Diana Karpov, "Signal" (Photo courtesy of Mindy Solomon Gallery)
"The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery." Francis Bacon
The Latin phrase Omne Trium Perfectum means everything that is three is perfect, therefore I surmised I can’t go wrong reviewing three galleries. There’s the cyclical birth/life/death triad, and mind/body/soul, or the stages of a woman’s life in maiden/mother/crone. Off I went, fearlessly (sort of) risking the mind numbing world of Miami streets in high season to view these thoughtful shows. Take your finger off the panic button for a minute and get out there on your own terms. I found all choices worthwhile.
I took in exhibitions at the Mindy Solomon Gallery, 848 NW 22nd St., Allapattah, Andrew Reed Gallery, 800 NW 22nd Street, Allapattah, and Miami Dade College's Kendall Campus Art Gallery, SW 109th Court, Miami.
Mindy Solomon’s gallery never falls short on plumbing our deeper selves; symbolism is tightly woven into the topical exhibitions Solomon consistently brings to Miami’s fine art stage. Now through Sunday, Feb. 15 gives you time to visit the diverse 29 artists showing layer upon layer of ideas on the topic of “Fairyland 2, Deeper, Darker.” I posed a few questions to curator, Valerie Hegarty.
Irene Sperber: “Fairyland 2, Deeper, Darker" begs the first query: what is the specific link you threaded between Mindy Solomon’s original Fairyland exhibition from 2021, and this exhibition, the shadow side of the first “Fairyland”?
Summer Wheat and Andrew Reed with Summer Wheat's "Catching Thoughts" at the Andrew Reed Gallery. (Photo by Irene Sperber)
Valerie Hegarty: “Mindy had been wanting to do a 'Fairyland 2' show, which she described as a ‘deeper, darker’ version and asked me if I wanted to curate. (In the first show) I had a sculpture of a vase of melting roses included... and to me, the work was very playful, often mischievous, and the palette of many of the works was brightly colored, like candy. I wanted work that although may have humor, had an edge of something harder to digest, maybe uncanny, maybe disturbing, maybe where gorgeous meets grotesque. Many of the artists in the show I have followed for a long time, and some were discovered on Instagram. It’s an eclectic grouping and exciting to see the work in relation to each other.”
IS: Your own work takes the viewer quickly into a deeper side of themselves. It’s a transformative time in the world. Were you in a particular state of mind or did pieces in the show convey the direction by the conglomerate of artists?
VH: “Although my work often references contemporary events, that didn’t influence the tone of the work. I’ve always had a dark sense of humor and a dark side that I can both explore and exorcise in my work. It may have been inherited from my parents, both of whom have a dark sense of humor. Humor also was a way to cope with the scary stories my surgeon Dad would tell about patients’ accidents and injuries. In my work in the show, I was thinking of the artist being like the spider, dismantling an old traditional still life, and weaving a new version of the painting with the threads.”
An Ngoc Pham, "Maiden Birthday Breath" (Photo courtesy of Mindy Solomon Gallery)
IS: Long dark and gray foggy days of winter in New England encourage children to find their own inner means of play, the imagination nurtured by days of eerie fog and unseen qualities of light and darkened moods. Do you think that your background still plays a role in your outlook going forward and into this exhibition?
VH: “I grew up in Massachusetts, but I was born in Vermont and went to college there. We also have a family cabin in Maine on a lake next to a mountain where I spent countless hours as a child playing in the woods and watching storms and fog blow across the water. I do feel very affected by landscape, and I think my work has a very gothic New England vibe, which I’m sure influences my aesthetic as far as work that I feel connected to and moved by. There is a particular color scheme and light quality in New England in the fall and winter that I feel in my bones. I guess with my work going forward, I’m taking myself with me.”
This made me think of the phrase, “wherever we go, there we are.”
What struck me with the work is many different levels of perception below the obvious message... the spirituality, how much more there is to any given scene and moment which is more etherial in nature. Hegarty wrote a compelling synopsis in the exhibition catalogue: “Working in a variety of materials including paint, ceramics, glass, bronze, and mixed media, there are mythical mashups, misbehaving bodies, cautionary tales, morality taunts, feminist remakes, existential wrestling, and new lives birthed with glitches. Sifting through the compost of dark histories and decaying conventions, these artists churn fertile earth to cultivate and bloom a new order-a new Fairyland-Fairyland 2: Deeper, Darker.”
Summer Wheat, "Safety Net" (Photography by Zachary Balber, courtesy of the artist and Andrew Reed Gallery)
I was still chewing on the Solomon Gallery input as I strolled up the street to the Andrew Reed Gallery. Reed has both a Miami and New York City-based venue, working with emerging and mid-career artists. Currently showing artist Summer Wheat in Miami, the show’s description explains the exhibition’s point of view: “‘Safety Net’ suggests a guard rail against catastrophe; a final defense barrier. However, these nets are porous and their contents seem to be flying away or on the verge of escape”
The artist clarifies:“The premise of the show originally came from thinking about a safety net”... “how we are going to need one or need to feel like we had one.”
Pieces are often of butterfly nets and net clothing. Referring to the plethora of butterflies flitting through the large canvas, artist Wheat went on “Everyone has their own idea of what a butterfly means to them but this painting is called ‘Catching Thoughts’, I was thinking about how there are so many different ideas... news media, all kinds of things fluttering around, its hard trying to grab the moment... and women standing on high heeled shoes, trying to grab onto these fleeting thoughts”.
Regina Jestrow explains her work to Irene Sperber (Photo by Frank Casale/courtesy of MDC Gallery)
Not sure about the technique employed, I had to asked: “They are paintings pushed through a wire mesh, an intersection between painting, drawing, sculpture.” Wheat enlightened me. It appeared as a needlepoint effect when up close, a “language of tapestry.” Like life, you have to see it in person to see it properly. Wheat’s “Stuffy Faucet” piece is a discussion on how “a woman controls what can be seen as a threatening predator, but the humorous title implies the snake makes a lousy watering can for her flower.” (BTW: Summer Wheat is her given name. We’re all envious.)
“I was trying to figure out how to sew with paint.” Wheat does not stumble onto her techniques, but finds a creative problem to solve, taking as much as a decade to figure out how to complete a wanted effect. The colorful pictures and garden atmospheres belie a much more complex reality. The official exhibition shares further info: “The show is roughly split in half between a warm day and a cool night color palette. The two halves merge into the painting Cycles.”
Miami Dade College’s Kendall Campus Art Gallery is a hike since Miami is not all within my personal five mile range, though I had to admit sloth is never a good excuse for missing something.
I was rewarded for the effort with an exhibition of “symbolic geometric quilt patterns” curated by Dainy Tapia (of Artseen365) presenting artist Regina Jestrow: “Lots of Little Pieces (aka My Favorite Color is Glitter).”
Using GPS as a guiding light, I arrived safely at my destination, to be met by fiber artistJestrow at the wide and bright MDC gallery on the Kendall campus. She generously walked me through the visual culmination of her complex thoughts and ideas. At each show in this triad, I saw in person what I could not see by staring at a flat image on the page. Big difference. The PR explains MDC’s show as “the tacky-luxe aesthetic, which prominently features in Jestrow’s family home in Queens, New York, and continues to influence her artistic practice in Miami.” Her work comes from a vast a pool of layered individuality. Jestrow explains how master craftspeople from recognized country influence such as Gee’s Bend quilters is also a factor. Gee’s Bend Alabama is a long way esthetically and literally from Queens, New York, but none the less, the diverse information has a fluid base of input.
The exhibition (Photo by Frank Casale/courtesy of MDC Gallery)
How do you feel about gallery spaces off the central grid such as this MDC Kendall campus, I asked, realizing many artists live elsewhere because of the more reasonable living conditions and breathing spaces. Jestrow shared her thoughts: “There is plenty of traffic from the large art department on the MDC site as well as the plus of this open space with high ceilings, not easy to find.” MDC exhibition openings are always generously attended.
The technique: I find the method of process is a big draw (pardon the pun). Jestrow took me through her many fabrics used in this exhibition, where they came from, reminding her of the journey to a finished piece.
She explained her use of cloths cut into strips and sewn together quilt style. She utilizes dye on many of the fabrics but with a twist: “I use ice which causes all of this action. With dye and ice all the particles move in different direction even with only two dyes”, the artist tells me.
I peer closely and sure enough, my simple tie-dye techniques from decades ago are woefully inadequate to the complex dye movement on these strips, colors pop out from various chemical interaction. The edges of each large finished piece are not evened into a perfect square; shapes and gaps are exposed as Jestrow uses up each fabric swatch she has chosen until all of it is incorporated into the one piece. She eschews preconceived boundaries or waste.
Jestrow also utilizes various inks. One influential quilter out of San Diego (now passed), the heavily symbolic works of Rosie lee Thomkins, wormed their way into Jestrow’s consciousness. I was not familiar with Thomkins, but that’s the fun of a gallery visit... doors open one by one to new vistas, you now have an interesting direction for your mind to travel when it’s off leash .
So many ways to branch out to express oneself... it underlines the fact that we are in charge of our own parameters.
Mindy Solomon Gallery “Fairyland 2: Deeper Darker” through Sunday, Feb. 15.
848 NW 22 Street Miami, 33127
11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday or by appointment.
by appointmentAndrew Reed Gallery “Safety Net” exhibition showing through Saturday, Feb. 15
800 NW 22nd Street, Miami, FL 33127
11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday through SaturdayMDC Kendall Campus Art Gallery “Lots of Little Pieces (aka My Favorite color is Glitter)” exhibition through Thursday, Feb. 6.,
11011 SW 104th St. Miami, FL 33176
Gallery hours (except on holidays): noon to 7:30 p.m., Monday and Wednesday; 9 a.m. to noon and 5 to 7:30 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday; 3:30 to 7:30 p.m., Friday; noon to 4 p.m., Saturday.
