exhibition of Contemporary Realism in Art (MA) and recent exhibits in New York and Connecticut.

Media

• Painting
• Other

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