TreeMendous Makes a Debut

TreeMendous, our exhibition of projects by our studio residents, opened December 4 at the Carriage House and will be on view until January 6, 2012. Be sure to see these amazing works.

Las Hermanas Iglesias   Glitter Grenade

Ken Butler plays his Urban Piano, an interactive sound and light installation

Hong Seon Jang's Parasite was made of thousands of kitchen matchsticks

Gisela Insuaste   Overgrowth   A theme and variations becomes a room-sized sculpture

Alessandra Exposito   Untitled

Noah Klersfeld  A still from a video form his Chain Series: scenes along Canal Street

Sara Kinsey's Frozen in Time contained ice sculptures and reflected on global warming

Meeting and Greeting Our Old Friends

CARRIAGE HOUSE RESIDENTS AT THE OMNI GALLERY

Artists who were recent Studio Residents at the Carriage House were included in a group exhibit at the Omni Gallery in Uniondale, NY. The exhibit was curated by our Carriage House director Jason Paradis and hosted through the generosity of Omni Gallery director, Dawn Lee. Jonathan Ehrenberg, Emily Noelle Lambert, Yeon Jin Kim, Graham McNamara and Rob Swainston contributed installations, drawings and prints.We were glad to see new work that arose from ideas developed in our Carriage House "incubator" at their reception last Sunday.

Videos from Johnathan Ehrenberg

Moon Moth, a still from Ehrenberg's video

Still from an Ehrenberg video, included in recent Islip Art Museum exhibit

Emily Noelle Lambert's Installation

Emily Noelle Lambert and her installation at the Omni Gallery, made of scraps of some discarded paintings

Emily's studio at the Carriage House during her residency

Emiily's installation in her Carriage House studio

Rob Swainston's Installation at Omni

Rob Swainston at the Omni in front of his installation

Rob's Carriage House studio space. He experimented with reflecting mirrors.

Graham McNamara presented new work at Omni

Graham McNamara's new work is based on Carriage House experiments with wood and resin.

McNamara's recent series deals with mapping

Yeon Jin Kim installed a wall of drawings, many created at the Carriage House

Yeon Jin Kim's and her wall of drawings at the Omni Gallery

Yeon experimented with abstract and fantasy modes, and used drawing as a base for her videos.

Work from the Studio: Sarah Hardesty

BETWEEN THE REAL AND IMAGINED

Sara Hardesty continued her exploration of assemblage fusing drawings and mixed media

During her Studio Residency, Sarah experimented with three-dimensional sculptures that protruded from walls or hung from the ceiling as mobiles. She made a new body of drawings and paintings that explored several themes she has worked on in the past, including images containing drawings of birds trapped in actual string affixed to her canvas, and abstractions based on string and wood constructions.

Sarah Hardesty: abstractions and constructions.

Work from the Studio: Diana Shpungin

MEMORY AND MEMORIALIZING

Diana Shpungin memorializes memory and loss in her drawings and sculptures. Her new body of work includes sculptures that are overlaid with polished graphite, mirror-like in their perfect finish. The pieces are often "repaired" with bandage wrappings, glue and string, then presented in off-kiltter ways that make familiar objects seem strange and puzzling.

In Diana''s unfinished chair sculpture, the left side has been rewoven in paper, the chair leg repaired with bandages and glue. The chair appears precarious and unstable.

Work from the Studio: Ellie Irons

INTERVENTIONS IN NATURE

Yellow Vines in the Carriage House Park

Unexpected composition: Our yellow ladder with Ellie's yellow vine

Ellie Irons creates a variety of work, including installations that are based on her interventions and subtle additions to the natural world around her. During her Studio Residency, she fashioned a bright yellow vine from debris left by Hurricane Irene in the park at Brookwood Hall--where the Carriage House is located. She then attached the vine to an existing tree near our lake and photographed the process. Although the lake paths are heavily traveled, few visitors studied their environment close enough to notice the strange addition--the point of the work.

Ellie filming her installation

Ellie described her experience, posted an account to her blog and took some stunning photographs while she was in residence. Take a look  and enjoy.

Her blog post:

http://blog.ellieirons.com/post/12099193141/carriage-house-in-process

Her photographs:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eirons/sets/72157627882857487/

And here's what she wrote:

"I've never explored a small, suburban patch of wilderness with the same attention to detail I would use in a larger, more expansive "truer" wilderness. Proximity to the patchwork of small parks and forested lands in suburban Long Island has allowed me to develop a very specific relationship to these isolated patches of forest...watching the changing of the seasons, and working in direct relationship to those changing has been really valuable."

"I've further developed my concept of working "site-responsively" during this stay (as opposed to "site-specifically"). I've heard the term "site-specific" a few times before, and found it compelling. My time in Islip has demonstrated to me that this descriptor really does fit the way I work. I came to the Carriage House with a plan to work in the studio space creating a large-scale evolving sculptural piece that I would film over time for a video project. I ended up doing just that, but my large-scale changing sculpture became the forest outside my door, rather than what I built inside. The work I did inside became a direct response to what I found outside in the landscape. The Carriage House grounds are a fascinatingly hybrid place- the interior structure of my studio was totally compelling, with lots of freedom to work directly with the architecture, and the roll up garage-style gate provided the kind of access between interior and exterior that I would love to have in all my workspaces...and direct access to the hybrid landscape outside (suburban park/miniature wildnerness/forgotten forest) was really stimulating for my working style."

"I further developed/honed a theoretical relationship to my work that I've been struggling to pin down over the last year...the chance to integrate my studio process directly with a long term relationship to a local outdoor environment was really unique and invaluable for me."

Meet Our Fall Residents

Carriage House curator Jason Paradis has selected three artists for our Fall residency program. Sarah Hardesty, Ellie Irons and Diana Shpungin will be working in Carriage House studios through October. All are working on different projects, but they share an interest in drawing. Meet them, and follow their progress.


Sarah Hardesty
See her work at: www.sarahhardesty.com

Sarah in her studio

Ellie Irons
See her website and work at: www.ellieirons.com

Ellie in the midst of an installation project

Diane Shpungin
Follow her on her blog: http://dianashpungin.blogspot.com

Diana with her friend

A look at the finished projects by the artists who participated in Site Specifics'11 at the Carriage House from June 4 through July 24.

Jongil Ma   You started winding it up I followed, going around it. Ma's piece is made of strips of balsa wood that are tied together to form an intricate room-sized maze. His technique, which uses few nails, reflects traditional Asian building practices 

Chuyen Huynh   Peek.  Huynh created a space in which viewers feel displaced by false walls, curved surfaces and painted shadows.

Sandra Eula Lee   Seeing Forest and Trees. The artist's installation considers the various ways we experience landscape. Her central element features a common indoor plant surrounded by a sculptural bench inspired by the kind of seating found in urban parks and city streets.

Emily Feinstein   Mothers Pool. Feinstein's installation is based on a pool outside the nursing home in which her mother now resides. The piece is both a tribute and a reflection on mortality.

Olivia Kaufman-Rovira   Grass Beings, Plastic Hives. The artist made this piece of wheat grass, discarded water bottles and an intricate pvc watering system. While it points to current environmental concerns, it also reflects Rovira's optimistic belief in human ingenuity.

Rob Carter    CIRCVLVS.  Carter's fuses the sound track from Ben Hur with scenes from NASCAR races to reflect on class and politics.

Junko Sugimoto   Islip Spring. The installation is made of thousands of paper cylinders of hand-dyed to reflect the season in which it was created at the Carriage House.

Site Specifics'11 in the Making

Senior curator Karen Shaw has invited 7 artists to create site-specific installations in the rooms of the landmark Carriage House Workspace. Artists included in this exhibit, which opens June 4, are Rob Carter, Emily Feinstein, Chuyen Huynh, Olivia Kaufman-Rovira, Sandra Eula Lee, Jongil Ma and Junko Sugimoto.  Join us for an artists' opening reception on June 4 from 3-6 p.m. and for a closing reception on Sunday, July 24, from 1-4 p.m.

See how our artists are progressing by checking our blog in the next few weeks.

Our Residents Are Here

Our Winter Residents are here and are already working in their studios. The Carriage House Workspace encourages artists to take risks and advance their careers in the arts. Look at their websites to get a sense of what they have been doing in the past. And check our blog for details of their new thinking and new directions as they work in their studios.

Emily Noelle Lambert is working in Studio 1. That's the one with the heat!
See her work at: emilynoellelambert.net

Graham McNamara is in Studio 2. He is creating work that uses materials from the grounds and parks on the Carriage House campus. See his website: http://www.grahammcnamara.com/

Rob Swainston is working in Studio 3. For insight into his work, check his website: www.robswainston.com 

Winter Residents Are Coming!

Our Winter Residents will begin working in the Carriage House studios on February 1. Check the Carriage House blog often for updates on their projects and progress.