"Smitten" Exhibition
Elisa Contemporary Art
This event has ended.
Elisa Contemporary Art is curating Smitten, an artistic tribute to Romance.
Smitten will feature artwork by four artists:
- Canadian artist Franco DeFrancesca who creates vibrant and pulsating artwork
- Original photography by New York native, Jesse Kalisher
- Flirtatious, Roy Lichtenstein inspired layered birch paintings by Texas artist, Mitch McGee
- Enchanting figurative paintings by Connecticut artist, Daryl Zang.
Smitten will enchant and excite, seduce and captivate its viewers will a range of artwork styles and mediums.
Franco DeFrancesca:
Franco DeFrancesca is a native of Toronto. He graduated from the Ontario College of Art (now OCAD) in 1990 and returned to the University of Guelph in 2004-05 to further his studies after 12 years working in communication design and the renovation industry. He has been a multidisciplinary artist since 2004, exhibiting his art and art projects ranging from sculpture/installation, photography, digital art, and sound art. His work explores notions of media, technology, art history, and pop culture.
With his recent “Plasma Gel”, series of digital/mixed media “picture objects”, Franco explores digital media as a mode of abstract image production in the creation of an art object. Investigating the links between art and memory, history and technology, the Plasma Gels series use digital imaging as a means to navigate the territory between photography and painting, mixing references to photography, painting and display technology.
Visualizing ephemeral and elusive environments that allude to a non-delineated, but deep pictorial space, these works recall the color-field and the elemental geometry of mid to late twentieth century post painterly abstraction, minimalism and op-art.
Franco’s work has exhibited in Canada and the United States and is included in various private and corporate collections throughout North America.
Jesse Kalisher:
Jesse's first camera arrived on his sixth birthday as a present from his father, celebrated photographer Simpson Kalisher. A darkroom soon followed. Yet despite his enthusiasm for the medium, when it came time to go to college and consider a career, Jesse took his father’s advice and focused on anything but photography.
It was not until early 1996, Jesse boarded a plane for Hanoi and two months of untold adventures. He carried with him a simple point and shoot camera. It was during his first few days in Vietnam that he looked through the small viewfinder and had an epiphany. He had seen a few kids playing badminton on an otherwise deserted early morning street, lifted that camera to his eye and expected to see a snapshot. He saw instead a tableau filled with meaning. And in that very instant he re-discovered his love affair with photography.
Jesse’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Art Business News, Black and White Magazine, Art & Living Magazine and Interior Design Magazine. His photography is in private collections throughout the world as well as many museums including The Louvre, The Smithsonian, The George Eastman House, The de Young Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston and many more. The first photographs of Barack Obama acquired by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History were those taken by Jesse.
Mitch McGee:
Houston artist Mitch McGee’s artwork lives between painting and sculpture. In his current Birch series, he uses layers of wood, each illustrated, hand cut and stained to create dimensional pieces. On average, each takes 35-40 hours to complete.
His influences include Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. According to Mitch, "I have always been fascinated with Pop Art and the ability of artists like Lichtenstein and Oldenburg to take everyday objects we are bombarded with and make them fascinating. Roy Lichtenstein took comic strips and repositioned them as lithography. In an almost tongue in cheek fashion, I wondered how I could take one of his pieces and recreate it in another medium.”
Mitch has exhibited his work throughout Texas since 2001 and in New York with Elisa Contemporary Art since 2012. His work is private collections including TV Journalist Serena Altshul and his work will be featured in an upcoming issue of Dwell Magazine.
Daryl Zang:
Daryl is a Figurative artist from Connecticut. Her paintings capture the rollercoaster of motherhood and life in general, and through their honesty and vulnerability connect with others on an emotional level across all ages and at every stage.
Her latest series created in 2011 and early 2012 included The Gift and Reward. She focused on the lighter side of life and simple joys.
Daryl's work will be featured in a solo show in Manhattan in September 2013 and she was recently featured in a solo show at the Michele & Donald D'Amour Museum of Fine Art Museum in Springfield, MA, as well as exhibits in New York and Greenwich.
Media
Schedule
from January 14, 2013 to February 16, 2013
Brut and Rose Champagne Tasting: Saturday, February 9th from 6-9pm