Artists Live For The City

Susan Reedy’s Urban Passage 22 looks at once like a well-used place to post public bills, and like time-lapse photography, and like the view from a speeding train. Scraps of messages come and go, flickering in and out of sight before we can fully comprehend them. We know that the messages were for day-to-day things. Maybe one was a poster for a concert, and another an ad for sneakers, and another a political message from a candidate running for local election. But Reedy’s piece captures the way urban places can sometimes feel like they’re teetering on the edge of meaning; if you could just rearrange the letters of all those posters in the right way, or stand there long enough, the city you’re in would tell you what it all means to be there. We know that’s a farce, that there’s no real Bigger Meaning to find behind it all. But sometimes it still feels urgent to keep looking.

Reedy’s piece is part of ​“Urban Escapade,” running virtually in the Ely Center’s Digital Grace gallery through Feb. 8. The exhibit, as the accompanying description puts it, ​“highlights eight artists whose work centers around the intricacies of urban and city living. Exploring the fleeting moments and forgotten patterns of the hustle-and-bustle of city life, these artists reveal the hidden magic of metropolises and the neighborhoods within and around them.”

“This series of works on canvas developed in response to exterior surfaces often seen in urban areas that are in a state of flux due to the passage of time, exposure to the elements, and neglect,” Reedy writes. ​“I am particularly drawn to surfaces such as walls, doorways, and construction sites where layers of newly accumulated papers and text are partially torn away to reveal portions of what lies beneath the surface, alluding to remnants of the past and the present simultaneously. The unconventional beauty of these exterior surfaces lies in their transformation as they become a visual recording of the passage of time; layers of text and imagery emerge and recede, creating a palimpsest record of posters, fliers, graffiti, and accidental mark making.”

A preoccupation with the passage of time runs through several of the works in the exhibit, as it does in conversations about cities themselves. ​“As an artist, I want the viewer to share my interest in everyday objects that are unique to ​‘the city,’” writes artist Elliot Appel about his own work. ​“All too often, people may find themselves rushing from place to place without noticing the beauty, history, diversity and culture that surrounds them. They may not have an opportunity to appreciate the street performer, the antiquated storefront, the interesting window reflection — things that contribute to making urban living worthwhile and enriching. I also strive to capture remnants of the ​‘old’ city on canvas before they become fleeting memories — the city of five-story walk-ups, ornamental windows and hand-painted signs. I think it’s important to remember these things.”

Appel’s concerns as a documentarian also highlight the tension involved in being an artist in a metropolis — drawn to the city in the first place because of its culture and energy, but then quick to feel the double-edged sword of that, when the city’s energy means that some things artists like about the city can disappear before the artists have had their fill of them.

Like Appel, artist Laurey Bennett-Levy is drawn to the textures of New York City, down to the patterns of its infrastructure. ​“I began to notice the repetitive beauty of angles, shapes, grids and geometrics underfoot. I abandoned comfort by rolling black-inked brayers onto street grills to collect their impressions, while fearing strangers asking me questions, watching me, or getting caught. This sequence of work provokes one to notice an existence of the unobserved. What I find astonishing is that random individuals are the creators of these grills and painted door jambs, but become redefined by my artist’s eye recognizing the splendor in the beauty of the unnoticed.” Bennett-Levy’s works place the city under a microscope and make it abstract, but still manage to capture much of its chaotic energy.

Two other artists use fabric arts to make their works about urban landscapes. The choice of medium is itself a kind of statement. On one hand, creating textiles through knitting, quilting, or weaving is often associated with more suburban or traditionally rural lifestyles, at odds with urban life and, for that matter, much urban fashion. At the same time, textile factories were integral to the growth of cities — with all the accompanying wealth and job creation as well as exploitation and sometimes tragedy — and cities overall followed their decline as well. This complex history isn’t lost on artist Susan L. Berger. ​“I began as a painter and sculptor and over time my work evolved into fiber/mixed media. I use rug-hooking techniques as well as weave stitching and other stitching methods. I draw with my yarns and also use textiles to add further dimensions to my work,” she writes. ​“I have always been fascinated with samplers done by women in the industrial period and many of these women labored daily in factories and at night were wonderful storytellers woven into work.” Pointing out that connection highlights how far cities have moved from their industrial pasts, and the deep tradeoffs that have resulted.

Similarly, Ann Cofta writes, ​“I am primarily a textile artist whose work combines sewing, printmaking, embroidery and quilting techniques. My current series includes the city imagery that surrounds us, grounds us, and connects us to memories of places from our collective pasts. Buildings and structures create stability and continuity in an ever-changing world. This work comes from a tradition of quilting, where layers of fabric are sewn together, giving each piece texture and dimensionality. The visibility of the handmade is significant and important; each one is quilted by hand. It is important that the viewer understands that the work is completely original.” Cofta’s own work also shows how more traditionally rural cultural practices have migrated to cities just as people have. Cofta’s own work is, in one sense, deeply traditional; she’s uses her craft to show us the facts of her environment, just as quilts of rural scenes did a century ago.

Sarah Crofts’s art shares concerns with Appel’s above, but while Appel focuses on the cultural artifacts of an older city, Crofts focuses on the nature peeking through the cracks. ​“The wild spaces in my neighborhood, Red Hook, Brooklyn, are disappearing,” she writes. ​“Fenced off and full of overgrown plants, their removal, among other signifiers, marks the ongoing process of gentrification, which steadily presses on in urban areas across the globe. Motivated by the numerous demolition and construction projects in 2019, I began to make lumen prints around the neighborhood in situ, pressing sheets of analogue black and white photo paper against newly erected construction barriers and old overgrown fences, printing the vines and plants thriving, uncultivated.”

Meanwhile, Nate Lerner points out how the urban and rural landscapes can exist side by side, sometimes in an almost surreal way. The way he puts the image together highlights the strangeness, the wonder, and unearths some humor as well.

“My work is about looking at things with cameras. As such, my primary materials are light, time, the picture plane, and the frame. Everything is terrible and wonderful and our brief being-towards-death is made richer by taking time to look at things as part of a concerted praxis of delight,” he writes. ​“I emphasize a balance between compositional rigor and aesthetic beauty, the indexical and the dreamlike. While the content of my images is clear and direct, their subject generally remains oblique and resists easy explanation — the work refuses to shout, and occupies a space beyond words as only visual art, dance, or certain music can.”

It’s left for us to wonder what the story of this apartment complex is, so close to a field; whether its occupants can smell manure while waiting for the elevator, or whether they wake up to roosters crowing even if their bedroom is on the top floor.

Rounding out the gallery is the work of Kate Hooray Osmond. Where many of the artists dwell on the pasts and futures of cities, Osmond revels in the realities of their present days, with ecstatic results. ​“There is a rhythm to life. It beats with every motion, every step, every sunrise,” she writes. But like her fellow artists, she’s in search of understanding, too. ​“The melody of life is stunningly beautiful and full of terror,” she continues. ​“I want to learn the tune so that I may teach the song. However, all that I see in life fills me with so much wonder that I fear my heart may burst. It is all so beautiful.”