Mauro Zamora at Wave Hill, Long Island

Zamora has been working successfully in Philadelphia since he received his MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2004. His work was included in the 2005 Fleisher Challenge exhibition and in 2008 he won a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. He produced the 14 paintings for this show at Wave Hill during a summer residency at the Millay Colony for the Arts. A large wall drawing, still in the works, will also be included. Most of the paintings for Wave Hill will be displayed on an intricate structure/sculpture that Zamora made out of municipal signposts. Other materials such as bright orange flexible fencing, tape, and chain link fence will also be part of the installation. The finished structure suggests a construction site and the paintings, bolted or tied onto this structure, are the associated signage. For all of these works, Zamora used only municipal and industrial materials he found at a supply store near King of Prussia. The large wall drawing is on Tyvek and the paintings are on aluminum.

Mauro Zamora

The gallery at Wave Hill is about 17 feet square with lots of windows, which posed a challenge for Zamora who makes paintings that typically hang on walls. The signpost structure allowed him to explore some themes he was interested in – specifically what happens to nature when left unattended on a construction site – and to find ways to exhibit paintings in the center of a room. Other large paintings will lean up again a wall. The back of one of them is painted with a bright, florescent yellow pigment that will glow against the wall and create a colored halo around the work. For Zamora, “The physical challenge of the gallery at Wave Hill is exciting.”

Mauro Zamora

The surfaces of Zamora’s paintings are always interesting because it is hard to tell exactly how they are made. Most of them include a mix of water-based paints, inks, and pigments, which, he mentions, “has taken me years to figure out.” And, in what seems a typical strategy for painters today, Zamora brings all tools to bear in the choosing of his subject matter and compositions. Typically, he uses found photos on the web or pictures he has taken himself for the subject, manipulates it all in Photoshop, and then projects imagery onto a surface and paints it in.

Mauro Zamora

Many of Zamora’s signature themes are found in this work for Wave Hill — fences, borders, human transgressions on nature and vice versa. The fences reference “geo-political issues” and started appearing in Zamora’s work around the time that the Bush administration proposed a fence between the United States and Mexico. The fences may be metaphor for issues about inclusion, exclusion, and power. These ideas will be reinforced by the way that visitors will be made to walk around the large signpost structure/sculpture in order to get a view of the paintings; in some positions only the backs of the paintings can be seen.

Ideas about nature’s peril and resiliency loom large in these paintings. Is a tree growing around a chain link fence a hopeful statement about nature’s elasticity despite the threats posed by society? Zamora doesn’t take a stance exactly, saying instead that for him the paintings have to do with finding beauty in the “visual aspects of decay.” This idea is an interesting contrast to the setting of Wave Hill, a place that maintains all the ideals of a manicured pleasure garden. It’s as though Zamora will be importing into this Arcadia an abandoned Philadelphia construction site, and forcing a question that has been driving his work: “what else can landscape painting be?”

Evelyn Keyser at her 2003 opening at Gallery Joe, Philadelphia

Keyser carved wood steadily from her late teen years until she was 82 yeas old, when, getting ready for an exhibition, she put down her tools and never picked them up again.  At the time, she was unaware that she was developing Parkinson’s disease.  She describes the cessation of her work as being, “like somebody took a faucet and turned it off.”  Today she speaks movingly about her dedication to sculpture.  “I loved it with a passion.  Why else would you do something so difficult?  I would tell young artists to become a sculptor only if you will die if you don’t do it.  That’s how I felt.”

Various sculptures by Evelyn Keyser

Keyser vividly recalls working in the sculpture studio at Tyler School of Art on her first day and realizing that direct carving, “just felt right.”  When she and her twin sister Elsie Manville graduated, Evelyn took the carving tools and Elsie took the easel.  Manville is now a noted realist painter and Evelyn is an acclaimed sculptor of what she describes as “representational” works.  

Keyser’s parents, who emigrated from the area between Poland and Russia, moved from South Philadelphia to Broad and Olney after she and her sister started at Tyler.  She recalls that her parents, “Didn’t think much of artists, they would have preferred a doctor, a lawyer, or a druggist.  But we promised them we’d get a teaching degree.”  Although she enjoyed painting, there was something more physical and tangible in sculpture, or as she puts it, “painting is an illusion and sculpture is real.”

The brochure for Keyser's 2003 exhibition at Gallery Joe

Keyser's woodworking bench with sculptures; the carved letters which spell "Keep Moving" were the last works she made

Many of Keyser’s public commissions were in conjunction with building projects by the architect Norman Rice, whom she remembers fondly as a “truly brilliant” man.  See the Moon, 1964, was cast in bronze and sits outside of the Free Library at Broad and Morris streets.  A massive work, it shows a mother and child looking up to the sky in a shared reverie.  She began exploring the theme of mothers and children after her daughter was born in the late 1940s; she also has a son.  Another important work, The Reading Bench, shows a mother reading to a child and is in the Kathryn Drexel branch of the Free Library.  Made of teak, Keyser describes the ease and joy of this project as though it was, “like putting a penny in the slot machine and having all the marbles fall out.”  Occasionally Keyser visited this sculpture to see how the wood aged because “wood gets prettier and prettier as it gets older.”  Her favorite wood is Honduras Mahogany, “the hardest of the soft woods.”

One of Evelyn Keyser's cats

Keyser was married for twenty-nine years to a fellow artist, the painter Gerson Keyser, who she says, “supported us with his golden right hand.”  She notes that “only one year did I earn more than he did.”  The Keysers commissioned Norman Rice to build their house, which is a noted example of mid-century modern building in Philadelphia. Keyser describes Philadelphia in the 1960s, 70s and 80s as a great place to make a life as an artist: “Exhibits were open to artists every year at PAFA and the Whitney, it was a very lively arts community, Ed Sozanski stared writing and he was very critical, the 17^th street galleries were important, the Woodmere became a museum.  There were opportunities.  We couldn’t do it now.”  She describes her family life with “Gus” in a deeply moving way and with great love.  “We were two artists, we were working comrades, we were lovers.  You have to be careful because eventually all artists compete.  Marriage is work, and if you are two artists you have to work even harder.” 

When asked what it was like to be a woman in the decidedly man’s world of direct carving, she says that she “felt lucky, even though the world of commissions is also a man’s world.”  Keyser found one way to circumvent some of this discrimination by always signing her work and professional correspondence with her first initial only, hiding her gendered first name.   

Evelyn Keyser, Silent Friend, sugar pine, 2002 (left); Afternoon Walk, walnut and yellow pine, 2002 (right)

Keyser graduated from art school during a time when wood carving in the United States was thriving. The work of William Zorach and Elie Nadelman secured this popularity.  Keyser, however, cites Ossip Zadkine as an “inspiring” influence.  She also liked the early work of Henry Moore for a while.  Her own work is representational, but simplified.  It’s abstracted in the way that Etruscan or Egyptian sculpture is — broadly descriptive but with great economy, like poetry.  Late in life Keyser started carving cats, and the wood she chose to do so suggests their soft fur.  She is fond of work that hangs on the wall, free from the traditional relief support, or work that can sit, unaided, on the edge of a shelf.  The contemporary sculptors she admires include Arlene Love and Steven Robin.  Much of her work reflects family life – mothers and children, couples and family groups.  She notes that she particularly liked to carve twosomes, saying that “the reason for that is obvious.” 

Evelyn Keyser, Albert and Victoria, 1968, made from one half of a pine tree crown

Keyser now lives in an apartment in Rydal, PA surrounded by some of her work, pictures of her great-grandchildren, and her magnificent carving bench on which she produced over three-hundred sculptures.  She exhibited with Gallery Joe until 2003, and in 1985, the Woodmere Art Museum had a fifteen-year retrospective of her work.

Joseph Hu and Mauro Zamora at Vox Populi, installation view

  Hundreds of Hu’s hand-cut, hand-painted leaves are piled on the gallery floor as though a gust of wind brought them here. On the wall above are the naked, cardboard branches of trees from which these leaves have fallen. As with all of Hu’s recent sculptural works, there is the sense of wonder about the careful and time-consuming creation of these items. While it must be crazy-making at times to cut all these leaves, the abundant and beautiful, great pile of them suggests a committed kind of love and quiet meditation. They do propose a reverie, as the title to this exhibition suggests, and I can imagine the forest walk that would result in this scene. They also suggest animation because leaves can so easily be carried by the wind, and so they could also end up stuck in the corners and edges of the chain link fence that make up Zamora’s painting/installation on the adjacent wall.

Joseph Hu, Forest Reverie, 2009, hand-cut, hand-painted leaves, detail

Titled “Restricted,” this work by Zamora is a continuation of both his wall paintings and his use of a fence as subject matter. It’s more unclear in this example if the fence is meant to keep us out or in. The fence is doubled here because it’s painted on the wall but it is also projected as part of a projected landscape setting that seems to be behind the fence, but could also be in front. Standing close to the work, backlit by the projected light, the viewer’s silhouette is part of the scene; silhouettes, of course, being a touchstone in Zamora’s work. We’re making a Mauro Zamora painting while we look at this.

Mauro Zamora, Restricted, 2009, video and latex

  This is a quiet, small installation. It requires some time spent with it, and the willingness to dream about it, to engage in the reverie. The title of the show is taken from Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “Forest Reverie,” which is so ambiguous that it’s hard to tell if it is about the destruction of nature, the delights of nature, or both. This is a good metaphor for these works because they could be read both ways, too. Hu’s leaves are glowing with gorgeous fall colors, but leaves decay. Zamora’s fence suggests limits and exclusion but could also offer protection.

Mauro Zamora, Like the Glaciers..., 2009, acrylic, latex, ink on canvas

The two paintings by Zamora included here are less ambiguous. As is typical of his work, we see a natural setting – trees and hills – interrupted forcefully by human-made architectural elements, in this case pipes, some of which leak brown fluid onto the ground. There is no getting around it, these are political works that show us how thoughtless and dangerous our intrusions in nature can be. The thin line that we walk is made obvious: we can’t deny our Romantic desire for landscape and nature, but this desire seems too often to hit up against the ubiquitous fences that we’ve erected. This is a great month to visit Vox. Stefan Abrams, Charles Hobbs, the great Roxana Perez-Mendez, and Dana Levy are also showing work. All this will be on view through May 31.

Mauro Zamora, Reformer, 2009, acrylic and latex on canvas

entry to "Housing Project", Candy Depew's current installation at the Deisgn Center, Philadelphia University

The rest of the show offers the luxuriant comforts of printed pillows and fabrics, and rich jewel encrusted sculptures.  A diamond, fish, and swirl pattern of cut vinyl decorates the walls and is repeated on these printed fabrics and on the beautiful, old-fashioned looking dresses designed by Depew that are included here. 

Computer-cut vinyl wall mural and printed silk headboard, Detail, from the "Crystal Cave Bedroom," the first room in Depew's installation

In these belt-tightened times, these layered, repeating, and shiny decorations form a lush oasis.
 

Depew's dress (right)

A great thing about seeing shows at the Design Center is getting to see how an artist interacts with the Center’s amazing collection of textiles and costumes.  Depew’s solutions are enchanting. 

Depew's "Speak Easy Salon," the final room in the installation

In the final room, mannequins in Depew’s dresses are grouped in conversation with others wearing dresses from the collection.  The conversation among the “women” in this “speak-easy salon” is one about a contemporary artist taking on the history here.  Depew recreates the feel of historical garments with bustles, flounces, and capes.
 

Depew's "Opium Den cum Library," in the "Housing Project" installation at the Design Center

There’s a lot of softness in Depew’s installation: ball gowns, pillows, extra-long quilts, billowing fabrics, and arabesque swirls.  All of it softens the hard-edged aesthetic of this mid-century modern house that the Design Center calls home, and reinforces the allure of some suggested leisurely respite.  Here and there are sparkly, intricate, confectionary sculptures that catch your eye and draw you in.   
 

Miriam Schapiro and Sherry Brody, Dollhouse, 1972

My favorite room in the show is the Opium den, which immediately made me think of Miriam Schapiro’s Seraglio room from her Dollhouse, and also of Matisse’s exotic interiors.  The room is festooned with airy fabrics and hung all around with antique paisley shawls.  Depew’s shimmering pillows printed with the diamond and fish motif cover the floor, and a large, modern chaise lounge awaits an Odalisque.  Schapiro’s Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s countered Minimalism with elaborate, layered ornamentation.  In these spare and stripped-down times, Depew’s interiors may suggest something similar: a refuge of riches can be found in art, if not in real life. 
 
 

Henri Matisse, Odalisque in Red Trousers, c.1924

After seeing Depew’s “Housing Project” show at the Design Center I had the occasion to go to Park Towne Place apartments and was surprised to see the same, computer-cut vinyl fish and diamond wall murals in the lobby.  It turns out that Park Towne Place has installed the work of several local artists in their new lobby spaces. 

Libbie Soffer, Unmending, at Park Towne Place apartments

Curated by Jocelyn Firth and Rachel Zimmerman, the new lobbies now house the work of: Ian Baguskus, Candy Depew, Kate Kaman, Mark Khaisman, Craig Matthews, Leslie Mutchler, Leah Reynolds, Libbie Soffer, Shelley Spector, and Sarah Zwerling.  Usually, apartment building lobbies are decorated with predictable framed art.  But here, it’s a joy to see the work of local artists interacting with the marble, tile, and glass spaces.  The art here seems to enliven and rouse the lobbies, not just decorate them.   

Kate Kaman's sculpture, "Datura," hangs from the ceiling: Mark Khaisman's "Tape Pattern 9," is on the rear wall

The installations are not fully complete; Shelley Spector’s work will be installed in the spring, for example.  Zimmerman noted that having some new art on the Parkway “relates to both the museums and to the contemporary art scene of the city which is good for the large population of students who live in Park Towne Place.”  Luckily, most of the project was paid for before budget cuts at the apartments stopped the inclusion of a sculpture garden which was part of the original vision.  Sometime in May, the curators hope to organize an opening and a talk in order to engage residents and the public.  Stay tuned.