Steven Spazuk: KIN by adelsongalleries

NEW YORK EXHIBITION

October 5 through November 10, 2023

ADELSON GALLERIES

New York

The Fuller Building

595 Madison Avenue, 4th floor

New York, NY 10022

(212) 439-6800

Palm Beach

318 Worth Avenue

Palm Beach, FL 33480 (561) 720-2079

info@adelsongalleries.com

Texts: Amanda Deckelbaum, Danielle Delhaes, Adam Adelson

Design: Steven Spazuk, Georgia Adelson

Photography: Steven Spazuk, Oliver Bernardi (p.1, 2, 8, 9, 25, 26, 27, 36, 37)

Cover image: Butterfly, 2022, Soot, watercolor and gold leaf on panel, 36 inches diameter

« My art is based on a sustained exploration of new dimensions and applications of the technique of “fumage,” that is, painting with fire. The focus of my subjects, projects and collections is the relationships between humans and the natural world. My work explores the current reality of the climate crisis and the Anthropocene through lenses that highlight the ambivalence of humanity. This duality of human nature is reflected in the medium of fire, and carbon as soot, both of which hold the power to nurture or destroy life. »

--- Steven Spazuk

Adelson Galleries is delighted to introduce the newest collection of work by Steven Spazuk. Representing Spazuk since 2017 and having hosted three solo exhibitions, the gallery proudly presents his creations for the first time in our New York location.

The artworks within this series convey a thoughtful message and showcase his distinctive medium: fumage. Through the careful application of fire to gessoed boards, the artist utilizes residual black carbon soot as pigment, skillfully transforming it into remarkably realistic figures. In this latest series titled “KIN,” Spazuk seamlessly merges animal forms with human silhouettes and vice versa. This gentle interplay serves as a subtle reminder of the delicate bonds between humanity and the natural world. We invite all to explore the diverse range of species depicted in these works and to contemplate their personal connection with Nature.

Adam Adelson Executive Director Adelson Galleries

KIN

KIN is belonging– a re-membrance. If we reframe the word (remember) away from the verb’s direct meaning “to recall,” we can play with its definition. We can begin to view it as implying both an acknowledgement of fragmentation and also an element of action and hope. To literally put back together; to re-member. In this new understanding of the word, we choose to reconnect, to reassemble what is already entirely, naturally unified and interconnected, and has been merely forgotten. Belonging is found only once we reunite with our wholeness, our eco-systems and our networks; we actualize our KINship with all life when we re-member.

KIN is a collection of 40 works of art, integrated symbols of both humans and more-than-human beings. The series explores the fallacy that we are in relationship to nature. We are, in fact, non-dualistically an integral part of nature. Once we understand the mistruth of separation, we can engage in connection.

In this series, Spazuk explores how we can express our integral interrelationality and commonality with the web of life. How there is no separation between us and the rest. The inherent interconnection and permeability of subjects in his work with their environments and fellow species exemplifies the relationality between all things. Just as our breath is a flow of invisible oxygen alchemised by the trees and plants into our lungs and back out as a gift of carbon dioxide, the vital source of life for all flora, we are living in a continuous and abundant cycle of reciprocity. In other words, there are no boundaries between ourselves and all living systems.

As human beings, we are plagued by a strange amnesia; one that enables us to destroy our environments, our sustenance, and our other selves. Spazuk’s previous series, FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!, investigated the urgency of the climate crisis and the need for immediate action. Here, the artist responds to the deeper truth behind the fear of destruction: our innate connection to the Earth.

In his eco-poetic gesture, the artist renders his subjects using imprints of their own bodies along with natural materials such as bird feathers, flowers, and other plant matter – an animistic-inspired approach to art making. An ode to the continual cycle of life and creation.

KIN is an antidote for “species loneliness.” This collection is a reunion, a celebration of our global, more-than-human and human tribes. When we begin to acknowledge our wholeness, we can mend the pain caused by our severance. KIN is an invitation to heal, to remember that we are greater as a whole than as the sum of our parts. Being united is our only option.

– Amanda Deckelbaum

8 Butterfly, detail

Butterfly, 2022 Soot, watercolor and gold leaf on panel 36 inches diameter

10 Crows, detail

Crows, 2022 Soot and gold leaf on panel 36 x 36 x 4 inches

12 Buzzard, detail

Buzzard, 2023

Soot and gold leaf on panel 60 inches diameter

Harpy Eagle, 2022 Soot, watercolor and gold leaf on panel 11 x 14 inches

African Penguin, 2022 Soot, watercolor and gold leaf on panel 12 x 9 inches

Apple Blossoms, 2022 Soot, watercolor and gold leaf on panel 11 x 14 inches

Woodpecker, 2022 Soot, watercolor and gold leaf on panel 10 x 8 inches

Danielle, the love of my life, embodies and expresses the notion of kinship through her spectacular gardens. Her caring hands and heart make the Earth come to life in an infinite and generous array of shapes, colors, scents and patterns. Every plant, every blossom, every fruit that emerges and cycles through the seasons is a flourishing microcosmos of the entire living system under her care. An infinite mosaic of organic textures, her gardens are alive through the seasons as she lets Nature take its course, and willingly becomes one with its flow. She takes her cues from the plants, the insects, the birds, the fungi, the rain, the sun… She dances with Nature. She honors her kinship with the living Earth and her belonging to a world of relations.

Actual size detail

Le Jardin de Danielle, 2022

Flower imprints in soot on paper mounted on panel 70 x 70 inches

Corn Woman, 2022 Soot, black acrylic and gold leaf on panel 20 x 16 inches

Bobolink, 2022

Soot, watercolor and gold leaf on panel 10 x 8 inches

22 Tiger, detail

Tiger, 2022 Soot and gold leaf on panel 36 x 36 inches

Hummingbirds, detail

26 Hummingbirds, detail

Hummingbirds, 2023 Soot and gold leaf on panel 48 x 48 inches

28 Biophilia (Fox), detail

Biophilia (Fox), 2018 Soot and acrylic on panel 60 inches diameter

King Penguins, 2023 Soot and gold leaf on panel 16 x 12 inches

Polar Bear, 2023 Soot and gold leaf on panel 12 x 12 inches

Hare, 2022

Soot and gold leaf on panel 12 x 9 inches

Crow, 2022

Soot and gold leaf on panel 9 x 12 inches

Chickadees, 2022 Soot, watercolor and gold leaf on panel 20 x 16 inches

Robins, 2022 Soot, watercolor and gold leaf on panel 14 x 11 inches

Weaver and Butterfly, 2022 Soot, watercolor and gold leaf on panel 36 inches diameter

37 Weaver and Butterfly, detail

Danielle 8, 2023

1,280 pins, Soot imprints and gold leaf on paper 20 x 16 inches

41 Danielle 8, detail

Juncos, 2023

Soot and gold leaf on panel 14 x 11 inches

Love-birds, 2023 Soot and gold leaf on panel 10 x 8 inches

Grey Parot, 2023 Soot and gold leaf on panel 12 x 9 inches

Robinson Jeffers was an american ecopoet, an advocate of the beauty of nature, whom many consider an early proponent of the environmental movement. His poems and ideas called for humans to shift away from self-centeredness and to recognize “trans-human magnificence”. He put forth a vision of the world in which human experience is productively questioned, qualified, and even decentered in an acknowledgement of our belonging to an exquisitely complex and beautiful web of life.