Lyrical Narratives and Abstraction | November 24 – December 15, 2020

November 24 – December 15, 2020 Reception: Thursday, December 3, 2020 6-8 PM 530 West 25th Street, New York, NY

Lyrical Narratives and Abstraction is compilation of the selected artworks of twelve of Agora’s represented and talented artists. The styles of Johan van der Spuy, Denel-KK (Kristen Keeling), Rebecca Stenn, Tyler Santangelo, Evelyna Helmer, Cristian Freepard, Rody (Rodica Iliescu), Kazusa Matsuyama, Orianna Montenegro, Pauli Zmolek, Ernest Compta Llinas, and Manolo Ferrer come together to beget a discernible display for viewers. Subject matter ranges from depictions of natural landscapes to abstracted portraits to expressive sculptures. Much of the content displayed in this exhibition accentuates the narratives of the artists as influenced by their physical, emotional, and spiritual environments and surroundings.

Through the visual narratives expressed in each artist’s collective body of work, they capture how many of them have moved between styles through their personal experiences. Many of our showcased artists fuse narrative modes from their other interests and passions including poetry, literature, film, dance, and music. This amalgamation and accumulation of talent generates a unique and personalized reality for individuals to view and explore.

Lyrical Narratives and Abstraction Manolo Ferrer Cristian Freepard Evelyna Helmer Denel-KK (Kristen Keeling) Ernest Compta Llinàs Kazusa Matsuyama Orianna Montenegro Rody Tyler Santangelo Rebecca Stenn Johan van der Spuy Pauli Zmolek

Manolo Ferrer Manolo Ferrer, Spanish-born and currently residing in Andorra, is an artist who has been working in the world of stained glass for 15 years.

Utilizing the leaded and Tiffany techniques in his pieces, Ferrer, a master of the light box, first paints the intended picture in watercolor and then translates the design using both transparent and colored glass. He is mostly inspired by nature, often bringing paints with him on runs so that he may document any landscapes of note that he encounters. When he transfers his work to glass, though, the paper becomes obsolete.

Ferrer’s pieces are elegant, and he strives to use light, color, and tone to make his glass appear as naturalistic and three dimensional as possible. And as a deeply emotional person, he aims for his consumers to briefly remove themselves from reality, from the horrors that face our modern world, and to imagine that they are experiencing the world of his glass designs, to completely submerge themselves in the sensual beauty of what the earth has to offer.

Forest 7, 2019 Glass Painting 5” x 8.5”

Cristian Freepard Deriving his inspiration from a childhood of diverse cultures in Germany, Hungary, and Cuba, Cristian Freepard introduces his unique art to US audiences for the first time. His artworks have been purchased by Asian and European art lovers and collectors during the years.

Currently residing on the island of Seychelles, in the middle of IndianOcean, Freepard is inspired by the tropical beauty which surrounds him. While painting, Cristian experiences shoreless connectivity and the infinitude of the deep, pure and unique being.

The elegant “Freepard Style” artworks are made with acrylic paints and a palette knife.

Attraction, 2020 Acrylic on Canvas 23.5” x 29.5”

Evelyna Helmer Originally from Chicago, Illinois, multi-disciplinary contemporary artist Evelyna Helmer lives and works in Australia, but frequently works out of studios in both Florida and Chicago. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Art History from the University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana, as well as post-graduate certificates in Photography, Fine Art and Horticulture. Her strong academic background in art and art history profoundly influences her work, and includes a respect for archival techniques and materials. In her own words, “It’s only when you really understand a material that you can exploit all its qualities. Currently, with imposed isolation, I find I have a freedom to be more playful, combining mediums in experimentation.”

Helmer works with a variety of high quality materials, including fine oil paints and Belgian linen canvases. Through the process of collecting, assembling, sculpting and and painting, Helmer’s broad range of works contain a surreal visual language in which symbols, icons and familiarity are redirected into a tense strangeness. Her work bears recognizable figurative elements draw, which are intended to draw the viewer into the work and bridging a sense of connectivity. Heightened colors, skewed perspective and exaggerated scale accompany sharp, poetic elements, through which she attempts to disrupt and reinterpret the meanings of the objects represented. Fusing narrative modes including poetry, literature, film, music and collage, Helmer attempts to recalibrate reality into unsettling destinations, allowing the familiar and the arcane to converge.

Woman Dreaming, 2020 Oil & Spray Paint with Glitter on Fine Linen 36” x 30”

Denel-KK (Kristen Keeling) Artist and Dr. Denel Andreas - KK does not hesitate in trying out new mediums and techniques. Her process results in intricate and detailed abstract works of varying sizes, shapes, and dimensions. Denel-KK uses objects to build up from the canvas and creates textures through multiple layers of paint application. As she begins her paintings, she does not have a finished product in mind, she responds intuitively while making, resulting in organic and gestural artworks.

A key component of Denel-KK’s work is her experimentation with movement around the canvas. Using a combination of revolving colored lights and phosphorescent paints, her creations are multi-dimensional. Each painting is framed in a unique lightbox she calls a FluxxFrame, that utilizes programmable LED lighting to create an evolving and rotating visual impression. She uses her luminary artistic process as a mode of expression as well as an opportunity to explore new ideas. Her paintings are colorful and non-figurative intentionally leaving interpretations up to the eye of beholders. Along with her artistic practice, she provides a space for other individuals to experiment with their creativity through movement and visual art-making in a community setting, called FluxxUashioN Creative ArtSpace. A central motivation to her art space and art-making is to help others embark on their own journey of discovery. Her work as a luminary artist and others.

Center Return, 2018 Mixed Media on Canvas 22.5” x 30”

Ernest Compta Llinàs Catalan artist Ernest Compta Llinàs is an artist and architect living and working in Barcelona. My works try to express social and emotional diversity through the face. Over the years he has moved between styles and formats, but has always worked with the same subject matter: facial portraiture. His goal is for his each of his pieces capture their subject in a way that they speak for themselves. Llinàs works mostly with acrylics on canvas, though from time to time will dabble in charcoal, oils, or pastels. His stylistic influences include Spanish and Picasian abstraction and Expressionism.

His range of faces, each more intriguing and ambiguous than the last, discourse about the subjects identity, and a deeper consideration of their emotional state. Each of his portraits features a face dripping with expression, with a color palette that enhances the emotion on the subjects face. His ability to employ such a vast great diversity of nuances among a singular subject matter demonstrates his mastery of his genre.

Untitled 11, 2019 Acrylic on Paper 27.5” x 20”

Kazusa Matsuyama By implementing aspects of both Eastern and Western aesthetics, Kazusa Matsuyama’s work responds to his own bicultural experience of growing up between Japan and the United Kingdom. With his travels abroad, Matsuyama rediscovered a new magnetism of art: a new perception of the world developed through culture, history, and people he encountered.

Liberated from the conformities of societal standards when studying at the Blake College of London, Matsuyama sought out different styles and techniques in order to grow as an artist.

Initially starting out with rough sketches, Kazusa prefers nothing be predetermined in his work; the abstract quality of his paintings permit an ever-changing state. Slowly, his images acquire form or a definable direction after nursing the inner beauty of his surroundings.

Kazusa uses several techniques when creating a piece of art including acrylic painting, oil painting, Japanese ink, and spray paint.

-Anonymous Portrait 02-, 2020 Acrylic on Canvas 11” x 8.5”

Orianna Montenegro Venezualan-born artist Orianna Montenegro produces work that is conceptually driven by color, space, balance, time and memory. She earned her B.F.A. in Studio Art and a B.A. in Graphic Design from Lindenwood University. Montenegro draws on the senses through exchanges of form, line, texture, and distorted images to create invisible vibrations and memories.

By exploring an infinite mixture of time, Montenegro enhances what the human eye cannot see and perpetuates what the viewers feel in various stages of life and ultimately augments consciousness. Through the essential use of color, she explores multiple levels and different stages of her life. This allows her to create a dialogue of interconnected timelines through her canvas, as portals to a mixture of the past, present, and future life. Such a distinctive language allows viewers to immerse in this experience without conscious reasoning at first glance.

Recapture IV, 2016 Acrylic & Oil on Canvas 48” x 36”

Rody Paris-based artist Rodica Iliescu, known as Rody, is notable for her playful portraits of early Parisian life. She was born and raised in Romania as the child of a painter, and always knew that the arts were her future.

Growing up in a communist country, Rody describes how she would seek refuge in her own imagination. As an adult, she applies that childlike imagination to her artistic skill to create her artworks. Inspired by vintage scenes of the French capital, her paintings are steeped in nostalgia for a bygone era. They are almost romanticized fantasies of a time when men and women roamed the streets, wearing chic clothing and looking for love and adventure. Rody uses a limited palette of soft monochromatic tones, adding splashes of reds to excite somber grey backgrounds.

Like an old poster or postcard, every scene Rody creates feels intelligently staged. She employs an impressionistic-inspired style, which feels proverbially French. Using soft, light brushstrokes, the artist chooses to capture the light and emotion in each scene, rather than spoil the fantasy with too much detail. Her works are whimsical, light-hearted odes to a belleepoque in French history, through which she invites the viewer to embrace the ways of the past without losing sight of the present.

Dancers by Napoleon Bridge, 2019 Oil on Canvas 25.5” x 24”

Tyler Santangelo Tyler Santangelo is a painter, musician and actor who works in a variety of mediums to reflect on his daily experiences. Santangelo’s artwork has been shown internationally. His background in music, acting, and film all influence his paintings. Implementing oil pastel, spray paint, and acrylic paint on canvas, the artist engages with themes such as climate change, health, internet, and technology, questioning both their role in his life and contemporary culture.

The scale of paintings has increased as Santangelo’s studio space expanded, and artistic practice continues. He uses his hands, paintbrushes, and spatulas to create texture and apply color, involving movement and direct contact with the canvas. The development and composition of the piece is dependent on the artist’s instincts and emotions while painting, allowing for freedom and intuitive decisions. His artistic process results in gestural pieces involving drips and scrapes, depicting themes of spontaneity. The works are generally abstract, sprinkled with recognizable symbols and figures. Resembling collage, Santangelo combines multiple media, and uses negative space and areas of blank canvas to provide moments of clarity in juxtaposition to his high energy mark-making.

More Joy, 2020 Acrylic & Spraypaint on Canvas 36” x 72”

Rebecca Stenn U.S. artist Rebecca Stenn has been a professional dancer, choreographer, and educator throughout her entire life. More recently her artistic practice shifted to include painting when she realized the paintbrush was an extension of her body’s movement. Intrinsically linked with decades of dance training, the artist considers space and proximity within her paintings. Acutely aware of the movement during the process of painting, Stenn works with acrylic paint.

The artist began with purely abstract painting focusing on the process of a work, such as brush strokes and movement required for various texture. Over time Stenn has begun to paint landscapes and portraiture. Over the past sixteen years, Stenn has worked with children in the I Have a Dream Foundation which provides students arts opportunities to learn dance and have access to professional mentors. This experience led to the artist’s series of portraits of the participants. As an acclaimed multi-dimensional artist Rebecca Stenn continues to dance, paint, and teach all while constantly experimenting with modes of movement.

Floral Lyricism #2, 2019 Acrylic on Canvas 40” x 30”

Johan van der Spuy Australian artist Johan van der Spuy is currently based in Singapore where he began painting as a second career in 2014. Predominantly, van der Spuy depicts natural landscapes and outdoor street scenes using oil paints realistically. Particularly attuned to the shifts of color in nature, the artist is fascinated by how lighting shifts the mood and composition of a scene.

Van der Spuy also explores plays of light within populated street scenes, and landscapes at different times of day. He hopes to provide a viewer the ability to transport to a scene in nature through his paintings. The depiction of landscapes is also a method in which van der Spuy conveys his appreciation of the beauty of different environments and the natural world. He consistently studies other artist’s techniques and seeks additional knowledge and expertise. His practice often relies on ebbs and flows of energy in the studio. Van der Spuy’s work has been awarded and exhibited internationally.

Sunset, 2020 Oil on Canvas 10” x 15”

Pauli Zmolek As an esteemed and learned painter, Pauli Zmolek initially earned her BFA from the University of Iowa and then continued her studies while attending the Schuler School of Fine Art in Baltimore, Maryland.

Implementing the tedious techniques of the old master style, Pauli sought to preserve the integrity of America’s historic buildings. She has restored original artwork in the Library of Congress, as well as some decorative designs to the Senate Chamber.

With a style that amalgamates realism, impressionism, and a hint of the fantastical, Pauli opts to work in a variety of mediums- with heavy preference to watercolors.

Her more recent work captures the traditional coastal lifestyle of fishing communities, natural beauty of the Chesapeake area and its surrounding wildlife.

Seven Sheep, 2020 Watercolor & Pastel on Paper 24” x 18”

Gallery hopping in New York City?

Agora Gallery is located within the heart of Chelsea Art District with visiting hours from Tuesday – Saturday from 11 am - 6 pm.

Opening receptions are held once a month, giving you the opportunity to meet the artists and learn about their artwork. Visit our website and subscribe to our mailing list to stay up to date – www.Agora-Gallery.com/mailinglist

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