HIGHLIGHT: GRAMERCY
An Art Exhibition Featuring Eight Prominent Contemporary Artists On View Thursday, January 31 – Friday, March 2, 2019
Opening Reception, January 31, 6 – 8 pm
Highlight: Gramercy at The National Arts Club is the latest in a series of enlightening and captivating exhibitions, and is curated by Paul Efstathiou and Eleanor Flatow. The prestigious National Arts Club’s history of exhibiting art dates back to the founding in 1898, and its building epitomizes the dazzling spirit of The Gilded Age of New York. Highlight: Gramercy features works by eight emerging and established contemporary artists based in Athens, Vienna, New York City, Connecticut, and Los Angeles. The artists included in the exhibition are Marcel Dzama, Amir Fallah, André Hemer, John Knuth, Liz Leggett, Olga Migliaressi-Phoca, Evan Robarts and Anne Vieux.
While drawing attention to each artist’s particular style, techniques, mediums, themes and intentions, Highlight: Gramercy collectively delivers a vibrant, enthralling and erudite visual experience evoking positivity, verve and curiosity. Parallels can be made among the artists –their interest in extraordinary processes and materials, use of technology, and the integration of social commentary – however, it is the uniqueness of their visual expressions that produces a compelling exhibition and reflects the essence of contemporary art.
Referencing Islamic and graffiti art, while grappling with his identity as an Iranian-American, Amir Fallah reinterprets conventional notions of portrait painting with his distinctive use of boldly painted rich ornamentation and layered patterns. Evan Robarts uses found objects and unusual tools in his singular sculpture and paintings elevating ordinary materials and tasks while investigating themes of gentrification and the condition of the blue-collar worker. John Knuth employs flies and their regurgitation to create minimal and pointillistic abstractions that capture the chaos and beauty of nature, and are metaphors for the density and sprawl of urban landscapes. Liz Leggett (Westport, CT), championing the act of painting, dynamically applies vibrant colors to her canvases empowering the spontaneity of the medium and process to reveal the narrative and composition.
Integrating technology within their unique and complex processes, Anne Vieux and André Hemer both explore the harmony and dichotomies of the digital and physical worlds resulting in striking abstract compositions. Vieux’s works depict vibrant, lustrous and fragmented planes in striking hues of purples, blues, and pinks; meanwhile, Hemer’s works are gestural and sculptural while skillfully visually balancing physical objects and their digital representations.
About Paul Efstathiou
Paul Efstathiou is a second-generation art dealer, native New Yorker and Southport resident with expertise in the primary and secondary contemporary painting and sculpture markets. For more than a decade he has been working as an art dealer in New York. In 2016, he made his successful curatorial debut with Highlight: Summer One at Hollis Taggart Galleries in Chelsea. Since then his Highlight exhibitions featuring emerging contemporary artists continue to achieve acclaim. More information about Paul Efstathiou can be found at http://www.highlightcurated.com
About Eleanor Flatow
Eleanor Flatow, a native New Yorker and New Canaan resident, has held leadership positions at various art organizations over the past 20 years, including as a specialist at Christie’s and most recently as Executive Co-Director of the Carriage Barn Arts Center in New Canaan Connecticut. Her background in the worlds of for-profit fine art, not-for-profit institutions, and financial services informs her work as an entrepreneur in the arts. This is her second collaboration with Paul Efstathiou.
About The National Arts Club
The mission of The National Arts Club is to stimulate, foster and promote public interest in the arts and educate the American people in the fine arts. It was founded in 1898 by Charles de Kay, a literary and art critic for The New York Times. The Tilden Mansion at 15 Gramercy Park South, a National Historic Landmark, has been home of The National Arts Club since 1906. The Club is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit institution that has successfully performed this mission now for 120 years. www.nationalartsclub.org