Last Supper 2009 Art – Ryan Brennan
Artist: Ryan Brennan
Title: Close Your Eyes and Look As Far as You can See, Chapter 4
Size: 24″ x 39″ x9″
Medium: Cinemallage, Mixed Media
These Collage works are part of a series described as Cinemallage: pieces that are simultaneously the set and viewing platform for stop animation movies. Housed within each collage is a video player displaying chapters of an imaginative tale of a young mans journey through a future utopian fantasy world where he learns how the power of imagination can make a change in the world around him. This story employs the naïve language of fairytale as a vehicle to engage several real issues in today’s society evoking hope and community in a trying time of uncertain future. Following the protagonist through this future utopian world we come across many characters who discuss various concerns we face today such as recession, credit and mortgage crisis, global warming, social inequality, and modern food production. The characters give insight into how they overcame such challenges and offer the power of imagination as a means for hope for a better future.
Bio: Ryan V. Brennan (b. Cincinnati, Ohio 1982) has exhibited internationally (France, Czech) and nationally (Brooklyn, San Francisco, Miami, Richmond). He has shown in LA Art Fair 08/09, Scope Miami and Scope Hamptons 07. He has a forth coming solo shows at Work Gallery, Brooklyn in 09 and at Manic Gallery LA in 10. Ryan Received a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center in 06 and has been featured in a variety of publications (New York Times, Beautiful Decay Magazine, LA, Daily Serving, Web Blog, The Sunday Paper, Atlanta, Biscayne Times, Miami, and Savannah Morning News, Savannah).
Last Supper 2009 Art – Rafael Rosario-Laguna
Artist: Rafael Rosario-Laguna
Title: Gutsy Series and Heart Out of Tripe
Size: Various
Medium: cast resin and tripe
The heads with tripe and the heart made out of tripe are about organs: displaced, rearranged, transformed. The Gutsy series made me think of Mary Magdalene and wonder why was she excluded from the table….? This series is my tribute to her and to those who throughout history have been inexplicably excluded from the table of life.
Bio: Rafael Rosario-Laguna lives on the Lower East Side where he finds the tripe, the eggs (chicken and quail), the cow and duck tongues that he uses to create his work in Brooklyn. He studied painting and sculpture at Escuela de Artes Visuales Lucchetti in San Juan, Puerto Rico and obtained his B.F.A from The Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C.
Last Supper 2009 Art – Sarah Walko, Malado Baldwin
Artist: Sarah Walko, Malado Baldwin
Title: A Very Long House
Size: Drawing/Painting, Sculpture, Installation, Motors
Medium: Variable
The Longhouse Project takes the idea of communal living space as a metaphor for a larger society inhabiting a shared planet. Joseph Campbell wrote that the future myth would not be about the individual or group/society… but instead a planetary family. To demonstrate this idea, our house will expand onto the walls surrounding, through links (wire/string) to wall-mounted canvas and works on paper, text, and objects- signifying the vastness of our shared community. We are creating stories for a new age, acknowledging common visions, shared goals, through this metaphor of shared space. Through the macro/micro relationships of the larger paintings and drawings to the tiny sculptures, text and assemblage, the Longhouse Project is both a calling to look closer, and see larger.
Bio: Sarah Walko was born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. She attained her Master of Fine Arts from Savannah College of Art and Design and her Bachelor of Arts from University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. She is currently the Executive Director of Triangle Arts Association, a non profit arts organization in Brooklyn. She has participated in numerous artists workshops and residency programs and is Art Director, co- writer and so-editor with the independent film collective Santasombra. shown at the International Film Festivals around the world. Her last exhibition took place at 3rd Ward Gallery in Brooklyn, New York. She is currently working on new sculptures, drawings, sound design, and multimedia film projects and has exhibitions coming up in July, August and September of 2009 in Brooklyn, New York.
Malado Baldwin is a New York based painter whose work has been featured recently in Hypothetical Landscapes at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, NY; Boson Exotic, at Rupert Ravens Contemporary, NJ and 35/25: The Painting Center Invitational, NY. Baldwin’s solo exhibitions include shows at the Dumbo Arts Festival (2000) KeyHole Gallery (2005, 2006) and upcoming in a solo show at the National Art Gallery of Namibia (2010). Her work has been reviewed on artcritical.com, art21.com and Esquire Magazine among other publications. A graduate of Swarthmore College (BA, 1997) and The New York Studio School (MFA 2006), Malado Baldwin is the recipient of the Buckingham Prize (2005), the Visual Arts Foundation Grant (2007) and a nominee for the the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award.
Last Supper 2009 Art – Emma Gang
Artist: Emma Gang
Title: Eye Can Sea You, Isle of Capri 2112, 100% Junk = 100% Funk
Size: Various
Medium: Paper cut from magazines, cloth, thread… Capri Sun packages, Whole Foods bags
By using found materials and collage techniques Emma’s garments are both one of a kind and extremely delicate. By making her dresses virtually “unwearable”, her work addresses how fashion is consumed.
Bio: Emma is 14 years old and about to start high school this september. For the past two years she has taken part in the fashion design program at MAT middle school in manhattan where she always pushed herself to make her garments out of found materials.
Last Supper 2009 Art – Chris Smith
Artist: Chris Smith
Title: Road Work Ahead
Size: Various
Medium: painting on old road signs
His latest work entitled “Road Work Ahead” is an ongoing appropriated art series that explores the tension between written and non-verbal communication, utility and fashion. Smith uses discarded road signs as his initial canvas. He then carefully overlays stylized outlines of fashion-forward female figures. Strategically stripping away the paint below to reveal plywood patterns in the wood below or collaging elements on top. The canvas may become skin or clothing…effectively merging and blurring the distinction between object and subject.
Bio: Chris Smith aka “subtexture” is a Brooklyn-based pop-media designer who specializes in developing visual solutions for clients in the fashion, entertainment, and lifestyle industries. He is also an accomplished illustrator and visual artist who utilizes a wide range of media in his work—including: collage, painting, letterpress printing, and digital imaging. He also hosts events that showcase his influences and display the results of his experimentations with materials and other artists.
Last Supper 2009 Art – Mary Jeys
Artist: Brookyn Torch Committee, Mary Jeys
Title: Do You Belong on the Brooklyn Torch?
Size: fits in your wallet!
Medium: Paper and Trust
A local currency is by its nature a communal enterprise. Like the notions espoused by the “Last Supper,” Brooklyn Torch is engaged in bringing residents together in a sense of community and experimentation. Reclaiming our means of exchange is what we’re encouraging, and to infuse the interaction between us all with fun and play.
Bio: Mary Jeys is a multi-media artist and activist. Her work explores regeneration during post-destructive periods as they relate to contemporary culture. Recent projects include a radio project exploring the sounds of the stock market crash airing on Free 103.9 and a campaign-managing performance for John McClane of the Die Hard movies. Her work has been exhibited in New York, New Jersey, Texas and Ireland. She lives and works in Brooklyn.
Last Supper 2009 Art- Kerry Mansfield
Artist: Kerry Mansfield
Title: Self-Portrait project, Aftermath
Size: 12″x72″
Medium: Digital Chromagenic Print
The saying “The ends justify the means” always seemed like a thinly veiled excuse to me. Growing up I heard it used to defend fighting wars and other unsavory political maneuvers. But, a whole new significance came about when I got diagnosed with Breast Cancer at the age of 31. I didn’t feel sick at the time except for the gnawing sensation of anxiety and overwhelming fear. My Oncologist stated very clearly that in order to kill the Cancer they would have to come close to killing me along with it. My body would consume massive amounts of severely toxic substances in the sheer hope that the tumors would be transformed into dead cells. After what I experienced I truly wondered if the “treatment” had been worth the sacrifice of losing my body, my connection to the outside world, and ultimately myself. Three years later I still struggle with the idea of facing another round of treatment if the Cancer comes back. Some days I say “yes” and other days “not on your life.” But today, right now, yes, the means saved my life and transformed me into a different person. Now when I hear the classic phrase applied to the latest fiasco on the morning news I think quietly that the “excuse” worked for me too.
Bio: After getting a degree in photography from UC Berkeley, Kerry studied architecture at California College of the Arts (CCA) before returning to her passion of image making. While her medium of choice is the camera, the spaces created by man-made structures are most often her subject. Combining her two affinities was a natural progression in a seven-year project entitled “Borderline” that explores the boundary between interior and exterior spaces merging in a third plane. In 2005 her “Borderline” series came to a grinding halt due to a diagnosis of Breast Cancer. The battle to recover from the traumas of cancer focused her attentions on the nature of the physical body as a structure. Much like a hurricane ravages the landscape and the places we call home, chemotherapy ravages the body – the most fundamental of “homes”. While issues of survival become paramount, the parallels between the structures we live in and the body we live within become startlingly clear. The resulting series, “Aftermath” chronicles that period in a direct and unflinching approach to the destruction and rebirth from the hurricane of Cancer.
Last Supper 2009 Art- Sam Horine
Artist: Sam Horine
Title: Untitled
Size: (8) 11×14 prints
Medium: Digital Chromagenic Print
These photographs are part of a larger project documenting the New York City waterfront, which was once one of the busiest working waterfronts in the country. As times and economic situations shifted the waterfront and the industrial buildings along it were slowly consumed by weather, water and more recently new development projects.
Bio: Sam Horine is a Photographer based in Brooklyn, NY. He’s a regular explorer of forgotten, abandoned and under-appreciated places. In his spare time he enjoys rooftops, BBQ’s and pets. He’s a frequent contributor to the Village Voice and teaches at NYU’s SCPS. His work has been published The New York Times, NY Magazine, Eater, Frieze, Art Forum, Death & Taxes, Spin, Rolling Stone, AM New York, Il Magazine, Art in America, Impose, The L Magazine and many others. He’s also exhibited in a number of group exhibitions and recently a solo show at Brooklyn’s Garage Gallery. He find’s writing about himself in the 3rd person to be very strange.
Last Supper 2009 Art- Brydee Rood
Artist: Brydee Rood
Title: I am Temporary Temple
Interpretation: Using red LED plastic hose lights and red plastic waste bags. Red is the colour of warning and combines with underlying themes of global warming and climate change. My work encourages people to engage with and declare the phrase “I am Temporary!” to themselves when deciphering the work on the temple floor. The inherent meaning is a reflection upon the relatively short period of time in which we inhabit the earth compared to the forests, the oceans and stars which surround us. The interactive space is a red plastic warning, aglow with the impact of our consumption on resources and our waste on the environment. There are circles and cycles, rings and rims at play in the physical elements of the installation. Somehow the work is both gentle and reflective whilst embodying with complex ideas of hope and light, plastic and waste.
Bio: Growing up in Auckland and attending the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts Brydee graduated in 1999 with Bachelors in the top of the painting section. In 2001 the world was this artist’s oyster and she moved to Japan undertaking what she describes as “my own residency” – living in Japan for 2 years as a registered alien, teaching to support her studio practice and exhibiting locally. In 2003 travelling to Mexico she undertook a similar self initiated program concluding a substantial solo exhibition Fresco at Galeria de Arte Joven, Difocur – Centro Cultural Genaro Estrada, Culiacan before returning to New Zealand and completing a Masters degree in interdisciplinary practice at Elam in 2006.
Last Supper Art 2009 – Quinn Dukes
Artist: Quinn Dukes
Title: The Secrets Spoke
Medium: latex, soil seeds wooden table, 4 chairs, sound piece
The Secrets Spoke stages the modern day dining table as a meeting ground. Inevitably this rectangular wooden
object enforces physical separation and suggests emotional discord. The two opposing sculptures silently exist. The mound of soil, seeds, sprouts and monofilament offer a metaphorical display of conversation between the two. The viewer is invited to join the table and listen to the unnerving tension and subtle commonalities spoken through sound and frequency. It is only until the viewer becomes an active participant, that they can piece together the secrets spoken between the two entities. The Secrets Spoke aligns with the ideals of the “Last Supper” by staging a metaphorical banquet. The viewer is challenged at the dinner table to re-envision their relationship with art through participation.
Bio: Originally from Ohio, Dukes graduated from Watkins College of Art & Design in 2007 with a BFA in Fine Art. In an effort to further expose the community to the visual arts, Dukes aids in forming independent, emerging artist groups in the middle Tennessee state area.Human interactions within forced ecological and social scenarios are often a primary tenet within Dukes’ work. Performance provides a platform in which Dukes’ metaphorical re-interpretations of personal relationships can exist, perish, grow and morph. Dukes currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Last Supper 2009 Art – Satomi Shirai
Artist: Satomi Shirai
Title: New York in my life
Medium: Digital C-Print mounted on Sintra board
I moved to New York from Tokyo, and started semi-immigrant life here 5 years ago. Since then, I have been interested in cultural hybridity, process of assimilation, and transformation of identity in that life, and exploring photographic expression of shift of state of mind or mind-set and of life in the environment of juxtaposed multiple culture and society. With the theme of the Last Supper I would throw a question how people keep their own culture and consume a culture in that environment.
Bio
Satomi is currently working towards her M.F.A. at Hunter College in New York.
Last Supper 2009 Art – Tom Sanford
Artist: Tom Sanford
Title: Recession Special
Size: 24″x36″
Medium: Oil on Paper
Bio
Tom Sanford is a New York-based artist whose work is exhibited around the world. His paintings, which range from historical works of celebrity assassinations to portraits of gangsta rappers and teen pop tarts to elaborate cosmologies weaved together from Hollywood movies, reflect a deep ambivalence about the American cultural condition. Sanford is currently represented in New York by Leo Koenig Inc., in Copenhagen/Beijing by Galleri Faurschou, and in Brussels byGalerie Erna Hecey.
Last Supper 2009 Art – Matthew Thomas
Artist: Matthew Thomas
Title: Overload
Size: 48 X 40 inches
Medium: oil on canvas
Overload is a rebuttal against the psychosocial battle of the African American male. This piece comments on the financially driven tactics of psychological warfare implemented by American Pop Culture. Overload incorporates “Means” by questioning the validity of our society’s needs and wants by deconstructing reheated stereotypes, financial incompetence, emotional bankruptcy, confliction of self-image, and the short-lived comfort of consumption.
Bio:
Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee Matthew Thomas discovered drawing and painting as
early as eight years old. On November 28, 1996, Matthew’s outlook on life completely changed after a near fatal shooting to the head. This event was the catylist toward his career in art. Three days later, he began a series of untitled works that would later receive the American Visions Award, the Gold Award for Painting, and Silver in Printmaking at the National Scholastics Arts and Writing Competition in 1998. He also received exhibition space at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
Last Supper 2009 Art – Robert Steel
Artist: Robert Steel
Title: The Widow
Size: 11” X 14”
Medium: ink pen, graphite, charcoal, acrylic medium
We live in a world where the unequal distribution of wealth causes misery for many people who do not posses the means to live decently. On the other hand people in a position of privilege are encouraged to live excessively and waste resources. The gap between rich and poor gradually increases until the dispossessed are forced to use violence to take back the means of consumption. The rich normally have a monopoly on violence with which they can easily beat back any rebellions. However, greed proves to be fatal. As the empire spreads, it weakens as its resources dwindle. The constant pressure of war, and the rot of corruption corrode the once invincible state until it becomes vulnerable to attack. These drawings are a reflection on what happens when the empire begins to crumble and a new order comes in to take control.
Bio
Born and raised in downtown Washington DC, Robert witnessed extreme contradictions between rich and poor, weak and powerful from an early age. Robert moved to New York in 1998 to escape from what he felt were the narrow confines of a city driven by political greed and hypocrisy. A few years later, on the morning of September 11, 2001, he was working outside at a furniture store in lower Manhattan when the towers fell. This event sparked a curiosity in him that led him to take a deeper look at the forces driving U.S. foreign policies, as well as their relation to unjust domestic policies in American cities. Today, Robert makes work with the hope of raising people’s awareness to the relationship of the powerful and the oppressed, of what is at stake, and how it affects us all.
Last Supper 2009 Art- Tyrome Tripoli
Artist: Tyrome Tripoli
Title: Electrolux Condominiums
Size: 14x14x34 inches
Medium: Found Object Sculpture
A series of work called Found Architecture, this work consists of architectural models made from recycled objects. These abstract buildings, set in a post apocalyptic landscape, render a dismal future for the humans. These sculptures are dioramas that depict not a utopia but a dystopia. Where earth’s resources are almost completely depleted and its surface is covered in waste but most importantly the humans have not gone extinct.
Bio:
At present, Tripoli creates assemblage sculpture from transformed materials and ordinary objects. This new medium was first inspired when Tripoli was selected to participate in an artist in residency program at the San Francisco Refuse and Recycle Center in 2001. Shortly after his residency, he co-founded an international artist exchange exhibition called Vern. This project allows the unique opportunity to travel, make art, show it and share this exchange with artist around the world. For the last four years Tripoli has been touring and exhibiting his work in Europe and the United States. At the present, Tripoli lives in Brooklyn. He spends his time making mixed materials sculpture and architectural metal work.
The Last Supper Film Festival is an indoor-outdoor film, food, music and art festival occuring in Brooklyn during the crux of seasonal change in September. Referencing the celebratory nature of the feast, and the symposium of genres, the festival kindles the creative miasma sparked by NY's peppery fall and inventive community.The last exposure to outdoor interaction before the shearing winter...