The Fall Begins with Gowanus Open Studios!
Alot of experimentation has taken place this year!
My Studio will show compilation of past work, where I am today, and how my studio production will progress onwards.
I started the year producing a variety of rudimentary forms out of brown wax, which will eventually be part of a bronze pour. Years back, a friend gave me the wax prompted me to do something with it. It was a challenge to come up with a form that satisfied me to become a solid. When asked, I replied, “I am not loyal to any one form”. This was the first time I admitted it openly.
I started with what I did value, which are measuring instruments. I chose to make three rudimentary measuring sticks; one end has an upward hook, and the other end has a lifted donut on the other end. It oddly took effort to figure out the angle of these end details. I found it oddly blissful to connect these sticks into an equidistant triangle.
Measuring Stick, 2026
Close up of a single Measuring Stick (in wax), 2026
Three Measuring Sticks, 2026
interconnected measuring sticks. into equilateral triangle (in wax), 2026
From there I decided to produce some basic forms like a square, a sphere that became a ganache like love seat. It continued on until I took a turn to become more pictorial and representational in my imagined forms. Pointy mounds that look like jacks. Another pointed mound covered with deep line carvings. A drawing of a trap door that leads to somewhere unknown. After realized into wax, letters “A” and “OMEGA” (as in “Ω”) are added on top.
Trap Door with wedged ground elevation, 2026
Trap Door with wedged ground elevation (drawing), 2026
Trap Door, 2026
Trap Door (in wax), 2026
Cumulonimbus Cloud (profile a), 2026
Cumulonimbus Cloud (profile a in wax), 2026
Cumulonimbus Cloud, (profile d), 2026
Cumulonimbus Cloud, (profile d in wax), 2026
Two Residencies in June
The first one was a get away visit with old friends in a farm in Oregonia, Ohio (somewhere between Dayton and Cincinnati). While there, I recorded the sunrise, sounds of birds, cows, cars driving by, and unidentified beings that burrow themselves underground.
The second one, was Mount Sequoya in Fayetteville, Arkansas; a former camp for Methodists has been an artists enclave for decades. This new residency program that simply provides ones needs with an unpretentious vibe. There were only twelve residents from the US and a couple of folks from abroad, and highly interdisciplinary. There, I continued to do field recordings of water, fields, birds, rain, people, and the local gay pride events. We visited Crystal Bridges and some of the local artists affiliated. with Mount Sequoya. I managed to complete some works on paper, and videos from the field recordings. The collage, “Just Add Vowels” was included in a local zine called Ozark Story Telling” published by Kudzu books. They are a terrific gem of a publishing portal that I recommend something unique. The graphite drawing, “Morning in Fayetteville” has drawn inspiration straight from one of the field recordings I pulled straight from my bedroom window. After I recorded a sunrise Fayetteville I included this material in a compilation of three distinct remote locations of sunrises with Psarades/Prespa Lake in Western Macedonia, Greece and Oregonia, Ohio. This piece is simply called “Sunrise”.
Just Add Vowels, 2026
Just Add Vowels, 2026
Ambient Early Morning, Fayetteville, AK-2026
Ambient Early Morning, Fayetteville, (Arkansas) 2026
This new direction of field recordings is my foray into ecology and the effects of climate crisis. My approach to nature has been mediated since I’ve been an urban dweller my entire life. Its the very clutter in our lives that tell us about our relationship to the climate crisis. In response, I make whatever comes to mind, to see where my gesture and moments of discovery take me. For “Fayetteville Water Hole I-III”, I found myself producing simple editing techniques to switch out the sound recording under water, and super impose it with the water above ground, to see if people notice a difference in the sound. To my surprise, most people do not notice or care. It is such a subtle difference in tandem to the sound changes I found myself manipulating the imagery and. Our visual relationship to it as viewers.
There is a naive awkwardness that I sense through all of the work I’ve made this year. The representational forms are out of the process of interacting with the material at hand, and the random decisions that lead to the outcome in each piece. In the case of the wax, its how to build the form and the texture. With my interoperation of sound to gesture and the use of the graphite to the page is building forming a different way. Collage assembly is all visual and interpretive poetry.
Collective Participations
My work was included in the Pierogi Flat Files Exhibition at Mana Contemporary in collaboration with the Monira Foundation.
Near the end of the summer, I was invited to participate in a performance series by Daniel Rothbart at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island called “Meditation I Mediation”. I cantered while striking an aluminum bowl around a seated audience around the shore of a pond that featured his floating sculptures, he called “sirens”. My chants were a combination of vowel sounds and vocals composed by Joseph Beuys.
I just sent off two embroidery works to a show in Melbourne, Australia in part of The Dowry Project. My work for the Dowry Project is paradoxical to the ornate designs women traditionally made for their future homes. Over industrially manufactured crocheted cloths, I hand embroidered short messages in Greek, “Enlighten, Emancipate, Empower”, colored symbolically in red for blood and “Overcome the Coercion” in aubergine for black olives. The sewn over words warn for what lies ahead, and provide direction on how to respond to arranged marriage. The overall message conveys chance and narrow passages of uncertainty.
1. Enlighten, Emancipate, Empower: Διαφωτίστε, Απελευθερώστε, Ενδυναμώστε
2: Overcome the Coercion: Ξεπεράστε τον Καταναγκασμός
Both artworks measure out to be 12 x 15 1/2 inches each (conversion: 30.48 cm x 39.37 cm) and were completed in 2026.
