“Urban Existence” Exhibition

Van Der Plas Gallery

This event has ended.

Konstantin Bokov Born in 1940 in Shostka, Ukraine, Bokov immigrated to New York City in 1974. He shares his endless imagination with New Yorkers through public installations which has earned him a devoted following in neighborhoods around New York City. An outsider and visionary, Konstantin Bokov finds materials left on the wayside. He creates his artwork by using car parts, telephone wires, magazines- anything as long as it sparks his creative vision, transforming his found objects into original icons and vibrant characters.

Alejandro Caiazza, an educated artist with Italian roots, was raised in Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela. Educated in architecture and fine arts at the Jose Maria Vargas University in Caracas, Venezuela. Alejandro creates whimsical and delightful paintings at first glance, but often there is a deeper, darker side to his work. He creates elementary and childish figures, often cruel, inspired by the drawings of children, which often include criminals, skulls, clowns, and madmen. These silly, wacky characters, lurid and subhuman, are deformed, absurd, and grotesque figures. Many of the paintings are inspired by feelings and daily life. He uses acrylic, oil bar, charcoal, and spray paint and likes to experiment with mixed media on cardboard, canvas, and wood. His style is “art brut” or “neo-expressionism,” with influences such as Jean Dubuffet, Jonathan Meese, Georg Baselitz, Willem de Kooning, Jean Michel Basquiat, and A.R. Penk

FA-Q (a.k.a Kevin Wendall) Graffiti and street artist from the 1980s, Wendall transformed billboards by scratching his mark in the LES New York City. For Kevin Wendall, the meaning of doing art was to exorcise the demons from his mind. The colorful process of making his art was his therapy. In the heyday of graffiti, Wendall chose the streets as his canvas, spraying and scratching his images, making his mark on billboards around the city. He became an important part of the Rivington School, an 1980’s art movement consisting of metal sculptors, painters, and performance artists. Their hub was The Sculpture Garden in an abandoned lot on Rivington Street, LES New York City. As a group, they were against commercial art, against capitalism, championing art for the people. Driven by an inward vision which got clearer with time, Wendall’s imagination was always there. He reacted to whatever was going on in his life. His paintings are an exorcism of a tormented reality. His paintings are brought to life with bold colorful strokes, using acrylic on found paper, posters, and common drop cloth.