September 10 – October 20
Amelie A. Wallace Gallery
SUNY Old Westbury
Photo Credit: Vincent Arroyo.
Until October 20, the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery will be hosting Shift. Breathe. Expand. Painting in Space, an exhibition of works by artists Eleanna Anagnos and Alexis Granwell. Before the opening reception, there was a performance by improvisational dancer Christina Gesualdi, with musical accompaniment by Jesse Kudler.
Curated by art historian Tally de Orellana, the works are characterized by their use of paper as a medium in and of itself. The art pieces shown were produced over the last decade, and highlight the artists’ ability to rethink a seemingly ordinary surface like paper.
Eleanna Anagnos primarily creates wall pieces, utilizing natural elements that allows her work to embody the environment she’s inhabiting. Since staying in Mexico, she has been inspired by glyphs, Aztec pyramid designs, and the ancient techniques of the paper medium.
Photo Credit: Vincent Arroyo.
Alexis Granwell creates painted sculptures, this time out of paper, that evoke our manmade and natural environments. Granwell’s work showcases a deep introspection into what it means to be human, specifically a woman, in this time and how we can move past such narrow thinking.
Anagnos and Granwell met in 2019 and found common ground in their art, and interest in using paper as a form of expression. Over the following years the two would meet virtually and collaborate. Their two studios, in Mexico City and Philadelphia respectively, became one.
The exhibit is categorized into three parts: Shifting, which focuses on the mixing of cultural ideas on art, Breathing, which focuses on the liberation of the feminine idea, and Expanding, which centers on the expansive use of paper.
While much is written on the intellectual ideas of these works, it is equally important to note that they are simply aesthetically pleasing on top of it all. Granwell’s sculptures have an otherworldly, alien look to them. The colors highlight this, as you wouldn’t expect these contrasting shades to work so well together.
Photo Credit: Vincent Arroyo.
Anagnos’ works on the other hand, are firmly on planet Earth, but evidence of an age long gone. The hangings are hardly recognizable as anything even remotely like paper, with sharp popcorn textures and natural hues.Texturally, these art pieces exist outside of classification, like a new species of insect. The artists’ works, though aesthetically contrasting, feed off one another, creating a new visual lexicon.
On the bottom floor of the gallery is the proverbial Rosetta Stone for this new lexicon: two shelves showing a rainbow array of geological shapes. They look like rocks but they could just as easily be paper, either way, the point still stands. While not literally translating what the viewer has seen, it’s a nice reminder of the form these artworks come from. It’s as if Anagnos and Granwell are saying, “These are the shapes, colors and textures as you know them, now allow us to show you what they can be.”
Photo Credit: Vincent Arroyo.
The terms shifting, breathing and expanding have a literal meaning in this exhibit but they also convey the matter-of-fact existence of the pieces themselves. Evidenced by Anagnos’ Queen (2019), a turquoise hanging which casually flows with wind from the A.C., showing whatever side it wants you to see. It is impossible to look over these paintings, these sculptures, without being hyper aware of their place in reality.
Photo Credit: Vincent Arroyo.
Granwell’s sculptures, most notably What Sits Inside Yourself (2023), are intricate masses connected to themselves via stretching paper tendons. The sculptures tell us that our understanding is a huge mass, clouded with melancholic color, and that to clear this haze we must stretch into ourselves, whatever that means to the viewer.
Prior to the opening reception, there was an interesting performance by dancer Christina Gesualdi, and musician Jesse Kudler. The performance comprised abstract acoustic guitar and a thumping wood block from Kudler, with Gesualdi hopping, rolling, shifting and moving with the moment. To me, it seemed like a religious experience. Throughout the performance, Kudler and Gesualdi looked at each other as if in an esoteric ritual.
Photo Credit: Vincent Arroyo.
Being an improvisational dancer, Gesualdi worked with the energy she got from the art. “I was being present in the moment,” Gesualdi said when asked what she thought, “sort of engaging with the energy.” As her outfit, a blue collar jumpsuit, indicates, she is a worker, and at the mercy of those above, whether it’s art, a godlike being, or just human impulse.
The whole thing had this reporter thinking about their place in the grand scheme of it all.
Just as Anagnos and Granwell feed off their environments, just as Gesualdi and Kudler feed off the art, and just as the viewer feeds off their perceptions. Then, and only then, does the critic come in and feed off the leftovers.
While it’s still at the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, be sure to visit these contemplative works of art and feed your brain some well-earned introspection.
