NYAB Event - Nicholas Wolfson Exhibition

Nicholas Wolfson Exhibition

Andre Zarre

This event has ended.

Nicholas Wolfson lives and works in New York City. He is a graduate of Columbia University in New York, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa. His paintings hang in private and institutional collections in the United States, Europe, Latin America, the Near East, and Asia.

Here are a few short comments by the artist about a few of the paintings:

Practices and disciplines like the Buddhist Eightfold Path offer the possibility for a person to gain release from the dreadful “bondage of Self”. “THE BONDAGE OF SELF” is a visual expression of what that particular oppression can look like and feel like.

“AMERICAN TALIBAN” portrays another kind of bondage, the kind that binds those among us who worship political fanaticism, racism, and violence.

This theme is carried forward in the riotous and colorful vigor of “RUMSFELD BEATEN BY GUARDS AT GUANTANAMO”.

“GARCIA’S BAR”, on the other hand, is a place to go to enjoy a respite.

“THE OLD POLITICIAN” is a portrait of evil. Feel free to pick your villain; there’s no shortage.

If you remember a recent and important American Congressman and House Majority Whip known as “The Hammer”, now a convicted felon (money laundering), you will pause – perhaps with pleasure - in front of “TOM DELAY & THE MISSUS: THE WILDERNESS YEARS”. Here he is (with the missus), out of office, out of luck, but confident that he or his political kin will be back.

“GUNS, GOLD, AND GOD” provides a way of seeing something of where we have got to, and what we’ve made of ourselves.

Karl Rove was a very influential “éminence grise” in the White House who needed to have his portrait painted but could only pose when he was on a break (“KARL ROVE TAKES A CIGARETTE BREAK”).

Like Karl Rove, “THE WHORE OF BABYLON” is a Christian allegorical figure of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Her full title is given as “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth.” If you read the newspapers you know she’s out there someplace, very much alive and actively engaged in making things happen.