Pedro Barbeito

Artist Q&A with Pedro Barbeito

Pedro Barbeito is a visual artist living in Easton, PA. Over the past 25 years, he has exhibited internationally in fifteen solo exhibitions and participated in over 50 group exhibitions. Solo venues include Basilico Fine Arts in NYC; Lehmann Maupin Gallery in NYC; Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Conn.; Mario Diacono Gallery in Boston; Parra Romero Gallery in Madrid; Galerie Richard in Paris; 101/Exhibit in LA; and Charest-Weinberg Gallery in Miami. His exhibits have been reviewed in the New York Times, Art in America, Art on Paper, The Village Voice, Artpulse, Frieze, Art/Text, Art Nexus, Examiner.com, and others publications in the US and Europe. Barbeito is currently Assistant Professor of Art and Director of Experimental Printmaking Institute (EPI) at Lafayette College.

*The Crab Nebula: Two Neutron Stars Colliding*, acrylic, pigment printout, and 3D printout on canvas, 65 x 95 in | 165 x 241 cm, 2000

Who is your favorite artist of all time?

A favorite must be Goya. I’m particularly fond of his tapestry paintings… and there’s specifically one at the Prado Museum that I love. Every time I’ve visited the Prado, I spend some quality time looking at “The Maja and the Cloaked Men.” I can’t quite figure it out, he has other similar paintings there, but this one really draws me in. There’s such a keen play between the composition, the color, the materiality of the paint, the narrative, the humor in the painting, and the skill with which he represents the landscape and figures, their scale, proportions… it’s painterly perfection. I’m glued to it every time.

How did you become a professional artist?

I knew I would be doing this as a profession when I was an undergraduate, but I didn’t start making a living from it for another … Click here to read more

Jim D’Amato

Artist Q&A with Jim D’Amato

Jim D’Amato (born 1978) is an American artist known for his elaborate biomorphic paintings and drawings that explore the infinite and unknown. He’s interested in the possibilities of spatial dimensions and intricate forms that fuse the organic and synthetic. His use of line, labor-intensive process, and bold, minimal color palette have become hallmarks of his work. Through these devices, his work pushes the boundaries of contemporary abstraction and engages the viewer in a multitude of ways. His work has been exhibited in galleries, alternative spaces, and museum stores and is in prominent private collections throughout the United States. He has been exhibited in group exhibitions with KAWS, H.R. Giger, and others.

Destroyer’s Song 6, acrylic on canvas, 12″ x 12″, 2022

Who is your favorite artist of all time?

Jackson Pollock. He cut the cord from everything that came before him, which is an incredible achievement.

How did you become a professional artist?

It was my only real interest and the driving force in my life from childhood until now. For the most part, almost everything else has been a distraction from my work. Knowing that, working hard, and putting the time in got me here.

What are the influences and inspirations in your work?

I’m inspired by the unknown and what we can’t see. Spaces that may or may not exist in the natural world or the in the mind keep me going.

How is your work different than everything else out there?

My work lives on a very sharp edge between objectivity and non-objectivity. Because of that, the viewer is asked to participate and draw their own conclusions from it.

When is a piece finished for you?

When it absolutely cannot stand one more mark or gesture, … Click here to read more

David Rufo

Artist Q&A with David Rufo

David Rufo’s paintings explore visual oscillations and pattern structures. His work is informed by the hyper-kinetic shift of the art movements from the post-war period and the viscous psychedelic imagery of the 1960s and 70s. In addition to being a visual artist, Rufo is an Assistant Professor of Education at Cazenovia College in upstate New York. Previously, Rufo was a Clinical Assistant Professor at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education at Lincoln Center in New York City. Rufo has published articles on creativity in a variety of peer-reviewed journals.

“Muscle Car”, oil on canvas, 68 x 64 in | 172 x 163 cm, 2022

Who is your favorite artist of all time?

There are too many in my favorite category from which to choose, so my response will speak to an artist’s work that I would like to own. If I could live with any painting and have the opportunity to examine it up close over the course of many years, it would be one of de Kooning’s late paintings. These works from the 1980s are significant to me in a variety of ways. Most importantly, they span the time that I was a student in art school and then as an unknown artist living in New York City while working as a bouncer in night clubs in order to earn just enough to purchase art supplies and pay the rent. To me, de Kooning’s late work distills and refines the essence and visual profundity of his earlier masterpieces.

How did you become a professional artist?

I become a professional artist because I can’t imagine being anything else. To make a living, I earned my Ph.D. and work as a college professor. I first identified as an artist when I began my nightly painting routine at 14 years of age. I … Click here to read more

Lo Ch’ing

Lily Kostrzewa interviews artist Lo Ch’ing

In the summer of 2020, I was invited by the director of Whitebox Art Center in New York City to write a piece art review for an exhibition “Nocturnal Whispers of Pan” by Lo Ch’ing and Thomas Rose. It was the first time I saw Lo Ch’ing’s paintings; I was fascinated by the exhibition. The two artists open a new artistic dialogue that begins with an interpretation of an image’s meaning and a discussion of the cultural concepts surrounding the image. Using the cultural concept of Chinese calligraphy’s reimagined scenarios, Lo Ch’ing creates images of Chinese calligraphic “playful” icons with a focus on bizarre spatial arrangements with an abstract traditional format. He also created a poem for each image in both Chinese and English languages. In my childhood, my artistic foundation was trained in traditional Chinese calligraphy/painting in Taiwan, which made me wish to interview Mr. Lo one aday. The wish was granted two years later.

*A Maple Tree’s Magniﬁcent Autumn*, ink and watercolor on paper, 27 × 54 in | 68 × 137 cm, 2018

Lo Ch’ing, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, was a famous poet from Taiwan; he studied comparative literature at Washington State University in Seattle and obtained a master’s degree. After returning to Taiwan, he taught at the School of Foreign Languages of Fu Jen Catholic University, later serving as the director of the Chinese Language and Culture Center (Mandarin Training Center) of the National Taiwan Normal University, taught at its Fine Arts Department and many other schools as well. He has been invited to give lectures in various countries around the world and has appraised calligraphy and paintings in well-known museums, including the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Shanghai Museum, … Click here to read more

Zahra Nazari at Cinema Supply

Iranian-American Zahra Nazari’s abstract architectural paintings bring together two distinct worlds

Zahra Nazari’s work is a unique composite of gestural abstraction and intricate architectural painting. This combinations creates a compelling visual narrative with a mixture of pure abstraction and geometry gives the viewer a reason to stop, stare, and wonder. Today, her artwork is known for its gestural rhythms, layered density, organic feel, and the use of architectural and floral influences inspired by traditional formats from her native land of Iran. The artist herself offers a captivating tale of an artist who risked everything to break into the New York artworld–more on this later.

After getting a sneak peek of her latest exhibition at Cinema Supply–the recently renovated former warehouse building at 217 W 21st Street in Chelsea, NY, and a tour of her new studio, Art Review City is pleased to share her unlikely, and often surprising, story with our readers.

Portrait of Zahra Nazari, 2022. Photo courtesy of Cinema Supply.

The artist is a prolific creator, proactive with every aspect of her career. Nazari paints every day and is constantly completing new work. Since her emigration to the United States in 2011, she has participated in 18 artist residencies across the globe. The 37-year-old painter and sculptor has lived in New York City since 2015, and has created monumental and easel-sized paintings that have been shown worldwide. Nazari rejects the concept of focusing on just a single idea, instead utilizing broad composites of investigation which she has explored to the fullest across her 10-year professional career.

Her recent exhibitions include Uprooted at a temporary space in Queens, NY hosted by the arts non-profit Chashama– founded by Anita Durst; and Unification, a blockbuster exhibition at High Line Nine in Chelsea curated by Roya Khadjavi Projects. Her … Click here to read more

Kim25

Artist Q&A with Kim 25

In 2020, Kim25 began exploring the duality of the ‘boundary of undecidability’ that lies between inside and out, and sought to capture this complicated relationship. with her work “The Truth of Mystery.” In 2021 “The Truth of Mystery” series reveals its shape as the figure of the text at the point where inside and outside, inner world and outside reality, correspond. What is remarkable in her painting is that the undecidability of the boundary that belongs to both inside and outside turns into the very (textual, perhaps inter-textual) substance; the undecidability of the boundary becomes, through the artist’s kiasmatic logic, the boundary of undecidability that re-doubles the boundary and the object(s) and thus problematizes the boundariness of the boundary. Kim25’s poetic imagination that manifests itself on her canvas not only gives a new sense of aesthetics through which viewers can communicate with the newly expressed reality, but also facilitates the invitation to various interpretative participations.

“Meet of Each Other – L’éternité & Rimbaud”, oil on canvas, 32 x 46 in | 80 x 117 cm (each panel), 2021

Who is your favorite artist of all time?

My favorite artists of all time are Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, and Julian Schnabel.

How did you become a professional artist?

I was always friends with art and painting. Ever since I was born and had strength in my hands, I always played with drawing utensils. Painting is a fickle friend I meet every day.

What are the influences and inspirations in your work?

I am influenced by words from literature. On a gloomy day, looking out the window at the scarlet red sunset, I imagine the red sea. I think of the fate of the sea and how it becomes a mirror for the sky, mixed altogether and … Click here to read more

Kurt Lightner

Artist Q&A with Kurt Lightner

Kurt Lightner was born in Troy, Ohio. He received his BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design, OH, and his MFA from the School of Visual Arts, NYC.

Lightner’s works have been included in many significant group and solo exhibitions; Greater New York, PS1 MOMA, Kurt Lightner: Five Acres, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Queens International, Queens Museum, Other Worlds, Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, and A View almost Picturesque and Slow Dissolve, Clementine Gallery. Lightner’s works have been critically reviewed in Artforum, Art in America, Artnews, Freize, Beautiful Decay, Brooklyn Rail, New York Times, The New Yorker, Sculpture, and the Village Voice, among others.

He has been a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and The Headlands Center for the Arts Project Studio Residency in San Fransisco. Lightner’s works are included in many private and public collections both nationally and internationally.

He currently lives and works in Queens, New York.

Who is your favorite artist of all time?

Of all Time? That’s tough.

My favorites ebb and flow but here are a few that always stick in my mind. Charles Burchfield, David Milne, Early Vuillard, Lois Dodd, Alice Neel, William H. Johnson, Giorgio Morandi, Edvard Munch, Jacob Lawrence, William Hawkins, Arlene Shechet, Millet, Van Gogh, Horace Pippin, and Peter Doig. Not necessarily in that order.

“Planting Lesson”, acrylic on canvas, 98 x 70 in | 249 x 177 cm, 2021

How did you become a professional artist?

Since I was a child, I was always using my hands creating, making, growing something. I grew up in a small town in a farming community out in the country pretty isolated until I could drive. This environment allowed for a lot of time to find ways to entertain myself. I would draw and go on made up “archeological … Click here to read more

Lin Shih Pao

Artist Q&A with Lin Shih Pao

Lin Shih Pao is a New York contemporary artist born in Pingtung County, Taiwan. A child from the rural countryside of Taiwan, he has been creating with his hands since he was young. And his hand-making skill has led to this extraordinary life as a legendary artist in a social movement. Taiwan’s Times Press compiled his story into two books:” A Penny Story” and “The Legend Continues.” Taiwan’s public television also produced an episode for him: An Artist’s Story.

You may be as curious as I am, how his work resulted in a thousand-person social movement? How he demonstrates love in interpersonal relationships has brought tears to the eyes of many, both participants in his creation and viewers. And his volunteers rally to him with exuberance and passion. Let us hear his views on art creation from the following interview.

“Love Ring 1”, PVC, gold foil, 13 x 13 x 10 in | 33 x 33 x 25 cm, 2020

Who are your most admired artists?

I like Van Gogh’s wild, enthusiastic, and reckless personality. I think that’s the spirit that an artist should have, regardless of the consequences to make art, live in the moment, and do whatever you want to do at the moment for the art’s sake. I have visited the painting site of Van Gogh in the south of France, and I can feel the momentum. In addition, I also like Picasso’s willful little urchin personality, but Picasso is very good at doing art business. Unlike Van Gogh, Picasso’s life is the sum of reason and sensibility. As for American artists, I like Jackson Pollock. His action painting in Abstract Expressionism has an invisible coincidence with my painting creation. I often use a similar technique as he does to flick … Click here to read more

William Bradley

Artist Q&A with William Bradley

William Bradley graduated with a Masters degree from Wimbledon College of the University of the Arts London in 2008, selling out his end of year show. He has since been selected for FutureMap 08 and the Catlin Art prize 2009 and 2011 and Baker’s Dozen at Torrance Art Museum in 2020. His work is included in several major collections. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

“Wild, Wild Wood”, acrylic on canvas on board, 52.5 x 48 x 3.5 in | 133 x 122 x 9 cm, 2022

Who is your favorite artist of all time?

I’ll give you a different answer every time. There are however a few touchstones: John Hoyland, Hans Hofman, Howard Hogkin, and Sandra Blow. There was an incredible show of Eduardo Chillida at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park when I was a teenager–it’s stayed with me ever since. Then there is Matisse.

How did you become a professional artist?

When you’re consumed by something it can be difficult to resist; so it was always the plan. It’s my mum’s fault–she gave me the bug. Then throw in a couple of influential tutors and you’re pretty much screwed. I worked practically full time during my BA to save the money to move to London and continue my studies. My time in London working towards my MA in Painting was pivotal. It was challenging in so many ways and taught me that I was going to question what the fuck I’m doing everyday–several times a day, but like I said, difficult to resist. I was incredibly fortunate to sell out my degree show and meet a couple of key people who set me on the path, including me in UAL’s Future Map and then the Catlin Art Prize–Cheers Medeia and Justin!

What are the influences and inspirations

… Click here to read more