drawings in multiples and singular sculpture 

Nayda Collazo-Llorens - Francks Deceus - Carl Hazlewood - Jean Pierre-Icart - Yasmin Sprio - Roberto Visani 

On view: September 7 - October 7, 2007 
Opening reception: Saturday, September 8, 5-8pm

As a parallel exhibit to the Brooklyn Museum’s Infinite Island exhibition, FiveMyles shows drawings and sculpture by five artists who were born in the Caribbeans, but received their education in New York. The work in the exhibition does not particularly address Caribbean cultural or identity issues. but it was chosen because of its sophisticated use of simple materials: sheets of paper, drawing tools, burlap and cardboard.   

We are showing two sculpture installations, two large mixed-media canvases and three series of small drawings, each covering an area of approximately 18 ft. x 10 ft. and ranging from 40 to 80 drawings. 

Drawings: 

Nayda Collazo-Llorens’ drawings belong to an ongoing series started in 2003. The series serves as an archive for an assortment of notations and markings, from expressing ideas and thought processes to depicting abstract systems of information. 

Francks Deceus shows watercolor drawings of human gatherings and the movement of crowds.  For the artist these figurative and abstract drawings celebrate the resilience of the human spirit. 

Carl Hazlewood’s wall-based constructions use viable aspects of the modernist grid. Made with digital media as well as traditional materials, they refer both to personal history and the history of modern art.  

Mixed Media:

Jean Pierre-Icart’s shows two canvases of his Urban Landscape series, made with collaged newspaper images, oil and magic marker. The canvases look like the torn and ripped-up surfaces of old billboards, overlayed by the artists graceful lines.  

Sculpture: 

Yasmin Spiro’s set of bombs, between 4 and 7 feet long each, hangs from the ceiling grid and surveys the room. The bombs are made from burlap, a sacking material, whose symbolism  is a reminder that mostly peasants and poor people are murdered by war technology. A grandly designed burlap ballgown completes Spiro’s installation.  

Roberto Visani’s large cardboard figures in various stages of running and jumping are constructed with a kind of crude ease; with their figurative take on cubism they might perform in a constructivist theatrical production. Visani effectively manipulates the limitations of cardboard into lively gestures of human movement. 

about the artists:

Nayda Collazo-Llorens most recently showed at Project 4 in Washington DC and the LMAKprojects in Brooklyn. She received an MFA from NYU in 2002.   

Francks Deceus has shown at the MoCADA Museum in Brooklyn, and the Schomburg Center and UFA Gallery in New York. He studied print making at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop.   

Carl Hazlewood, one of the founders of Aljira in Newark, has exhibited and curated in New York for the last 20 years.  

Jean Pierre-Icart’s work was included in the Brooklyn Museum’s Open House exhibition. After graduating in 1988, he recently received an MFA from Brooklyn College. Yasmin Spiro, a 2004 Pratt Institute MFA, has exhibited at the tART Spring Salon for Creative Time, Art Basil, Miami. 

Roberto Visani,  was a 1998 Fulbright recipient in Ghana and is a 2007 NYFA Fellow. He had a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council artist-in-residency in 2006.  

DIRECTIONS:

Take 2, 3, or 4 trains to Franklin Avenue. Walk two blocks against the traffic on Franklin. Walk ¾ block to 558 St. Johns Place. FiveMyles is within easy walking distance from the Brooklyn Museum.

acknowledgments:

This exhibition is funded in part by the Greenwall Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation.