See GO Brooklyn's Top 10 Artist Nominees
The Brooklyn Museum's GO Brooklyn event netted an estimated 147,000 studio visits to 1,708 artists over the weekend of September 8 and 9. Over the art-packed weekend (which we documented here), studio explorers nominated their favorite artists, and now we have the top 10 nominees. Surprisingly, none
The Brooklyn Museum’s GO Brooklyn event netted an estimated 147,000 studio visits to 1,708 artists over the weekend of September 8 and 9. Over the art-packed weekend (which we documented here), studio explorers nominated their favorite artists, and now we have the top 10 nominees. Surprisingly, none of the final artists live in Williamsburg or Bushwick, and the majority work in traditional media.
The ten artist names, along with samples of their work, are listed below. Southern Brooklyn seems to be a popular area — rather than the expected Williamsburg or Bushwick studio locations, these artists work in neighborhoods like Fort Greene, Boerum Hill, Prospect Heights, and Red Hook (in fact, GO organizer Shelley Bernstein notes, Bushwick had one of the lowest traffic numbers). Seven of the 10 artists are painters, and only one, Prune Nourry, works in photography and video.
These top ten artists will receive studio visits from Brooklyn Museum curators, who will determine which ones will be featured in the museum’s final exhibition. The final announcement will come on November 15, and the show will open December 1. Check out the nominees below!
Aleksander Betko
Painting and Drawing, Cobble Hill
Painter Aleksander Betko uses photorealism to depict moments of modern life and show the resilience and strength it takes to thrive in a city like New York.
Jonathan Blum
Painting and Printmaking, Park Slope
Jonathan Blum‘s work depicts kooky combinations of animals and objects, like this dog with a chocolate cake on its head. The illustrative style is surreal and fun.
Adrian Coleman
Painting, Fort Greene
Adrian Coleman translates the paradox of the picturesque to the American urban setting. His paintings, like this x-ray of a grocery store, skewer urban life.
Oliver Jeffers
Painting, Illustration, and Drawing, Boerum Hill
Oliver Jeffers‘s figurative paintings probe the gap between “logical thinking and emotional understanding,” visible in this canvas depicting a picturesque ocean strewn with data points.
Kerry Law
ainting, Greenpoint
Painter Kerry Law has created a brushy, painterly series of depictions of the Empire State Building, documenting its changing colors and environments. The result is dreamy.
Prune Nourry
Photography, Video, and Sculpture, Boerum Hill
Prune Nourry works with a variety of digital and physical media, creating interactive sculptures that comment on issues of bioethics. We covered her piece “Holy River,” which critiqued gender selection in India, at the Invisible Dog Art Center.
Eric Pesso
Sculpture, Ditmas Park
Eric Pesso is a sculptor who creates delicate, flowing geometric forms out of wood. His raw material are trees taken from the streets of Brooklyn.
Naomi Safran-Hon
Painting, Prospect Heights
The collages of artist Naomi Safran-Hon look aged and worn, even when newly made. She uses cement and lace to collage photographs she took of Haifa’s Wadi Salib neighborhood in her native Israel, visualizing the political partition of the land. Hyperallergic’s own Jillian Steinhauer covered her work here.
Gabrielle Watson
Painting, Crown Heights
Gabrielle Watson‘s paintings make up a visual diary, depicting friends in everyday settings in order to uncover the non-political black experience.
Yeon Ji Yoo
Mixed Media Sculpture, Red Hook
Yeon Ji Yoo‘s organic sculptures spin fiber and plants into meditations on death, respiration, and decomposition. Her drawings take on similar subject matter, creating small, fantastical landscapes.
