Installation view of ‘Mediums’ at Calico in Greenpoint. At left: Markus Stevenson Weaver, “Lineal” (2015), HD video; at right: Chrissy Angliker, “Sand and Water” (2015), acrylic, ink, house paint, on canvas (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)
Eight artists spent time in psychic sessions with a medium before evoking their experiences in paintings dripping with texture, a video of a morphing eye, and a curious dollhouse. Mediums, on view at Calico gallery in Greenpoint through Friday, plays on its theme both in terms of the diversity of the artists’ mystic experiences and their chosen media (or mediums, if you mangle your Latin).
‘Mediums’ at Calico gallery
Scott Chasse, Calico founder and director, explained to Hyperallergic that the artists in the show range from skeptics to those who were completely engaged with the psychic investigations into their lives, and that all of them either finished work that was in limbo or created new pieces through the process. Viewers don’t have the details on what the time they spent with medium and spiritual adviser Hank Hivnor was like, just the results as curated by Michael Hambouz. Arranged thoughtfully in the small gallery space, each work hints at something transcendental without revealing its inspiration.
Christina Carrozza’s fabric and thread pieces depict an aerial view of a home in flames and a cat batting at construction blocks in the waves, while nearby black glass ambrotypes by Ebru Yildiz and Mitchell King show disjointed portraits that you can only see straight on. The strongest work seems attached to the most intense experiences, like Chrissy Angliker’s paintings that ooze with layered house paint and Markus Stevenson Weaver‘s oddly mesmerizing video of a gaping eye shrouded in blue. What works like Chantel Foretich’s dollhouse with its typewriter in place of an elevator, Sara Marie Miller’s prints of color-drenched shapes, or David Melrose’s kaleidoscopic ink drawings capture about the artists’ sessions with Hivnor is obscure, but the surreal touches and abstract forms hint at the metaphysical.
Christina Carrozza, “Up in Flames” and “The Afterlife: Nine Lives” (2015), fabric and thread
David Melrose, “Part 1” and “Part 2” (2015), ink on paper
Chantel Foretich, “Cheever’s Commute, 1953–55” (2015), mixed media
Ambrotypes on black glass in wooden frame by Ebru Yildiz and Mitchell King (2015)
Chrissy Angliker, “Bodies of Water” (2015), acrylic, ink, house paint, on canvas
Handprinted relief monoprints by Sara Marie Miller (2015)
‘Mediums’ at Calico gallery
Mediums continues at Calico (67 West Street, Suite #203, Greenpoint, Brooklyn) through March 27.
Brilliant !!!